She glanced at Jarek, the infamous playboy whose list of lovers was reputedly longer than a telephone directory, and a cold dose of reality washed over her. He was flirting with her because he couldn’t help himself, but she was sure the smouldering desire in his eyes would quickly disappear if he discovered that he would need patience to arouse her fully before he could make love to her.
She remembered reading a tabloid story in which a well-known stage actress had claimed she’d had sex with Jarek in her dressing room during the ten-minute interval of a West End play. Maybe there was an added thrill to spontaneous sex, Holly brooded, but for her a quickie was out of the question.
She bit her lip. Why was she imagining having sex with Jarek? There was no chance of it happening. Firstly because it would be ethically and morally wrong for her to have an affair with a client, and secondly because the pretty girls at Bibiana’s Bar were more his type than an unexciting psychologist who had a hang-up about sex.
Knowing those things made it easier to resist his sexy charm when he suggested they sit by the fire to drink their coffee. She gave him a cool smile and felt a spurt of satisfaction when he looked surprised. No doubt he was used to women falling at his feet, but she was immune to his potency she told herself firmly.
Jarek lowered his long frame onto the sofa in front of the fire and patted the empty place next to him. But Holly walked straight past and sat down in the armchair furthest away.
His phone rang and his hard features softened when he looked at the screen. ‘Do you mind if I answer this?’
‘Be my guest,’ she murmured.
She guessed the caller was a woman when he stood up and strolled over to the window, speaking into the phone in a low tone. Once or twice he laughed softly, and Holly felt an inexplicable ache beneath her breastbone. She wasn’t lonely, she assured herself. She had plenty of friends.
But recently several of her close friends had got married, and at dinner parties the conversation tended to be about pregnancy and childcare. It would be nice to have someone special to share laughs with, to share her life with, she acknowledged, but she hadn’t dated anyone since Stuart.
She had a good career, Holly reminded herself. Staying at a luxury chalet in the Alps was a wonderful perk of her job. She took a chocolate from the dish on the coffee table and bit into it. The creamy truffle tasted divine, and she closed her eyes while she focused her senses on the sensual pleasure of the chocolate melting on her tongue.
‘At least my sister is happy that I have decided to remain at the Frieden Clinic for the next few weeks.’
Holly’s eyes flew open and she saw Jarek slip his phone into his pocket before he strolled over and sat down on the footstool close to her chair. Too close for her comfort, she thought, watching the firelight dance over his hair and throw the hard angles of his face into sharp relief. Her fingers literally ached to discover if the blond stubble shading his jaw felt prickly to the touch.
‘Elin sounded nice when I spoke to her before you arrived...’ she murmured, annoyed with herself for feeling pleased that his phone call had been from his sister. ‘She told me that the orphanage where you lived in Sarajevo was partially destroyed when it was hit by mortar shells. Elin said she was too young for her to remember much about the war, but she knows that you took care of her and undoubtedly saved her life many times.’
He shrugged. ‘I am six years older than my sister. There was no one else to look after her because many of the staff were killed. The kids who survived were the forgotten children of a brutal war,’ he said grimly. ‘When there was a lull in the machine gun fire I used to go out with a couple of other boys to steal food from the few shops that still operated. We’d take provisions back to the younger children in the orphanage.’
‘It sounds horrific. What happened to your parents?’
‘They died in a bomb explosion.’ Jarek’s voice was emotionless. ‘Apparently it was a miracle that Elin and I were pulled from the rubble alive.’
‘It must have been devastating to lose your parents when you were so young,’ Holly said softly. ‘Do you remember much about them?’
‘I don’t have any memories of them.’ His jaw clenched. ‘I was told by the orphanage staff that the trauma of the explosion had somehow wiped out all my memories of my parents.’ He stared at her with an odd intensity in his bright blue eyes. ‘Is that possible? As far as I’m aware I did not suffer any head injury which could have caused memory loss.’
