A missing prince...

Playboy Jarek is no stranger to the darkness within him. Psychotherapist Dr. Holly Maitland is his chance to unlock the secrets from his past. But alone with Holly in the Austrian Alps, all Jarek can think about is peeling away her cool demeanor one tantalizing layer at a time!

...a forbidden attraction

Holly can see straight through Jarek’s tactics of distraction. But the lure of his caress opens her body to sensual delights she once believed impossible. If what Holly suspects is true and Jarek is the missing prince of Vostov, dare she hope he will claim her as well as his rightful throne?

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 a bottle of vodka and an attractive blonde—or two.

He remembered the girls at Bibiana’s Bar, and for a moment he was tempted to take the fourby- 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 only she were 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.

The Saunderson Legacy

Jarek and Elin Saunderson had nothing until they were adopted into the high society of the Saunderson family.

Now, following the death of the parents they adored, they soon discover a maze of secrets which threaten to destroy their legacy and leads them each to uncover unforeseen passions…

Find out more in…

The Secret He Must Claim

A shocking revelation in her adoptive father’s will forces Elin into a marriage of convenience with the father of her secret baby!

The Throne He Must Take

Playboy Jarek needs help to uncover the secrets of the past—if he can only resist the temptation in front of him…Dr Holly Maitland!

Both available now!

The Throne He Must Take

Chantelle Shaw

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHANTELLE SHAW lives on the Kent coast and thinks up her stories while walking on the beach. She has been married for over thirty years and has six children. Her love affair with reading and writing Mills & Boon stories began as a teenager, and her first book was published in 2006. She likes strong-willed, slightly unusual characters. Chantelle also loves gardening, walking and wine!

Books by Chantelle Shaw

Mills & Boon Modern Romance

Acquired by Her Greek Boss

To Wear His Ring Again

A Night in the Prince’s Bed

Captive in His Castle

The Saunderson Legacy

The Secret He Must Claim

Wedlocked!

Trapped by Vialli’s Vows

Bought by the Brazilian

Mistress of His Revenge

Master of Her Innocence

The Howard Sisters

Sheikh’s Forbidden Conquest

A Bride Worth Millions

The Bond of Brothers

His Unexpected Legacy

Secrets of a Powerful Man

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

The Saunderson Legacy

Title Page

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

What did happen to Vostov’s royal children?

THE NEWSPAPER HEADLINE caught Holly Maitland’s eye when she walked into the reception lounge of the Frieden Clinic to await the arrival of her new client.

The exclusive private psychiatric practice catered for an international clientele, and like most of the clinic’s staff Holly was fluent in several languages. She noted that the French, Italian and German newspapers all bore similar headlines to the English papers. But until the recent media interest in Vostov she—and, she suspected, many other people—had never heard of the tiny principality in the Balkans.

She turned her attention away from the newspapers, which were neatly arranged on a coffee table in front of an elegant brocade sofa. Large windows on three sides of the room offered spectacular views of the Austrian Alps. The gentle tick of an antique wall clock barely intruded on the cloistered quiet of the lounge, and the general ambience was one of discreet luxury.

Outside, the mountains stood guard like a craggy fortress, with their sharp peaks pointing towards a topaz-blue sky. Last night’s fresh snowfall glistened in the winter sunshine.

Holly scrutinised the road that snaked its way up from Salzburg. The snow-clearing machines had already done their job, but there were no cars on the road and her client was late.

She felt a flicker of irritation as she wondered why he had declined to be collected from the airport by a chauffeur and driven to the Frieden Clinic which was the usual arrangement. She hoped he was not going to be difficult, but all the indications suggested that Jarek Dvorska Saunderson was likely to be a pain in someone’s backside. Hers.

Jarek was a high-flier in the City of London, often described as ‘the man with the Midas touch’ after his success on the stockmarket which had earned him a personal multi-million-pound fortune. But a couple of years ago there had been problems at Saunderson’s Bank—one of the UK’s most prestigious private banks—where Jarek had held a senior position. He had been fired by the bank’s new chairman, who also happened to be his brother-in-law: Spanish business tycoon Cortez Ramos.

The blip in his career had evidently not impacted on Jarek’s jet-set lifestyle. He was pursued relentlessly by the paparazzi, and rarely did a week pass without another exposé in the tabloids of his outrageous exploits—usually accompanied by a photo of him with a blonde bimbo draped around him.

Stories of his heavy drinking, partying and womanising were legendary—as was his passion for the risky sport of motorbike racing. There had been intense news coverage recently, when he had crashed his bike during a race and afterwards assaulted a journalist who had tried to interview him. It was that event which had apparently prompted Jarek to seek help for his ‘issues’, Professor Franz Heppel, the medical director of the Frieden Clinic, had explained to Holly during a briefing about her new patient.

She glanced at the clock. Maybe he wasn’t coming? She knew only too well how hard it was to face up to personal demons, and from the sound of it Jarek Saunderson had his fair share of those.

A rumbling noise jolted her from her thoughts and she instinctively looked up at the higher slopes of the mountains. During the winter months the avalanche risk in the Alps was high, particularly after heavy snowfall. But there was no sign of the kind of fast-moving white mass that struck fear into the hearts of skiers and climbers. She looked back at the road as the throaty, roaring noise grew louder and saw a motorbike hurtling around the bends.

Minutes later Holly watched the bike turn onto the private road leading to the Frieden Clinic and wondered if the rider was her client. It would be typical of everything she’d heard about Jarek for him to ride a motorbike into the mountains in January, when there was the threat of treacherous black ice on the roads. A sports commentator who had watched him compete in the notoriously dangerous Isle of Man TT superbike race had suggested that either Jarek had a death wish or a massive ego which made him believe he was indestructible.

Her first assignment at the Frieden Clinic promised to be interesting, possibly challenging, and ultimately—she hoped—successful, Holly mused. She was keen to make a good impression with Professor Heppel during the three-month probation period of her new job. His world-renowned clinic employed the very best international experts, and her appointment as a psychotherapist was a huge boost to her career.

