Flora's Defiance Read online

  Angelo spoke the conventional words of regret with perfect courtesy, awaited her response and escorted her round the room to meet some of Willem’s relatives. When it came to public behaviour his manners were always letter perfect. But, so close to him, Flora could hardly breathe for tension and she hated him for the effect he was having on her, hated him for the lethal combination of looks and hormones that had entrapped her from their first meeting. Even the faint evocative aroma of his citrus-based cologne was familiar to her and she had to resist a powerful urge to lean closer to him. No man, even the one she had once planned to marry, had ever made such a strong impression on her.

  Indeed, sex had never been a driving need for her and she was still a virgin. She had always been level-headed and reserved with men. She had seen too much unhappiness growing up to want to rush into any relationship. She had also once suffered badly from the harassment of a bullying sex-pest in the workplace. And the discovery of the potent physical attraction that Angelo, a man she didn’t even like, could exude had merely underlined her caution and disenchantment with that aspect of life.

  ‘How is Mariska doing?’ Flora asked the moment she had the chance to speak to Angelo van Zaal without an audience.

  ‘Children are resilient. She was all smiles over breakfast this morning,’ Angelo recalled, staring down at her with his electrifyingly blue eyes, eyes unfairly surrounded by lashes as dense and enhancing as thick black lace.

  ‘You saw her that early at the hospital today? ‘ Flora pressed in surprise, thinking that he must have called in to see the little girl on his way to the funeral.

  Angelo gazed down at her in an unnervingly steady appraisal and it was as if pure energy were dancing over her skin with silken taunting fingers. Tensing, alarmingly conscious that her nipples were tightening beneath her clothing, she coloured accordingly, stilled a shiver of awareness and stared fixedly at the knot on his silk tie.

  ‘Mariska is no longer in hospital,’ Angelo revealed. ‘She was released into my care yesterday.’

  That was news to Flora and she lifted her chin. ‘You pulled that off very quickly. Who’s looking after her?’

  ‘Her nanny, Anke.’

  Flora was unimpressed. ‘When she’s already lost her parents the company of a stranger can’t be much of a consolation.’

  ‘Anke is not a stranger. She has been taking care of Mariska on a parttime basis for several months now …’

  ‘Willem and Julie employed a nanny?’ Flora was taken aback, as she had not thought that the financial problems Julie had often mentioned during their phone calls would have stretched to such a luxury as one-to-one care for Mariska. And, certainly, Julie had never once hinted that her daughter enjoyed the attentions of Anke.

  ‘I took care of the expense.’ His wide sensual mouth compressed, Angelo dealt her a tough uncompromising look as though daring her to say more on yet another subject that he clearly considered to be none of her business.

  ‘How very generous of you … as you have been in shelling out for my travel costs,’ Flora commented stiffly. ‘Thanks, but it wasn’t necessary, though it did save me a lot of hassle and got me here much faster, which I do appreciate. I can’t stay for long though, and I would like to spend what time I do have in Amsterdam with—’

  ‘Your niece. Of course,’ he incised smoothly. ‘When this is over, everyone is invited back to my home for coffee and you’ll see her then.’

  Flora flushed, for she had not expected him to make seeing Mariska so easy and had somehow expected obstacles to be put in her path. The wind taken from her sails before she even got airborne, she nodded relieved acceptance of his assurance.

  ‘I should mention …’ She hesitated and then pressed on, guided by her streak of innate honesty, which preferred all the facts to be out in the open. ‘I have an interview with a solicitor here tomorrow and after that with Social Services. I intend to apply to adopt Mariska.’

  All of a sudden, those impossibly blue eyes briefly resembled chips of indigo-tinted ice, but then she wondered if that was the result of her fertile imagination because he merely nodded his acceptance. ‘Of course, that is your prerogative.’

