Читать книгу An Obsessive Love - Sarah Holland - Страница 8

TTHE next morning, she was smartly dressed in a severe black tailored skirt suit, buttoned right up to the neck, with a small, elegant frill at the throat and discreet pearl ear-rings in her ears. As always, she wore her long red hair swept up into a cool chignon.

Xenia Valevsky lived in a beautiful white house in an exclusive London square. A butler answered the door on Natasha’s ring, and ushered her into a very formal drawing-room furnished entirely in French antiques.

Natasha had rarely seen such luxury outside a magazine. She came from an ordinary family—albeit with an extraordinary past.

She felt slightly out of place, therefore, sitting on an elegant yellow brocade sofa with little gold claw feet, while the sunlight shone in through the long windows on to fabulous, elegant antiques.

‘Ah!’ Countess Valevsky entered. ‘Miss Carne!’

Natasha looked up to see her heroine in the flesh, and she was awed for a second, staring at her with a radiant smile, for she was everything Natasha had always thought she would be.

Tall, slender, very elegant, the Countess wore a smart white skirt suit, very similar to Natasha’s, buttoned up to the neck, two strings of pearls across it, her dark hair swept up in an elegant chignon.

‘How wonderful to meet you at last!’ The Countess swept over to her as Natasha stood up, and held out her hands. ‘I’ve been dreaming how you would look, and I can hardly believe that you’re just as I pictured you.’

‘And you’re every bit as beautiful as your photographs, Countess.’

‘Do, please, call me Xenia.’ She moved past her to the blue and yellow brocade armchair. ‘I’ve asked Bowers to bring some tea. Did my son tell you about the research trip to St Petersburg?’

Natasha at once found herself enthusing over the prospect, and before long they were both swapping love-stories over St Petersburg, Imperial history, and Russia.

Bowers brought the tea on a silver trolley.

‘Just wait until you see Peterhof!’ Xenia was saying as she poured from the silver pot. ‘It’s the Russian equivalent of Versailles.’

‘I’ve seen photographs of it.’

‘And, you know, Peter the Great’s study is still there,’ Xenia informed her. ‘I’ve seen it. Actually stood in the same room that he did, when he made all those plans. What a marvellous tsar he was.’

They talked on and on, skipping from one topic of conversation to the next. They clearly had similar minds, similar personalities, similar interests.

Time slipped by unnoticed.

Xenia called for more tea.

They talked about the tragedy of the Romanovs, and Natasha was thrilled to discuss in detail the last months of the Tsar, his imprisonment first in Tsarskoe Selo, then in Tobolsk, and finally at the Impatiev house in Ekaterinburg, where the family were slain.

‘I can see you’re going to be my dream secretary.’ Xenia was as excited as Natasha. ‘I’ve always longed for a secretary who understood Russian history as you do.’

‘I’ve spent my whole life reading every book on Russian history I could lay my hands on,’ Natasha confessed with a smile.

‘Of course you have. With your ancestry.’

‘It’s mainly because I look so much like the Russian side of the family,’ Natasha told her. ‘I’m apparently the living image of my great-grandmother.’

‘She must have been very beautiful.’

Natasha laughed, thinking herself not very beautiful at all.

‘Dominic remarked on it, too,’ Xenia continued. ‘He said you were the most strikingly beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And very Russian.’

Her heart skipped a stupid beat. ‘Well…that was very kind of him.’

‘He’s always been irresistibly attracted to Russianlooking women. He was even in love with one, once. A ballerina, funnily enough. Kyra, her name was. I thought for some time that he would marry her.’

‘Do you think he’s the marrying kind?’ Natasha asked wryly, somehow doubting that a man like Dominic Thorne would ever settle down.

‘He’s thirty-seven now, and beginning to think of having a family. But it’s difficult for him, because he wants the woman to have Russian blood, or at least some Russian connection. And that’s not so easy——’

The doorbell rang softly in the marble hallway.

‘Who on earth can that be?’ Xenia frowned, looking at her elegant watch, then gasping, ‘Oh, no, I completely forgot! Dominic said he’d drop by for lunch!’

Natasha’s heart leapt violently, and a second later she heard his deep, dark, gorgeously masculine voice in the hall.

No fast-beating hearts, she thought angrily, struggling to control her responses. No blushing and no pulsesoar, and definitely no smiling at him like a besotted idiot.