The noise of the motorbike stopped, and from her vantage point at the window she watched the rider dismount. As she passed the mirror in the entrance hall she glanced at her reflection, to check that her hair was neatly secured in its chignon. Her crisp white blouse, navy skirt and low-heeled black shoes were businesslike, although she noted with a grimace that the blouse gaped slightly across her bust. A result of too many helpings of the chef’s apfelstrudel, she thought ruefully.

It occurred to her that Stuart would not have approved of her more voluptuous shape. When she had shown him pictures of herself as a nineteen-year-old photographic model he had raved about her slim figure, even though she had clearly been unhealthily thin.

‘My modelling career was ten years ago and I survived on a diet of apples and black coffee,’ she’d told him when he’d nagged her to go to the gym. ‘Women were designed to have breasts and hips, and I have no intention of starving myself to conform to the fashion industry’s unrealistic ideal of how women should look.’

A few months after that conversation Stuart had dumped her and announced his engagement to willowy blonde Leanne, who was now pregnant with his baby.

Holly swiftly shut off the painful thought as she opened the door and stepped outside to the porch to welcome her patient. She had moved from London to Austria two weeks ago, and loved living in the mountains where the air was fresh and clean. But the smell of cigarette smoke drifting towards her now made her wrinkle her nose in disgust.

‘Mr Saunderson?’ The man had his back to her, but she was sure it was him. He had removed his crash helmet and the streaked blond hair spilling over the collar of his black leather jacket was recognisable from his too-numerous-to-count appearances in the tabloids. ‘May I remind you that there is a strict no smoking policy at the Frieden Clinic? The house rules are listed in the brochure.’

The broad leather-clad shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug. ‘I didn’t read the brochure.’

Holly stifled the urge to knock the cigarette from his fingers and said tartly, ‘What a pity. If you had, you would have seen that the Frieden Clinic takes a holistic approach to treating nicotine addiction and has an excellent success rate for helping to break a dependency on cigarettes.’

‘I don’t have a nicotine addiction.’ He turned around then, and took another drag on his cigarette. ‘You wouldn’t begrudge the condemned prisoner a final cigarette, would you?’

He spoke in a lazy drawl and his mouth crooked into a careless smile as if he was well aware of his devastating effect on susceptible females.

‘Smoking is a filthy habit,’ Holly snapped, forgetting that she should take care not to reveal her personal prejudices. But her first sight of Jarek in the flesh, rather than in a photo in a newspaper, had made her forget everything. If he asked her name she would be unable to tell him, because the single thought in her head was that he was lethally attractive.

‘Not as filthy as some of my other habits,’ he murmured.

There was amusement in his voice, and a mocking gleam in eyes that even from a distance of a few feet away were like brilliant blue laser beams directed straight at Holly. She watched him grind the cigarette out against the sole of his boot and drop the stub into his pocket before he walked up the steps to join her on the porch.

While she groped for her sanity, and for something—anything—to say, his smile faded and there was a hard edge to his voice when he spoke again. ‘And I no longer use my English adoptive parents’ name: Saunderson. I prefer to be known by the name I was given at bir—’ He stopped abruptly and then said, ‘By my Bosnian name: Dvorska.’

‘Right... Mr Dvorska. Um...’ God, was that breathless voice really hers? Holly cleared her throat. ‘Welcome to the Frieden Clinic.’ She frowned as she recalled his comment. ‘Why did you call yourself a condemned prisoner? Frieden is the German word for peace, and the Frieden Clinic is a place of sanctuary—not a prison. I hope you will find a sense of peace and tranquillity here, while I endeavour to help you on your journey to a lasting recovery from the emotional issues that have created a negative impact on your life.’

‘Peace?’ His laugh was an oddly grim sound. ‘I sincerely doubt I’ll ever find that. You say that you will be helping me on this wondrous journey to enlightenment?’ His tone was sardonic. ‘I’d assumed you are the receptionist. When I met Professor Heppel in London he told me I had been assigned a psychotherapist called Dr Maitland.’

‘Forgive me. I should have introduced myself.’ Feeling flustered, Holly extended her hand towards him. ‘I’m Dr Holly Maitland.’

Almost imperceptibly Jarek Dvorska’s demeanour changed. He still spoke in that lazy drawl, as if he was bored with his life—which, according to the gossip columns, was an endless round of parties with his similarly louche millionaire friends—but his ice-blue eyes were sharply intelligent and his intent gaze gave Holly the unsettling idea that he could see inside her head.

‘You are not what I was expecting,’ he murmured after a lengthy pause.

She swallowed as he enclosed her hand in a firm grasp. Heat shot up her arm, as if she’d stuck her fingers into an electrical socket, causing the tiny hairs on her skin to prickle. Far more embarrassingly, she felt her nipples tighten. Jarek dropped his gaze to her breasts and the eyes that had reminded Holly of glacial pools now gleamed hotly with a wicked promise that she assured herself had no effect on her.

‘It’s quite common to form ideas about another person before actually meeting them.’ She ignored the frantic thud of her heart and gave him a cool smile. ‘What were your expectations of me?’

‘I assumed you would be older,’ he said bluntly. ‘Frankly I’m not interested in unburdening my soul to a psychologist. I’m only here because my sister believes I need to learn to control my temper, and my brother-in-law threatened to kill me if I do anything to upset Elin in the final weeks of her pregnancy.’

He did not sound as if he was joking.

Holly felt a pang of envy for Jarek’s sister. She’d had many years to come to terms with her infertility, but there was still a little ache inside her when she heard of other women who were on the magical journey to motherhood.

She switched her thoughts to Jarek. There had been deep affection in his voice when he’d mentioned his sister, which belied his image in the tabloids of a reckless playboy who cared only about his personal gratification with an endless supply of pretty women.

‘I suppose your reference to my age means you think I lack experience? But I can assure you I have a Doctorate in Counselling Psychology and Psychotherapy and I have experience working as a psychotherapist in both the private health sector and the NHS in England.’

The leather-clad shoulders lifted in another shrug that made Holly appreciate Jarek’s formidable physique. She was slightly below average height, which was why she had never made it onto the catwalk during her brief modelling career, and he towered over her. She estimated he must be two or three inches over six feet tall.

