Flora's Defiance

But Angelo appeared in the brunette’s wake, and to object struck Flora as petty, particularly when she was about to receive her very first view of the baby in whom Angelo appeared to have an equal interest. She lay back down again while Angelo stationed his tall, powerful frame in a discreet location by the wall, his keen gaze welded to the screen while Natalie talked about what they could hope to see at this stage of Flora’s pregnancy.

‘Ah, yes, this is what I suspected,’ Natalie remarked with satisfaction as she moved the transducer over the gel slicked across Flora’s stomach. ‘There to the left, is the first baby … see the heartbeat … and there is the second baby …’ for an instant the doctor paused and then drew in an audible breath before continuing ‘… and tucked in behind that one, is the third baby! My word, I already suspected that you might be expecting twins, but you’re carrying triplets, Flora. That’s probably why you’ve been feeling so very sick. Your hormones are in override.’

’Triplets? ‘ Flora parrotted, her voice sounding as squeezed as if someone were bouncing up and down on her lungs. ‘You mean that there’s three of them?’

A large hand closed over her nervously clenching fingers. ‘That’s amazing news,’ Angelo pronounced with admirable conviction.

Astonished, Flora tipped back her head to look up at him and noted that he was unusually pale. She reckoned that he too was shocked by Natalie’s revelation but simply better at hiding his reactions than Flora was. Flora was stunned and totally overwhelmed by the prospect of three babies rather than one. She had naturally imagined how she might cope if she won custody of Mariska but had calculated her niece would be a toddler at a different stage of development by the time she gave birth.

The news that she was carrying triplets turned all her careful plans for the future upside down. It would be a challenge to continue her bed-and-breakfast business and even parttime childcare costs would be huge. For the first few months of motherhood she would definitely have to live off the money in her bank account. On the other hand, that cash bonus was her only nest egg and with the needs of at least three children to meet in the future she realised that it would probably be wiser to try and work and save the money she currently had in the bank.

‘I can’t tell you the sex of the babies yet. It’s too early,’ Natalie Ellwood informed them cheerfully. ‘Are there any multiple pregnancies in either family?’

As Flora shook her head in a negative motion Angelo opened his mouth and then closed it again, deeming what he had been about to say concerning his own early history inappropriate. He knew that a multiple pregnancy carried greater risks and it worried him that Flora was already far from well. Registering that the news about their triplets had struck her dumb, he lifted her down off the couch with care and accompanied her back into Natalie’s surgery. Flora, still in complete

shock from what she had learned, was urged to avoid stress, rest more and eat little and often in an effort to regain the weight she had lost. If the sickness continued at the same rate, Natalie said she would need to go into hospital to receive treatment. Flora was shaken by that last warning because it had not once occurred to her that her health and that of her unborn baby might be at risk. Unborn babies, her mind adjusted, while she recognised that she would need all her health and strength to carry three babies as close to term as possible.

‘I would like to take you back to Amsterdam with me,’ Angelo pronounced before they had even left the building. ‘No, don’t argue with me … think of the advantages. You can stay in bed all day if you like. You won’t have to cook for yourself and everything will be done for you. You’ll have Mariska to fill your days instead of demanding guests.’

‘And Mariska will never ask me to cook a fried egg,’ Flora mumbled, striving not to get caught up in the lazy blissful imagery of the dream world he was describing. ‘I’m used to working and keeping busy, Angelo.’

‘But right now you need some time out to regain your health.’

It was true; there was no arguing with that reminder. Natalie had emphasised that tiredness and stress were very probably only making the sickness Flora was suffering from worse. And she knew she had lost more weight than was good for her. She would also have Mariska to keep her occupied. At that moment, the proverbial weak moment, an image of the picturesque streets and canals of Amsterdam and having meals cooked for her carried considerable appeal for Flora.

Angelo tucked her into the limousine. Although he had said and done nothing to reveal the fact, the prospect of becoming the father of four children had knocked him sideways. Only three months earlier he’d had no plans to have any children of his own. But now, he gazed down at Flora and, in one of those inexplicable moments of flawed concentration that currently afflicted him, he was immediately sidetracked by the view. From that angle the newly full rounded globes of her breasts and her shadowy cleavage were visible below the modest neckline of her cotton top. There was something incredibly powerfully erotic about that illicit glimpse and he remembered the taste of her and the fresh scent of her skin. That fast lust ran through Angelo like a river of lava and the swelling hardness at his groin became a greedy ache. A muscle at the corner of his handsome mouth pulling taut, he swung in beside her.

