Sarah Holland - An Obsessive Love

‘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.’