‘I don’t doubt you are highly qualified,’ he murmured. ‘Professor Heppel spoke very highly of you. But he failed to mention that you are beautiful, Dr Maitland.’

It was not difficult to understand why women fell for him in droves. He could turn on his charm as easily as flicking a switch. His husky voice smouldered with a sensual heat that made her insides melt and it took all her willpower to meet his gaze calmly.

‘Professor Heppel offered me a job at his clinic based on my reputation as a dedicated psychotherapist,’ she said crisply. ‘Please—call me Holly,’ she continued. ‘We are going to be spending a lot of time together over the next few weeks and we need to feel comfortable around each other. It is important to establish trust and respect between a patient and his therapist.’

‘Comfortable...’ Jarek rolled the word off his tongue in a smoky, sexy voice that lit a flame in the pit of Holly’s stomach. ‘Women don’t usually feel comfortable around me. My talents are considerable...’ he grinned at her startled expression ‘...but offering comfort is not one of them.’

‘I don’t suppose it is,’ she said drily. ‘I’m sure your legions of female devotees are attracted to your dangerous image. But presumably your numerous shallow affairs fail to make you happy? Which is why you have sought the help of a psychotherapist to enable you to make changes in your lifestyle that will allow you to have more fulfilling relationships.’

‘I told you—I’ve only agreed to undergo therapy to please my sister.’

His lazy smile did not change but the warmth had gone from his eyes, leaving them as cold and hard as ice. Holly gave a little shiver. There was something predatory about him that was at variance with his reputation of a dissolute playboy. She had a feeling that people saw in Jarek exactly what he wanted them to see. But if the life that he played out in the full glare of the media was a lie, who was the real Jarek Dvorska?

‘Why do women think that men can only feel fulfilled if they are in a relationship?’ he drawled. ‘I’m perfectly content to have shallow affairs—in fact the shallower the better. The truth is that the ultimate male fantasy is for hot, hard sex without strings. Emotional strings, I mean. Real strings add an interesting element to sex play, but personally I prefer to use silk cords for bondage games.’

Holly was furious with herself for blushing—and furious with him for being an arrogant jerk. To think she’d wasted thirty seconds of her life wondering if he had hidden depths! But, like it or not—like him or not—Jarek was her client and it was vital that she established a rapport with him. At the end of his six-week stay at the clinic he would discuss with Professor Heppel if her treatment had been successful for him. A bad report would jeopardise her job at the Frieden Clinic—but, more than that, psychotherapy was her vocation, and she had a genuine desire to help every patient she worked with.

She made herself smile at Jarek. ‘We can explore your theories about relationships and the possible reasons for your fear of commitment during our sessions. It’s good that you can speak openly and honestly regarding your feelings about casual sex. You can be confident that I will do my best to help you with your issues.’

He threw back his head and laughed—low and husky and outrageously sensual. ‘I promise you I don’t need any help with sex, angel-face.’

Holly knew she was blushing again, and felt even more mortified when she saw Jarek’s eyes flick down to her breasts again. He could hardly fail to notice the hard peaks of her nipples outlined beneath her blouse. ‘Let’s go inside, where it’s warm,’ she said tightly. ‘I should have put my coat on before I came out to meet you and I’m cold,’ she added, keen to emphasise that her body’s involuntary reaction was to the icy temperature, and she was not affected by his potent masculinity.

Avoiding the speculative gleam in his eyes, she ushered him into the clinic and indicated a door leading off the entrance hall.

‘Through there is a boot room, where ski equipment is kept and where you can leave your bike gear. Your luggage arrived this morning, and one of the support staff will take your cases to your private residential retreat later. I’ll wait for you in the lounge. Would you like a cup of coffee?’

‘I’d love one. I’m glad you don’t disapprove of all stimulants. I was worried I’d have to give up every source of pleasure during my stay.’

His wicked grin did peculiar things to Holly’s insides. She waited until he had closed the boot room door behind him before she released her breath. While she switched on the coffee percolator and arranged the cups on a tray she tried to rationalise why she had reacted to Jarek the way she had. Her heart was still beating too fast and every nerve-ending in her body felt acutely sensitive, so that she was aware of the scrape of her lace-edged bra against her breasts.

She hadn’t expected him to be so overwhelming, she thought ruefully. Dressed in all that black leather, he’d exuded a primitive sensuality that had made her want... She bit her lip as a shocking image flashed into her mind of her lying naked on a bed, with her wrists secured to the headboard by silken cords. In her fantasy Jarek stroked his hands over her breasts and hips before he pushed her legs apart and bent his head to flick his tongue over the inside of her thighs.

‘Careful.’

The smoky voice close to her ear jerked her from her erotic daydream and she looked down and saw that she had overfilled a cup and coffee was pouring over the rim into the saucer.

‘Oh.’ She hadn’t heard him walk across the lounge and she dared not look at him, terrified that his laser-bright gaze might see inside her head. ‘I’m terribly clumsy,’ she gabbled as she grabbed a handful of napkins and mopped up the spillage. ‘How do you take your coffee?’

‘Black and bitter—like my heart.’

Beneath his light tone there was something darker that made her wonder again who was the real Jarek? The jester, or the man with secrets that he seemed determined to keep hidden?

She handed him his coffee before adding cream and sugar to her own cup, craving a sweet fix to calm her nervous tension. Jarek sat down on the sofa. The empty space next to him was the obvious place for Holly to sit, but instead she chose an armchair. Only when she was at a safe distance from him did she look directly at him, and her heart gave an annoying jolt.

So much for her hope that without his biker leathers he would be less impressive. Superbly tailored black trousers drew her attention to his lean hips and the long legs that he thrust out in front of him. A charcoal-grey fine wool sweater moulded the hard ridges of his pectoral and abdominal muscles. His eyes were that astonishing bright blue, set in an angular face that was cruelly beautiful. He reminded her of a wolf—especially when he flashed a wide grin that revealed his white teeth.

