She’d felt sick ‘You wouldn’t do that.’
‘I told you—I don’t play fair, angel-face.’
‘As a matter of fact, blackmail is illegal,’ she’d said tersely.
‘I admit I might have embellished a few details about the night we spent together in that mountain hut...’
Beneath his amused tone Holly had heard quiet determination and had felt her heart sink.
‘Jarek...you must see that I can’t be your psychotherapist,’ she’d argued desperately. ‘It wouldn’t be right—’
‘You are the only person I trust,’ he had interrupted her harshly. And then, even more shockingly, ‘I need you, Holly. I have to talk to you.’
Fool that she was, she had felt her heart melt at the rawness in his voice. The outrageous attempt to coerce her into agreeing to visit him on his remote island hideaway had struck her as strange behaviour from the feckless playboy he was portrayed as being in the tabloids. But Holly knew that behind his public image Jarek had integrity and compassion. He’d said he trusted her, and she could not allow her pride to prevent her from helping him deal with his demons.
The helicopter landed on a green lawn in front of the house, and Holly was greeted by a cheerful man in a white uniform who introduced himself as the butler, Rani.
‘I’ll take your case up to the house, Dr Maitland. Mr Dvorska is waiting for you on the beach,’ Rani told her.
She soon discovered that walking on soft sand in kitten-heel shoes was no easy task. The late-afternoon sun was blazing in a cloudless azure sky, and by the time she stepped onto the jetty Holly felt hot and was tempted to take off her jacket. But she could not risk her body betraying her as she walked towards Jarek. Her grey wool suit and crisp white blouse were her armour against his potency.
He must have heard her heels tapping on the wooden boards because he turned around. Holly’s footsteps faltered. She had thought about him constantly in the past weeks, but he was even more breathtaking than her memories of him.
He was wearing a pair of faded denim shorts that sat low on his hips. His chest was bare and his dark golden tan suggested that he had spent much of the past three weeks in the sun. Holly’s eyes roamed over his flat stomach and the defined ridges of his impressive six-pack. Lifting her gaze higher to his face, she noted there was at least three days’ growth of stubble on his jaw, and the too-long hair that he was pushing off his brow had been bleached even blonder by the sun.
His wide mouth crooked in a sexy smile, but his ice-blue eyes were as hard as diamonds and revealed nothing of his thoughts.
‘Hello, Holly,’ he murmured, in the gravelly voice that she had heard countless times in her dreams.
She felt a rush of heat to her breasts, and was conscious of the tendrils of sweat-damp hair that clung to her flushed cheeks. ‘It’s so hot!’ she burst out, desperate to fill the awkward silence and disguise the thunderous beat of her heart. ‘The temperature was minus two when I left Austria.’
‘Is that why you are dressed for arctic conditions?’ he said drily. ‘The daytime temperature in the Seychelles at this time of year rarely drops below thirty degrees, and the dress code is informal. Wear as little as you like.’ His wicked grin made her catch her breath. ‘I hope you packed your gold swimsuit.’
‘Stop right there,’ Holly told him firmly. She held up her hand, as if she could ward off his charisma. ‘I know that flirting is as natural to you as breathing, but you don’t have to switch on your fake charm with me because you’ve already established that I’m nice but unmemorable.’
Something flashed in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you,’ he said roughly.
He stepped closer to her and she immediately backed away from him.
‘I’m old enough to cope with rejection gracefully, and I’m sure I’ll survive having my ego dented.’ She shrugged. ‘I was simply under the misapprehension that you liked me.’
‘Of course I bloody well like you.’ He took another step towards her and caught hold of her arm. ‘The night we spent together in that mountain hut was amazing. It was—’
‘It was a mistake,’ Holly insisted. She looked at him steadily. ‘ I’m prepared to try to help you, but I won’t be fobbed off with excuses or chase you around the island like I chased you up that mountain. You say you want to talk to me—so talk.’