Dominic Thorne isn’t interested in you, he never will be, and you’re not interested in him, either. You mustn’t be interested in him or you’ll do the same thing, all over again, that you did with Tony. Besotted, obsessed, fixated…and then people find out and you’re humiliated.

So ignore his stunning looks, his intellect, his dynamism, his sex appeal, his power and his Russian ancestry. Stop being romantic and start being a bit more level-headed.

‘I know!’ Xenia said. ‘Why don’t you stay for lunch, too?’

‘Oh, no, I really couldn’t.’

‘Why not? I’m sure Dominic would be delighted, and so would I.’

‘I have an appointment with my bank manager at two o’clock,’ Natasha remembered with relief.

‘Oh, what a shame that——’

The door opened and Dominic Thorne, a superb masculine presence, strode in, dominating the room at once with his height and power and air of effortless authority.

‘Still here?’ he drawled, smiling dazzlingly at Natasha, whose heart leapt like mad in response. ‘I take it you’ve got the job, then?’

‘Yes, I have.’ Natasha got to her feet, her face icily serene, determined not to let him know how devastatingly attractive she found him.

‘Good,’ he drawled. ‘I look forward to running into you frequently from now on.’

‘How kind.’ Natasha’s voice dripped ice.

He frowned, because of course she wasn’t even smiling at him, and he had given her the kind of smile that made her do back-somersaults inside.

There was a brief, tense pause.

‘Well!’ Xenia clapped her elegant hands together. ‘Shall we have a little champagne? To seal the bargain and welcome Natasha into the fold?’

‘Yes, why not?’ Dominic gave a hard smile, still frowning, and turned to walk to the door, opening it, drawling over one broad shoulder, ‘I’ll tell Bowers to set the table for three, shall I?’

‘No, I can’t stay for lunch,’ Natasha clipped out coolly. ‘I have a previous engagement.’

He paused in the doorway, eyes narrowing on her, aware of her sudden icy hostility and not understanding it, particularly after the passionate kiss she had given him yesterday when she left his office.

Then he went out, closing the door with an angry click.

Natasha relaxed, turning to her new employer. ‘When do we leave for St Petersburg? Where are we staying?’

‘We leave in a fortnight, and we’ll be staying at the Hotel Europe, right in the centre of the city.’

Dominic’s footsteps came clicking angrily back down the hall.

Natasha’s mouth went dry. ‘Is it a nice hotel?’

‘Ravishing. Malachite pillars, gilded mirrors, hot and cold running waiters…’

The door opened and Dominic strode in, hard-faced and holding a bottle of Bollinger, the neck smoking, three champagne flutes in his strong hand.

‘But Dominic will give you the details next week, won’t you, darling?’

‘Yes,’ he said tersely, putting the glasses down on the gold oak coffee-table and pouring champagne into each of them.

Xenia frowned at him, then at Natasha.

He handed Natasha her glass, his face tough. ‘I’ll drop in at your flat some time next week with the details. Meanwhile, I need you to fill out a form for the entry visa.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said coldly.

Straightening, he took the form from his inside jacket pocket, giving her a glimpse of that powerful chest, the taut stomach, and the dark grey silk lining of his jacket, the unmistakable black-silver label reading Gieves and Hawkes, No. 1, Savile Row.

Natasha took a pen from her handbag and sat down to fill the form out, marvelling at the excitement she felt on seeing all that Russian writing, so foreign, so romantic, so magical.

When she had finished, she glanced at her watch. ‘I’m afraid I really must dash.’

‘I’ll see you to the door,’ Dominic said curtly, and her pulses hammered as she tried to look cool, kissing Xenia goodbye, saying how much she was looking forward to beginning work with her in a fortnight, then, riddled with tension, walking out with Dominic right behind her.

He closed the drawing-room door.

Natasha increased her pace, hurrying to the front door.

‘Just a minute!’ Dominic bit out under his breath, catching up with her in three long strides, grabbing her arm, spinning her to face his blazing blue eyes. ‘What the hell is wrong with you? Why am I suddenly getting the ice-maiden stuff?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said tightly, stung by his choice of words and the memories of yesterday they brought back.

‘Don’t lie! Yesterday, you kissed me passionately, poured out your heart to me, then kissed me even more passionately. Today you’re ice from the neck down. No, from the eyebrows down—it’s even more noticeable looking into those eyes.’

‘Then don’t look into them, Mr Thorne!’

‘Mr Thorne?’ He laughed harshly. ‘Call me Dominic, or I’ll start to think you kiss every man you meet the way you kissed me!’

