The Throne He Must Take

‘It doesn’t matter.’

She couldn’t force him to talk to her. Patience was a therapist’s most valuable tool, she reminded herself. And nor could she drag him out of the bar. So she stood there, wondering with a growing sense of panic what her plan of action would be if he refused to leave.

To her relief he stood up and raised his arms above his head, giving an indolent stretch that caused the bottom of his sweater to rise up a little and reveal golden skin above the waistband of his trousers.

Her eyes were drawn to that strip of bare torso, covered with a fuzz of dark blond hair that disappeared beneath his trousers, and heat swept through her as her wayward imagination pictured where the hairs grew more thickly...around the base of his manhood.

His voice jolted her from her thoughts, and she flushed, praying he had not guessed her wanton imaginings.

‘While I am touched by your desire to save me,’ he drawled, ‘I can’t help wondering if your concern is more about proving to Professor Heppel that he was justified in offering you a job at his clinic. Gunther mentioned that you were only recently appointed at the Frieden Clinic.’

‘Believe it or not, I care about doing a good job and I genuinely want to help you.’ She tried to ignore her guilt that there was an element of truth in his words.

To her relief he said no more as he picked up his jacket and followed her out of the bar. A tense silence filled the four-by-four while she drove them to Chalet Soline, and she could think of nothing to say to lighten his mood—which had become grimmer still when they arrived at the alpine lodge and were greeted by Karl.

The chef-butler ushered them into the wood-panelled sitting room, where a fire was blazing in the hearth and deep leather sofas piled with colourful cushions created a sense of stylish informality. Jarek gave a cursory glance at his surroundings as he crossed to one of the tall windows and stared out at the dark winter’s night.

‘It goes without saying that I will hold everything you choose to tell me during our sessions in absolute confidence,’ Holly said quietly as she watched him prowl around the room.

He was like a caged wolf, simmering with silent fury. She was surprised he wasn’t showing any obvious signs of being drunk, even though he had consumed enough vodka to render him unconscious. Thankfully he hadn’t staggered out of Bibiana’s Bar—or, worse, needed to be carried out to the car by burly security staff. She did not want Professor Heppel to find out that her client had been caught drinking in a bar within an hour of checking into the Frieden Clinic.

‘I hope you will be comfortable at Chalet Soline. Karl is an excellent chef, and the maid, Beatrice, will take care of the house. I’ll show you up to the master suite. You’ll probably want to take some time to settle in and freshen up before you meet Professor Heppel this evening.’

She dared not suggest that he might need to sober up, but the hard gleam in his eyes told her he had understood perfectly well what she’d meant.

‘I don’t need a nursemaid or a babysitter.’

He crossed the room in long strides and halted in front of her, so close that she breathed in the spicy scent of his aftershave and her senses went haywire.

‘And I definitely do not need a prissy, much too pretty psychologist to patronise me.’

Holly was disgusted with herself for the way her heart leapt at his offhand compliment. Flirting was second nature to him, she reminded herself. He hadn’t singled her out specially, and she would not respond to the blazing heat in his eyes.

‘I know what you need,’ he drawled, his voice lowering so that it became wickedly suggestive and sent a shiver of reaction down her spine.

She arched her brows. ‘Enlighten me.’

He gave a wolfish smile. ‘You need to buy a bigger blouse.’

Holly followed his gaze down her body and was mortified to see that a button on her blouse had popped open and her lacy bra was showing. Blushing hotly, she attempted to refasten the blouse, but Jarek moved faster and his knuckles brushed the upper slopes of her breasts as he slid the button into the buttonhole.

The brief touch of his skin on hers made her tremble. Goosebumps rose on her flesh and her nipples jerked to attention. The mocking gleam in Jarek’s eyes dared her to make the excuse again that she was cold, now they were inside the warm chalet.

She was tempted to wipe the smug smile off his face with the sharp impact of her palm against his jaw, but managed to restrain herself from behaving so unprofessionally.

He swung away from her and raked a hand though his hair, almost as if he had been as shocked by the bolt of electricity that had shot between them as she had.

His manner changed and he said abruptly, ‘Is there a room that I can use for an office? I want to get on with some work.’

‘There’s a small study along the hall. But you are supposed to be using your stay at the Frieden Clinic as a retreat from the stresses of your everyday life—and that includes taking a break from work so that you can focus on exploring your emotions.’

Jarek gave her a sardonic look. ‘My company, Dvorska Holdings, employs several hundred people. I am also the executive director of a charity, and take an active role in the day-to-day running of the organisation. I can’t abandon my responsibilities to my staff—or to the great number of volunteers who give up their time to support Lorna’s Gift.’

He laughed softly.

‘As for exploring my emotions... ‘I’ll quote a famous female American journalist and advice columnist called Dorothy Dix, who said, “Confession is always weakness. The grave soul keeps its own secrets, and takes its own punishment in silence.”’

What had he meant by that? Holly wondered as she watched Jarek stride out of the room. She couldn’t keep pace with his mercurial changes of mood. Just when she had been convinced that he was the disreputable playboy portrayed by the tabloids, and a shameless flirt with a ready line of sexual innuendo, he had surprised her by sounding as if he genuinely cared about his role with a charity.

