‘You are so beautiful. I’ve wanted you for so long.’

‘If you did you hid it well from me,’ she pointed out helplessly.

‘I’ve surrendered … I can’t hide it any more.’

Flora’s mouth ran dry. Clad in silk boxers that defined more than they concealed, Angelo was an intimidating sight for a woman who was still a virgin. Of course that was not a truth that she was eager to brandish. Her lack of experience was more an accident of fate than a deliberate choice, for she had not got close enough to consider intimacy with anyone since her engagement had been broken off three years earlier.

‘I’m not beautiful,’ she told him almost defiantly, unwilling to trust him or any man.

Angelo suddenly smiled, and his lean dark face lit up with a brilliance that made her heartbeat pick up speed as he came down beside her on the bed. ‘I think you are, and I’m only interested in my own opinion.’[satish]

SECRETLY PREGNANT

With this ring, I claim my baby!

The amazing new trilogy

by best-selling Modern™ author

Lynne Graham

The charming and pretty English village of Charlbury St Helens is home to three young women whose Cinderella lives are about to be turned upside down … by three of the wealthiest, most handsome and impossibly arrogant men in Europe!

Jemima, Flora and Jess aren’t looking for love, but all have babies very much in mind. Jemima already has a young son, Flora is hoping to adopt her late half-sister’s little daughter, and Jess just longs to be a mum.

But whether they have or want a baby, all the girls must marry ultimate alpha males to keep their dreams … And Alejandro, Angelo and Cesario are not about to be tamed!

SECRETLY PREGNANT

NAÏVE BRIDE, DEFIANT WIFE:

Jemima and Alejandro’s story

FLORA’S DEFIANCE:

Flora and Angelo’s story

JESS’S PROMISE:

Jess and Cesario’s story

FLORA’S

DEFIANCE

LYNNE GRAHAM

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

ANGELO VAN ZAAL studied the nine-month-old child that the nurse had brought to him. The little girl was golden-haired with the wide, pansy-blue eyes of a china doll, and the minute she saw him she smiled in happy recognition. The innocence of that trusting smile cut Angelo as sharply as a knife, for few children could have been subjected to a tougher start in life than little Mariska. Only a dark bruise and a scratch on one cheek bore witness to the fact that she had been miraculously thrown clear in her special car seat from the accident in which both of her parents had died.

‘I understand that you are not related by blood to Mariska,’ the female doctor by his side remarked.

‘Her father, Willem, was my stepbrother, but I thought of him as my brother and I treated him as such,’ Angelo stated with the clarity for which he was famed in the business world. ‘I consider Mariska to be part of my family and I’m keen to adopt her.’

‘The social worker in charge of her case did mention that you have been involved in Mariska’s life since she was born—’

‘I did what I could to support Willem and his wife, Julie. I only wish it had been enough,’ he imparted with a wry twist of his mouth, as he knew that the medical staff would be well aware of the state in which Mariska’s parents had been at the time of the crash. He was merely grateful that the sordid truth had not appeared in the newspapers.

Angelo van Zaal was an extraordinarily handsome man, the doctor reflected with an appreciative glance. He was also extremely wealthy, the bearer of a name famous for its benevolence in the field of philanthropy. Nevertheless, the steel magnate was equally well known for his ruthless cutting edge and success as a businessman. According to the press, a procession of international fashion models entertained him outside working hours. In looks, he had inherited his Spanish mother’s black hair and darker skin tone rather than his Dutch father’s fair colouring. But his eyes were a bright burning blue, as lucid as a flawless sapphire and enhanced by a frame of lush ebony lashes that gave his gaze spectacular impact. Tall, at several inches over six feet, and well built, he had attracted a good deal of notice from female staff and patients alike as they walked through the hospital to the children’s ward. He was also, as far as the doctor was aware, still a single man.

‘The hospital has had several enquiries about Mariska’s welfare from her aunt, Flora Bennett. I understand that she is Julie’s older sister.’

Angelo’s superb bone structure took on a forbidding aspect. At the same time, he had a mental flash of eyes the colour of emeralds, skin as impossibly white as milk and the sort of lush full pink mouth that could plunge a man into an erotic daydream. Flora was a tall, feisty redhead with the kind of sensual appeal that would have entrapped a less wary and experienced male. As he had on previous occasions, Angelo crushed that provocative thought and shook himself free of it in exasperation. ‘A half-sister,’ he pronounced quietly. ‘She and Julie had the same father.’

Angelo could have said a great deal more but he compressed his lips, reluctant to voice his hostility towards the other side of Mariska’s family because that was a private matter. He’d had the then pregnant Englishwoman Julie Bennett and her connections investigated when Willem had decided to marry her, and his strong reservations about Julie had proved prophetic.