Brilliant sapphire-blue eyes sought out hers in a sudden assault. ‘I still want you in my bed, enamorada mia.’

In the aftermath of what they had just found out, Flora was startled by his candour. That bold husky reiteration sent tiny quivers of awareness darting through her tense body. His potent emphasis shook her as, removed from his radius, Flora had once again stopped seeing herself as a sexual being. Soft pink mouth opening, her tongue slid out to moisten her dry lower lip.

‘You are so hot,’ Angelo growled thickly, and he bent his proud dark head to crush her lips under his, his tongue delving into the moist and tender interior with a darting erotic finesse that sent the blood drumming madly through her veins and brought her hands up to clutch at his arms.

Responses that had bothered Flora in uneasy dreams that even she could not control leapt straight back to life. A squirming, curling heat shimmered low in her pelvis, dispatching tingling warmth to private places. Her nipples pinched into stiff straining crests and the tender flesh at the heart of her dampened while she held her body taut in defiance of that response.

‘I want you,’ Angelo husked, running his sensual mouth down her slender neck in a way that made her shiver violently, while his hand reached below her top to toy with the engorged peak of one breast.

In one urgent motion Flora jerked free and contrived to move a good two feet from him. Wide-eyed and flushed, she muttered hurriedly, ‘No!’

His ebony lashes dipped low over his extraordinary jewel-bright eyes. ‘I’m sorry. You excite me so much that I even contrived to forget that you aren’t well.’

‘That’s okay,’ Flora framed before she could think better of it, wanting to shut the door, as it were, but not bar and lock it for ever. Even with all her hormones leaping and bounding like spring rabbits through her rebellious body, she would not have confessed why she had drawn back from him. Being ill or unwilling had nothing to do with it. As she smoothed down her top wild horses would not have forced her to admit that she had had to put some space between them before he discovered that she was wearing an industrial-strength bra with a line of hooks and thick straps. You excite me? Well, he would not have retained that impression for long, she reflected with a shrinking quiver of embarrassment. At the same time she was helplessly thrilled that he still appeared to find her sexually attractive.

‘Just not now,’ she added, striving to add a discreet hint of encouragement for the future while her face burned hotter than a fire. ‘In Amsterdam.’

‘So, you’ll come back with me,’ Angelo breathed with intense satisfaction.

And Flora could not meet his questioning gaze, because there was something about him that made her so ridiculously impulsive and, incredibly, unbelievably, she had just agreed to move in with him without thinking it through in triplicate and over the space of at least a week of sleepless nights. And now, if she immediately took the declaration back, he would think she was a total airhead who didn’t know what she was doing or saying. Dismayed by a recklessness that ran contrary to her usual nature, however, she could not withstand the urge to try and backtrack. ‘My pets would have to come with me as well and I would have an enormous amount of packing to do even for a short stay.’

‘I’ll organise everything for you. I don’t want you tiring yourself out.’

‘I don’t know if I can live with you …’

Long brown fingers tilted up her chin so that she collided with his cerulean-blue gaze in which ferocious determination was writ large. ‘But it costs nothing to try …‘

Flora disagreed but she kept the thought to herself. She didn’t want to get used to him being around if he wasn’t going to stay with her. She didn’t want to fall for him. She didn’t want to get hurt. She had put all her eggs in one basket with Peter and at the end of the day had turned out to be anything but his ideal woman. Would she ever be any man’s ideal woman? If she had not fallen pregnant, would Angelo be inviting her to move in with him? Would she even have heard from him again? Worrying along those mortifying lines sent a cold chill through her and severely wounded her pride.

‘You do way too much agonising over things,’ Angelo informed her abruptly, one hand closing over hers, his vivid azure gaze narrowed and intense on her expressive face. ‘We have four children to consider now,’ he stressed. ‘If you can’t be optimistic, at least attempt to be practical.’