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