Flora's Defiance

by Lynne Graham

  Flora frowned, alarmingly conscious of the manner in which his beautiful sapphire-blue eyes lingered on her and of the lack of clothing she wore. She had never met any other man with such a powerfully sexual aura and she seriously hoped that she never did again. ‘What the heck are you talking about? We haven’t got time for … what?’

  ‘A conversation or an argument,’ Angelo responded drily. ‘I’ve made an appointment for you with a London obstetrician and getting there on time will be a challenge.’

  Her wide green eyes rounded in sheer disbelief. ‘You’ve done what?’ she gasped. ‘Made an appointment for me with an obstetrician?’

  ‘I’m done with hanging around waiting to find out whether or not you’re pregnant,’ Angelo spelt out with forthright cool, his stubborn jaw line squaring in emphasis. ‘I’m assured that testing can safely be done at the earliest stage.’

  Flora’s lower lip had parted company from her upper because she was still shell shocked by his announcement. ‘I can’t believe you’ve got the nerve to do this to me!’

  ’Por Dios, I was waiting for you to take care of the issue and so far you haven’t. Clearly it was time for me to step in.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t, you interfering … louse!’ Flora clenched her teeth and swallowed a worse word while her eyes glowed with angry condemnation. ‘For your information, I was planning to go out and buy a pregnancy test today …’

  ‘I would prefer medical personnel to carry out the testing. There’ll be a smaller margin for error,’ Angelo pronounced stonily, standing his ground, black-lashed stunning blue eyes bright with challenge. ‘If you’ve conceived, the sooner we know it, the better.’

  Colour had already suffused Flora’s cheeks. ‘I’m not volunteering to be examined by some strange medic.’

  ‘Natalie is an excellent doctor and she will be discreet. We need to know where we stand without any further delay.’

  ‘How dare you meddle in my life like this? ‘ Flora launched at him fierily and she stalked past him to take the stairs two at a time. ‘I really can’t stand you, Angelo!’

  ‘But you still wouldn’t kick me out of bed, enamorada mia,’ Angelo murmured silkily.

  Flora spun back to look at him, outrage roaring through her while on another level she wondered what those Spanish words meant.

  ‘The truth hurts, doesn’t it?’ Angelo breathed with raw-edged confidence, reading her resentful expression with alarming accuracy. ‘It’s good to know that I’m not the only one suffering.’

  Flora stiffened and veiled her gaze in a defensive move, but it was too late for self-protection because his lean bronzed features were already etched in her mind’s eye to ensure that every inch of her was insanely aware of him. Whether waking or sleeping, she saw Angelo van Zaal in her dreams. And it seemed that even when they were arguing the hunger he could invoke stayed in the ascendant, for her breasts were swelling, the tender nipples tightening while the heat of sexual response was simmering low in her pelvis.

  ‘We need to know what we’re dealing with,’ Angelo reasoned with scantily suppressed impatience.

  ‘But this is my body,’ Flora pointed out.

  ‘I would very much appreciate it if you would consent to see the doctor today,’ Angelo intoned between audibly gritted teeth.

  ‘You are so unspeakably bossy!’ Flora complained as she turned on her heel to complete her passage upstairs to her bedroom. She was furious that she was too sensible to refuse to attend the appointment just to make a point.

  Angelo stepped back into the living room and realised that what he had taken for a giant furry and rather messy cushion was an obese black cat. The animal got up to prowl round his feet and then nudged up against him in a clumsy bid for attention. Already ill at ease in a cramped room overfilled with furniture and now under assault from the suddenly excessively affectionate cat, Angelo swore impatiently under his breath. The undersized dog was growling and baring its teeth at him from below the coffee table. Not a heroic beast, it was carefully maintaining cover and a safe distance from him.

  Why did Flora Bennett have to argue with everything he did and said? She was intelligent enough to know that his having organised that appointment for her made sound sense, but still she would insist on forcing a confrontation over it. As for him being bossy? His lean, strong face hardened, his wide, sensual mouth twisting. It was his nature to take charge, and a wise move when he was very often the most intelligent and decisive individual in the vicinity. Naturally he needed to know whether or not she had conceived his child.