  The funeral did not last long. Someone had told her that the Dutch were partial to giving eulogies at funerals, but the tributes paid to Willem and Julie were short and sweet. Tears continually flooded Flora’s eyes because it seemed so wrong that two such young people with everything to live for should be dead and she struggled to get a grip on emotions that still felt exceedingly raw. Apart from Mariska, Flora no longer had any surviving relatives and that made her feel very alone in the world. Her best friend, Jemima, had recently returned to her husband in Spain and that had left another hole in her life.

  When the talking was over, Flora accepted a lift with Willem’s aunt and uncle to Angelo’s home. He lived in an imposing historic building, a literal mansion, which Julie had once described to Flora in the most fulsome of terms as a ‘palace’. The house, which had belonged to several generations of van Zaals, was very traditional inside and out, featuring high ceilings, polished wooden floors, gleaming antique furniture and walls covered with huge splendid paintings. Coffee was served in the very elegant drawing room by the plump, smiling housekeeper whom Angelo addressed as Therese.

  Under cover of a conversation with a business colleague, Angelo found himself discreetly watching Flora, noting her every tiny move and change of expression and the faint silvery sheen of tears still marking her cheeks. Even at a glance he could see that she seethed with emotion, messy dangerous stuff that it was, he acknowledged grimly, for she was the sort of woman he had always avoided getting involved with. More than a year had passed since their last meeting. He approved of the fact that her hair was no longer short and he could not resist picturing those luxuriant coppery tresses freed from the restraint of their ribbon. And trailing across a pillow? a sarcastic little inner voice enquired. As irritation with his male predictability gripped Angelo, there was a tightening heaviness at his groin, his libido reacting all too enthusiastically to Flora Bennett’s presence and the allure of an erotic fantasy.

  He sensed the passion in her and it drew him like the sun on a cold wintry day. Brilliant eyes cloaked, he studied her fixedly and, just as he had from their very first encounter, fought the magnetic pull of her with all his considerable force of will. Control and lucidity were everything to Angelo, who demanded more of himself than he ever had from anyone else. After all, nobody knew better than Angelo that an affair with the wrong woman could lead to disaster and it was the one risk he would not take.

  Flora dragged her attention from a superb painting of an ancestral family group, striving not to seek Angelo’s resemblance to some of its members with his clear good-looking features, though he would be like a sleek dark avenging angel set amongst those fair rosy-cheeked faces, she thought absently. She turned round to see where he was and collided headlong with his burning appraisal. An arrow of pure burning heat slivered through her slim length, kicking every nerve-ending into almost painful sensitivity. Her full lips pressed together tightly as she walked towards him, suppressing her responses with furious resolve.

  Angelo inclined his handsome dark head to his housekeeper and summoned her to his side. ‘Therese will take you upstairs now to see Mariska.’

  Flora was introduced to the pretty dark-haired nanny, Anke, but she really only had eyes for her niece, who sat in a child seat playing with a selection of toys. With her slightly turned-up nose and dimples, blue eyes and golden hair, the little girl bore a startling likeness to Julie. Flora’s eyes stung and she got down on her knees beside the chair to get reacquainted with her niece, once again deeply regretting the truth that she was almost a stranger to Mariska.

  Mariska studied Flora with big blue eyes and laughed when her aunt tickled her chubby little hand. A cheerful, affectionate child, she played happily with Flora and she was the perfect comfort for her aunt after the highly stressful week she had endured. When the
little girl became sleepy, Flora checked her watch and was surprised by how much time she had spent with her niece, for the afternoon was over. Descending the stairs, she saw Angelo in the hall below. He was so tall and dark and his glossy black cropped hair shone beneath the lights. He had the bronzed profile of a Greek god and the body of one as well, her rebellious thoughts added defiantly.

  ‘I wondered if it would be possible for me to visit the houseboat where Willem and Julie lived tomorrow afternoon,’ she asked tautly.

  ‘Yes. A cleaning crew is currently sorting the vessel out for a handover back to the landlord,’ Angelo revealed. ‘There may be some of your sister’s things which you wish to take home with you.’

