Flora's Defiance

by Lynne Graham

  Flora studied him warily from below her feathery lashes. ‘Why have you asked me to marry you, Angelo? ‘

  His jaw line squared. ‘Believe me when I say that it is for all the right reasons.’

  ‘Because we’re going to have four children between us in another few weeks?’ Flora shot at him.

  Angelo laughed out loud, his irreverent grin chasing the serious aspect from his bronzed features. ‘No, oddly enough that hasn’t once entered my thoughts.’

  Her brow pleated because she was baffled by that claim. ‘It. hasn’t?’

  ‘Should I be ashamed to admit that the only two people in my thoughts are you and I?’

  ‘No, not ashamed, but you’re still not answering my question.’

  Angelo bent down and lifted Skipper’s ball to throw it. The little terrier went racing madly across the lawn and bounced across a box-edged border. Angelo studied Flora with narrowed blue eyes and a rueful expression that tugged at her heartstrings. ‘I’m asking you to marry me today because I panicked when you went off to meet Peter. I was planning to wait until after our children were born before I proposed—’

  ‘You panicked about Peter?’ Flora cut in blankly. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘The obvious. I was afraid that you still had feelings for your former fiancé and I didn’t want you meeting up with him again.’ Angelo compressed his handsome mouth. ‘I was jealous. Okay?’

  ‘Of … Peter?’ Flora gasped incredulously, barely able to compute the concept that he could be jealous when she was so heavily pregnant. ‘You were jealous of Peter … even with me looking as I do now?’

  ‘You still light my fire, tesora mia,’ Angelo intoned huskily, reaching for her hands and tugging her towards him. ‘Why not his?’

  ‘Because, for one thing.’ Flora hesitated before continuing ‘Peter and I never managed to light a fire in the first place and that was why we broke up. Are you serious? You still find me attractive looking like this?’

  ’Por Dios … very much,’ Angelo asserted in a low-pitched growl of confirmation that sent a shimmy of desire dancing down her taut spinal cord.

  Her eyes had opened to their fullest extent. ‘But you haven’t even kissed me—’

  ‘You asked me to treat you like a housemate,’ he groaned.

  ‘You were supposed to argue with me when I said that but you didn’t, so I assumed it didn’t matter to you.’

  ‘Of course it mattered. I’m not a block of wood!’ Angelo exclaimed feelingly, releasing her fingers to cup her cheekbones and then lift his hands to run his fingers lightly through the fall of her hair. ‘Have you any idea how hard it’s been for me not to touch you?’

  ‘No …’

  And then he kissed her and the amount of pent-up passion and longing he contrived to put into that single kiss almost blew Flora away. Reeling from the effect of it, she leant up against his lean, powerfully aroused body and smiled secretly against his shoulder. Now she believed him. Now she knew that she had been blind and it was one of those rare occasions when she was happy to have been proved wrong.

  ‘Even sharing the same bed with you would be an incredible thrill,’ Angelo confessed raggedly. ‘Nothing else is possible right now but that doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I thought “amazingly good sex” was my main attraction?’

  ‘I’ve gone way beyond anything that basic. If I had realised that I was your first lover, I would have been a lot more diplomatic. Unfortunately I was trying too hard to be cool,’ Angelo confessed with an almost shamefaced expression, pressing her in the direction of the house. ‘Are we getting married?’

  ‘Give me one good reason why,’ she urged, her lips still tingling from that passionate kiss. She was very much open to persuasion.

  ‘I love you. I love you so much that I can’t imagine my life without you,’ Angelo informed her as naturally as if he had already told her that every day for a year.

  Flora turned shaken eyes on him. ‘You told me that you don’t do romance or commitment.’

  ‘Well, I should have added the proviso … at least not until the right woman comes along,’ Angelo incised silkily, closing an arm round her narrow spine. ‘And you are, without a doubt, my perfect match. I’m a strong personality but so are you. I don’t intimidate you.’

  ‘You do annoy me though,’ she muttered helplessly while trying to come to terms with the heady idea that he might love her.

  ‘We bring out the best and the worst in each other. We’re both stubborn, proud, impatient …’

  Flora touched the arm he had curved round her. ‘Get back to the love bit!’

  ‘Equally bossy and we both like our own way.’ Angelo slung her a wolfish smile. ‘When are you going to answer me? I’m offering you everything you said you wanted.’