Had it not been for Julie’s inclinations, Angelo was convinced that Willem would still be alive and, from what he had learned about Julie’s elder sister at the same time, she was not to be trusted either. The same investigation had revealed that lurid scandal laced Flora’s background; some years earlier she had used sleazy tactics in an attempt to advance and enrich herself in the workplace. While Flora was considerably more memorable in looks and personality than her rather more ordinary sister, she was an already proven gold-digger and Angelo knew he would go to any lengths to ensure that Willem’s daughter, Mariska, was protected from her influence. Mariska would, after all, inherit her father’s trust fund. As Willem had died before he’d reached the age where he could gain access to the money, his daughter would some day be a rich young woman.

Indeed, if Angelo had anything to do with the matter, Mariska would lead a very different life from that of either of her feckless parents. His wide sensual mouth hardened. He might have failed to rescue Willem from his demons, but doing the very best he could for his stepbrother’s daughter would help him to sleep a little more peacefully at night.

The doctor cleared her throat as Mariska lay in Angelo’s arms; he had been granted temporary custody of the child. ‘Have you any plans to marry?’ she enquired, unable to stifle her curiosity on that score.

Brilliant blue eyes flew straight to her blushing face. Angelo was too much of a player to reveal his thoughts but tension held him fast. ‘It is possible,’ he responded. ‘Where this little girl is concerned, I still have much to think through.’

His acknowledgement that there might be some grounds for concern over his suitability as a single parent made the doctor give him an approving appraisal. Someone had once called Angelo van Zaal chilly but, although she would never have called him an emotional personality, he was innately practical and reliable. Many men would have shrugged off the problems of so troublesome a set of relatives, but Angelo had stood his ground and done what he could to help until the inevitable tragic end was reached. In the doctor’s book, that not only made him a force to be reckoned with but also a very suitable guardian for a vulnerable child.

Flora sat rigid-backed in the taxi that had collected her from her flight into Schipol airport. Every step of her journey to Amsterdam had been organised without any input from her and, although those arrangements had made the trip easier for her, she was not only ungrateful for that assistance, but also as tense as a bowstring.

At five feet eleven inches tall, she was a long-limbed coltish beauty with slender curves in elegant keeping with her height and graceful carriage. But Flora had never seen herself in that favourable light because from an early age she had been made to feel excessively large and gawky beside her dainty, diminutive mother who had often bemoaned her daughter’s size.

Her thick auburn hair, which when loose fell well past her shoulders since she had decided to grow it again, was tied back with a black ribbon at her nape. Her apple-green eyes shone clear against her flawless skin, but the swollen reddened state of her eyelids betrayed the physical signs of her grief.

The knowledge that she would soon have to thank Angelo van Zaal for arranging her trip to Amsterdam for the double funeral made Flora grimace. She loathed him: he was such a controlling seven-letter-word of a man! His word was law within his family circle, at his offices and even beyond those boundaries, for such wealth as his carried considerable power and influence in every sphere. Flora, of course, had never liked being told what to do. She had learned to put up with it when she was an employee. She had also learned to keep her temper around bossy guests at her guest house, to nod and smile and let their arrogance wash off her again like a light rain shower.

But Angelo van Zaal could put Flora’s back up without even trying. He had not even had the courtesy to phone her personally when her sister and his stepbrother had died within hours of crashing their car, she reflected bitterly. Instead he had instructed his family lawyer to ring and break the news for him. It was a dispassionate decision that was typical of his determination to keep her at arms length from events, thereby underlining his own authority and the absence of a true familial connection between them.

But if she was honest—and Flora always liked to be honest with herself—her primary objection to Angelo van Zaal was that, at first glance, he had turned her head as easily as if she were a dizzy adolescent. Even though eighteen months had passed since that debilitating first encounter, her cheeks could still burn at the mere memory of the effect he had on her—in spite of the fact that a man like Angelo van Zaal would never give her so much as a second glance.

Angelo was undeniably drop-dead gorgeous and Flora found it a terrible challenge not to stare at him and just float off into fantasy land. He flustered her and made her blush and stammer and, no matter how hard she tried to suppress her responses, she was already on the edge of her seat with anticipation at just the thought of seeing him again. There was no rhyme or reason to sexual attraction, she reminded herself impatiently. But all the same it exasperated her that even after her past unhappy experiences with men she could still succumb to a meaningless physical reaction. In truth, she was convinced that if sexual weakness could be inborn she had undoubtedly inherited that dangerous flaw from her womanising father. The acknowledgement that she could be drawn to someone she didn’t even like shocked and affronted her, but she would have chewed off her own arm sooner than give Angelo van Zaal reason to suspect her weakness for him.

Furthermore, Angelo was severely underestimating her if he imagined that she might be willing to stand back and just allow him to claim full custody of her niece. Flora was ready to fight for the right to take Mariska back to England with her so that she could raise Julie’s child as her daughter. Why should Angelo automatically assume that he would make the most appropriate guardian for a baby girl?