Holly forced herself to study him objectively. His cheekbones were too sharp and his mouth too wide for him to be conventionally handsome. She estimated that there was at least two days’ growth of stubble on his square jaw, and his rakish appearance was accentuated by the streaked blond hair that hung down on either side of his face. He pushed it back with a careless sweep of his hand.

Needing an excuse to avoid looking at him, she jumped up and walked over to the sideboard where the clinic’s presentation packs were kept.

‘I’ll explain a little bit about the aims of the Frieden Clinic and give you another brochure so that you can read our mission statement in full.’

She spoke to him over her shoulder.

‘In a nutshell, our ethos is to identify and treat the root cause of each patient’s problems. The problems which may have led them to become reliant on potentially harmful substances or exhibit particular behaviour traits. At the Frieden Clinic we understand that every patient is unique, and we tailor an individual programme of treatment and support, matching the patient with a psychologist who will live at an Alpine retreat with them and provide therapy whenever the patient requires it, twenty-four hours a day. As well as clinical therapy, patients are encouraged to experience the wide range of complementary therapies which are available, such as massage and yoga. Leisure time is another important aspect of your stay with us, and there will be opportunities for you to ski and to enjoy many other activities in the beautiful surroundings of the Austrian Alps.’

Having located the brochures in the last drawer she looked in, Holly turned to face Jarek and discovered that he had picked up a newspaper and was reading it. Evidently he was more interested in the story on the front page than what she had to say, she thought, annoyed by his rudeness.

‘Would you like me to repeat any of what I’ve just told you?’ she asked, in a painfully polite voice that failed to disguise the bite in her tone.

He dropped the newspaper onto the table and for a split second she glimpsed a...a tortured expression in his eyes. There was no other word to describe it. But then he blinked and Holly told herself she must have been imagining things, for his ice-blue gaze was indefinable.

‘It all seems clear enough. If I’m a good boy I’ll be allowed to go skiing,’ he drawled.

He was her patient, and she would do her best to build a rapport with him even if it killed her, Holly told herself.

Through the window she saw a car draw up in front of the clinic.

‘Your personal chauffeur, Gunther, is here to take you to Chalet Soline. You have also been assigned a gourmet chef, and a maid who will take care of you during your stay. Professor Heppel will visit you this evening, after you have had a chance to settle in. Several social events have been arranged for your enjoyment, including an evening in Salzburg which will be an opportunity for you to meet the rest of the medical team and other patients who are receiving treatment. Part of the evening’s entertainment will be a chamber concert at the famous Marble Hall at the Mirabell Palace.’

‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle that amount of excitement,’ he said drily. ‘I hope there will be a well-stocked bar.’

‘Clients are asked to abstain from alcohol whilst they are on a treatment programme,’ Holly reminded him. ‘But don’t worry—I will be with you to support and encourage you on your journey to sobriety.’

Jarek got up from the sofa and the lounge suddenly seemed to shrink. It wasn’t just his height that made him dominate the room. He exuded a raw magnetism that sent heat coursing through Holly’s veins when he raked his bright blue eyes over her, from her head down to her toes, lingering a fraction longer than was appropriate on the firm swell of her breasts.

‘I should have guessed from your schoolmarm appearance that you are a fan of chamber music. I bet your idea of an exciting night is to go to bed early with a milky drink,’ he said, in that lazy, mocking way that made her want to slap him. Hard.

‘My bedtime habits are not up for discussion,’ she snapped, stung by his unflattering description of her. ‘Schoolmarm’ made her sound like a frump.

He was testing her professionalism to its limits. She had never met such an infuriating man. She watched the corners of his mouth lift in a slow smile, as if he could not be bothered to exert more than the minimum of effort.

‘We could discuss my bedtime habits instead, if you like? I guarantee they are more interesting and...energetic than yours.’

‘I’m well aware of that. Anyone who reads the gutter press is regularly treated to intimate details about your love affairs.’

His grin widened, and his eyes had a wicked glint that made Holly’s heart beat faster. How could his eyes be as cold as ice one minute and in the next instant burn with blue flames that made her feel hot all over?

‘Presumably you read the tabloids, as you seem to know so much about me,’ he said softly. ‘The intimate details you mention are fifty per cent true and fifty per cent the product of an editor’s fevered imagination. But I don’t have love affairs.’ His tone hardened. ‘Love plays no part in my sexual adventures. As long as you remember that, we should get on fine.’

‘Why do I need to remember it? I’m not interested in your sex-life except in my professional capacity as your therapist.’

‘Of course you’re interested in me, angel-face. Those big brown eyes of yours soften like molten chocolate every time you look at me. Do you think I haven’t noticed the hungry glances you’ve been darting at me when you think my attention’s not on you?’

His smoky, sensual voice sent a shiver of unwanted reaction the length of Holly’s spine. It was imperative that she took back control of the situation and of herself. Her reaction to Jarek was utterly inexplicable. He was an arrogant, over-sexed playboy and the absolute anathema of the intellectual men she had dated in the past.

Before she’d left London she’d had dinner a couple of times with Malcom, who was an art historian, and he had told her some really quite interesting facts about Islamic art. Although admittedly after three hours of listening to him talking about his favourite topic her attention had started to wander.

‘You’re wrong, I’m afraid.’ She was pleased that she sounded cool and collected—the opposite of how she felt. ‘All I care about is doing my job to the best of my ability, and my interest in you is purely from the perspective of my role as your psychotherapist. I’m determined to discover how you tick, Jarek. You’ve described yourself as a prisoner,’ she said gently, ‘but perhaps the prison bars are inside your head.’

* * *

Jarek sprawled in the back of the limousine and considered telling the driver to turn the car around and take him back to the Frieden Clinic, so that he could jump on his motorbike and get the hell out of Dodge. But he had given his word to his brother-in-law that, for Elin’s sake, he would spend six weeks undergoing psychotherapy. And, because his sister was the only person in the world whom he loved, he would stick it out even though it promised to be the most boring few weeks of his life.

Although perhaps it wouldn’t be as tedious as he’d first feared, he mused, visualising the delectable Dr Maitland.

