Flora's Defiance

Lean, darkly handsome face rigid with displeasure, Angelo stepped back with infuriating reluctance. Flora flashed past him to head for the stairs. Halfway up, she almost tripped over Skipper as her anxious pet got below her feet and that instant of hesitation almost unbalanced her into a fall. As she clutched at the balustrade with a hissing gasp of fright Angelo braced his hands on her shoulders from behind and steadied her.

‘You’re okay. I’ve got you,’ he said fiercely.

Unable to tolerate even that throwaway remark, Flora twisted her head round. ‘But that’s just it! You haven’t got me and you never will again! You actually believe I’m after your money, even though I’ve flatly refused to touch a penny of it!’ she reminded him doggedly. ‘I was totally independent until you pushed your way into my life and insisted on interfering—what was that all about? Why didn’t you just leave me alone?’

‘Lower your voice,’ Angelo growled.

’No! ‘ Flora fired back her refusal without hesitation because shouting at him was making her feel better by giving her an outlet for the emotions dammed up inside her. She didn’t want to stop fighting with him either because she dimly recognised that when the argument was over she would find herself standing amid the debris of a wrecked relationship and she was in no hurry to reach that sobering point.

‘You’ve screwed up my life!’ Flora continued between gritted teeth as she stalked back to her bedroom where Skipper shot below the bed and whined, disturbed by the raised bite of their voices and the furious tension still in the air.

’Dios mio, my life has been turned upside down as well,’ Angelo retaliated.

Flora’s head spun, for she had not expected a response to her accusation. ‘Try carrying triplets and see how much worse you feel!’ she stabbed back, determined to have the last word.

Incensed by her complete obstinacy, Angelo watched Flora throw herself down in a heap on the still disordered bed. ‘You’re very pale. You need to be resting, not fighting with me,’ he told her grimly.

Flora reared up again on both elbows, green eyes full of rancour. ‘Were you expecting me to jump up and down with glee when you told me you thought I was a gold-digger, ready to fleece my baby niece?’

‘I refuse to lie and pretend that I wasn’t suspicious of your motives when you first applied to

adopt Mariska,’ Angelo declared, standing his ground.

‘But even so, in spite of your suspicions you slept with me!’ Flora raked back at him with a look of fuming feminine censure and incomprehension.

A flare of colour scored the sculpted line of his high cheekbones, but he stared her down, refusing to admit fault on that score. ‘When did I say that I was perfect? ‘ Angelo traded in his dark deep drawl.

Flora looked daggers at him and then rolled over to push her face into the welcome coolness of a pillow. What a mess, what a gigantic mess it all was! She wanted to cry and scream but she would do neither in front of him, so she pummelled the pillows with her fists instead. She was here in his home, she was available and because she was pregnant he was currently stuck with her, so that was probably why he had insisted that he still wanted her and that their relationship should be an intimate one. But their ties were the result of happenstance rather than planning. He might still desire her body, might want to have sex with her, but that was all. There was nothing deeper to his feelings for her. What an idiot she had been to lower her guard, let herself soften and fall in love with him! When had she forgotten that she knew next to nothing about men and invariably got it wrong with them? How had she overlooked the fact that she was dealing with a very rich, very handsome womaniser more used to taking than giving?

‘Just leave me alone,’ Flora urged from the muffling depths of the pillow. ‘Please … ‘

Angelo clenched his even white teeth and closed strong brown hands over the footboard of the bed where he flexed his fingers impatiently on the solid wood. ‘Women usually prefer honesty.’

Flora rested her hot cheek on her hand and half turned her head to squint at him, tousled copper hair settling in a glorious silken tangle round her shoulders. ‘Oh, we just say that because it sounds good … but we don’t want honesty unless it’s the kind of stuff we want to hear,’ she told him tartly.

Angelo breathed in deep and slow and then swore below his breath anyway, while his knuckles showed white on the footboard as he held it too tightly for comfort. ‘I didn’t intend to hurt or upset you—’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Flora interrupted. ‘What you intended has nothing to do with this. There’s no wriggling out of it either. You had serious reservations about my character and you concealed them from me. In the circumstances that was very unfair. Do you honestly think I would have come here to live if I’d known what you really thought of me?’

‘The jury’s still out on what I really think about you.’

Flora shrugged her slim shoulders in a gesture of sublime disinterest on that score. ‘So? You think I’m about to tie myself up in knots struggling to win your good opinion? I couldn’t care less,’ she claimed defiantly, flipping over onto her back to study him with accusing green eyes. ‘But there’s one fact which you ought to know. I was a virgin when you slept with me that day on the houseboat. You didn’t notice but that fact does make it impossible for me to have staged a sleazy affair with my boss three years ago.’

‘A virgin? ‘ Angelo repeated in a seriously shocked undertone, his strong black brows pleating into a brooding frown as he stared searchingly down at the composed oval of her face. ‘I was your first lover?’

‘Virgins don’t all go round wearing helpful labels to warn off predatory men,’ she said flippantly, annoyed by his scepticism over her confession and deciding there and then to tell him no further secrets when he was clearly such an undeserving cause.

‘I’m not a predator. I had no reason to think that you might be that innocent. I was also aware that you were engaged at one time,’ he reminded her, clearly still reluctant to accept that she might have been as inexperienced as she had claimed.

Flora grimaced and compressed her lips. ‘Peter respected me,’ she fielded.

At that response, Angelo studied her with scantily veiled incredulity.

‘Well, that was his excuse.’ Her grimace had acquired a pained edge and she screened her gaze from his keen appraisal, for the dialogue had become too personal for comfort. The hurt that her one-time fiancé and former best friend had inflicted had left a wound that had still not fully healed. As she had her selfish father before him, she had trusted Peter and where had that got her? He had let her down when she most needed him. And in spite of the fact that Peter had been a big part of her life for several years she had not heard a word from him since they had parted.

Angelo was studying her troubled expression fixedly, his strong jaw line clenching hard as her gaze continued to evade his. ‘You still care for your ex-fiancé, don’t you?’

‘We were good friends until we broke up.’