The Throne He Must Take Read online

  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 throug
h 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 remembe
r 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.