He had told her the truth—the only time he intended to do so—when he’d admitted that she was different from his expectations of her. Holly was a stunning brunette, but he had imagined her as a matronly figure, possibly wearing a tweed suit—rather like the vicar’s wife in Little Bardley, who had always been kind to him when he’d been an angry teenager and constantly at loggerheads with Ralph Saunderson, his adoptive father.

But Holly looked nothing like a vicar’s wife, and even her uninspiring clothes couldn’t hide her gorgeous curvaceous figure. The sight of her too-tight blouse straining across her breasts, affording him a tantalising glimpse of creamy flesh where the material gaped around the buttonholes, had sent a rush of heat straight to his groin.

Frankly, she had rendered him speechless—which was not a condition Jarek often suffered from. He was clever with words, and always knew the right things to say—to women especially. That was why he could not understand why he had blurted out to Holly that she was beautiful. He’d sounded like an adolescent on a first date. Usually he was the king of cool, and the funny thing was that the more he acted as if he didn’t care the more interested women were in him.

The truth was he really didn’t care about anything or anyone apart from his sister, whom he had protected since she was a baby. But Elin was married to Cortez now, and they had a son, Harry. Soon their second child would be born. Jarek had accepted that Elin’s life had moved on and, although they would always share a close bond, that her priorities were her husband and family. Hell, he’d even accepted that Cortez, who was actually Ralph Saunderson’s secret son and heir, was a decent guy.

But, while his sister deserved to be happy, Jarek knew he would never come to terms with what he had done, and the grief he had caused to both Elin and Ralph Saunderson. It was his fault that Lorna Saunderson had died, and the raw pain inside him was his punishment—it was what he deserved.

He steered his mind away from the dark path of memory, which inevitably led to the self-destructive behaviour his sister had begged him to seek help for. The truth was no one could help him. He pictured Dr Maitland’s doe eyes and her serenely lovely face. He’d nicknamed her ‘angel-face’ but there was nothing angelic about her sinfully sexy mouth. He’d found himself longing to taste and explore it with his tongue.

At another time—even a month ago—he would have viewed Holly as an enjoyable distraction, and nothing would have stopped him from taking advantage of the awareness of him that she had unsuccessfully tried to hide.

But the letter he had received three weeks ago had made him question everything he’d believed he knew about himself. It had even made him wonder...who was Jarek Dvorska?

CHAPTER TWO

JAREK STARED OUT of the car window at the stunning Alpine landscape. All around him majestic snow-white mountains touched the sky and were reflected in a gentian-blue lake. The pine trees growing on the slopes looked as if they had been dusted with icing sugar, and here and there quaint Hansel and Gretel chalets peeped out from beneath snow-covered roofs.

The mountainous scene was exquisite, but there was also an inexplicable familiarity about it that he found puzzling. Ever since his adoptive parents had taken him on a skiing holiday in Chamonix, when he was twelve, Jarek had felt ‘at home’ in the mountains. But that did not make sense, because he had spent the first nine years of his life in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. He had no recollection of his family’s home in the city, but he remembered the grim grey orphanage where he and Elin had lived after their parents had died.

Why did he feel a sense of recognition when he skied down a mountain? he had once asked Lorna Saunderson, when he’d been trying to make sense of the images inside his head that he thought must be snatches of dreams—because how could they be real memories? For that matter, how had he known instinctively how to ski, without any help from an instructor, on that trip to Chamonix?

His adoptive mother—the only woman he had ever called Mama, since he had no idea who his real mother was—had reminded him that Sarajevo was surrounded by mountains. She’d suggested that perhaps staff at the orphanage had taken the children on a trip to the mountains and he had forgotten it.

Jarek thought it was unlikely. His memories of early childhood were of fear and hunger and regular beatings from the staff—although he had no idea what he might have done to merit such severe punishment. He certainly did not remember being taken out of the orphanage, and his recollections of Bosnia were only of the war that had taken place there in the nineteen-nineties, when Sarajevo had been besieged by Serbian soldiers.

His boyhood memories were of the sound of machine gun fire and the loud explosions when bombs had fallen into the compound outside the orphanage, where the children had played. He and the other orphaned children had huddled together in a damp cellar while Sarajevo had been under fire. Sometimes the few staff who had not deserted the orphanage or been killed had been in such a rush to get down to the cellar that they’d left the babies upstairs in their cots when the bombing started.

But Jarek had always refused to abandon his little sister, and had constantly risked his life to take her down to the cellar, where she would be safe. Elin had been about a year old when the war had begun, and even then she had been remarkably pretty. When a wealthy English couple—Ralph and Lorna Saunderson—had decided to adopt a Bosnian orphan they had chosen a golden-haired angelic little girl. But Elin had become so distressed when they’d tried to separate her from her older brother that Lorna had insisted on rescuing Jarek too, and so the children had escaped hell and gone to live at stately Cuckmere Hall on the Sussex Downs.

For years Jarek had not thought too deeply about his strange affinity with mountains. He did not take anything too seriously, because he was afraid that if he did the darkness in his soul might devour him. But that goddamned letter—from a man who had allegedly worked for Vostov’s royal family over two decades ago—had unlocked Pandora’s Box. The only way he could prevent the nightmares which had plagued him recently was to drink enough vodka so that he did not so much sleep as sink into oblivion for a few hours, if he was lucky.

He had convinced himself that the letter was a hoax and ignored it. But when he’d arrived at the Frieden Clinic and seen that newspaper headline about Vostov something had flashed into his mind that he might have believed was a deeply buried memory—if it hadn’t been so crazy. Unthinkable. He didn’t want to think, and he certainly wasn’t going to allow Dr Holly Maitland access to the innermost secrets that his instincts warned him were best kept hidden.

‘Hey, Gunther.’ Jarek leaned forward to speak to the driver. ‘How far is it to the chalet where I will be staying?’

‘We should be there in approximately ten minutes, sir,’ Gunther replied in perfect English. ‘We will soon come to a town and ski resort called Arlenwald. Chalet Soline is on the other side of the town, a little higher up the mountain.’

‘Does Arlenwald have any good bars?’

