Flora's Defiance

‘We weren’t suited,’ she told him, striving not to wonder if too much exposure to her was a turn-off for men in general. Was that what was amiss with Angelo? Was he indifferent to her now? Had familiarity while she lived in the same household simply led to contempt?

‘You were always too headstrong and ambitious for me.’ Peter shook his head. ‘Sandy makes me feel good about myself—’

‘Let’s leave it there,’ Flora advised drily before he could make any more less than tactful comparisons.

Peter asked her about the father of her children and confided that he was already the father of a year-old son. She enjoyed his surprise when she mentioned her triplets and thirty or so minutes wound up pleasantly enough before they went their separate ways. She travelled back to Angelo’s mansion in a taxi and wondered why s

he had beaten herself up over Peter’s defection for so long. By the time they had left university they had outgrown each other and become more of a habit than a couple in love, but she had been so bound up in her challenging new job that she had failed to appreciate that truth.

The baby bag already sitting packed in the hall reminded Flora that it was the weekend and time to head to Huis van Zaal again. She hoped that Angelo was not expecting her to take to her bed that very day and stay on in Amsterdam because she loved the relaxing pace of the weekends. If Angelo was free to come down to his country house, business was never allowed to act as a distraction within those ancient walls. But sadness touched her too, for although the weather was still bright and sunny the cooler temperatures of autumn were already in the air and now Angelo was a less frequent visitor to his country home.

‘Where’s Angelo?’ she asked Anke in the nursery.

‘I think he went to see Katja so he shouldn’t be too long,’ the nanny informed her cheerfully as Mariska toddled over to Flora to show off the new dress she was wearing. A happy confident child, Flora’s niece seemed to have suffered no lasting harm from her less-than-ideal early months with her troubled parents.

And there and then, Flora almost asked Anke who Katja was, because she knew the young nanny would satisfy her curiosity without making a production out of it. But it also occurred to her that Bregitta had deliberately made a point of twice mentioning Katja, which very likely meant that there was nothing at all questionable in the relationship. Katja might well be ninety-five years old and perfectly respectable. Bregitta, after all, enjoyed making Flora feel insecure and would have been even happier to know that she had contrived to cause trouble between Angelo and the mother of his unborn children.

An hour later Flora was paying lip service to bed rest by lying on a padded lounger enjoying a glass of home-made lemonade while she basked in the early autumn sunshine. Mariska and Skipper were happily engaged in chasing the same ball tirelessly round the garden. Flora, however, was painstakingly counting her blessings. Angelo might not be in love with her, but he would be a very good father to their children and no doubt in time she would get over her constant wish and need for him to be something more than that. Four children, she thought, just a little daunted by the prospect as she registered the amount of noise that Mariska could make without any backup at all. When Anke asked if she could take the little girl to visit her parents’ farm with her that afternoon, Flora agreed and let her weary eyes slide shut.

‘Flora … ?’

Flora lifted her lashes and focused dreamily on Angelo, her green eyes unusually soft. Tall, dark and gorgeous, he was poised only a few feet away, casually clad in wellcut trousers and a pale shirt that made a perfect frame for his bronzed skin and black-as-jet hair. She tilted her head to one side while she studied him, admiring the sleek planes of his high cheekbones, the classic patrician set of his nose and the beautifully modelled perfection of his wide masculine mouth.

‘You’re staring at me,’ Angelo said softly.

Her cheeks flared with colour and as she met those very blue eyes of his her mouth ran dry. Blinking rapidly, she began to sit up, a process that was as slow and difficult for her with her cumbersome body as standing up in a hurry. Within seconds, Angelo was by her side and rearranging her more comfortably.

‘How was Peter?’ Angelo enquired coolly.

‘He hadn’t changed much.’ Reluctant to run her former fiancé down or discuss what he had shared with her, Flora fell uncomfortably silent.

Angelo surveyed her with an odd intensity that she could almost feel like a touch on her skin. ‘I have a question to ask you,’ he imparted tautly.

‘Go ahead,’ Flora advised, hoping it didn’t relate to Peter and taking a sip at her lemonade in an effort to seem composed.

‘Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife? ‘ Angelo asked levelly.

Flora glanced up at him in shaken disbelief and somehow contrived to choke on her drink, breaking down into a fit of coughing that led to him banging her on the back to aid her recovery. Eyes still streaming in the aftermath, she mopped them with a tissue and tried frantically to work out where the marriage proposal had come from. He was asking her to marry him! He was actually asking her to marry him. After weeks and weeks of sharing the same roof without the smallest intimate contact, he was suddenly asking her to be his wife and she could not credit it. Stunned, she focused on his heartbreakingly handsome and very serious features and registered that he was definitely not joking. ‘I … I … er …’

‘I appear to have taken you by surprise,’ Angelo breathed tensely.

‘You’ve really shocked me. I mean, I definitely didn’t see this coming over the horizon,’ she mumbled unevenly, scarcely knowing whether she was on her head or her heels.

Angelo dropped down on the chair beside hers and reached for her hand. Brilliant blue eyes sought out hers. ‘I would be proud to call you my wife.’

Flora tugged her fingers reluctantly free. ‘Even though you think I’m a gold-digger?’

‘Only a stupid man would get to know you as well as I know you now and still think you capable of such a motivation … I am not a stupid man, tesora mia.’

Flora was not so easily soothed. ‘It’s all very well saying now that you’ve changed your mind about that, but why has it taken you so long to tell me so?’

His lush black lashes semi-screened his gaze from her keen scrutiny. ‘I had made you so hostile that I was reluctant to open the subject again in case I made matters worse. I’m not very good at eating humble pie either,’ he admitted with gritty reluctance.

‘You’re as stubborn as a rock,’ Flora pronounced without apology, studying the fierce tension etched into his hard masculine features.

‘I should have had that tribunal experience of yours checked out again. Unfortunately it wasn’t important enough to me when I first met you, but it was a mistake to accept what proved to be speculation as fact and to allow it to colour my judgement to such an extent.’

‘I was very upset when I realised that you had always had a low opinion of me and why,’ Flora admitted ruefully.