Her eyes flared angrily. ‘You know perfectly well I only did that because I was so upset!’

‘The first time—yes.’

Hot colour burnt her face as she remembered the passion with which she had surrendered to his kiss yesterday, the feel of that hard, commanding mouth on hers, the feel of his powerful body.

‘So what’s going on?’ he said thickly, lowering his head closer to hers. ‘Why are you suddenly so hostile?’

‘I’m not hostile.’

‘Natasha, you are not the woman I met yesterday.’

‘I could always produce my passport.’

‘Don’t be funny,’ he bit out, staring angrily into her eyes. ‘You know damned well what I mean.’

She raised her head, face tight with defensive anger. ‘Look—I’ve just accepted a job with your mother. It would hardly be appropriate for me to go around kissing her son every five minutes!’

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ he drawled with a sardonic smile. ‘I rather enjoyed your kisses yesterday, and I want to enjoy them again.’

Nothing he could have said could have frightened her more. It meant he planned to chase her, to kiss her, to whisper sweet nothings in her ears…

And that would do it, that would make her flip her tiny lid again, that would feed the obsession she already knew could develop for a man as gorgeous and unattainable as Dominic Thorne.

‘Well, you can’t!’ she said icily, and wrenched open the front door, her face a white mask of scorn and contempt. ‘Kindly keep your hands off me from now on, Mr Thorne. I am not interested!’

Turning, she strode away down the path, her face rigid with determination, but she was both shocked and hurt when he didn’t try to follow her, because of course she thought he was wonderful, gorgeous, dazzlingly attractive, and she wanted him.

Her hand shook as she unlocked her little blue sports car, slid behind the wheel of it, and drove away without looking back.

God help me, she thought, her heart still pounding with excitement and fear. I feel more attracted to him than to any man I’ve ever met—and that includes Tony the Swine Kerr.

Look how she had flipped her lid over Tony, and she had barely found him attractive at all in the beginning. He had just been so attentive, so charming, and so unattainable, that in the end she had fallen hook line and sinker for him.

Unattainable was the key word, of course. She had worshipped him like a teenage fan with her idol, and the fact that he had never made love to her had made her obsession worse.

But Dominic Thorne was even more unattainable…

He was everything she had yearned to meet in a man, and far too eligible to take notice of a boring little secretary like her.

Tall, strong, intelligent, sexy, dynamic, sensitive, charming, gorgeous—and with a romantic Russian background, just like hers. He could have been handmade for her by fate.

Yes, she thought grimly, handmade for me to fall for, because that’s what’ll happen if I don’t fight him. And before I know it, I’ll be feeding an obsessive love for him, just like I did for Tony.

Feeding it.

Like a secret plant, kept in the darkness of a hothouse, pouring water on it every hour, talking in hushhush whispers to it, words of love and desire making it grow and grow until it became a monster…

I must not let myself fall for Dominic Thorne, Natasha told herself fiercely.

I must not let that obsessive streak out, ever again.

I mustn’t even kiss him again.

Not ever.

He came to her flat ten days later.

She thought she was ready for him, because he had telephoned earlier to let her know he was on his way, and his terse, cold tone of voice hurt something inside her, even while she reciprocated, equally cold and impersonal.

But nothing she did could prepare her for Dominic, because she already secretly wanted him, already secretly found herself daydreaming about him, about his kiss, his smile, his ready wit, his powerful body, and his strong, handsome, Russian face.

Determined to look attractive herself, she changed quickly into a formal trouser suit in dark green, scraped her long hair back into its cool chignon, and put a little make-up on, her hand unsteady as she applied mascara to her dark red lashes.

Then she went into the living-room, pacing like a restless, fiery gazelle, trembling inside with excitement at the thought of seeing him again.

‘What are you up to?’ Dolly, her flatmate, asked curiously.

‘Mr Thorne is coming round,’ Natasha told her non-committally, ‘to give me my visa and the details of my flight to St Petersburg.’

‘So why get all togged up to see him?’ Dolly eyed her formal suit with a frown. ‘It’s just a brief, casual visit, isn’t it?’

‘I imagine so.’

Dolly laughed at her formal words. ‘You imagine so! Honestly, you are a hoot!’

Dolly Day was exactly like her name: a beautiful blonde bombshell. She was one of those warm, naturally glamorous, naturally exciting women with tremendous personality. She had never been deeply hurt by life, and hopefully never would be.

Natasha frequently envied her as she breezed her way through life, surrounded by friends, swamped by admiring men, throwing parties and getting drunk and laughing at herself when anything went wrong, and never having a cross word for anyone.