After all, Flora owned a comfortable detached house with a garden in the English village of Charlbury St Helens and was in a position to offer her niece her care and attention. At present, Flora, who also had a childcare qualification, ran a successful bed and breakfast business from her home. But, if need be, she could stop taking in paying guests until Mariska was of an age to attend school. Financially she could handle that temporary sacrifice of earnings because she had a good deal of money sitting untouched in the bank. She might not like to think about where that money had come from and what she’d had to go through to get it, but the very fact of its existence surely had to improve her chances of being considered a suitable adoptive parent.

As Flora detached herself from the disturbing memories of the very different life she had led as a city career woman before she’d settled into her former great-aunt’s home in the village, she was painfully conscious of the ache of loss in her heart. Julie was gone and, sadly, Flora had seen all too little of her vivacious younger sister since she’d moved to the Netherlands. She had only seen Willem and Julie when they’d come over to the UK. Only once had Flora contrived to visit them in Amsterdam, for Willem and Julie had led very busy lives and it had quickly become apparent to her that they’d preferred to be guests rather than hosts.

Yet once upon a time Flora and the sibling five years her junior had been very close, although nobody who’d known the background from which both young women had come would ever have forecast that development. Flora had grown up as an only child in an unhappy marriage. Her father had been a chronic womaniser and she had few childhood memories that did not include a background of raised voices and the sound of her mother sobbing. Her emotionally fragile parent had often intimated that she would leave her unfaithful husband if only she could afford to do so, a lament that had ensured that her daughter set out to gain the highest possible educational qualifications in the hope of ensuring that she never had to rely on a man to keep a roof over her head.

Flora’s parents had finally divorced while she’d been at university and she had then withstood the shock discovery that her father already had a second family, living only a few streets away from her childhood home! Evidently he had carried on an affair with Julie’s mother, Sarah, almost from the outset of his marriage to Flora’s mother. Her father had married Sarah straight after the divorce and there had been a huge family row when he’d insisted on introducing his daughters to each other. Even when that second marriage had also broken down in a welter of accusations of infidelity, Flora and Julie had stayed in touch, and when Julie’s mother had died and Julie started college she’d moved into Flora’s apartment in London. During the following two years, which had encompassed a period of great upheaval and unhappiness for Flora at work and in her personal life, the sisters had become close.

Flora’s eyes swam with tears while she allowed herself to picture her late sister as she had last seen her. A small pretty blonde, Julie had been bubbly and chatty. Within months of meeting Willem, who had spent his gap year working in London, Julie had decided to abandon her studies so that she could live on a houseboat in Amsterdam with the handsome young Dutchman. Rejecting all Flora’s cautious advice to the contrary, Julie had put love first with the wholehearted determination of the very young. Within weeks she had announced her pregnancy and soon afterwards a rather hasty marriage had taken place.

Angelo van Zaal had paid for the civil wedding and the small reception that had been held in London. Flora had only met him for the first time that day and, already warned what to expect from him by her sister, she had not been impressed by his chilly disapproval.

‘I’m too common for Angelo’s taste, not well enough educated and too cheeky for a woman,’ Julie had told her with a scornful toss of her pretty blonde head. ‘Catch me standing saying, “Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir” like Willem does! Willem is terrified of him because he’s never managed to measure up to Angelo’s expectations.’

And to be fair to Angelo van Zaal, he had made no attempt to pretend that he approved of her sister’s relationship with his stepbrother. ‘They’re far too young and immature to be parents. This is a disaster,’ he had pronounced with grim insensitivity after the ceremony, staring down at Flora with cold-as-ice blue eyes.

‘It’s a little late now,’ Flora had countered, being of a naturally more optimistic bent, while marvelling at the unearthly beauty and unusual hue of those eyes of his. ‘They do love each other and, thank goodness, they’ll have Willem’s trust fund to help them along—’

Angelo’s lean bronzed face had frozen. ‘Where did you get that idea from? Willem won’t come into his trust fund for another three years.’

Flora had felt her face flood with mortified colour and wished she had kept her mouth shut. Was it wrong of her to have assumed that early access to the bridegroom’s nest egg would provide much-needed help to the young couple in setting up their first home? The disdain on Angelo’s handsome face had warned her that, as far as he was concerned, she had grossly overstepped her boundaries in referring to Willem’s future prospects.

‘I understand that they’re both hoping that in the circumstances—Julie expecting their first child,’ Flora had extended uncomfortably, ‘they can challenge the provisions of the fund—’

‘It would be insanity. I will not allow it,’ Angelo had decreed in a tone of sardonic finality as though his opinion was the only one that counted. ‘Willem and his wife will have to work for a living. Clearly that was not your sister’s plan.’

Flora had bridled at the insinuation that her sister might have married Willem in the hope of sharing his handsome trust fund. ‘Of course Julie is willing to get a job.’