He stared at her, clearly surprised by her refusal to be a push-over, and there was reluctant admiration in his voice when he spoke. ‘You’ve had a long journey to get here. Come up to the house and I’ll show you to your room. I’m sure you want to change into something cooler,’ he said, eyeing her thick skirt and jacket. ‘I guessed you wouldn’t have had a chance to buy beachwear in Austria, so I took the liberty of buying a few summer clothes for you.’
He started to walk back along the jetty and Holly had no choice but to follow him.
‘I’ve asked the chef to prepare an early dinner,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘We’ll talk then.’
Twenty minutes later Holly felt refreshed after taking a shower. Her bedroom was delightfully cool, thanks to the ceiling fan that was positioned over the huge bed. Sliding glass doors opened onto a balcony where pots of white jasmine grew in profusion, filling the room with their delicate fragrance. From the balcony she could see a turquoise infinity pool that looked tempting—although she had definitely not packed the frivolous gold swimsuit Jarek had referred to.
What would he think of her sensible blue costume? she wondered, and then reminded herself that she didn’t care about his opinion of her.
She rifled through her clothes, which the maid had unpacked and hung in the wardrobe, and realised she would swelter if she wore any of the smart business suits she had brought to the island with her.
Hanging on the rail next to her own clothes were the summer outfits that Jarek had provided: pretty dresses in lightweight fabrics that would be far more comfortable to wear in the heat. She would insist on paying for the clothes, Holly assured herself as she slipped on an elegant wraparound dress of aquamarine silk. Luckily she had packed a pair of flat ballet pumps that looked fine with the dress.
She had just caught her hair up in a loose knot on top of her head when the maid came to escort her to lunch.
Jarek was waiting for her beneath a gazebo next to the pool, where the butler was laying out a buffet-style meal on the table. Everything was so vivid, Holly thought, looking at the bowls of colourful salads and an array of fresh fruits. Bright pink hibiscus flowers covered the wooden frame of the gazebo, and the early-evening sunshine dappled everything in a mellow golden light.
‘This is an incredible place,’ she said as she sat down and picked up the glass of sparkling water that Rani had served her. She was curious to see that Jarek had opted for fruit juice rather than wine.
‘I haven’t drunk alcohol or smoked a cigarette for weeks,’ he told her. ‘Sex is the only vice left,’ he said, and grinned when she blushed.
Holly silently cursed her fair skin. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve given up that particular vice—even though there has been a notable absence of scandalous stories about your love-life in the tabloids recently. Perhaps you have decided to conduct your affairs with more discretion,’ she said sweetly.
His smile faded and he seemed suddenly tense. ‘I’ve been here on the island—alone apart from the staff. I flew here straight after I’d visited my sister and my new niece. Paradis sur Terre belongs to a friend of mine, and only he and you know my whereabouts.’
‘Why the secrecy?’ Holly frowned.
Jarek handed her a letter.
‘Read it,’ he urged her grimly.
* * *
Jarek was tempted to add a shot of rum to his pineapple juice. He had kept away from vodka since he’d left Austria, because every time he’d thought about having a drink he’d had the crazy idea that Holly would be disappointed with him. As if he cared about her opinion of him, he brooded. Right now he wanted to drink enough alcohol to render him unconscious, bu
t he sipped his fruit juice and waited for Holly to finish reading Asmir Sunjic’s astonishing letter.
He watched the sunlight slanting through the blinds on the gazebo spill over her hair, so that it gleamed in myriad shades from dark chocolate through to russet. Oddly, he felt calmer than he’d done in days—weeks. Three weeks, to be exact. Since he had checked out of the Frieden Clinic believing he would never see Holly again.
Now she was here in front of him, looking even more beautiful than he remembered. How he was managing to hold himself back from walking around the table and snatching her into his arms so that he could claim her mouth with his, as he had done a thousand times in his dreams, was beyond him.
She put the letter down on the table and stared at him, shock and disbelief in her dark eyes.