  Flora came over all shy. ‘I’m thinking it over.’

  Angelo dug into his pocket and produced a small jewellery box, which he flipped open. ‘Engagement ring.’

  ‘Wow!’ Flora exclaimed, watching the sunlight ignite a river of fire in the emerald and diamond cluster. ‘I love it!’

  He came to a halt in the hall and lifted her hand.

  ‘It won’t fit!’ she wailed. ‘My fingers are swollen!’

  With an air of solemnity, Angelo discovered that for himself and slid it onto her little finger instead. ‘I’d like to get married in the local church where my parents took their vows.’

  ‘When?’ Flora stretched up and pressed a kiss against the corner of his mouth before falling back from him again, prevented from staying close by the size of her stomach.

  ‘As soon as possible.’ His sapphire-blue eyes stared down into hers with flagrant anticipation. ‘I love you … I can’t wait to marry you.’

  ‘But I’m … huge!’ she lamented.

  ‘And supposed to be lying down and resting,’ he reminded her in a tone of suppressed urgency, angling her in the direction of the stairs.

  Still in shock from having all her dreams come true at one and the same time, Flora allowed him to help her onto the bed and slip off her shoes. She admired her gorgeous ring. She admired Angelo and she smiled sunnily up at him. ‘I love you too,’ she said belatedly. ‘I’ve been madly in love with you for months.’

  ‘A fine way you have of showing it, querida mia!’ Angelo teased, folding down on the bed behind her and easing her into the possessive circle of his arms. ‘I was terrified you were going to move out as soon as the babies were born.’

  ‘While I was terrified of moving out because I wouldn’t have been able to see you every day any more,’ Flora confided. ‘I also assumed that you were seeing other women.’ She twisted her copper head round to squint at him, her anxiety palpable. ‘Did you?‘

  ‘No, I’m yours lock, stock and barrel, enamorada mia. I’m definitely a one-woman man,’ Angelo confided, his eyes bright with tenderness as he spread big gentle hands across the proud swell of her stomach. ‘There’s been nobody else in my life and there never will be now.’

  His quiet confidence on that score touched her deep. Happiness engulfed her and she covered his hands with hers, looking forward to the day when they could make love again and experience that very special intimacy and pleasure. But the amount of love she could feel in him was sufficient to warm and inspire her.

  ‘I’ll marry you as soon as it can be arranged,’ she told him softly, stroking the strong male fingers beneath her own. ‘Because I can’t imagine my life without you, either.’

  ‘And from now on,’ Angelo murmured with rich satisfaction, ‘I sleep in here with you wrapped in my arms. Do you realise that we’ve never slept the night through together?’

  ‘Hmm …’ Flora framed sleepily, finding that happiness and the amount of heat his big powerful body put out were combining to make her feel incredibly drowsy. That was one wish she could grant him right there and then.

  Two years after that night, Flora scanned her reflection critically in the cheval mirror. The green evening dr
ess with the hand-embroidered and beaded bodice had cost a fortune, but that particular colour did seem to give her a positive glow. The figure-fitting contours also made the most of the sleek toned curves that she had worked hard in the gym to recapture after she had given birth.

  For the occasion of the charity ball Angelo held in his home every year, her husband had got the family jewels out to deck her from head to toe. She wore the magnificent diamond tiara, necklace and earrings that had once belonged to his mother and the flash of fire that accompanied her every move as the fine jewels caught the light made her feel wonderfully opulent.

  ‘You look breathtaking …’

  Flora spun round, her dress rustling with the movement, to focus on the male who had just entered. Her heart in her eyes, she smiled warmly. ‘Are they all asleep?’

  ‘Of course,’ Angelo countered with more than a little self-satisfaction.

  ‘I don’t believe you. I bet they’re climbing out of their cots right this minute,’ Flora contended with maternal pessimism.

  She adored her sons, but Joris, Rip and Hendrik were very lively little boys and getting them to sleep at night was a challenge. Their sister, Mariska, whom Angelo and Flora had officially adopted the previous year, did what she could to keep her brothers in line, but when the three twenty-two-month-old toddlers worked as a team they could be a real headache to keep under control.

  ‘The boys are tired out tonight. Anke and Berna did a great job using up their surplus energy today. Señora van Zaal, you do look breathtaking.’ Angelo repeated the compliment in a low husky growl and matched it by closing a hand to her wrist to tug her to him.