‘She’s not qualified to do anything other than the most menial work,’ Angelo had pointed out drily. ‘And Willem will have to complete his business degree before he can aspire to a well-paid career.’

Ultimately the trust fund had been kept safe but what Flora had most feared from the outset had come to pass instead: Willem had dropped out of university to seek employment when Julie had become too sick to work during her pregnancy. Flora had blamed Angelo van Zaal entirely for that development, believing that as one of the trustees for the fund he had probably still patted himself on the back for having kept that precious money intact. She was not at all surprised that the steel billionaire had put the conservation of cash ahead of family concern and kindness.

The taxi waited for her while she checked into her hotel and then whisked her on to the funeral home. By the time she arrived there she was truly dreading her approaching encounter with Angelo van Zaal. There was a large gathering of mourners, many of them young people. But in spite of the crowd the only person Flora was really aware of strode across the room towards her and his very presence in the same airspace made her light up inside like a secret firework display. Her spine rigid with shame and denial, she blanked him out as though he weren’t there, evading any form of eye contact while warm colour began to infiltrate her pallor.

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 part-time 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 woman 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.

Although every attempt had been made to shield Angelo’s privacy it had slowly become abundantly clear to Flora that Willem’s stepbrother had been heavily involved from the outset in all attempts to persuade the young couple to enter a rehabilitation programme. He had also done everything that he could to protect his stepbrother’s child from harm.

In recent months, Mariska had virtually never been left to rely on parental care alone. Either she had been in day care or in her nanny’s care, and when Willem and Julie had partied and Anke had deemed her charge to be at risk she had taken Mariska to Angelo’s home. Yet, even with all those safeguards in place, Flora’s niece could still easily have been killed along with her parents when Julie had chosen to take her daughter out of day care early one afternoon without telling anyone and had got into Willem’s car with her. Mariska’s very survival was a small miracle.

A stiff late spring breeze gusted down the street of tall, narrow and highly ornamental buildings that bordered the canal Flora was walking alongside and her tears chilled on her cheeks. She stepped hurriedly out of the way of a cyclist riding past and sucked in a steadying breath while she paused to consult the map she had bought to help her negotiate the maze of streets.

It was an effort to think straight while she was being eaten alive by a great burst of angry resentment and regret. But her half-sister was gone and nothing could bring Julie back. Yet on whose say-so had Flora been excluded from knowing about and trying to help the young couple? Flora had a very strong suspicion about the identity of that culprit. While the social workers had been bound by rules of confidentiality, only Angelo van Zaal would have dared to leave Julie’s one close relative in ignorance of her plight.

When she’d first moved to Amsterdam, Julie had sent her sister loads of photos, so now Flora had little difficulty picking out the bright blue-and-white-painted houseboat from the others moored on a quiet stretch of water overlooked by a picturesque terrace of gabled houses. After all, she had a framed sunlit picture of that same evocative scene sitting in her home. She stepped onto the deck and as she did so the door of the cabin opened, framing the tall black-haired male whose inexcusable silence over the past year had stoked her umbrage.

For an instant, Flora froze, her wide green eyes locking onto Angelo van Zaal. He looked strikingly elegant if out of place in his formality in a dark grey business suit and silk tie. The suit had the exclusive fit of a tailored designer garment, framing wide strong masculine shoulders and hugging lean hips and long muscular thighs. As he stepped outside the breeze ruffled his luxuriant black hair above his lean, darkly handsome features. The sheer impact of his physical charisma hit her like a sudden blow to the head, leaving her dizzy. She collided with sapphire-blue eyes and her tummy shimmied like a jelly while her breath feathered in her throat.

‘What on earth are you doing here? ‘ she demanded tautly.

‘This seemed to be an opportune time and place to talk to you.’

‘It’s a little late for that now, isn’t it? ‘ Green eyes flashing as emerald as jewels in sunlight, Flora stalked past his tall still figure into the saloon of the houseboat. The spacious interior had a bare look, for all the surfaces were clear and a stack of cardboard boxes spread out from one corner. ‘In fact I would say that talk of any kind between us now would be a waste of your valuable time.’

Unaccustomed to such a bold unapologetic attack, and with his handsome mouth in a sardonic line, Angelo studied her. Colourful copper-coloured hair falling in a lavish windblown cloud round her shoulders, Flora wore a short black trench coat, jeans and a green sweater, and even in that casual garb she looked amazing, he acknowledged with distinct reluctance. She had the transparent alabaster skin of the true redhead and soft pink self-conscious colour defined her cheekbones while he studied her, quietly marvelling at the amount of emotion she contrived to emanate even when she was silent. Trembling with the force of her fury, Flora undid her coat, dropped it down on a seat and spun back to face him.

‘How could you not tell me what was going on here?’ she demanded in ringing reproach. ‘Willem and Julie were my family as well. At the very least I had a right to know that Julie was taking drugs!’

