Sarah Holland - An Obsessive Love

‘Thank you.’ She put it in her top jacket pocket. ‘I’ll be there. But I must stress that I fully intend to resign from my position here as of this moment—whether I get the job with your mother or not.’

He nodded, unsmiling, and his eyes were very dark. ‘I accept your resignation. Consider yourself free to go. But before you do, I want the names of everyone involved. Tell me precisely what happened and who was directly responsible.’

Natasha told him, her voice cool, clipped and precise.

‘Do you want to make an official complaint?’ he asked when she had finished. ‘You obviously have a solid case. The only problem is—how many of the other men will come forward to testify on your behalf?’

‘None, I should think.’

‘Because you hurt their egos,’ drawled Dominic Thorne, a gleam in his blue eyes as he looked down at her ravishingly unique and dramatic face. ‘A shame they weren’t here to witness your very exciting display of red-blooded passion!’

‘I was in a temper.’ She felt deeply embarrassed. ‘I didn’t know what I was——’

‘Oh, please,’ he drawled sardonically, ‘don’t apologise. It was a scene from one of my favourite office fantasies.’

‘Oh…!’ Her face burnt crimson and she looked away, unable to maintain eye contact, her fingers fumbling with the still loose lapels of her open jacket, aware of his blue eyes roving insolently down to probe the shadowy hollow between her breasts.

‘I only wish I could stay here with you a little longer to discuss it, but I’m afraid I have a board meeting in precisely——’ he glanced at the Cartier watch on his hair-roughened wrist ‘—seven minutes.’

Natasha recognised dismissal when she heard it. ‘Yes, of course.’ She got to her feet, turning to walk to the door.

He followed her. ‘Send Leachman up to me right away.’ Another glance at that expensive watch. ‘I’ve just got time to execute him before the board meeting.’

‘Execute him?’ Natasha turned at the door.

‘Of course.’ He towered over her, face dramatically good-looking and very exciting. ‘You don’t seriously think I’m going to allow him to stay here after this, do you? He’s out. Consider it done.’

Her eyes seemed to stare adoringly, of their own accord, up into that hard, handsome face.

He smiled down at her. ‘And one other thing…’ His gaze lowered intimately to her breasts, his voice growing rough with sexual attraction. ‘Best do this up before you go back down to the den of wolves…’

Natasha’s whole body pulsed with waves of shimmering pleasure as he slowly, surely, began to button her jacket up, flicking his gaze from her eyes to the scented hollow between her breasts, then up to her dark red mouth, then back to her breasts while she stood there, heart pounding, feeling her nipples erect and shivers run up and down her skin.

‘See you soon,’ he murmured, and bent his dark head to brush a brief, burning kiss on her mouth. ‘Just returning the compliment,’ he drawled, and slid one strong hand to her naked throat, inciting shivers of pleasure as he bent his head again, and kissed her passionately.

‘Oh…!’ She succumbed without meaning to, almost as though she were hypnotised, her arms going around his strong neck as he pulled her hard against his powerful body.

The hot onslaught of his mouth made her dizzy, and she clung to him, breathing faster, aware of his heartbeat thundering as his strong hands moved firmly, possessively over her slender body.

Suddenly, the telephone on his desk rang.

‘Damn!’ he said thickly, wrenching his hot, commanding mouth from hers and glancing over one broad shoulder.

Natasha swayed as he released her, and fumbled with the door-handle, going out, his touch still on her skin, his kiss still lingering on her lips, his presence still making her tremble with excitement, romance, magic…

And he was part-Russian, too, just as she was.

I knew it as soon as I saw him, she thought dazedly. My God, he’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a man, everything I’ve ever dreamt of, everything I’ve——

What rubbish! she thought in sudden fear, as she stopped herself weaving fantasies around a man she hardly knew.

I just got carried away because he showed some interest in me, and kissed me. He’s a very attractive, desirable man, and of course I got carried away in a stupid romantic daydream.

But it doesn’t mean anything. It certainly doesn’t mean I’ll ever see him again, even if I do go and work for his mother.

Certainly, she wasn’t going to let herself get into the same mess she got in over Tony! Oh, dear me, no, she thought furiously as she strode out of the lift and back to her own office.

No more fantasies for me, no more obsessive love without foundation, no more love, full stop.

None.

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.’