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“Miss Carne!”
“You’ll deal with me, will you, Mr. Thorne?” Natasha’s hands flew to her hair, to the severe chignon. Unpinning the clips, she tossed them to the floor.
Dominic Thorne was staring at her in some confusion.
“Maybe I’ll deal with you! Maybe that’s precisely what you need…. How’s this?” She reached up, caught him by the neck and kissed him fiercely, angrily, on the mouth.
SARAH HOLLAND was born in Kent, southern England, and brought up in London. She began writing at eighteen because she loved the warmth and excitement of Harlequin Mills & Boon. She has traveled the world, living in Hong Kong, the south of France and Holland. She attended drama school, and was a nightclub singer and a songwriter. She now lives on the Isle of Man, England. Her hobbies are acting, singing, painting and psychology. She loves noisy dinner parties, buying clothes and being busy.
An Obsessive Love
Sarah Holland
For
Vladimir Ivankiev My friend in St. Petersburg
GOLD lettering shone on the grey marble walls of Thorne Industries Ltd. Natasha crossed the busy London street, morning sunlight in her eyes, and smiled politely at the young man who held the door open for her.
He gave her a rather unpleasant smile.
She shrugged and walked into the palatial foyer, chandeliers glittering overhead as she crossed to the lifts. As the lift doors slid open, two men in suits walked out, saw her, and laughed secretively, whispering to each other. Natasha ignored them.
It seemed that all the men who worked for Thorne Industries were gradually becoming more and more sexist—or was it more and more blatantly rude? Certainly, their sexual attention to her was becoming annoying.
With her striking Russian colouring of dark red hair, almond-shaped green eyes and high Slavic cheekbones, she had always attracted male attention. The pout of her dark red lips also made men stare, for it showed a deeply passionate nature at odds with her tall, slender body, and the inborn elegance that was almost balletic.
It was a legacy, her mother had always told her, from her great-grandmother, who had been a ballerina in St Petersburg before the revolution.
It was, however, becoming a nuisance, and one which she tried hard to cover up by wearing severe tailored suits, pulling her long red hair back into a stark chignon, and never wearing make-up to work.
Her tactics didn’t appear to be working, though, she thought with an irritable sigh, because the men just kept on staring and whispering every time she passed.
Trying to shrug it off, she stepped into the lift.
‘Hold it!’ A dark, authoritative voice bit out across the foyer.
Natasha looked up, startled, to see Dominic Thorne himself running towards her. Her eyes widened as she stared at this legendary, never-before-seen figure.
He was genuinely gorgeous, and looked just like his newspaper photographs: fierce blue eyes, tough mouth, dramatic bone structure. He could almost have been Russian, she thought, with such stark and powerfully dramatic good looks.
She watched him admiringly, for he was impossibly tall, his hair jet-black, and his powerful body moved like an athlete’s, muscles rippling beneath the expensive black suit as a gold watch-chain flashed across his taut, formal waistcoat.
‘Thanks.’ He strode into the lift as though he owned it—which indeed he did. He owned this whole building, and the business it networked across the globe.
Natasha studied him from beneath her eyelashes. ‘The chairman’s floor, sir?’
‘Yes, please.’ He looked at her, a tough smile on his mouth, and the blue eyes roved with dazzling sexual appraisal over her striking beauty and slender, elegant body. ‘Do you work here? For me?’
Natasha laughed and pressed the buttons for floor six and then the chairman’s floor. ‘Yes, I’ve been here for about six months.’
‘On floor six?’ His eyes grew intent. ‘That’s Leachman’s department, isn’t it?’
‘I’m his secretary.’
The steely eyes glittered like blue fire, lit from within as he stared down at her, hard lips parting, and drawled, as though in shocked wonderment, ‘My God…you’re Natasha Carne!’
She caught her breath in shock, doing a double-take. How did he know her name?
‘Pleasure to meet you at last,’ drawled Dominic Thorne with a flash of serious sexual interest in his eyes and deep, sexy voice. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve heard about you!’
The lift doors slid open at floor six, but Natasha couldn’t move because she was still rooted to the spot with shock. The chairman? Dominic Thorne himself had heard so much about her that it was a pleasure to meet her at last?
‘I’m sure we’ll meet again, Miss Came,’ he said softly, ‘but in the meantime, I believe this is your floor.’
‘Yes.’ Her green eyes stared, slanting, almond-shaped and strangely hypnotic. ‘Thank you, sir. Enjoy your