‘She was an adult of twenty-one, Flora. She made her own choice, which was that under no circumstances were you to be told about their problems.’

Flora lifted her chin in challenge. ‘Meaning?’

‘Exactly what I said. I did speak to her and I know for a fact that her social worker urged her to confide in you, but your sister didn’t want you to know that she had got caught up in drugs and I was not in a position to go against her wishes.’

‘I don’t believe that.’ Flora dealt him a furious unimpressed look, convinced that he was simply trying to palm her off with excuses. ‘You always do as you like, Angelo. You’re a strong man. You’re no one’s whipping boy!’

‘Believe me when I tell you that it was a huge struggle to keep the communication lines between me and Willem and Julie open. Their lifestyle was abhorrent to me but for their daughter’s sake it was imperative that I still retained access to them,’ Angelo retorted grimly. ‘Had I gone against your sister’s wishes they would no longer have trusted me and Mariska would have suffered …’

‘So you got involved and I was left on the outside, kept in ignorance of what was happening in Willem and Julie’s lives until it was too late,’ Flora condemned with unconcealed bitterness.

‘I made Mariska’s needs my priority,’ Angelo countered without apology. ‘I did the best I could in a very difficult situation.’

‘Well, the best you could wasn’t good enough, was it? ‘ Flora threw at him fierily, her temper rising again like steam inside a kettle as the sheer awfulness of what she had learned that morning bit into her like painful claws on tender flesh. ‘Less than a year after Mariska’s birth, your stepbrother and my sister are both dead and their child is an orphan!’

His superb bone structure rigid, Angelo surveyed her with cool ice-blue, astonishingly clear eyes set above the smooth olive planes of his handsome face. His eyes had the shockingly vivid clarity of a glacier lake she had once seen in the Alps, she thought absently. It struck her that so far nothing she had said had moved him in the slightest and his rigorous self-control seemed to mock her emotional state.

‘Willem and Julie were a fatal combination,’ Angelo murmured in a tone of flat finality. ‘Willem was weak and troubled, and before they even met Julie was a habitual drug user.’

As the ramifications of that accusation sank in, shocking Flora all over again, she released a jagged laugh of disbelief. ‘How dare you try to blame Julie for what happened to them? How dare you insinuate that she was the prime instigator?’

‘I am telling you what I know to be the truth. I have no desire to malign your memory of your sister.’

Flora shot him an enraged glance, green eyes luminous as green glass on the seashore. ‘Then don’t do it.’

‘I did not hurl the first stone,’ Angelo countered levelly, his attention wandering to the way the fine wool sweater lovingly moulded the small pouting curves of her breasts and defined the slight bump of her prominent nipples. He suspected that she wasn’t wearing a bra and the full taut sensation of heaviness at his groin increased as he imagined peeling off that sweater. It took enormous self-discipline to wrench his mind back from that erotic reverie and her ability to distract him without even trying to do so infuriated him.

‘You could have told me that Willem and Julie had got involved in drugs! ‘ Flora slung at him in a seething undertone, her eyes bright with antagonism and accusation. The growing tension in the atmosphere only put her more on edge. ‘And you could have told me that I had to conceal where I got that information from.’

‘As I’ve already said, when I was unable to persuade either Willem or his wife to stop using drugs or even to enter counselling, my main goal was to protect Mariska from their excesses.’

Flora snatched in an audible breath in an effort to calm her teeming emotions down to a more controllable level. She folded her arms tightly and crossed the floor, her slender spine stiff as a pencil. The dreadful compulsion to stare at him had her in its hold, though, for when she looked once she always had to look back at him again and admire his amazing bone structure, dazzling eyes and tall, powerful physique. That he could stun her even in the midst of a bitter argument outraged her sense of what was decent. In measured rejection she fixed her eyes on the view of the quiet canal beyond the window. ‘It’s so unfair that you’re trying to foist the blame on Julie.’

‘I am not trying to do that,’ Angelo rebutted, his attention jerking away from the snug fit of her jeans over her heart-shaped derrière, for his imagination had really not required that added stimulus in her radius. His susceptibility to her every move around him galled him and gave him a disturbingly unfamiliar sense of being out of control. ‘But I must be honest with you, even if you find that honesty offensive.’

‘It is deeply offensive that you should accuse my sister of having been an habitual substance abuser,’ Flora pointed out thinly, turning back to him for emphasis while her tongue slid out to moisten the dry curve of her lower lip.

‘Even if I know that to be true?’ Instantly engaged in picturing the effect of that small pink tongue tip on a highly sensitive part of his own anatomy, Angelo surveyed the sultry raspberry-tinted fullness of her mouth with driven concentration. She was making him feel ridiculously like a sex-starved adolescent boy and his hands clenched into defensive fists by his side.

