Italian Bachelors: Devilish D'angelos. Кэрол Мортимер

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       PROLOGUE

      ‘DON’T WORRY, MIK, he’ll be here.’

      ‘Take your damned feet off the desk,’ Michael snapped in reply to his brother’s reassurance, not even glancing up from the papers he was currently reading in the study at Archangel’s Rest, the secluded Berkshire home of the D’Angelo family. ‘And I’m not worried.’

      ‘Like hell you’re not!’ Rafe drawled lazily, making no effort to swing his black-booted feet down from where they rested on the front of his older brother’s desk.

      ‘I’m really not, Rafe,’ Michael assured mildly.

      ‘Do you know if—?’

      ‘I’m sure it can’t have escaped your notice that I’m trying to read!’ Michael sighed his impatience as he glared across the desk. He was dressed formally, as usual, in a pale blue shirt and neatly knotted navy blue silk tie, dark waistcoat and tailored trousers, the jacket to his suit draped over the back of his leather chair.

      It had always been something of a family joke that their mother had chosen to name her three sons Michael, Raphael and Gabriel to go with the surname D’Angelo, and the three brothers had certainly taken their fair share of teasing about it when they were at boarding school. Not so much now they were all in their thirties, and the three of them had been able to utilise their names by making the three Archangel auction houses and galleries in London, New York and Paris the most prestigious privately owned galleries in the world.

      Their grandfather, Carlo D’Angelo, had managed to bring his wealth with him when he fled Italy and settled in England almost seventy years ago before marrying an English girl, and producing a son, Giorgio: Michael, Raphael and Gabriel’s father.

      Like his father before him, Giorgio had been an astute businessman, opening the first Archangel auction house and gallery in London thirty years ago, and adding to the D’Angelo wealth. When Giorgio retired ten years ago and he and his wife Ellen settled permanently in their Florida home, their three sons had turned that comfortable wealth into a veritable fortune by opening up similar Archangel galleries in New York and Paris, resulting in them now all being millionaires many times over.

      ‘And don’t call me Mik,’ Michael instructed harshly as he continued to read from the file in front of him. ‘You know how much I hate it.’

      Of course Rafe knew that, and he considered it part of his job description as a younger brother to annoy the hell out of his older sibling!

      Not that he had as many opportunities to do that nowadays with the three brothers usually at a different gallery at any one time. But they always made a point of meeting up for Christmas and each of their birthdays, and today was Michael’s thirty-fifth birthday. Rafe was a year younger and Gabriel, the ‘baby’ of the family, another year younger at thirty-three.

      ‘I last spoke to Gabriel a week or so ago.’ Rafe made a face.

      ‘Why the grimace?’ Michael quirked a dark brow.

      ‘No reason in particular—we all know that Gabe’s been in a bad mood for the past five years. I never understood the attraction myself.’ He shrugged. ‘She looked a mousy little thing to me, with just those big—’

      ‘Rafe!’ Michael cautioned in a growl.

      ‘—grey eyes to recommend her,’ Rafe completed dryly.

      Michael’s mouth thinned. ‘I spoke to Gabriel two days ago.’

      ‘And?’ Rafe prompted impatiently when it became obvious his older brother was doing his usual clam impersonation.

      Michael shrugged. ‘And he said he would arrive here in time for dinner this evening.’

      ‘Why the hell couldn’t you have just told me that earlier?’

      Rafe swung his booted feet impatiently down onto the carpeted floor before rising restlessly to his feet. He ran an irritated hand through the short thickness of his sable-dark hair as he paced the room, tall and leanly muscled in a fitted black T-shirt and faded denims. ‘That would have been too easy, I suppose.’ He paused his pacing to glower at his older brother.

      ‘No doubt.’ Michael gave the ghost of a smile, eyes dark and unreadable, also as usual.

      The three brothers had similar colouring, height and build; all a couple inches over six feet tall, with the same sable-black hair. Michael kept his hair short, his СКАЧАТЬ