‘Bibiana’s Bar is a popular place with young people who like to drink Schnapps and watch the dancing girls. Or the Oberant Hotel is very charming. I believe they have a string quartet who play music while guests enjoy afternoon tea.’

‘Hmm...tea or Schnapps—what is your preference, Gunther?’

‘I am not fond of tea, sir.’

‘Nor me. How about we stop at Bibiana’s Bar so I can buy you a drink?’

‘Dr Maitland instructed me to take you straight to the chalet,’ Gunther said doubtfully.

Jarek smiled. ‘There is no need to tell her that we took a short detour, is there?’

* * *

‘What do you mean, he’s not here?’ Holly stared at Karl, the chef and butler at Chalet Soline. ‘The chauffeur left the Frieden Clinic with Mr Dvorska two hours ago, to make a journey that has taken me twenty minutes.’

Admittedly the four-by-four she had used to drive herself to the chalet was better suited to the mountain roads than a limousine, but it should have taken the chauffeur no more than half an hour to deliver Jarek to the luxury alpine lodge where he would stay while he underwent a course of psychological treatment.

‘I understand that Mr Dvorska wished to spend some time in Arlenwald,’ Karl told her. ‘Gunther telephoned to say he had left the patient in the town, because he had to attend another appointment, and that Mr Dvorska intended to walk the last part of the journey to Chalet Soline.’

Holly frowned. ‘I know Gunther had to go to Salzburg today, but I expected him to follow my instructions and bring the patient here first. Goodness knows what Mr Dvorska has found to do in Arlenwald. There are only a few ski shops and hotels—and that dreadful bar where the waitresses dress up in supposedly Austrian folk costumes. I doubt the traditional dirndl was as low-cut as the dresses worn by the girls at Bibiana’s Bar,’ she said drily.

The lively bar, which was a popular venue for the après-ski crowd, was just the kind of place that Jarek would head for, she thought grimly. She shouldn’t have let him out of her sight. Jarek’s fondness for alcohol had been extensively documented in the tabloids, and she should have stuck to him like glue and escorted him to Chalet Soline herself. Instead she had sent him off with the chauffeur to give herself time to try and understand why he, of all men, had made her aware of her sensuality in a way she had never felt before.

Just thinking about his too-handsome face and his sexy grin that was both an invitation and a promise caused heat to unfurl in the pit of her stomach. She grimaced. Sexual alchemy was an enigma, and scientific research had yet to fully explain the complex biological and psychological reasons why one person was attracted to another. At a basic level her awareness of Jarek was the purely primal reaction of a female searching for an alpha-male, Holly reminded herself. But she was an intelligent, educated woman of the twenty-first century and she was not at the mercy of her hormones. She would simply have to ignore the thunder of her pulse when Jarek looked at her with that wicked glint in his eyes that made her want to respond to his unspoken challenge.

Her conscience queried whether she should ask Professor Heppel to assign a different psychotherapist to work with Jarek—except that she could not think of a good reason to request being taken off his case. She certainly could not admit that she was attracted to her patient. It would be tantamount to professional suicide.

Besides, she thought as she climbed into the four-by-four and headed towards the town that she had driven through five minutes earlier, right at this moment her feelings for Jarek Dvorska were murderous rather than amorous.

Bibiana’s Bar was at the far end of Arlenwald’s pretty main street. Popular with skiers and snowboarders, even at five o’clock in the afternoon the place was packed with people clutching huge steins of beer, and Holly struggled to thread her way through the crowd over to the bar. Rock music pumped out from enormous speakers and the heavy bass reverberated through her body and exacerbated her tension headache. It seemed impossible that she would be able to find Jarek in this crowd, and she didn’t even know for certain that he was here.

After a fruitless search, with her head pounding in competition with the music, she was about to give up. Then her attention was drawn to two girls wearing micro mini-skirts and cropped blouses that revealed their lithe figures, who were dancing on top of a table.

Following her instincts, she made her way across the room and felt a mixture of relief and anger when she spotted Jarek sitting in an alcove. Another girl was perched on his knee, and as Holly watched him slide his hand over the girl’s bare thigh her temper simmered.

Trust him to find a dark corner to commit dark deeds, she fumed. She would have loved to walk away and leave him to get on with his sordid lifestyle of booze and bimbos, but she did not relish having to confess to Professor Heppel that she had failed in her first assignment.

She became aware that Jarek was not watching the girls who were dancing so frenetically in front of him. His brilliant blue eyes were focused on her. Once again her body responded to the challenge in his bold stare and she felt her nipples pull tight. He was unfairly gorgeous, and she was helpless to prevent her body’s treacherous reaction to him. The cruel beauty of his angular face and that too-long dark blond hair that he pushed off his brow with a careless flick of his hand were a killer combination. Few women would be able to resist his rampant sensuality and the devil-may-care attitude that warned he was untameable.

The girl sitting on his lap clearly found him irresistible. Holly was irritated as she watched Jarek lower his head and murmur something to the girl, who giggled as she slid off his knee and glanced over at her.

The other girls jumped down from the table and blew extravagant kisses to Jarek as they sauntered away but he ignored them, and the smouldering gaze he directed at Holly made her feel as if she was the only woman in the room. It was what he did, she reminded herself. He was a master of seduction. But she was not about to climb onto the table and perform a sexy dance for him. She was his therapist, for heaven’s sake!

‘You were expected at Chalet Soline two hours ago, but it’s my fault entirely that you didn’t make it,’ she said breezily, to hide the fact that she wanted to strangle him. ‘I should have realised I would need to babysit you to keep you out of trouble.’

His grin made her heart give an annoying flip. ‘Ada, Dagna and Halfrida were no trouble,’ he drawled. ‘Especially Halfrida. She wanted to know if you are my wife, come to nag me.’

‘It’s a pity she didn’t ask me. I would have told her that if I was ever interested in marrying you would be the last person I’d choose for my husband,’ she said tartly, goaded by the memory of how the pretty blonde had cuddled up to him.

‘Really? I’m considered quite a catch.’ He sounded highly amused. ‘In fact a few of the tabloids have described me as “Europe’s most eligible bachelor”.’

‘The fact that you are a multi-millionaire no doubt goes a long way to explaining your eligibility.’