  And if she had? That was one question that Angelo refused to tackle in advance. After all, she was not at all the sort of woman whom he would have chosen to bring his first child into the world. No, she was very far from being the right sort, he reflected grimly, his lean, darkly handsome face settling into forbidding lines of censure. Having had a sleazy affair with her married boss three years ago, Flora Bennett had then proceeded to try and blackmail her lover into giving her an undeserved financial bonus. No revelation in her history could have filled Angelo with greater contempt, for he too had been targeted in the office by ambitious female employees keen to advance their careers by offering him sexual favours. In his experience it was clever women like Flora who were often the most calculating and greedy as well as being the most dangerous.

  Flora got dressed in a hurry. She picked out a simple denim miniskirt to wear with a striped top and a cotton cardigan and slid her feet into high-heeled sandals. She ran a brush through her hair to fluff it up and steadfastly ignored Angelo’s shout up the stairs while she utilised her brown eyeliner and mascara and skimmed a sultry cherry colour over her lips.

  ‘I’m on my way!’ she yelled, speeding down the stairs.

  Fuming at the amount of time she had wasted, Angelo paced in the hall and then, hearing her descent, swung fluidly round, only to tense at the sight of those endless long legs and slender thighs. ‘That’s a very short skirt,’ he heard himself remark stiffly.

  ‘No, it’s not. I don’t wear very short skirts—I just happen to have very long legs!’ Flora snapped defensively.

  Angelo found that unnecessary information, for he was already imagining those limbs wrapped round his waist again and his all-too-male body was reacting accordingly. So hard and full of repressed lust that he physically hurt, he swallowed back a curse and yanked open the front door. ‘Come on,’ he urged curtly.

  Flora was taken aback to find a chauffeur-driven limo awaiting them on the street. She climbed into the very spacious interior and watched without surprise as Angelo flipped out a laptop to work on and proceeded to ignore her. Telling herself that she was relieved by his businesslike attitude, she lifted the English newspaper lying on the seat and proceeded to read it. As she read Angelo proved what a dynamo of business energy he was while he made and received calls in more than one language and rapped out commands and advice to various underlings. Listening to the level of innate authority and conviction with which he spoke, Flora was not at all surprised that she was seated in his limo speeding towards an appointment that he had arranged for her. It would take a very tough and obstinate woman to stand up to a male as determined as Angelo van Zaal, but she was convinced that she had the backbone if he pushed her hard enough.

  It was late afternoon by the time they arrived at Dr Natalie Ellwood’s smart private surgery in an upmarket part of central London. Flora sat edgily in the waiting room while Angelo continued to do business, just as he had during the journey. If someone had warned her that there was about to be a flood she would have left him to drown with his mobile phone still clutched in his hand. She had met some obsessively hard workers in her time, but Angelo van Zaal was in a class of his own. Mariska’s would-be adoptive father was an unashamed workaholic.

  ‘Angelo!’ An elegant brunette in a beautifully cut trouser suit emerged wreathed in smiles and swam up to Angelo to kiss him effusively on both cheeks.

  ‘Flora. This is Dr Ellwood. Natalie, your ne
w patient,’ Angelo drawled smoothly.

  ‘Have you known Angelo for long? ‘ Natalie asked Flora as she showed her into her surgery.

  ‘No, not for long. You?’ Flora could not resist asking, although she had noticed that the brunette wore a wedding ring.

  ‘Oh, for ever. We went to university together. He’s one of my oldest friends,’ Natalie carolled with enthusiasm, her brown eyes resting on Flora with a bright questioning curiosity that she couldn’t hide.

  During the period that followed, Flora was examined and subjected to several tests. Natalie and her nurse were very pleasant. Finally, Flora sat down to face the doctor across her desk. ‘Well?’ she pressed nervously.

  ‘Yes, I can confirm that you are pregnant.’

  Flora lost colour. ‘Are you absolutely certain?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Is this an unintentional conception?’ the brunette doctor asked delicately.