She was the perfect friend for Natasha, who had been so bitterly hurt that she often wondered if she would ever recover, and was afraid that the answer was very probably—never.

At least while Dolly Day was with her, Natasha would feel the sunshine.

The doorbell rang.

Natasha jumped, nervous eyes flicking round as she froze in the centre of the living-room.

‘Want me to get it?’ Dolly asked with a smile.

‘No, I…’ She ran a slim hand over her smooth chignon. ‘I’ll go.’

By the time she reached the front door, her palms were sweating. She smoothed them on the legs of her trousers, took a deep breath, told herself she had nothing at all to be afraid of, and opened the front door.

His face was so powerful to her now that her heart beat with sickening speed just at the sight of him, and it was difficult to keep her cool. She wanted to kiss him. Her eyes darted with secret passion to his mouth.

‘Hi,’ he drawled coldly. ‘May I come in?’

‘Of course.’ She stepped back, cold and expressionless.

Dominic walked inside, irresistibly sexy in black jeans and black V-necked sweater, the sleeves pushed up a touch to show tanned, hair-roughened forearms, the V-neck showing his powerful chest.

Natasha’s eyes raced over his body with hot, secret longing. She closed the front door behind him, pushed her hands into the pockets of her elegant trousers, and looked up at him through dark lashes, wondering if she was in as much danger from him as she thought she was.

‘Do you have the entry visa for me?’

He towered over her, eyes hard. ‘Yes. Are we to discuss everything here in the hallway?’

‘No, please follow me.’ She led him to the dining-room along the hall, preferring to be alone with him under formal conditions. ‘May I offer you some tea or coffee?’

‘I’d rather have a shot of whisky,’ he drawled, tossing the file in his hand on to the mahogany table.

Natasha’s lashes flickered. ‘I’ll have to ask Dolly.’

‘Dolly?’ His hard mouth twisted in a sardonic smile.

‘My flatmate. If you’d like to wait here, I’ll——’

‘Can’t I meet Dolly?’ he drawled, following her out of the room. ‘I love dollies!’

Jealousy immediately struck at her vulnerable heart, and as she pushed it away she felt it come thundering back, because she suddenly realised how completely different from her Dolly was, and how much Dominic might prefer her vibrant, open warmth to Natasha’s hurt, damaged personality.

‘Of course,’ she heard her icy voice say, and walked elegantly ahead of him to the living-room, opening the door and saying tightly, ‘Dolly, Mr Thorne wanted to know if we had any whisky here?’

‘Whisky?’ Dolly turned from the bookshelf, blonde hair a lion’s mane around her pretty face. She was sexily dressed in black miniskirt and blue silk blouse. Pale pink lipstick shimmered on her luscious, smiling lips. ‘I think Bobby left a bottle here the other night.’

‘Your boyfriend?’ drawled Dominic Thorne, smiling at her with a glitter in his steel-blue eyes.

Natasha watched grimly, jealousy searing her blood.

‘Oh, hi!’ Dolly gave him a warm smile. ‘You must be Mr Thornec. I’ve heard tons about you. Come on in.’

‘Thank you.’ Dominic shot Natasha a mocking glance, as though he knew she was raging with silent jealousy, and extended a strong hand to Dolly. ‘It’s a real pleasure to meet you.’

‘And you.’ Dolly shook his hand, smiling openly. ‘Hey—are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a beer? Bobby left loads round here. He and the boys came round to watch the football.’

Dominic laughed, eyes moving admiringly over her figure. ‘You have a lot of boyfriends, then?’

‘They’re boys and they’re friends.’ Dolly laughed. ‘But that’s about it. So what’ll it be—whisky or beer?’

‘Whisky will be fine.’ He thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shot a sidelong glance at Natasha’s tight, angry face. ‘I’ve never met two such different women sharing a flat together. Does it work well?’

‘Oh, wonderfully well.’ Dolly unearthed a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label from under a pile of magazines.

‘But you’re so bright and bubbly,’ drawled Dominic, while Natasha stood there, hating him, ‘and Natasha is so cool and mysterious.’

‘You called me tempestuous the other day,’ Natasha snapped, eyes flashing passionate, jealous green. ‘Make up your mind!’

He looked at her, a sardonic smile on his mouth. ‘Temper, temper…’ he said softly, mockingly, and his smile deepened as he watched the hot, betraying colour rush up her face.