‘Well, post-traumatic stress can be responsible for memory loss, but it is more likely to manifest with a person having flashbacks and nightmares of a traumatic experience,’ Holly said thoughtfully. ‘There is a form of memory loss called dissociative amnesia, in which information is lost from the conscious mind as a result of emotional trauma. In such cases a person’s behaviour can be influenced by a past trauma, even though their conscious mind doesn’t remember what happened. For instance, if a young girl was dragged into some bushes and raped, she might, as an adult, be terrified to walk through woodland. But because her mind has blocked out the rape she doesn’t understand the reason for her fear.’
‘Do you mean that the brain blocks out bad memories? I have sometimes wondered if I had an unhappy life with my parents, which is why I can’t remember them.’
‘I suppose that’s possible. Another explanation might be that you had a loving relationship with your parents and losing them suddenly was so traumatic that you developed what can be described as emotional amnesia—meaning that you are unable to remember events which occurred in a specific period of time. That would explain why you have no memories of your life before your parents were killed. How much do you remember of living at the orphanage?’
‘I remember everything about that hellhole.’
The harsh scrape of Jarek’s voice sent a shiver through Holly.
‘I’m thankful that my sister was too young to remember much.’ He pushed his hair off his face. ‘I can only think that whatever happened when I was very young must have been unimaginably horrific for my mind to have blocked out all early memories of my childhood, and yet I am able to recall vividly the terrible things I witnessed in Sarajevo.’
‘I read in your notes that you have had an MRI scan which reveals no indication of any structural brain injury. That suggests that we should focus on psychological testing to try to get to the root of your memory loss. Psychotherapy and CBT—cognitive behaviour therapy—have both proved to be highly successful in helping patients to recover memory.’
‘You must have heard the saying “Let sleeping dogs lie”? I can’t help but think I should do the same,’ Jarek murmured.
His lazy tone took Holly by surprise after the rawness she’d heard in his voice moments earlier. He smiled, but there was a bleakness in his eyes that tugged on her tender heart as she pictured him as a young orphaned boy, trapped in a besieged city during one of Europe’s bloodiest civil wars.
‘I believe your fear of what lies in the past will prevent you from finding happiness in the future. I want to help you unlock your memories,’ she told him softly.
His sharp gaze searched her face. ‘Why?’
‘I know what it’s like at the bottom of the well...what it’s like to be in a place so deep and dark that you can’t imagine the light, let alone see it.’ She swallowed, wondering why she had revealed her vulnerable side to Jarek. ‘Besides, you’re paying me a lot of money to be your psychotherapist,’ she said briskly. ‘And, actually, I am very good at what I do.’
‘I’m sure you are.’
His voice turned smoky and curled around her, making her fiercely aware of him.
‘Actually,’ he mimicked gently, ‘I am very good at what I do, too.’
Holly flushed as she guessed he wasn’t referring to his skill at studying the financial markets and making money. She hadn’t noticed him move closer, but he was right there in front of her. The footstool he was sitting on was slightly lower than her chair, and his eyes were level w
ith hers when he leaned forward and rested his forearms on the arms of the chair, caging her in. She felt her heart collide painfully with her ribs as he stretched out his hand and brushed his thumb over her lips.
The effect on her was dizzying. Scalding heat swept through her veins and pooled, molten and shockingly needy, between her legs. Somehow she resisted the temptation to part her lips and draw his thumb into her mouth. She wanted him inside her—in every way.
The startling realisation acted as a reminder that her body would fail her, as it had done so humiliatingly in the past.
She jerked her head away from him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘You had chocolate on your mouth.’ He lifted his thumb to his own mouth and licked off the smear of chocolate that he had removed from her lips.
Heat rolled through her again and a curious heaviness filled her breasts and unfurled in the pit of her stomach. This has to stop right now, a sane voice in her head demanded. Amusement gleamed in Jarek’s eyes, but there was also something darker and more intent that stole her breath. He was a notorious womaniser, she reminded herself, and she was way out of her depth.
