Flora's Defiance

His advice engulfed her like a landslide and was even less welcome. Practical was a very dirty word to Flora at that instant. She did not want Angelo van Zaal to settle for her because she was carrying his triplets and also happened to be Mariska’s aunt. She needed more; she desperately longed to be wanted for herself.

‘I don’t want to be practical … I want to be loved,’ Flora admitted gruffly before she could lose her nerve and duck making that very personal admission.

Angelo gave her a look of complete exasperation as if she had suggested something utterly outrageous. ‘I’ve never been in love in my life!’

It was Flora’s turn to raise her brows. ‘Never? ‘ she pressed in disbelief.

‘Not since I succumbed to an infatuation as a teenager,’ Angelo derided, his wide sensual mouth curling.

It was depressing news but it also gave Flora a very strong desire to slap him. ‘I suppose you don’t believe in love?’

‘I believe in lust.’

Flora flattened her lips into an unimpressed line and lifted her chin in silent challenge.

‘Go on, confess,’ Angelo murmured with silken scorn. ‘You fell madly in love with me that day on the houseboat and that’s the only reason you slept with me!’

In receipt of that sardonic crack, Flora was so desperate to slap him and working so hard to restrain that urge that she trembled. ‘I’m afraid I still can’t explain why I slept with you.’

‘Lust,’ Angelo told her with immense assurance.

Flora’s self-control snapped clean through as if he had jumped on it. ‘Well, if that’s all we’ve got together, I’m not coming to Amsterdam. I can find lust anywhere with a one-night stand and I don’t need to leave the country to do it!’

Angelo shot her a blistering look of dazzling blue fury and frustration. ‘You’re being totally unreasonable—I can’t give you love. I can respect you, care for you, like you and lust after you, but don’t make a demand I can’t hope to meet!’

Respect, care, like, lust, she enumerated and her chin came up even higher. ‘Why not? What’s wrong with me?’ she shot back at him baldly.

Her obstinacy in sticking to her point sent Angelo’s temper shooting up the scale. ‘Nothing is wrong with you. I just don’t do love and romance! ‘

Flora lifted and dropped her slim shoulders in a shrug of finality. ‘Well, I feel too young and lively to settle for respect and liking!’

Angelo ground his even white teeth together and mentally counted to ten. It didn’t help him overcome the suspicion that she kept on raising the bar he had to reach to heights he had no desire to aspire to. ‘No matter what I offer you, it’s never enough!’

‘Be warned: our differences cut both ways. I might come and live with you and then fall madly in love with some other guy,’ Flora pointed out dulcetly.

‘No, you won’t, enamorada mia,’ Angelo told her with ferocious cool. ‘I won’t give you that kind of freedom.’

Her eyes danced with provocation. ‘You work long hours. Are you planning to lock me up every night in the cellar?’

‘No. I plan to keep you far too busy in bed! ‘ Angelo ground out. ‘You won’t have the energy to chase other men.’

‘How do I know you’re not all talk and no action?’ Flora tossed back before she could think better of it.

His mouth closed over hers again with passionate punitive force. He crushed her to his lean, powerful body and her every skin cell leapt with sensual energy, sensation swelling her breasts and sentencing her to a bone-deep ache between her thighs. He kissed her until she was breathless and trembling and strung high

on a hunger more powerful than any she had ever known. To catch her breath she had to tear her mouth from his and she was so weak in the aftermath with the lust she had decried that she bowed her brow down on his shoulder while she fought to get a hold on herself again. He had the power to turn her inside out with a single kiss and the awareness shocked her.

‘I’m just warning you,’ she contrived to trade in a final assault. ‘Lust isn’t enough for me and if I meet someone else who—’

Angelo rested a long brown finger against her parted lips to silence her, his narrowed gaze bright and fierce. ‘I will make it enough, enamorada mia,’ he told her rawly.

CHAPTER SEVEN

LITTLE more than a week after having that conversation, Flora received a visit from her friend, Jemima, whom she had not seen for several months. Jemima was married to Alejandro, a Spanish aristocrat, with whom she had two children, Alfie and Candida. Flora had got into the habit of visiting the family at their castle in Spain until Mariska had become an orphan, from which time Flora’s trips abroad had taken her to see her niece in the Netherlands instead.

Before she arrived, Jemima, a tiny beautiful blonde with big blue eyes, was already aware that Flora had fallen pregnant. Brought up to speed on the latest developments, Jemima was quick to offer her opinion. ‘Of course you should move to Amsterdam and give the relationship a chance. If everything works out between you and Angelo it will be wonderful for your niece and for those babies you’re carrying.’

At that advice, Flora grimaced. ‘But what if it doesn’t work out?’