‘Here we are!’ Dolly handed him the bottle of Johnnie Walker and a glass. ‘Not much left, I’m afraid.’

‘Thanks.’ His eyes roved over her with admiration again. ‘Where do you work, Dolly, and who—?’

‘Dolly is going out shortly,’ Natasha cut in tightly, ‘and we mustn’t keep her. She has to be ready when her boyfriend arrives.’

‘She looks stunningly ready to me,’ drawled Dominic, eyes roving with even more blatant sexual admiration over her.

‘Would you please come back to the dining-room with me, Mr Thorne?’ Natasha snapped. ‘I believe we have a lot to discuss!’

Turning on her heel, she strode angrily along the hallway, hearing Dominic say an amused goodbye to Dolly before following her, catching up with her easily on those long, muscular legs of his.

As soon as he entered the dining-room, Natasha closed the door behind him and walked elegantly to the table, hating him for flirting with Dolly and tempting her to make such a fool of herself with her pathetic, absurd and completely unjustified jealousy.

‘You said my visa had arrived…?’ Her voice was icy.

‘Yes, it has.’ He moved to the table too and sat down opposite her, watching her from underneath those heavy, Slavic eyelids.

Natasha felt suddenly uncomfortable. The gleam in those steel-blue eyes sent her pulses racing and her stomach somersaulting. She needed to know what he was thinking.

Irritably, she said, ‘Why are you just staring at me like that?’

‘Because I’m intrigued by your behaviour,’ he said softly, arching black brows. ‘First you kiss me passionately, then you reject me with icy hostility—and then you seethe with jealousy when I flirt with your flatmate.’

Scarlet colour suffused her cheeks. ‘I can assure you I did not feel remotely jealous!’

‘Hmm.’ His smile was sardonic. He toyed briefly with the empty glass in front of him, studied the whisky bottle, but did not pour himself any. Then he looked back at her, and there was a glint of mockery in his blue eyes that made her temper flare.

‘I wasn’t jealous!’

‘Did I contradict you?’

‘No.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘But I noticed a look in your eyes that made me think you——’

‘And you notice a lot about me, don’t you?’

She fell silent, lashes flickering.

‘I mean,’ he drawled lazily, ‘for a woman who feels nothing for me and doesn’t want to get involved.’

At once she looked away, heart thudding fast, realising for the first time just how clever, how shrewd, how very perceptive this man was.

‘You’re a mass of contradictions, aren’t you?’ He was watching her with those steel-blue eyes. ‘That icy, polished façade hides a very tempestuous woman. So far, I’ve seen you show blazing fury, intense passion, seething jealousy—and I’ve even seen you burst into tears. Perhaps it’ss good that you don’t want to get involved with me. If you did, I——’

‘But I don’t want to get involved with you.’ Her strange, intense green eyes flashed up with glittering hostility at him. ‘I don’t want to get involved with anyone.’

‘Apparently not,’ he murmured, watching her intently. ‘Certainly, no man at the office managed to get anywhere with you. And you don’t have a boyfriend, do you? I know, because I had you checked out, remember, and there was no mention of any man in London.’

Natasha looked at the polished surface of the table, rigid with tension, hating him for being so damned clever, afraid of where he was leading with this line of thought.

‘You’ve lived in London for four years, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she said tightly.

‘And no man, in all that time?’ He clicked his tongue softly, shook his dark head, smiling like a Siberian tiger ready to pounce. ‘How do you cope with all that emotional energy? You must be like a pressure-cooker, getting ready to explode.’

She sat there silently hating him and saying nothing.

Dominic watched her, waiting for an answer.

The clock ticked softly on the mahogany mantelpiece.

‘But this is so exciting!’ Dominic said softly, eyes deadly. ‘I do love mysteries, and I feel sure you’re one of the biggest mysteries I’ve ever met. I simply must try to unravel you.’

Natasha shot him a look of ill-concealed hatred.

‘It must be something to do with your past,’ he murmured, eyes narrowing in thought. ‘But it can’t be here in London, or my agents would have found it. Therefore, it must be before you came to London. QED.’

‘Will you just go away and mind your own business?’ she said with sudden fierce dislike, because he was much too clever to be allowed to run amok through her past with those damned agents of his.

‘I was right, then,’ he said sardonically, smiling. ‘And it must be something to do with a man, or you wouldn’t now be so determined to avoid them at all costs.’

‘Will you just mind your own——?’

