* * *
‘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