  There was a thickness in Flora’s throat. Julie had always travelled light so she doubted that there would be many keepsakes. She forced a rather watery smile and took her leave to walk out into the cool evening air.

  Watching her departure from the window, Angelo had the cold comfort of knowing that he was behaving badly. Flora was on her own in a foreign city and she had just buried her sister and her brother-in-law. Yet he was leaving her to return to an anonymous hotel for the evening. His handsome mouth clenched hard. Even as he watched her he noticed the enticing feminine sway of her hips in the dark suit she wore, the pouting curve of her bottom that stretched the skirt’s fabric and the shapely turn of her calves and narrow ankles. She had terrific legs. He imagined inching up that skirt and as his body reacted with full blown arousal he released his breath in a sudden sharp hiss. He knew that he could not trust himself if he offered dinner and so left it at that.

  Exhaustion engulfed Flora by the time she reached her room as she had barely slept since receiving the news of the double tragedy. She kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed, where she fell asleep almost instantly. The chirrup of the phone by the bed wakened her. ‘Hello?’ she mumbled drowsily.

  ‘It’s Angelo.’ It was an unnecessary announcement because Flora knew only one male possessed of a dark deep drawl as rich and potentially sinful as chocolate melting on her taste buds. ‘Have you dined yet? ‘

  Flora froze in surprise and wondered if he could hear the sound of her jaw dropping in shock. ‘Er …’

  ‘If you haven’t I would be happy to take you out to eat this evening,’ Angelo murmured, smooth as silk.

  His voice actually set up a chain-reaction quiver down her taut spine and she sat up with a start. She could not credit the invitation and it unnerved her. ‘Thanks, but I’ve already eaten,’ she lied without hesitation. ‘But it was kind of you to offer.’

  ‘I wasn’t being kind,’ Angelo countered, a rougher edge filtering through his unforgettable drawl.

  ‘Oh …’ Dry-mouthed and flushed, Flora could not think of a single thing to say and he filled in the silence with complete cool and bid her goodnight. He didn’t like her, she knew he didn’t like her, for the cool censure when he looked at her with those amazing eyes of his was unmistakeable, even if she didn’t know what she had done to deserve that attitude. So why on earth had he suddenly decided to invite her out to dinner? Had he felt sorry for her? The very suspicion made Flora bridle because she had never sought out any man for comfort.

  She ordered a snack from Room Service and then went for a quick shower. She ate perched cross-legged on the bed with a book propped open and just knew that Angelo would disapprove. But she had said no and she should be proud of herself, although if she was honest panic and surprise had together combined to ensure her negative response. In addition she had nothing to wear but the suit she had worn to the funeral, since she had only packed casual jeans and a top for her short stay. She could not even imagine dining out in some fancy restaurant in Angelo’s company. On her final visit to Charlbury St Helens, Julie had shown her sister a magazine article featuring a couple of Angelo’s lady friends, beautiful women dressed in cutting-edge fashion, who could match his sophistication and cool.

  Regardless of those reflections, Flora could not help wondering what it would have been like to be the sole focus of Angelo’s attention for a couple of hours. Heat bubbled like excitement low in her pelvis and she tensed and suppressed that disturbing line of thought. It was a very long time before she contrived to drift off to sleep again that night …

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE following day, Angelo was in a business meeting in Rotterdam. But for all the attention he was giving to the exchange of views, he might as well have stayed at home. He was proud of his cool logic and intelligence and could not understand why both had proved insufficient to forecast Flora Bennett’s most recent move. The dinner invitation had offered him a valid way of bringing Flora up to speed on events in her late sister’s life before she got the bad news from the professionals she was consulting that very morning. It would have been tasteless for him to pass on that information at the funeral. But she had, most unexpectedly, turned him down.