But she could not seem to move...could not tear her eyes from his mouth as he leaned forward, bringing his face so near to hers that his warm breath grazed her lips.
He was going to kiss her.
Holly trembled, wanting to feel his mouth on hers more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. She swayed towards him, bringing their bodies so close that she could see the tiny lines around his eyes and the faintly calculating expression in his ice-blue gaze.
Unease rippled down her spine.
He was her patient.
The cool voice of her sanity spoke again, forcing her to acknowledge that she was in danger of throwing away everything she had worked so hard for. It was not just her professionalism she was risking but her dignity and self-respect. Had she been tempted to sacrifice all that? For what? A five-minute fumble with the tabloids’ favourite bad-boy, she silently answered her own question.
‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ she said jerkily, and silently cursed herself for sounding so gauche. She managed to restrain herself from adding the clarification alone.
Jarek lifted his brows as if he knew—damn him—the shockingly erotic images that flashed into her mind of them in bed together.
She swallowed. ‘It’s late.’
Following his gaze over to the clock, she steeled herself for him to point out in his lazy drawl that nine-thirty was hardly ‘late’.
To her relief, he made no comment and did not try to stop her when she jumped up from her chair.
‘Goodnight,’ she choked. ‘We’ll start proper therapy tomorrow.’
His dry rejoinder, ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ mocked her as she fled from the room.
CHAPTER FIVE
A LINE OF black limousines queued outside Salzburg’s grandest hotel, waiting to deliver guests to the masquerade ball. Jarek tried to curb his impatience as Gunther inched the car slowly forward. He was not in any hurry to get to the ball—which he expected would be as tedious as such events usually were—but from as far back as he could remember he had felt an inexplicable sense of claustrophobia when he was in a car.
It was why he preferred to ride a motorbike.
He wondered if his irrational fear of travelling in cars was connected to his nightmares. Something Holly had said about it being possible for a forgotten trauma from the past to influence behaviour in adulthood had resonated with him.
This evening, when the chauffeur had opened the door for him to climb into the back of the car, he’d felt a sense of terror as a wisp of real memory or a bad dream—he did not know which—had flashed into his head. It had faded before he could assimilate what he had seen, but it had shaken him.
He stared out of the window, watching the flurry of snowflakes drifting down from the night sky. If he had been on his own he would have jumped out onto the pavement and walked the last few hundred yards to the hotel’s entrance. But the temperature outside was below zero and Holly would freeze in her strapless ballgown.
He could do with a blast of cold air to bring his temperature down, Jarek thought as he glanced at her sitting beside him. Desire kicked hard in his groin as he allowed his eyes to linger on the creamy upper slopes of her breasts, rising above the low-cut neckline of her dress.
‘Explain to me why we are attending a masked ball,’ he murmured, in an attempt to divert his mind from the erotic fantasies about her that had made him uncomfortably hard ever since she’d walked into the lounge at Chalet Soline, looking as if she belonged in an adults-only fairy tale, wearing a dramatic creation of burgundy silk and lace.
The dress’s full skirt emphasised Holly’s tiny waist, and Jarek was sorely tempted to press his mouth against the smooth skin of her bare shoulder and kiss his way down to the deep valley between her breasts.
‘Austria is famed for its ball season, which lasts from just before Christmas right through until early summer,’ she told him. ‘And Professor Heppel believes it is important for patients to attend social functions accompanied by their therapists, so that they can address any issues which might stem from social anxiety. For example, a person might drink heavily to boost their self-confidence. Although I very much doubt that a lack of confidence is the reason why you drink,’ she said drily.
Jarek’s mouth twitched. He was frequently amused by her acerbic wit, and greatly entertained by the way she bristled when he teased her. Holly’s nature was as prickly as her name suggested, and he found her disapproval of him a novelty when other women invariably fawned on him.