‘How could you possibly know such a thing to be true?’ Flora flung in angry, scornful dismissal of that claim. She clashed head-on with his electrifyingly blue eyes, which might as well have been lit by tiny blue flames for she had the sensation of heat dancing over her entire skin surface. She flushed and her nipples tingled almost painfully while a scratchy sensation of warmth and awareness settled between her legs. In an uneasy movement, she shifted position off one foot on to the other.

‘I know because I had Julie privately investigated before she married Willem,’ Angelo admitted with unapologetic gravity. ‘As a student in London your sister was running with a druggie crowd and regularly took ecstasy and cocaine. Even though she was pregnant she brought those habits to Amsterdam with her and it wasn’t long before my stepbrother joined her and the two of them began to experiment with heroin.’

As Angelo spoke Flora had fallen very still and her eyes were very wide and dark with dismay. ‘You had Julie investigated? There must be some mistake?’

‘There was no mistake,’ Angelo told her steadily, noticing how pale she had become, noting too how that pallor merely accentuated her bright copper hair and lustrous green eyes. Even her prickly argumentative nature could not detract from her considerable appeal. ‘The report was done by a reputable firm and it was very detailed. I’m afraid that even as a teenager your sister was a heavy user of recreational drugs—’

‘It’s not possible. When Julie was a student, she was living with me,’ Flora confided, and her voice slowly trailed away as she took that thought to its natural conclusion and looked back in time, a sinking sensation forming in the pit of her stomach.

Unfortunately, Julie had moved into Flora’s flat and started college during what was a very fraught period in her older sister’s life. Flora had had to put in very long hours at work while being harassed by a bullying boss. She had also been struggling to keep a demanding fiancé happy and she had not been able to give her half-sister the time and attention that she would have liked. Even so, she valued her memories of their time together back then and had seen nothing in Julie’s behaviour that might have suggested that there was anything seriously amiss in her life. Certainly Julie had enjoyed a very active social calendar, but then so did most students, Flora reasoned ruefully. She did recall the very late hours the younger woman had kept and Flora, who’d had to be at work early, had usually been asleep by the time her sister came home. Julie had also been very prone to changeable moods and staying in bed all day at weekends, but that kind of behaviour could surely be ascribed to many teenagers?

‘If Julie took drugs in those days, and I’m not sure I can accept that that could be true,’ Flora breathed abruptly and without warning discovered that her eyes were prickling with tears, ‘I hadn’t the slightest idea of what she was up to.’

Angelo, who had a conscience as tough as the steel his factories manufactured, saw moisture shimmer in her beautiful green eyes and he closed the distance between them without even being aware of a prompting to do so. Bare inches away from her, he faltered to a halt and hovered, suddenly uncharacteristically uncertain of what to do next because he was a man who had always walked the other way or turned a blind eye when women got upset. But he stared down into her tear-wet face and in an action that felt ridiculously natural to him, but which was actually not at all his style, he reached for both her hands to hold them firmly within his.

‘Don’t cry,’ he told her urgently. ‘Don’t blame yourself for this fiasco. Many well-intentioned and experienced professionals tried and failed to help Willem and Julie. Sometimes no matter what you do you can’t change things. What happened to them is in no way your fault.’

And Flora recognised his sincerity and finally accepted that the sad tale he was telling her was indeed the truth as he knew it. Guilt cut through her, though, like a knife as her first thought was that she had failed her sister when Julie had needed her most. While they’d been living together, she should have realised that Julie had problems and watched over her more closely. She should have refused to accept the seemingly little white lies and excuses that, even then, she had suspected her sibling was prone to hiding behind and probed more deeply, asking the awkward prying questions that she had swallowed back for the sake of peace. In those days, Flora had been afraid to tax their new sibling bond by acting too much like a pseudo-parental figure. And tragically that dangerous desire to be liked and to seem younger and more hip had evidently ensured that Julie had been free to take the first fatal steps towards becoming a drug addict.

‘Julie had such a h-horrible childhood!’ Flora stammered chokily, unable to silence the words brimming to her lips in her need to defend her late sister from the bad opinion he must have formed of her. ‘She used to see my father out shopping in town with Mum and I and she had to pretend she didn’t know him, even though he was her father as well. His affair with her mother, Sarah, was a big secret and it meant that for years and years while Julie was growing up she had to live a lie. That background left scars, of course it did. She lived to be noticed, she craved love and attention—’

‘It’s not your fault, querida. You were not her mother. You had no control over her. What, realistically, could you have done to change anything?’ Angelo replied soothingly, his dark deep drawl fracturing as he stared down into her tear-bright green eyes.

That close to his lean, powerful body, Flora could smell the distinctive scent of his skin, an intoxicating mixture of citrus overlaying husky male, and as she drank in that aroma it made her tremble. A little inner voice whispered caution, warned her to step back and keep her distance from him, but her feet might as well have been nailed to the floor. She could feel herself beginning to lean forward, her attention locked to those unforgettable features of his, memorising the high line of his patrician cheekbones, the stubborn strength of his jaw and the arrogant jut of his classic nose. He drew her like a rock in a violent storm at sea.

