A D'Angelo Like No Other by Carole Mortimer Page A

could be as...understanding of that balance or harmony, if it had been one of the twins who had been taken.’
    ‘No,’ he accepted huskily, understanding that Eva’s perspective would certainly have changed with the advent of the twins into her own life. ‘But even so, at the time you understood, totally encapsulated this mother’s acceptance of that balance and harmony, in your photograph.’
    Eva breathed softly. ‘I— How did you get this?’
    ‘The same way every other lucky person at the E J Foster exhibition in London eighteen months ago acquired their own exclusive photograph—I bought it,’ Michael stated with satisfaction, remembering how he had been drawn to this image that evening. He had been determined, compelled, to own it.
    He’d had no idea he would one day meet the photographer under such unusual circumstances.
    ‘You weren’t at the gallery that evening...?’ If she had been Michael would have made a point of being introduced to her. And, in view of his attraction to her now, it was anyone’s guess where that introduction might have led...
    She drew in a sharp breath. ‘No. I— It was the night of my parents’ car accident.’ She gave a shake of her head. ‘They were on their way to the exhibition when another car went through a red light and hit them head-on. They were both killed instantly. The exhibition didn’t seem important after that.’
    ‘God, I’m sorry...’ Fate, it seemed, had found a cruel way to intercede in the two of them not meeting before now.
    ‘That was the first, and last, exhibition of my work,’ Eva acknowledged wistfully.
    ‘Why?’
    She smiled ruefully as she shrugged. ‘Life—and obviously death—got in the way.’
    Michael nodded. ‘Your parents, then the twins and your sister.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You said you were out of the country when Rachel discovered she was pregnant...?’
    ‘Tibet,’ Eva confirmed.
    ‘Photographing for another exhibition?’
    ‘Yes,’ she sighed.
    ‘An exhibition that never happened.’
    ‘No.’ Eva still had the photographs on her camera, but hadn’t had the time, or the inclination, to do anything with them since returning to England.
    And she now found it weird, too uncomfortably strange, that Michael D’Angelo, of all people, should have one of her earlier photographs displayed on his bedroom wall. She couldn’t even attempt to dismiss or make light of it.
    Stranger still that Michael had sensed, known, there was more to the photograph than could be seen with the naked eye...
    It was an intuition, a sensitivity, she would never have expected from the coldly brisk businessman she had met at Archangel that first morning, in his expensive tailored suit, silk shirt and soft Italian leather shoes.
    The same man who had initially treated her with such suspicion, and who still didn’t trust her not to bring shock waves of scandal to his family, simply because she could. To the point that Michael had preferred to invite her and the twins to invade his own personal space, namely this Parisian apartment, rather than allow her to return to England before he’d had the opportunity to confirm or deny her claim by speaking to his brother Rafe.
    That man, that coldly aloof and arrogantly forceful man, had exhibited none of the inner sensitivity Michael had revealed to her these past two days, and had just reinforced, by his complete understanding of one of her African photographs...
    Because, as Eva had come to realise, Michael D’Angelo was a man of many layers. Layers she now suspected he had deliberately put in place in order to guard himself and his emotions. She had no idea what—or possibly who—had caused this reaction in him, only knew that they were layers he allowed very few, if any, to peel away to reveal the sensitive man hidden beneath.
    No doubt his family knew the real Michael.
    And the twins, in their innocence, had recognised, had known instinctively from the beginning, the emotionally sensitive man that