‘I’m guessing from the stilted wording that English isn’t this man Asmir Sunjic’s first language, but the letter is clear enough. Is it some sort of joke? There can’t be any truth in what he says, can there?’ She shook her head. ‘His story seems so fantastical.’
‘That’s what I thought at first, but now I don’t know. Maybe his crazy story is true.’
Jarek pushed away his uneaten dinner before standing up and walking to the side of the gazebo overlooking the beach. The sea was sapphire-blue and the silver sand stretched into the distance. He wanted to run along the water’s edge and shut his mind to everything but the rhythmic sound of the waves crashing onto the shore.
He had been running for most of his life, he thought.
He heard Holly move as she came to stand beside him, and his stomach clenched when he caught the drift of her perfume. Lilies, he thought, pure and sweet and yet subtly sensual as Holly was herself.
‘Why do you think Asmir might be telling the truth?’ she asked quietly.
‘Because I went to Vostov to meet him and I recognised him,’ he said harshly. ‘I remembered him from my childhood—before I went to live at the orphanage.’
‘My God...’ she said in a shaken voice. ‘I need to read the letter again. I couldn’t take it all in the first time.’
‘I’ll save you the trouble.’ Every word of the letter was imprinted on Jarek’s brain. ‘You may know that Vostov is a small principality in the Balkans, closely allied to Bosnia Herzegovina. Twenty-five years ago the principality was affected by the Bosnian war when it was invaded by Serbian forces. The commonly held belief is that Prince Goran attempted to take his wife, Princess Isidora, and their children, Prince Jarrett and the infant Princess Eliana, to safety in neighbouring Croatia. But the car they were travelling in crashed on a remote mountain pass and it was believed that the family were all killed.’
Holly nodded.
‘But according to Asmir—who says he was Prince Goran’s personal assistant—he managed to escape from the car with the two children before the car burst into flames with the other adults still inside. Asmir states that the royal family had been ambushed by the military forces who had invaded Vostov.’
Holly’s brow furrowed.
‘If I understood the letter correctly, Asmir says he hid the royal children at an orphanage in Sarajevo, where his sister worked. He thought that even if the military leaders who by then were in control of Vostov realised the children were alive, no one would be able to find them. That was why he changed Jarrett and Eliana’s names to...’
She trailed off into a stunned silence.
‘Jarek and Elin.’ Jarek finished her sentence. ‘Asmir forged documents stating that the children’s surname was Dvorska, which was his mother’s maiden name.’
‘Do you remember being told to call yourself Jarek instead of Jarrett?’
‘I don’t remember any of the events Asmir described.’ Jarek’s jaw clenched. ‘At least I have no conscious memories—but my nightmares make more sense now. I often dream about being in a car that is travelling fast. I can’t picture who else is in the car, but I sense they are scared. I hear loud noises—which might be gunfire. I hear screams, but I don’t know who is screaming. I think it might be me.’
Jarek thought of the intense fear he felt whenever he climbed into a car, and frustration surged through him.
‘I wish I could damn well remember.’
‘We can work on recovering your lost memories,’ Holly said. ‘The fact that you remember Asmir is encouraging, and with intensive therapy I’m hopeful we will uncover your past.’
She put her hand on his arm, and the gentle expression in her eyes made him want to howl like the child he must have once been—before his emotions had been blunted by the struggle to survive the war in Sarajevo and protect his baby sister.
‘The timing of the events Asmir mentions fits,’ Jarek said heavily. ‘The orphanage was bombed and Asmir’s sister was killed. When he couldn’t find the royal children he assumed they had also died. But by that time my sister and I had been adopted by the Saundersons and taken to live in England. All the records of children who had lived at the orphanage were destroyed when the building caught fire.’
‘Why did Asmir send you the letter if he thought you were dead?’
‘He explained that for years he had felt guilty that he’d failed to protect the royal children and had told no one his story. But a year ago he saw my photograph in a newspaper and recognised me as the young boy he had smuggled out of Vostov all those years ago.’