He bent his proud dark head and parted her lips with his wide sensual mouth and it was as if she had been waiting all her life for that one kiss as it ran through her like a depth charge and struck deep in a sensual and potent explosion. Her hands flew up and clenched into his wide strong shoulders. It couldn’t be him, she thought momentarily in wonderment, it couldn’t possibly be Angelo van Zaal who was making her feel as though she were racing with her heart pounding on a wild roller-coaster ride. The pall of apprehensive isolation and loss that had dogged her since she had flown out to Amsterdam was suddenly banished.

One kiss led straight into the next and her fingers dug into his jacket for support to keep herself upright. Shaking, she felt a shudder rack his big powerful body against hers and she exulted in the hand he closed to her hip to press her into provocative contact with the hard swell of his erection. Something that had turned her off other men turned her on with him. The very knowledge that she aroused him went to Flora’s head and because of what had happened in the past she gloried in that intoxicating proof of his masculine response to her. She was dizzy, exchanging feverish kisses while the passion exploded through her like a shot of brandy on an icy day. Heat sizzled through her veins and pooled low in her tummy. She discovered that she couldn’t make herself let him go for long enough to catch her breath.

‘You’re wearing far too many clothes,’ Angelo said thickly.

Flora looked up at him, revelling in the temperamental glimmer of stormy blue visible below his dense black lashes. She was amazed by the discovery that he was not one half as calm, cool and controlled as she had always believed. There was a wild hunger in that appraisal that gripped her imagination like a key to a locked door, promising her a glimpse of the unknown. Angelo was gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous, but until that heady moment of recognition he had always been a closed and forbidding book to her. Just then seeing him look at her as though she were the most desirable woman alive was balm to a self-esteem that had once been battered to pulp when the man she loved rejected her.

Her fingers slid from his shoulder down onto his shirt front, spreading starfish fashion on the muscular heat of his powerful chest. With a gruff sound in his throat his mouth swooped down on hers again with a dominant force that sent a primitive shiver of delight darting through her slender length. He pulled her back against him and eased a hand below her sweater to cup a small pouting mound topped by a swollen pink nipple. A gasp parted her lips below the marauding pressure of his mouth and his tongue darted deep in the moist interior. The effect of that driving passionate kiss, added to the effects of the blunt masculine fingers toying with the peaks of her breasts was more than she could bear and she sagged against him, her legs refusing to hold her up.

‘Come here, querida mia,’ Angelo growled, hauling her up into his arms without further ado and kissing her with passionate fervour.

CHAPTER THREE

THIRTY seconds later, Flora’s lashes lifted. She was lying on a bed in a compact cabin. Her sweater had gone and, mortified by the sight of her bared breasts, she raised herself on her elbows ready to call time on the extraordinary event that was unfolding when she focused on Angelo.

He had already shed jacket and tie and his shirt hung open on a bronzed hair-roughened torso and the flat corrugated planes of his stomach. He looked amazing, every inch a male pin-up worthy of a centrefold. The oxygen Flora needed just vanished from her lungs without warning.

‘How did this happen? We shouldn’t be doing this …’ she gasped breathlessly, suddenly thinking about the sister she had lost and mentally squirming away from that painful reminder to take refuge in the present again.

’Dios mio … don’t ask me to stop, querida,’ Angelo urged, blue eyes electrifyingly hot and hungry as they collided head-on with hers. ‘I’ve never wanted any woman as much as I want you at this moment.’

Cheeks burning with self-consciousness, Flora hunched her shoulders and crossed her hands over her naked chest, embarrassed by the insubstantial size of her womanly curves, while her bemused thoughts were already replaying what he had just said. It shook her how good she felt being Angelo’s object of desire and how much she liked the fact that he was unzipping his wellcut trousers with more haste than cool while seemingly unable to drag his gaze from her where she lay on the bed. In truth, she acknowledged in an instant of pure insight, any form of human contact and comfort eased the terrible bleak pain of the realization that she would never see her little sister again.

‘You are so beautiful,’ Angelo murmured in a dark deep voice that had a wonderfully distracting effect on her because she was desperate to avoid the desolate thoughts hovering on the horizon of her mind. ‘I’ve wanted you for so long.’

‘If you did you hid it well from me,’ she pointed out helplessly.

‘I’ve surrendered … I can’t hide it any more.’ Angelo stepped clear of the trousers and her mouth ran dry. Clad in silk boxers that defined more than they concealed, Angelo was an intimidating sight for a woman who was still a virgin. Of course that was not a truth that Flora was eager to brandish. Her lack of experience was more an accident of fate than a deliberate choice, for she had not got close enough to consider intimacy with anyone since her engagement had been broken off three years earlier.

‘I’m not beautiful,’ she told him almost defiantly, unwilling to trust him or any man.