  Handsome mouth tightening and quite unaware of the attention his unusually long silence was attracting, Angelo shrugged a broad shoulder sheathed in the finest silk and wool mix. He was willing to admit that he had no prior experience of hearing the word ‘no’ from a woman’s lips. It was a fact that the females he met fell over themselves to say yes. Yes to every invite, yes to sex, yes to just about any damned thing he wanted. Women in Angelo’s world were very predictable and he had never had the smallest urge, he told himself fiercely, to walk on the wilder side of life. He had never forgotten the years of misery that had resulted from his late father’s desire to do exactly that with Willem’s mother, a beautiful volatile widow.

  But would Flora have slept with him last night? That question came out of nowhere at him before he was even aware of having thought about such a possibility. He was impervious to the covert looks he was receiving as his brilliant blue eyes became even more abstracted. He wanted her. He was even willing to admit that there was just something about Flora Bennett that grabbed him every time he saw her. Yet last night his intentions had been pure.

  Of course it was entirely possible that Flora Bennett knew a great deal more about Willem and Julie’s lifestyle than he had had cause to suspect. His lean strong features darkened at that idea. Flora had seen little of her sister since her wedding to Willem, but she could well have decided to give Julie and her problems a wide berth. Angelo had never had that option because the overwhelming need to protect Mariska from her parents’ folly had repeatedly forced him to intervene. Unfortunately taking care of Mariska’s needs would entail building some kind of an ongoing connection with the other side of her family. He might distrust Mariska’s aunt but she was still the only blood relative the little girl had left alive. He could not ignore that bond or the fact that Flora had spent over two hours happily entertaining her niece and had inspired her nanny to remark that Mariska’s English aunt was wonderfully natural with children.

  How much weight would the professionals put on that bond or on so admirably maternal a demonstration? Was he prepared to get married just to improve his own claim to the little girl? Angelo shifted uneasily in his seat. The prospect of only sleeping with one woman for the rest of his life appealed to him as much as a dose of poison. Of course he could make marriage more of a business arrangement and retain a certain amount of freedom, he reasoned bleakly. Many women would accept such conditions simply to become a van Zaal with access to a fleet of private jets, a luxurious array of international homes and a huge allowance to spend on designer clothes and jewellery. Angelo had learned very young that it was possible to buy virtually anything he wanted and he was prepared to pay handsomely over the odds to acquire the perfect wife.

  A perfect wife who would naturally be blonde, educated, classy and from the Netherlands. Dutch women were wonderfully practical and resilient, he thought appreciatively. He needed a sensible woman from a respectable background who would accept his challenging work schedule without complaint and who would embellish his social and domestic life while still essentially allowing him his privacy. A woma
n content to enjoy the lifestyle he could give her and make no further demands of him. He decided that as long as the controversial subjects of fidelity or romance were kept off the menu he could face the prospect of marriage for Mariska’s sake. He had become very fond of the little girl.

  Emerging from that lengthy and very sobering thought process, Angelo checked his watch and made one of the lightning-fast decisions that he was famous for. After a working lunch to make up for his non-participation in the meeting, he would meet Flora Bennett at the houseboat and tie up the loose ends between them before she left Amsterdam and returned to England. It was the rational thing to do and he was not being influenced by his attraction to her, he assured himself with considerable satisfaction. He was far too level-headed to stray into such hazardous territory with a woman of dubious morals.

  Around the same time as Angelo was travelling from his head office in Rotterdam back to Amsterdam, Flora was literally reeling out of the public building where she had met with Mariska’s social work team: she was in deep shock from what she had learned during that encounter.

  Shock that she’d had not the slightest idea of what really had gone on in Willem and Julie’s lives, shock that Julie had managed to convince her during their weekly phone calls that they were leading a perfectly ordinary life when, in fact, the very opposite was true. Indeed, both Willem and her sister had resorted to petty crime in an effort to satisfy their addiction to drugs. Her half-sister and her husband had been thieves and drug addicts. Hopelessly addicted, so that despite all pleas and offers of counselling that had been offered to them they had continued on their dogged path to self-destruction. Indeed Willem and Julie had been high when Willem had crashed their car and then he and his wife had died. Flora remained amazed by the stroke of fate that had kept Mariska alive.