She knew that he was co-director with his sister of Lorna’s Gift—a charitable organisation that raised money to support children living in orphanages around the world. But she had assumed that Jarek was simply a figurehead for the charity, and it was disconcerting to discover that he took some things seriously.

It would be easier if he was nothing more than fodder for the celebrity-obsessed paparazzi, she thought, because then she could dismiss her reaction to his potent sensuality as a temporary aberration.

Holly rubbed her hand across her brow to try to ease her tension headache and glanced at the clock. Professor Heppel was due to arrive for dinner at Chalet Soline in two hours, which gave her time for a soak in the hot tub and a chance to get a grip on her wayward emotions.

The next time she met Jarek she was determined to be coolly professional.

* * *

Jarek switched off his laptop, having finalised another successful business deal. The one thing he could rely on in the grim mess that was his life was his ability to make money, he thought cynically. Although he had not always been lucky.

Over the past two years his instinct for correctly guessing how global markets would perform had catapulted him onto the list of the world’s top ten most successful traders, and enabled him to recoup the huge losses he’d made at Saunderson’s Bank.

That embarrassing episode had resulted from an unfortunate combination of events. He had taken a particularly risky gamble on the Asian stockmarkets, and an earthquake in Japan had led to a temporary suspension of trading on the Nikkei—with disastrous consequences for his investments and the near-collapse of one of England’s oldest and most prestigious private banks.

Ralph Saunderson had probably turned in his grave, Jarek thought sardonically. He had been a feral boy of nearly ten when he had been taken from war-ravaged Sarajevo to live at Cuckmere Hall, and his resistance to authority had meant that there had been no love lost between him and Ralph. Following his adoptive father’s death, he had been shocked to discover that he had been excluded from Ralph’s will, and that Cortez Ramos—Ralph’s biological son—had inherited Cuckmere Hall and the chairmanship of Saunderson’s Bank.

He knew why Ralph had chosen Cortez to be his heir. Ralph had blamed him, Jarek, for Lorna Saunderson’s death, and Jarek had for once agreed with his adoptive father.

He was haunted by memories of when his adoptive mother had been fatally shot by an armed raider during a robbery at a jeweller’s. The four years that had passed since that terrible day had not dimmed the images in his mind of Lorna lying crumpled on the floor, and Elin kneeling beside her sobbing hysterically. The keening cry his sister had given when she’d realised that her adored mama was dead would echo in his head for ever.

In Sarajevo, Jarek had seen the bodies of dead soldiers and heard the rattling last breaths of young men—some of whom had been teenagers, only a few years older than him. He’d thought that nothing could be worse than the atrocities he’d seen in that bloody and brutal civil war, but the knowledge that Mama had died because of his reckless attempt to overpower the gunman was an agony that would be with him for ever.

He would never forgive himself, even though Elin loyally insisted that he wasn’t to blame.

It had been his idea to set up a charity to support orphans in honour of Lorna Saunderson and, ironically, his willingness to take risks on the stockmarket meant he had earned a fortune for Lorna’s Gift. It was some kind of reparation for what he had done, but nothing would ever ease his guilt.

God knew what a psychologist would make of him if he ever revealed the dark torment in his soul, Jarek thought grimly. But he had no intention of exploring his emotions with the deliciously sexy Dr Maitland.

Some things were best left alone—which was why he had decided not to respond to the request he had received from the head of the National Council of Vostov, asking him to have a DNA test which might prove that he was related to Vostov’s royal family, who had all perished in a car accident twenty years ago.

There was no possibility that it could be true, he assured himself. The idea was ridiculous. But what if his nightmares were not simply horrific figments of his imagination? his conscience whispered. It would mean that the images in his mind were of real events, real people...his parents.

At the orphanage he had been told that his mother and father had been killed early in the war, when the apartment block where they’d lived had been destroyed by a bomb. Jarek and his baby sister had been pulled from the rubble and the trauma had wiped out all his memories of his life before that day.

He’d accepted the explanation eventually—after he had been beaten by the orphanage staff whenever he’d talked about his strange dreams. But now his nightmares had returned, more vivid and terrible than when he was a boy. And if the scenes that played out in his subconscious mind were real events then he had something even more devastating than his adoptive mother’s death on his conscience.

Jarek pushed his hair off his brow and acknowledged that if he had not been stuck halfway up a mountain he would have headed to the nearest bar and sought to escape the demons inside him with another bottle of vodka and an attractive blonde—or two. He remembered the girls at Bibiana’s Bar and for a moment was tempted to take the four-by-four parked outside the chalet and drive himself to Arlenwald, to hook up with Halfrida and her friends.

It would be worth it just to ruffle Dr Maitland’s feathers.

His lips twitched as he remembered Holly’s outraged expression when she’d discovered him in the bar. The truth was he would like to do more than ruffle her, he brooded. His body stirred as he pictured her delectable curves. She was an intriguing mix of uptight schoolmistress and sensual siren, and Jarek couldn’t remember the last time he had been intrigued by a woman.

If she had been someone other than his psychologist... Hell, if he had been someone else—someone better than the man he knew he was—he would have enjoyed allowing their mutual sexual attraction to reach its logical conclusion and taken her to bed.

But Holly had stated that she wanted to find out what made him tick, and he was utterly determined to prevent her from uncovering the secrets buried deep in his soul.

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