‘So what exactly happened to make you shy away from men? Obviously, there are a number of things that could have caused it. So let’s tick them off. After all, you know what Sherlock Holmes maintained: eliminate the impossible, and whatever you are left with, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. So let’s start with the possibility of some kind of sexual attack.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

‘Well, I did consider sexual violence when I first met you, but not for very long because you’re the one who kissed me—and very passionately, too.’

Her eyes flared. ‘You know why I kissed you!’

‘Your motivation is not under the microscope, sweetie. Let’s just stick to the point.’

‘The point is that I want you to go!’

‘And the point is that somebody in the past—some man—inflicted some kind of damage on you which makes you avoid getting involved. It can’t have been sexual damage, because sex clearly isn’t the barrier.’

‘Will you stop this?’ she demanded fiercely, as fear rose in her.

‘No, it must be emotional, because that’s what you’re really afraid of, isn’t it? You’re afraid of getting emotionally involved with a man, any man, doesn’t matter——’

‘I asked you to stop!’

‘And if that’s the case, then it must be a man in your home town in Kent who——’

‘Stop it!’

‘A man in Kent who hurt you so badly that——’

‘Shut up!’ Natasha shouted hoarsely and got to her feet with such sudden violence that her chair toppled backwards, crashing into a glass cabinet.

It shattered.

They both flinched as the glass exploded in hundreds of pieces on to the carpet. Then they stared at each other. Natasha was appalled by the dark intense understanding in his eyes, and suddenly saw herself as he must see her—nervous, edgy, frightened, strung out like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof.

The door burst open.

‘What the hell was that?’ Dolly demanded. ‘I thought I——’ She stopped, staring at them both, eyes shocked—as well she might be, because only a Martian would not sense the frazzled air of powerful emotion blazing between Natasha and Dominic.

‘I knocked a chair over,’ Dominic said raggedly, and ran a hand through his tousled black hair. ‘I’ll pay for the damage, of course.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ Dolly said. ‘A friend of mine will fix the glass for——’

‘I insist,’ Dominic bit out roughly.

Dolly stared for a second, then said, ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’ She hesitated, staring at Natasha. ‘Are you all right?’

‘No, I’m not,’ Natasha replied at once, her voice shaking. ‘In fact, I think I’ll accept your earlier invitation and come to the party with you and Bobby, after all.’

Dominic’s dark head swung to stare furiously at her. ‘We still haven’t gone over the details of your trip to Russia or——’

‘I’ll look at the papers tomorrow,’ she said tightly. ‘Please just leave them there and go.’

His mouth tightened. He looked from her to Dolly, then back at her again, and his eyes were jet-black with rage because he knew what she was doing and felt powerless to stop her.

‘Fine,’ he said harshly, striding towards the door. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon to check that you know what you’re supposed to be doing.’

‘Sweet of you!’ she drawled thickly, hating him, and he threw her another black look before striding away down the hall.

The front door slammed behind him.

Dolly looked at her as they both heard his footsteps on the stairs. ‘What the hell was all that about?’

‘Nothing,’ Natasha said thickly, unable to confide in her, for some reason, even though Dolly knew all about Tony, and had never betrayed her confidence, not in all the time she had shared this flat with her. But somehow, the effect Dominic Thorne was having on her was so exceptional that Natasha was afraid to confide in anyone about it.

It’s too strong, she realised, horrified.

He’s already obliterating Tony from my mind, and the reasons are so numerous I couldn’t even list them.

Where Tony had been in his early forties, greying, balding and coldly uncommunicative, Dominic Thorne was thirty-seven, dramatically handsome, sexy, powerful, dynamic, intelligent, sensitive, cynical, gorgeous, rich…

As a man in his own right, Dominic wiped the floor with Tony. But as a man in relation to Natasha, he positively ground Tony out like an old cigar under his expensive, self-assured heel.

And as for her sexual feelings towards Tony—well, she had had none. It had all been platonic, more like play-acting than real love, more like teenage adoration for an unattainable man.

But Natasha knew her sexual feelings for Dominic Thorne were as hot and dangerously hungry as they could get, and if he ever did more than kiss her, she would lose her grip on safety forever.

I’ve only met him three times, and I’m already emotionally, mentally, sexually and spiritually involved with him. In a big way. More deeply than I ever have been before, and if I don’t nip it in the bud, right here and now, I’ll end up obsessively, passionately, irrevocably in love with him.

Danger reared like a hissing serpent. Natasha stepped back in fear from it. She mustn’t feel like that. Never, ever, ever…