  Flora was too much in shock to do anything other than nod like a rather vacant puppet. Pregnant! And by Angelo van Zaal! Dry-mouthed and on wobbly legs, she indicated that she did not wish to discuss the matter further and she returned to the waiting area where Angelo was engaged on yet another phone call, this time in French. Snatches of dialogue about defective materials and an inefficient supplier buzzed in and out of her head while her dazed green gaze sought out his. She encountered brilliant blue eyes of cool enquiry and stared at him with some of the shocked disbelief she was experiencing. She registered the exact moment that he realised what news she had just received because he said something curiously indistinct for a change and, lowering his phone and ending the call, he sprang restively upright.

  Every time they met she forgot how tall Angelo was until he stood beside her and she was forced to look up at him, a necessity that rarely came her way, particularly not when she was sporting high heels. For a split second her mind wandered and she recalled how Peter, who had been the same height as her, had hated her to wear heels and stand taller than him.

  ‘You’re so tall for a woman,’ his mother had once remarked with a raised brow, as if a woman being so tall was somehow in the poorest possible taste.

  But then so many men preferred their women to be petite and delicate in stature, Flora reflected helplessly, thinking of how popular her sister, Julie, and her friend, Jemima, had invariably been with men. Being little was generally seen as cute and appealing. Being tall was somehow viewed as being less feminine and desirable.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Angelo urged, his hand curving to Flora’s rigid spine. His beautiful sapphire-blue eyes had a stunned quality before he lowered his ridiculously lush black lashes to conceal his expression.

  ‘So you’re not quite as lucky as you think you are and, apparently, neither of us is infertile,’ Flora remarked drolly on the way out onto the street.

  ‘We’ll discuss this in private,’ Angelo pronounced crushingly.

  ‘It’s all right to be shocked,’ Flora told him helplessly. ‘I’m shocked as well.’

  But unlike Flora, Angelo wasn’t used to being shocked or put into a situation in which he was not in control of events. Suddenly, he appreciated, his life was yoked to Flora Bennett’s whether he liked it or not. That was, assuming she planned to have his child. He swallowed back his questions and chose silence while he marshalled his thoughts.

  In a world of her own, Flora sat in the limousine, struggling to adjust to the startling concept that in nine months’ time she would become a mother. Her brain reminded her that there were other options that ranged from adoption to termination. The prospect of having to make either tough choice filled Flora with instinctive recoil. Eighteen months earlier, her sister had refused to consider any option other than giving birth to and keeping her child. But then Julie had been in love with Willem and he had been very much involved in that decision.

  Yet Flora even now felt able to reflect that her own baby was already a part of her and, like little Mariska, would be her only other relative and the promising start to a new family circle. The very word ‘family’ warmed the chill of shock that still held Flora taut.

  All right, admittedly, the baby wasn’t planned, but life was all about rolling with the punches, wasn’t it? And just as she was prepared to reorganise her life to become Mariska’s mother she could hardly consider doing less when it came to her own child’s future. She had money in the bank, a comfortable home and a viable business. Those acknowledgements gradually sent greater calm spilling through Flora, a calm that soothed her ragged nerves and fears while she reasoned that she could have found herself pregnant in a much worse situation.

  Essentially it didn’t matter how Angelo felt about her being pregnant with his child, she ruminated, and having recognised that truth it was as though a heavy weight fell from her shoulders. She sat a little straighter in her seat and felt a good deal less awkward. She was convinced that she didn’t need Angelo for support and that belief acted like a shot of reassurance in her veins, for not needing a man for anything was a cause that lay very close to Flora’s securely guarded heart.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘WHERE are we?’ Flora asked in dismay, lashes fluttering in bemusement as she appreciated that—unbelievably—she had actually followed Angelo blindly out of his limo into a building and, from there, into a lift.

  ‘On the way up to my apartment. We have to talk,’ Angelo informed her, his wide sensual mouth set in a deadly serious line.