He laughed, and a gleam of admiration flickered in his eyes. ‘Your name suits your prickly nature, Holly. So, would you marry for money?’

‘Of course not. And as I have already said, I’m not looking for a husband.’

His brows lifted. ‘I’m surprised. I had you down as the type of woman who dreams of a cottage with roses round the door, marriage to a dependable guy and a couple of babies.’

She masked the sharp stab of pain in her heart with a brisk smile. ‘I grew up in the English countryside, and my experience of quaint old cottages is that they are damp and expensive to heat. I’m too busy with my career to think about marriage. Being a psychotherapist isn’t a nine-to-five job—which is why I am here at...’ she glanced at her watch ‘...ten to six in the evening to save you from yourself.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to be saved.’ There was steel beneath his soft tone.

Holly looked pointedly at the three-quarters empty bottle of vodka on the table in front of him. ‘Your notoriety with the press means you are very recognisable. For all you know, someone here in the bar might have taken a photo of you drinking and partying and posted it on social media. How do you think your sister will feel if she hears that you’ve wimped out of having treatment?’

His expression turned wintry. ‘I have never wimped out of anything in my life!’

‘Acknowledging and dealing with emotional baggage takes courage. It would be far easier to carry on with your selfish lifestyle, even though your drinking and wild behaviour hurts the people who love you.’

‘No one loves me,’ he said lightly, as if his flash of temper moments earlier hadn’t happened—as if he didn’t care.

Holly frowned. It was her job to understand people, but she could not read Jarek and she wasn’t sure if she had heard something raw in his voice or if she had imagined it.

‘Your sister must love you or she wouldn’t be concerned about you,’ she murmured.

His bland smile gave nothing away. ‘Elin has her own family—and good luck to her. I’m glad she is happy again. I was afraid I had ruined...’ He stopped speaking and his jaw clenched.

‘You had ruined what?’ Holly held her breath, hoping he would continue. She sensed that what he had been about to say was an important clue that might help her to fathom him out.

‘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.

CHAPTER THREE

JAREK FOUND AN outlet for his restless energy in the chalet’s gym. He could think of other, more enjoyable ways to get hot and sweaty than pounding his fists into a punch-bag. But he had promised his brother-in-law there would be no more scandalous stories about his personal life in the tabloids—which meant that until Elin’s baby was born he had to keep away from bars and airhead blondes who were attracted to his multi-millionaire status and bad-boy image.

The truth was he’d never cared about what was printed about him—which was mostly lies. Any publicity, good or bad, was publicity for Lorna’s Gift, and he seized every opportunity to promote the vital work of the charity.

But Elin’s husband Cortez took a different view.

‘Elin gets upset when she sees your name in newspaper headlines or on the pages of gossip magazines, invariably with intimate details of your sex-life,’ Cortez had warned him. ‘She has gestational high blood pressure, which could lead to more serious complications with her pregnancy, and her obstetrician says it is crucial she doesn’t suffer any stress that could cause her blood pressure to rise even higher.’

Jarek shared his brother-in-law’s concern. Elin and Cortez had not been together when Elin had nearly died giving birth to their first child, and it had been Jarek who had sat by her bed in ITU, willing her to pull through for the sake of her baby son in the hospital nursery.

There were worse places to spend the next few weeks than the spectacular Austrian Alps, he mused. Chalet Soline offered six-star luxury, and next to the well-equipped gym there was a sauna room while outside on the decked area stood a hot tub. He would find it relaxing after his punishing workout to lie in a bubbling hot tub and look up at the snow-covered mountains, or count the stars that glittered diamond-bright in the night sky.

But when he glanced at his watch he realised he did not have time before Professor Heppel arrived.

About to head back to his room, to shower before dinner, he glanced out of a window and noticed that the lights had been switched on around the hot tub. Steam was curling up from the surface of the water, forming wispy white clouds against the black night sky.

Jarek stopped dead and stared at the figure of a woman rising out of the steam like a mystical goddess. And what a figure! He swallowed as he watched Holly wade across to the edge of the pool. It was no exaggeration to say that she was a goddess, with an hourglass figure that was reminiscent of the silver screen sirens from a previous era, like Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor.

She was wearing a one-piece swimsuit with cut-out sections at the sides that drew attention to her slender waist. Jarek wanted to explore the tantalising areas of her bare skin on display with his hands. He lifted his eyes higher to her voluptuous breasts, barely contained within the tiny triangles of gold material that formed the bra cups of the swimsuit, and felt himself harden. He was fascinated by her daring choice of swimwear, which was such a contrast to the unexciting clothes she’d worn earlier.

Moving his gaze lower, he followed the rounded curves of her hips and her toned thighs, exposed by the swimsuit’s high-cut legs.

Who was the real Holly? he wondered. The serious psychologist, or the sizzling sex bomb who made the blood thunder in his veins? His body felt taut and energised after his gym workout and he wanted—quite possibly more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, he discovered—to pull Holly beneath him and ease her stretchy swimsuit aside so that he could thrust his rock-solid erection home.

It was lucky he had worn loose sweatpants for his session in the gym, Jarek thought derisively. He was so turned on by the sight of Holly in her barely there swimsuit that he felt he might explode.

His common sense told him to head back to his room. But he rarely heeded good advice.

The temperature outside the chalet was way below zero, and as the icy air hit his heated skin every nerve-ending in his body tingled.

Jarek allowed the door to thud closed behind him as he stepped outside onto the wooden decking. The sound caused Holly to jerk her head round, and she gave a startled cry when she saw him, followed by a curse when she dropped the towel that she had just picked up from the deck into the water.

‘You startled me. I thought you were working in the study,’ she muttered in an embarrassed voice, as if he had caught her naked—which she very nearly was, Jarek mused as he roamed his eyes over her insubstantial swimsuit and felt the ache in his groin clamour to be appeased.

He did not reply, for the simple reason that he could not think of anything to say—couldn’t think of anything at all but how utterly perfect she was with her skin flushed pink from the heat of the hot tub and a deeper flush on her pretty face.