  Flora pulled free again and raised her hands. ‘Mind the make-up and the hair!’

  ‘I don’t want you so fancy that I can’t touch you, enamorada mia,’ Angelo confessed.

  ‘Well, you will keep on throwing these swanky charity dos,’ Flora teased, revelling in the electric-blue heat of his hungry possessive gaze.

  She sidestepped her husband to speed down the corridor and go into Mariska’s bedroom, where she removed the story books piled up on the bed so that they wouldn’t fall during the night and wake the little girl. Julie’s daughter was a happy, intelligent child with a lovely gentleness to her nature. She had welcomed the arrival of her three boisterous little brothers and loved being a big sister.

  Joris, Rip and Hendrik had been born by C-section when Flora was thirty-three weeks along and the newborns had spent their earliest days in hospital. Rip, the smallest of three, had suffered some breathing difficulties at first but had surmounted his problems and was now the same size as his brothers. Anke had gained a backup in Berna, a second nanny to lighten her load, although Flora spent a great deal of time with her children. In truth, with four young and lively children in need of care and attention there was always plenty of work to be done.

  That night’s benefit was again in aid of braindamaged children, the charity which lay closest to Angelo’s heart. When Flora had finally got around to asking Angelo who Katja was, she had uncovered a tragic story. Katja had been one of Angelo’s schoolmates. At the age of sixteen she had been knocked down by a car and ever since then had lived in a care home because she now had the mental capacities of a young child. After Katja’s parents died, it was Angelo who had taken overall responsibility for her continuing care. Angelo visited Katja most weeks, often bringing her one of the animal jigsaws she enjoyed. Having accompanied him on several of those visits, Flora loved Angelo all the more for his generous heart.

  The past two years had been action-packed and very happy for Flora, who had gained a good deal of confidence since her marriage. She had fond memories of their small private wedding at the old church that lay only a kilometre from Huis van Zaal. It hadn’t mattered to her that she had worn an ivory lace maternity frock or that she’d had to return to bed to rest soon after the ceremony. What had really mattered was the love and tenderness she’d recognised in Angelo’s eyes when he’d made his vows. When the boys were three months old, they had flown to the Caribbean to enjoy an extended honeymoon. Bleakly aware that she had not resonated with Angelo, Bregitta Etten had ceased her visits and was not missed.

  Flora paused in the doorway of the nursery where her sons were fast asleep. Unusually, there wasn’t a sound from the line of cots. She could see the three little dark heads, which were so rarely still during the day, unless they were plotting some mischief. She called Skipper out from below the nearest cot where he would happily have remained for the night had he been allowed to do so, for he adored the boys.

  ‘I have a very beautiful wife and four wonderful kids,’ Angelo pronounced from behind her, closing his arms round his wife to slowly turn her round to face him. ‘I’m a very lucky man.’

  Flora gazed up into his sapphire-blue eyes and her heart raced in reaction. He never got any less gorgeous, she savoured, and she began to stretch up.

  ‘Make-up … hair, enamorada mia,’ Angelo reminded her teasingly before her cherry-tinted lips could connect with his and wreak havoc with her carefully groomed appearance.

  Her eyes glinted at the crack for, as he had once accurately remarked, they were both equally fond of having the last word. ‘Later …’ she whispered in a tone of feminine promise and had the very great pleasure of seeing sensuality meld with impatience in the lean, darkly handsome face that she could read so much better now.

  ‘Later …’ Angelo husked in sexy agreement, running a playful forefinger down from the pulse flickering at her collarbone to the tiny shadowy valley showing between her small high breasts. Her mouth running dry, she had to gasp for breath.

  Angelo curved a hand to her spine to guide her downstairs in readiness to greet their guests. ‘I suppose you know I’m crazy about you.’

  ‘But I like it when you tell me.’ Flora dealt him a provocative smile from below her lashes. ‘After all, I’m totally in love with you.’

  ‘Maybe just one kiss,’ Angelo muttered thickly at the head of the stairs.

  A wicked glint in her green eyes, Flora pulled away with a victorious giggle and raced downstairs with the full skirt of her dress flying like an emerald banner and Skipper tagging her heels.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

  First published in Great Britain 2011

  Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  © Lynne Graham 2011

  ISBN: 978-1-408-92531-7

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Excerpt

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapt
er Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Copyright