Angelo suddenly smiled and his lean dark face lit up with a brilliance that made her heartbeat pick up speed as he came down beside her on the bed. ‘I think you are and I’m only interested in my own opinion.’

When he smiled she felt as if she could fly, but Flora had no time for such fanciful thoughts and she was bone-deep stubborn, shrugging off the way he could make her feel to add in a tone of distinct challenge, ‘I’m much too tall for a woman—’

‘I’m tall and you’re the perfect size for me,’ Angelo countered, undaunted by her comeback as he joined her with predatory grace.

Men had always tended to find Flora too bluntly spoken for comfort but Angelo appeared to take that candour very much in his stride. He captured her hands in his so that she could no longer hide her body from him.

For a timeless moment she lay there while he caressed her wrists with his thumbs, his attention hotly pinned to the stiff crests of her prominent nipples. ‘You have very pretty breasts,’ he husked, intense blue eyes embellished by lush black lashes.

Embarrassment claimed her. She could not be comfortable lying there half naked in broad daylight. She shut her eyes tight and wondered what insanity had come over her and then he kissed her again and the insanity came back with a vengeance, blurring all rational thought and inhibition. Nothing had ever felt so sweet or so necessary to her as his mouth. His tongue plunged into the tender responsive interior of her mouth and lit her up inside like a fire. She had not known that much pleasure could exist in mere kissing.

Her hands sank into his black hair as he nibbled down the cord of her slender neck and began to centre his attentions on her swollen sensitive breasts. His tongue lashed over the tender tips before the graze of his teeth on her delicate flesh made her cry out and tremble while the burn of excitement travelled straight to the moist heat gathering at the heart of her body. He pressed the heel of his hand against the apex of her thighs and she writhed, helpless beneath that pleasure inflicted on the most sensitive part of her. She felt the zip give on her jeans, her hands falling from him as he sat up to remove the garment.

‘This is crazy,’ she muttered jaggedly, ‘out of control.’

‘I’ve never been out of control in bed before. It’s exciting,’ Angelo confided, pushing up her face with an impatient hand to steal another explosive kiss.

And when his hard, hungry mouth was sealed to hers, nothing mattered and nothing else existed. He cupped the damp crotch of her knickers and then whisked them off to explore the slick wet folds between her thighs. She was hyper-sensitive there and she dug her hips into the mattress beneath her and little sounds escaped her lips without her volition. Teasing the delicate entrance, he rubbed the tiny bud where all her nerve-endings centred. Drenched in exquisite waves of pleasure beyond any she had ever experienced, she became ever more frantic. A sense of pressure was building in her tummy and a pulsing ache stirred between her legs, making her feel unbearably taut and needy.

Angelo slid between her thighs. She looked up at him with apprehensive green eyes, reacting to the probing feel of him against her most intimate place. He shifted and sank into her, stretching her hot tight channel with his girth and length. His hungry growl of pleasure masked her hastily swallowed huff of pain as he thrust past her resisting flesh and filled her to the hilt.

‘You’re so tight you feel incredible,’ Angelo groaned, blue eyes radiating deep sensual satisfaction as he gripped her hips in hard hands and moved slowly and erotically, acquainting her with the full extent of his power.

Instinct made her arch her spine and rise up as he withdrew and slammed back into her in a pagan rhythm that made her every sense sing. Her body wasn’t her own any more. Invaded and controlled by his driving urgency and her own need to answer its demands, she was overwhelmed by the thunderously exciting rise of pleasure. The pressure built and built to a nerve-racking high inside her. She squirmed and writhed in the last seconds before an explosive orgasm ripped through her trembling body like an earthquake, sending sweet shards of ecstatic pleasure shooting through every limb.

Afterwards she was drained and wrapped in a cocoon of exhaustion. He gazed down at her, blue eyes shimmering, and he kissed her again, slow and deep and hungry. Hungry? He was ready to do it again. She wasn’t and was taken aback by his energy. Animation was returning to her brain and suddenly she wanted a magic lamp to rub so that she could leap fully clothed onto the quay beyond the window and run away as fast as her cowardly legs could carry her. What was she doing? Oh, what had she done, what … had … she … done? Bewilderment and shame drenched her in a tidal wave of regret. Her arms were wrapped tightly round him and she whipped them off him at supersonic speed and jerked free of his embrace.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she told him shakily. ‘Places to go, people to see.’

Wincing at that airhead announcement even as it fell from her lips, Flora scrambled off the bed with a haste she couldn’t hide.

Startled by her abrupt flight from his arms, Angelo pushed himself up on his elbows and rested frowning dark blue eyes on her. ‘What’s up? ‘

Stark naked, wreathed in blushes and with not the smallest idea where the bathroom was, Flora hovered in horrible confusion. What’s up? she almost screeched back at him. Are you that insensitive that you think this situation, this appalling misstep, could possibly be acceptable?

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