Merry’s tense face stiffened with suspicion. ‘That’s doubtful. You are what you are.’
‘Everyone is capable of change and sometimes change simply happens whether you want it to or not,’ Angel traded, his lean, dark features taut. ‘When you first told me that you were pregnant a year ago, I didn’t think through what I was doing. Gut instinct urged me to protect my way of life. I listened to my lawyers, took their advice and now we’ve got...now we’ve got an intolerable mess.’
Merry forced herself to breathe in deep and slow and stay calm. He sounded sincere but she didn’t trust him. ‘It’s the way you made it and now you have to live with it.’
Angel threw back his broad shoulders and lifted his arrogant dark head high, effortlessly dominating the small cluttered room. Even though Merry was a comfortable five feet eight inches tall, he was well over six feet in height and stood the tallest in most gatherings. ‘I can’t live with it,’ he told her with flat finality. ‘I will continue to fight for access to my daughter.’
The breath fluttered in Merry’s drying throat, consternation and fury punching up through her, bringing a flood of emotion with it. ‘I hate you, Angel! If you make any more threats, if you bombard me with more legal letters, I will hate you even more! When is enough enough?’ she hurled at him with bitter emphasis.
‘When I can finally establish a normal relationship with my daughter,’ Angel responded, his lean, strong face set with stubborn resolve. ‘It is my duty to establish that relationship and I won’t shirk it.’
‘The way you shirked everything else that went with fatherhood?’ Merry scorned. ‘The responsibility? The commitment? The caring? I was just a pregnant problem you threw money at!’
‘I won’t apologise for that. I was raised to solve problems that way,’ Angel admitted grittily. ‘I was taught to put my faith in lawyers and to protect myself first.’
‘Angel...you are strong enough to protect yourself in a cage full of lions!’ Merry shot back at him wrathfully. ‘You didn’t need the lawyers when I wasn’t making any demands!’
A ton of hurt and turbulent emotion was sucking Merry down but she fought it valiantly. She was trying so hard not to throw pointless recriminations at him. In an effort to put a physical barrier between them she flopped down in the chair behind the desk. ‘Did you ever...even once...think about feelings?’ she prompted involuntarily.
Angel frowned at her, wondering what she truly wanted from him, wondering how much he would be willing to give in return for access to his daughter. It wasn’t a calculation he wanted to do at that moment, not when she was sitting there, shoulders rigid, heart-shaped face stiff and pale as death. ‘Feelings?’ he repeated blankly.
‘My feelings,’ Merry specified helplessly. ‘How it would feel for me to sleep with a man one night and go into work the next day and realise that he couldn’t even stand to have me stay in the same building to do my job?’
Angel froze as if she had fired an ice gun at him, colour receding beneath his bronzed skin, his gorgeous dark eyes suddenly screened by his ridiculously luxuriant black lashes. ‘No, I can’t say I did. I didn’t view it in that light,’ he admitted curtly. ‘I thought separation was the best thing for both of us because our relationship had crossed too many boundaries and got out of hand. I also ensured that your career prospects were not damaged in any way.’
Merry closed her eyes tight, refusing to look at him any longer. He had once told her that he didn’t do virgins and it seemed that he didn’t do feelings either. He was incapable of putting himself in her shoes and imagining how she had felt. ‘I felt...absolutely mortified that day, completely humiliated, hurt,’ she spelt out defiantly. ‘The money didn’t soften the blow and I only took it because I didn’t know how long it would take for me to find another job.’
Angel saw pain in her pale blue eyes and heard the emotion in her roughened voice. Her honesty unnerved him, flayed off a whole layer of protective skin, and he didn’t like how it made him feel. ‘I had no desire to hurt you, there was no such intent,’ he countered tautly. ‘I realised that our situation had become untenable and in that line I was guiltier than you because I made all the running.’
It was an acknowledgement of fault that would once have softened her. He had created that untenable situation and brutally ditched her when he had had enough of it but his admission didn’t come anywhere near soothing the tight ball of hurt in her belly. ‘You could have talked to me personally,’ she pointed out, refusing to drop the subject.
‘I’ve never talked about stuff like that. I wouldn’t know where to begin,’ Angel confessed grimly.
‘Well, how could you possibly forge a worthwhile bond with a daughter, then?’ Merry pressed. ‘The minute she annoys you or offends you will you turn your back on her the way you turned your back on me?’
Angel flashed her a seethingly angry appraisal. ‘Not for one minute have you and that baby been out of my mind since the day you told me you were pregnant! I did not turn my back on you. I made proper provision for both of you.’
‘Yeah, you threw money at us to keep us at a safe distance, yet now here you are breaking your own rules,’ Merry whispered shakily.
‘What is the point of us wrangling like this?’ Angel questioned with rank impatience. ‘This is no longer about you and I. This involves a third person with rights of her own even if she is still only a baby. Will you allow me to meet my daughter this afternoon?’
‘Apart from everything else—like it being immaterial to you that I hate and distrust you,’ Merry framed with thin restraint, ‘today’s out of the question. I’ve got a date this afternoon and we’re going out.’
Angel tensed, long, powerful muscles pulling taut. He could not explain why he was shocked by the idea of her having a date. Maybe he had been guilty of assuming that she was too busy being a mother at present to worry about enjoying a social life. But the concept of her enjoying herself with another man inexplicably outraged and infuriated him and the vision of her bedding another man when he had been the first, the only, made him want to smash something.
His lean brown hands clenched into fists. ‘A date?’ he queried as jaggedly as if he had a piece of glass in his throat.
Merry stood up behind the desk and squared her slim shoulders. ‘Yes, he’s taking us to the beach. You have a problem with that as well?’
Us? The realisation that another man, some random, unknown stranger, had access to his daughter when he did not heaped coals of fire on Angel’s proud head. He snatched in a stark breath, fighting with all his might to cage his hot temper and his bitterness. ‘Yes, I do. Can’t you leave her with your aunt and grant me even ten minutes with my own child?’ he demanded rawly.
‘I’m afraid there isn’t time today.’ Merry swallowed the lump in her throat, that reminder that Elyssa had rights of her own still filtering back through her like a storm warning, making her appreciate that every decision she made now would have to be explained and defended to satisfy her daughter’s questions some years down the road. And just how mean could she afford to be to Angel before her daughter would question her attitude? Question whether her mother had given her daughter’s personal needs sufficient weight and importance? Her tummy dive-bombed, her former conviction that she was totally in the right taking a massive dent.
Nobody was ever totally in the right, she reminded herself reluctantly. There were always two sides to every story, every conflict. She was letting herself be influenced by her own feelings, not looking towards the future when Elyssa would demand answers to certain tough questions relating to her father. And did she really want to put herself in the position of having refused to allow her daughter’s flesh and blood to even see her? Dully it dawned on her that that could well be a step too far in hostilities. Angel had hurt her, but that was not indisputable proof that he would hurt his daughter.
‘Pick another