He stretched his arm along the back of the car seat and was delighted when she stiffened. ‘Are you saying that alcohol will be served at the ball? Suddenly the evening promises to be more entertaining.’
She jerked her head round, and even in the dark interior of the car he felt the force of the glare she directed at him. ‘Obviously you are expected to stay away from the bar. The point of the exercise is for you to understand that you do not need to get drunk in order to have a good time. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you the entire evening,’ she warned. ‘In case you get any ideas.’
‘Oh, I have lots of ideas.’ He couldn’t resist lowering his head so he could whisper in her ear. ‘I am very inventive.’
He was fascinated by the scarlet stain that bloomed on her pretty face. Her blush spread down her throat and across the slopes of her magnificent breasts, which reminded him of ripe peaches that he longed to taste.
‘You have to stop this,’ she snapped. ‘It is completely inappropriate for you to flirt with your psychologist. Or at least I’m supposed to be giving you therapy,’ she muttered, her frustration evident in her voice. ‘But you have been at Chalet Soline for a week and we have only managed one half-hour session.’
‘I don’t know where the week has gone,’ he said blandly.
‘You seem to have spent most of it sleeping.’ The bite in her tone was even sharper. ‘I’ve never known a man to lounge around in bed like you do.’
‘Have you known many men?’
Behind his teasing he realised that he really wanted to know—which was curious, because he had never been mildly interested in his mistresses’ tally of lovers. But, despite the simmering sexual chemistry between him and Holly, he could not risk making her his mistress, Jarek brooded.
The realisation that he liked her as well as desired her made him even more determined to resist her. Nothing good ever came to the people he cared about. Holly wanted him to confide his darkest secrets to her, but if he did that she would run as fast and as far from him as she could get—if she had any sense.
‘My love-life is none of your business.’
She tightened her fingers around her evening purse, and Jarek had an idea that she was imagining she had her hands around his throat.
‘Seriously, every day last week you only emerged from your bedroom at lunchtime, and every afternoon you took you
rself off to the Frieden Clinic’s treatment centre for a massage. I don’t suppose it has anything to do with the fact that the Swedish masseuse, Inga, is a very attractive blonde?’ she suggested sarcastically.
Her voice softened.
‘Don’t think I haven’t realised that you are avoiding me, Jarek. It’s not unusual for people embarking on psychological treatment to find talking about their problems difficult to begin with.’
The way she spoke his name felt like a kick in his gut. He wanted to pull the pins from her elegant chignon and thread his fingers through her mass of silky brown hair. Worse, he wanted to tell her things he had never told anyone else—not even his sister.
He could not risk upsetting Elin with his crazy idea that their parents hadn’t died in a bomb blast in Sarajevo, as they had always believed.
In the past week there had been further media reports on the rumour circulating in the Principality of Vostov that the royal family had been assassinated two decades ago, on the orders of a military commander. Ordinarily Jarek would not have taken much interest in the story, but the letter he’d received a few weeks ago, and the request for him to have a DNA test, were preying on his mind.
‘Who is Tarik?’ Holly asked quietly, jolting him from his thoughts. ‘I heard you shout out the name in the middle of the night. Your bedroom is at the opposite end of the chalet from mine, so you must have been shouting loudly to have woken me. Did you have a nightmare?’
‘If I did I don’t remember it,’ he lied.
The dream was one he’d had many times before: a car standing on a driveway with its engine running, bright headlamps cutting white circles in the dark night. People talking in frantic voices. He sensed their fear, but in his dream he could not see their faces. Someone was trying to bundle him into the car but he didn’t want to go, and he was crying, shouting out a name.
Tarik...
‘You have no idea who Tarik is?’ she persisted. ‘He might be the key to unlocking your lost memories.’
He looked away from her searching gaze. ‘Actually, I remember that Tarik was a boy I knew at the orphanage. We used to play football when the bombing stopped for a while.’
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