Flora's Defiance

Pain pierced Flora as she still secretly cherished the memory of him calling her beautiful. This revised opinion hit her hard, even though she was aware that she looked less than her best in jeans and a shirt with not even a dash of make-up to brighten her up. Angelo, on the other hand, looked absolutely effortlessly gorgeous. The breeze had tousled his thick black cropped hair and scored colour along the splendid line of his high cheekbones, accentuating his superb bone structure. Even this early in the day his golden skin was beginning to shadow with dark stubble across his stubborn jaw line and round his wide sensual mouth. He was more casually dressed than she was accustomed to seeing him in jeans and a fine expensive sweater worn with a very masculine jacket. Her mouth running dry, she was quite overpowered by his magnetic presence for a couple of minutes.

‘You should lie down for a while,’ Angelo instructed.

‘I can’t,’ Flora groaned. ‘I have guests waiting for their breakfast downstairs …’ And she was dreading the prospect, having already learned that certain cooking smells could make her feel horribly nauseous.

‘I will deal with them. Go to your bed,’ Angelo urged with impressive assurance.

Flora had never seen Angelo as a guy likely to be handy in the kitchen and she hovered uncertainly. ’But …:

‘Go and lie down,’ he said again, stepping to one side to thrust open the door to the room he had already identified as hers.

The sight of her comfortable bed was all the pressure Flora needed at that moment and she crossed the corridor to gratefully collapse in a heap on top of the duvet. Her weary limbs were heavy as iron. She was so tired, indeed she was convinced that she had never been so tired in her whole life. The bouts of constant sickness that seized hold of her at all times of day and the exhaustion of continually feeling unwell had conquered her stubborn spirit as nothing else could have done.

Angelo closed the door on her and rang the country hotel he had checked into late the night before. Within minutes he was ushering Flora’s paying guests out to his limousine and instructing his driver to take them to the hotel for their breakfast. Everybody more than happy with that new arrangement, he returned to Flora and e

xplained what he had done.

Flora studied him with thoughtful green eyes, reluctantly impressed by his adroit handling of the situation. She would have enjoyed seeing him wielding a frying pan in her kitchen, but the shrewd organisational and negotiating skills he had just displayed were in all probability basic van Zaal business traits.

‘I appreciate that I know very little about pregnant women,’ Angelo said with enormous tact, keeping quiet about his current bedside reading, which would in fact have proved that he knew much more about being pregnant than Flora did. ‘And naturally I’ve heard of morning sickness, but I really don’t think it’s normal for you to be feeling this ill. You should see a doctor.’

‘I already have,’ Flora sighed wearily, turning over and tucking her hand below her cheek as she made herself as comfortable as possible. ‘My GP says that some women suffer like this and that hopefully it will slacken off soon.’

‘I would still like you to agree to see Natalie again,’ Angelo imparted.

Already drifting off to sleep, Flora gave him a rare nod of assent, pathetically willing to consult anyone who might have the power to make her condition a little more bearable. Right at that moment, she felt as though her pregnancy had taken over her entire life, sapping the energy and confidence that she had always taken for granted.

His big powerful frame alive with brooding tension, Angelo watched her sleep, his lean dark features set in tough lines and his jaw at an aggressive angle. He lifted a throw lying folded on a chair and shook it out to cover her up. Then he stepped out again to contact Natalie on his mobile phone and share his concerns. Nothing his friend said soothed his apprehension on Flora’s behalf.

Flora wakened when Angelo touched her shoulder and gazed straight up into azure-blue eyes surrounded by swirling ebony lashes. Her heart skipped a whole beat inside her chest. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

‘About two hours. I’m only waking you now because Natalie wants to see you this afternoon,’ he explained.

‘Have I got time for a shower?’ Flora sat up very slowly, too well aware that sudden movements were likely to bring on dizziness and nausea.

Freshening up with a shower lifted Flora’s spirits. As she got dressed she reflected that, although she had lost weight in recent weeks, her shape had changed and not for the better. With her trousers already refusing to button at her waist, she donned recent purchases, a skirt with a partially elasticated waist and a top in a larger size than she usually wore. Even though it was early in her pregnancy, her breasts had already swelled by a couple of cup sizes and her waist seemed to be vanishing even faster. Reflecting on those unwelcome alterations to her body, Flora grimaced, deciding that what attraction she had possessed was now very much on the wane. Praying that the sickness would remain at bay, she joined Angelo in the limousine.

‘Why were you trying to cater to so many people without help?’ Angelo asked her then.

A few weeks earlier, Sharon Martin, Flora’s parttime employee, had been diagnosed with cancer and the older woman was currently undergoing treatment. Flora had not managed to find a replacement for Sharon and, reluctant to cancel bookings at short notice, she had contrived as best she could to manage alone.

‘It’s been a struggle,’ she admitted reluctantly.

‘Yet you still found the time to spend several days in Amsterdam with Mariska,’ Angelo remarked.

‘She’s so young. If I don’t make the effort to see Mariska regularly, she’ll forget who I am,’ Flora pointed out ruefully.

Angelo answered a phone call and while he was talking Flora kicked off her shoes and curled up into a comfortable position, resting her cheek down on the cool leather back of the passenger seat. A blink of an eye later she was fast asleep again and he had to shake her awake at the end of their journey.

‘Sorry,’ Flora framed, politely shielding a yawn before finger combing her tumbled coppery hair back from her brow in some embarrassment. ‘I’ve a lot of sleep to catch up on.’

In the waiting room she watched Angelo, only to redden uncomfortably when she realised that he was watching her. On their previous visit to Dr Ellwood’s surgery, Angelo had very effectively tuned out of the proceedings and done as much business as if he were still at the office. Now his obvious disquiet touched her and stirred her conscience because she knew she had made things difficult when he had tried to stay in touch with her. If he had asked her why she would not have had a ready answer for him, because even she did not fully understand her often hostile attitude to him. What she did know was that when she focused on Angelo van Zaal’s darkly handsome features she felt intensely vulnerable and scared and that was more than sufficient to ensure she stayed away from him and avoided his influence.

Natalie called Flora into her surgery and discussed her symptoms before giving her an examination and a blood test. After that the nurse showed Flora into the small room where the ultrasound scanning machine was kept and helped her get up onto the couch in readiness.

‘Angelo wants to know if he can join us,’ Natalie told her, popping her head round the door.

Startled by that request, Flora started to sit up. ‘Er …’