  At that point, Flora discovered that she had a deeply inappropriate desire to giggle. Angelo was poker-faced, the smooth, darkly handsome planes of his lean visage taut with self-discipline. He was determined not to put any real emotion on show, she realised with regret. Yet he was pure volatile male below that cool, calculated front that he showed to the world, she reasoned ruefully. She could not resist recalling the shockingly hot and explosive surge of the passion he had unleashed in Amsterdam. Heat slowly crept up from low in her tummy to the responsive peaks of her breasts, stiffening her nipples into tight dagger points below her clothing.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, enamorada mia,’ Angelo purred, his rich drawl low and rough-edged in pitch while he surveyed her with his amazing royal-blue eyes, the dark pupils as dilated as no doubt her own were.

  Suddenly the atmosphere was thick as wet cement and the breath rattled in her throat. ‘What does enamor—whatever—mean?’

  ‘My lover,’ Angelo supplied huskily.

  ‘No, I’m not, not really,’ she reasoned jerkily, fighting the compulsive pull of his charismatic masculinity with all her might, for every skin cell and nerve-ending she possessed was urging her to walk right into his arms.

  His stunning eyes, accentuated by the ebony luxuriance of his lashes, narrowed to become even more devouring and magnetic. ‘Then, what are you?’

  Denying her vulnerability, Flora deliberately dropped her attention to study the floor at their feet. ‘A mistake?’

  ‘That is not how this feels,’ Angelo growled, reaching out a hand to close long brown fingers round her wrist and tug her closer. But he knew he was lying, because that same word was flashing on and off like a warning neon sign at the back of his brain. Yet, as his attention slid from the pouting cherry-tinted invitation of her luscious mouth to the telling indentation of her prominent nipples below her top he had never been further from intellectual control; he was hard and erect and hungry for the tight sheath of her body and that was all that mattered to him.

  As Angelo drew her to him dismay sent Flora’s lashes skyward, green eyes flaring bright as jewels as she looked up at his bronzed sculpted features, scanning the slash of his high cheekbones, the jut of his arrogant masculine nose and his obstinate jaw line. This late in the day his golden-toned skin was steadily darkening with a shadow of stubble that simply highlighted his beautifully shaped mouth. Colliding with his startlingly blue eyes, she was utterly transfixed: he truly was gorgeous.

  ‘Mistake,’ she told him again unevenly. ‘We’re a mistake—’

  Her vo
ice died beneath the passionate onslaught of his sensual lips plunging down on hers and it was as if cautionary buzzers went off throughout her taut, quivering body. She craved him like a woman starved of oxygen, stretching up to kiss him back with fervour, needing and revelling in that heady taste of him with every fibre of her being.

  She heard the whirr as the doors opened and he backed her out of the lift without breaking their connection. She stumbled in her heels until her spine was braced against a solid wall and she felt his hands splay to her hips, tilting her pelvis into provocative collision with the urgent thrust of his erection. A split second later, she was free again and reeling dizzily back against the wall for support with her body still greedily humming while she struggled to rescue her wits.

  A mere step away, expelling his breath in an audible roughened hiss, Angelo thrust wide the door of his apartment for her entry. It was an effort for him to be that controlled. In fact it was a wonder that he wasn’t still trying to take Flora out on the landing, he acknowledged with derision, resenting and distrusting her sexual power over him. She roused the hot-headed all-consuming sexuality he had believed he had left behind him. With Flora sex was elemental and as fierce and basic in its energy as a hurricane. Still hugely aroused, he was fighting a driving instinct to haul her back into his arms and carry her off to his bed. As a cascade of erotic imagery engulfed the imagination he had not known he had he almost groaned out loud in frustration. She was pregnant, she was carrying his child, he reminded himself doggedly. Rampant sex would only cloud that serious issue and add to the complexities of their dealings.

  Flora could not look at Angelo as she preceded him into a very large modern reception room with a polished floor, sleek contemporary furniture and a wall of full height windows that offered breathtaking views of the river Thames. A deep inner trembling was still afflicting her and she was uncomfortably aware of the damp ache between her thighs and the stinging tightness of her nipples. When he touched her he turned her inside out and she hated it, for her earlier sense of keeping herself together was now entirely destroyed.