Flora's Defiance

‘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.’