A D'Angelo Like No Other. Carole Mortimer
of Rafe’s scowl.
‘Love does that to you.’ Gabriel nodded wisely. ‘It will be your turn next, Michael.’
His humour instantly faded. ‘I don’t believe so,’ he assured with grim certainty.
‘Famous last words...?’
‘Fact,’ Michael corrected tersely. ‘I can’t imagine ever willingly allowing any woman to get me into that state.’ He gave a pointed glance in Rafe’s visibly agitated direction.
‘When you two have quite finished!’ Rafe’s hands had clenched into fists, his expression one of pained tension as he turned to glare at his two brothers. ‘Nina is late, damn it!’
‘We heard you the first time...’ Michael arched one dark brow. ‘Do you think she might have changed her mind about marrying you?’
Rafe’s already pale face seemed to take on a greyish tinge as he groaned. ‘Oh, God...!’
‘Stop teasing him, Michael,’ Gabriel chided affectionately, his five-week marriage to Bryn having completely mellowed him. ‘Personally, I’m longing to see the beautiful matron of honour!’ He smiled at the thought of his wife.
Michael shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Calm down, Rafe. Nina will be here,’ he assured his brother dryly. ‘For some strange reason the woman is in love with you!’
‘Ha ha, very funny.’ Rafe scowled.
‘The limo is probably having trouble getting through the New York traffic, that’s all.’ Michael grimaced.
‘Lord, I hope so.’ Rafe’s face had taken on a slightly green tinge now. ‘I knew I should have gone ahead with my original plan and just persuaded Nina to elope!’
‘Not if you had wanted to continue living, Raphael Charles D’Angelo!’ his mother warned from the pew directly behind them, the whole of the D’Angelo family having once again gathered together to see another one of the three brothers married.
Which left Michael, the eldest brother at thirty-five, as the only remaining bachelor...
A state he intended to continue!
Oh, Michael was pleased for both of his younger brothers, had absolutely no doubt that Rafe and Gabriel loved the two women they had chosen as their wives, and that those two women loved them in return, that the two couples would have long and happy lives together. It just wasn’t a state, the love or the marriage, that Michael wanted for himself.
Ever.
He had been in love precisely once in his life, fourteen years ago, disastrously as it turned out, and it wasn’t an experience he had ever felt the slightest inclination to repeat. All that angsting and heartache had just made him miserable, the betrayal even more so, and he certainly hadn’t enjoyed the unpleasant feeling of having lost control of his emotions.
A feeling that he would find even more unacceptable after all these years of doing exactly as he pleased, when he pleased, with whomever and whatever woman he pleased.
No, as far as Michael was concerned, Rafe and Gabriel could provide the next generation of D’Angelos, because he had no intention of having his well-ordered life complicated by either a wife or children.
‘Oh, thank God...’ Rafe breathed his relief as the organist began to play the Wedding March announcing Nina’s arrival at the church, the three men standing up to turn and look at the bride as she walked down the aisle at her father’s side. Nina was a vision in white satin and lace, her smile radiantly beautiful, love shining in her eyes as she walked towards her bridegroom.
Michael felt a slight pang in his chest as he realised that his decision not to marry meant that no woman would ever gaze at him with such open adoration.
A pang he quickly quashed and buried, in the knowledge that he had no intention of ever falling victim to loving any woman in the way his brothers now loved their wives...
CHAPTER ONE
Archangel gallery, Paris. Two days later
‘WHAT THE—?’ MICHAEL looked up to scowl his displeasure as he heard what sounded like a baby crying in the office opposite his own. He stood up quickly behind his desk as several voices now clamoured to be heard above the noise.
The sound of raised voices, so close to the inner sanctum of Michael’s private third-floor office, was unusual enough, but a baby crying...? In one of the private areas of the prestigious Paris Archangel gallery and auction house? It was unheard of! And Michael had little patience for it having occurred now.
He continued to scowl as he strode forcefully across his office to wrench open the door into the hallway, only to come to an abrupt halt, his verbal protest dying in his throat at the pandemonium that met his narrowed gaze.
His secretary, Marie, was fiercely gabbling away in French, as was his assistant manager, Pierre Dupont. Both of them, as was usual with the French, communicating as much with their hands as with their mouths.
And standing between them, holding a young baby in her arms, was a young girl—woman?—with ebony shoulder-length hair, dressed in the de rigueur tight denims and fitted T-shirt of her generation. Her top was a bright purple, the expression on her flustered face flushed as she ignored both Marie and Pierre and instead attempted to soothe and cajole the crying baby into silence.
An attempt that failed miserably as the baby’s cries seemed to grow even louder.
‘Will you two please lower your voices?’ The young woman turned impatiently on Marie and Pierre, her voice throatily husky. ‘You’re scaring her. Now look what you’ve done...!’ she fumed as a second baby began to cry.
Michael looked around dazedly for the source of that second cry, his eyes widening as he noticed the pushchair parked just inside Marie’s office. A double pushchair, in which a second baby was now screaming at the top of its considerable lungs.
What the—?
Pandemonium? This situation, whatever that might be, was like some sort of hellish nightmare, the sort every man wished—prayed!—to wake up from. And sooner rather than later!
‘Thank you,’ the disgruntled young woman muttered accusingly as Marie and Pierre both fell silent as she hurried over to the pushchair before going down on her haunches to coo and attempt to gently soothe the second baby.
Michael had seen and heard enough. ‘Will someone, for the love of God, tell me what the hell is going on here?’ His voice cut harshly through the cacophony of noise.
* * *
Silence.
Absolute blissful silence, Eva realised with a sigh of appreciation for her aching head, as not only the two employees of the Paris Archangel remained silent, but even the babies’ cries both quietened down to a soft whimper.
Eva remained down on her haunches as she turned to look through sooty black lashes at the source of that harshly controlling voice, her eyes widening as she took in the appearance of the man standing across the hallway.
He was possibly aged in his mid to late thirties, his short black hair was neatly trimmed about his ears and nape, and framed an olive-skinned and handsomely etched face that any of the male models Eva had photographed at the beginning of her career would surely die for. Dark brows arched above eyes of obsidian black, his nose a long straight slash between high cheekbones, with sculptured, slightly sensual lips above a firm and determined chin.
His wide shoulders, muscled chest, tapered waist, and lean hips above long legs also ensured that he wore the expensively tailored dark suit, white silk shirt and grey tie, rather than the clothes wearing him.
And leaving Eva in no doubt, along with the deference on the faces of the two silent gallery employees, and the fact that he had come from the office across the hallway, that this man had to be D’Angelo. The very man she had come here to see!
It