Her hair was piled on top of her head and loose tendrils curled about her cheeks. She was a luscious goddess, and he wanted nothing more than to drop to his knees in front of her to worship her bounteous beauty with his mouth and explore every secret place on her body with his tongue.

He was jolted from his sexual haze by the sound of her clipped voice.

‘Would you please pass me another towel? There’s a pile of clean towels on the shelf outside the sauna room,’ she said when he didn’t move, just stared at her while he tried to control the conflagration of lust that burned down to his bones.

‘Jarek, for heaven’s sake—I’m freezing.’

He couldn’t tear his gaze from the prominent points of her nipples, clearly outlined beneath her clingy swimsuit. His mouth went dry as he imagined peeling the swimsuit from her breasts to feast his eyes and then his lips on those provocative peaks.

Somehow he forced himself to turn and walk into the house, and he grabbed a towel before retracing his steps back across the decking.

Holly held out her hand for the towel, but Jarek did not pass it to her immediately. ‘First let your hair down,’ he growled.

‘Are you kidding?’ Her brown eyes widened.

There was shock, anger and something else that was harder to define but made him ache even more, in her expression.

‘Do you want me to catch pneumonia?’

She didn’t wait for him to reply—which was probably a good thing, he acknowledged, because he would have to admit that what he wanted was her legs wrapped around his back.

Throwing him a look of sheer irritation, she lifted her hands up and released the clip on top of her head so that her hair tumbled down around her shoulders in glossy waves of rich chocolate-brown. ‘Satisfied?’

He doubted he would ever be satisfied again with the too thin, too blonde, brittle women who came and went from his bed in an endless stream of unmemorable sexual encounters. They always came, he thought sardonically. He was as good at sex as he was at making money, yet neither activity ever filled the emptiness inside him.

Finally he heeded his common sense, aware that indulging his sexual desire for Holly might satisfy him temporarily but that he would soon grow bored of her. It was just how he was: ‘a restless soul’, Mama had once described him, while his adoptive father had accused him of being reckless. Ralph had been proved right.

He gave Holly the towel and she immediately dragged it around her shoulders to hide her gorgeous body from him before she stepped out of the hot tub and stalked back to the chalet.

Jarek caught up with her in a few long strides. ‘Why are you here?’ he demanded, placing his hand on her arm to prevent her walking through the door that led from the gym annexe into the main part of the house.

‘Where else would I be?’ She tensed beneath his hand and with obvious reluctance raised her eyes to his face.

‘I assumed you had gone to wherever you live. Do you rent a place in Salzburg? Or is there staff accommodation at the Frieden Clinic, where we met earlier?’

She frowned. ‘I live here—at Chalet Soline. When I’m in London I share a flat with a friend, but for my job with the Frieden Clinic I am required to live at one of the clinic’s residences so that I can provide psychological support around the clock. Every member of the clinical team is assigned to a chalet, where they treat patients on an individual basis. Professor Heppel came up with the radical approach of providing access to twenty-four-seven treatment, rather than sessions which last for an hour once or twice a week. His highly successful method is explained in the brochure that you didn’t bother to read—and I also explained the set-up when I met you at the clinic’s reception centre earlier today. But you seemed more interested in reading a story in the newspaper than listening to me.’

Holly’s disapproving tone reminded Jarek of the headmistress who had expelled him from his exclusive private school at the age of fifteen, after he had been caught smuggling alcohol into the school and selling it to the other boys. He had argued that his business venture had shown entrepreneurial spirit, but the headmistress had warned that his rebellious nature would ultimately be his ruin.

He thought of the newspaper headline that had seized his attention when he had arrived at the Frieden Clinic.

What did happen to Vostov’s royal children?

Jarek feared the answer was buried in his subconscious mind, and that his nightmares might reveal a truth that was too shocking for him to contemplate. Certainly he could not risk Holly hearing him shout out in his sleep, as had happened on one of the rare occasions when he had spent a whole night with a woman he had picked up in a bar.

The next morning Tara... Tyra—he hadn’t taken much heed of her name—had said he’d kept her awake with his shouting and maybe he should talk to a psychiatrist or something about the crazy stuff in his head.

Jarek’s chosen method of preventing his bad dreams was to drink enough vodka until he was unconscious. But without access to alcohol God knew what his nightmares might reveal.

He realised that Holly was speaking again. ‘I believe you will find it beneficial to be able to discuss issues with your therapist whenever you need to, instead of having to wait for an allotted time for treatment sessions. If you want to talk to me in the middle of the night you can ring through to my room and wake me up. Part of my job is to be available whenever you want me.’

‘Is that so...?’

Jarek felt the hard thud of his pulse and knew he had to resist it—had to resist her. There was a curious innocence about Holly that made him want to protect her from himself.

‘There is only one reason why I would wake you in the middle of the night, angel-face,’ he drawled, ‘and it wouldn’t be because I want to talk.’

He watched a scarlet stain spread over her face and wondered when he had last seen a woman blush. For a few seconds he felt a tug of regret, because he could not allow this shimmering, ephemeral thing between them that was something other than sexual attraction—something more—to flourish. He was who he was: reckless, rebellious, with a knack of destroying everything that was good in his life.

‘There you go again with the sexual innuendo.’ She put her head on one side and studied him intently. ‘Are you trying to frighten me? Because I have to tell you that you aren’t succeeding.’

‘You should be afraid of me,’ he said roughly. ‘I am everything you have read about me and worse.’ He wanted to shout at her that he didn’t deserve the sympathy he could see in her velvet brown eyes. His jaw clenched. ‘This is a complication I don’t need right now.’

She wrinkled her nose and Jarek swore silently. He didn’t do cute, his brain insisted, but his body paid no attention.

‘What do you mean by “this”? she asked, looking puzzled.

He stretched out his hand and jerked the edges of the towel she was clutching around her from her fingers. With a cry of protest she tried to snatch it back, but he whipped it away from her body and trailed his eyes with slow deliberation over her skimpy swimsuit. Desire kicked hard in his gut as he stared at her lush breasts, half-spilling over the top of the swimsuit, and the hard points of her nipples that betrayed her so sweetly.

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