‘It’s incredible...’ Holly’s eyes were as round as buttons. ‘If Asmir’s story is true it means that you are...a prince.’
Jarek laughed bitterly. ‘“Incredible” is right. But even if the story is true, I’m no prince. Vostov’s National Council asked me to have a DNA test to prove if I am a descendant of the House of Karadjvic.’
‘So...did the test show that you are, in fact, Prince Jarrett?’
‘I declined to have the DNA test.’
Jarek felt Holly’s eyes search his face, but he could not bring himself to look at her.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said slowly. ‘You have always wanted to uncover your past and the DNA test would be a start. At the moment you don’t even know who you are.’
He moved restlessly. ‘Until Asmir saw my photograph in the newspaper he and everyone else believed that Vostov’s royal family were all dead. What good will it do to dig up the past? Prince Jarrett doesn’t exist, and Jarek Dvorska is no good. It’s true,’ he said roughly, when Holly shook her head. ‘Ralph Saunderson was right when he called me destructive. I was responsible for my adoptive mother’s death.’
His voice lowered to a raw growl.
‘And maybe I did something else—something so terrible that my mind has blocked out the memories. Frankly, I don’t want to know. If a DNA test revealed that I am the son of Prince Goran the press would look for skeletons in my past—and perhaps they would find some. The inescapable truth is that I am not good enough to rule Vostov.’
‘Jarek...’
Holly’s voice followed him as he strode down the beach, but he did not look back at her. His mind swirled with half-formed memories and dark shadows, and the compassion in her eyes filled him with a wildness that made him feel dangerously out of control.
He carried on running into the sea and dived beneath the waves, moving powerfully through the water as he swam across the bay, turned around and swam back in the opposite direction. He lost track of how many times he swam back and forth. The breath burned in his chest and his arms ached, but still he pushed himself, trying to exorcise his demons with hard physical exercise.
But even after he was exhausted his body still ached for Holly. She had followed him down the beach, and each time he’d swum across the bay he had seen her sitting on a rock, watching him. He had the strange feeling that she was guarding him, and the thought made him feel hollow inside.
The sun was low in the sky when he swam back to the shore and walked up the beach to the outside shower. He rinsed the sea water from his skin before heading towards Holly.
He hunkered down in front of her and stared into he
r big brown eyes. ‘I don’t need a guardian angel,’ he said roughly.
‘Listen to me,’ she said fiercely. ‘You are a good and honourable man. I truly believe that. I did some research about your charity work, and the huge amount of money you have raised for Lorna’s Gift actually changes the lives of children who live in orphanages as you once did.’
Her belief in him scraped on emotions that had been buried deep inside Jarek since he was six years old and had walked into that forbidding institution for homeless children in Sarajevo. For the first few nights he had cried because he missed his parents, but he’d quickly learned that crying earned him a beating and he had never cried again—not even at Mama’s funeral, even though he had felt as if his heart had been ripped from his chest.
He looked away from Holly, afraid that she would see too much—the part of himself that he’d kept hidden behind his carefully cultivated playboy image. ‘I’m no hero,’ he muttered.
‘You protected your little sister in a war when you were just a child yourself. I think that’s pretty heroic,’ she said firmly. ‘Jarek, you have to have the DNA test and accept your destiny. For what it’s worth, I think you would be a great prince.’
‘Come with me. I want to show you something.’
He stood up and held out his hand to pull her to her feet. Her hand felt soft in his and he linked his fingers with hers as they walked along the beach.
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
He led her around the headland and onto a small, secluded beach surrounded by palm trees. There was a double sun lounger on the sand and he sat down on it, patted the space beside him.
‘Take a seat and watch the show,’ he invited, pointing to the horizon, where the sun was a huge orange ball that appeared to be sinking slowly into the sea.
The sky was streaked in hues of pink and red that were reflected on the surface of the ocean. And as the fiery ball sank lower the entire beach was bathed in gold and the fronded leaves of the palm trees were silhouetted against the setting sun.
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