Forbidden Surrender

‘You mustn’t mind Dominic.’ Marie seemed to read her thoughts. ‘He’s suspicious by nature.’

Sara couldn’t dismiss him so easily, although she did her best as Marie led her from group to group, the other girl loving the sensation they were causing.

‘I really must get back to Pete,’ Sara insisted at last, having noticed that he was having extreme difficulty conversing with the taciturn Dominic Thorne, those steely blue eyes never leaving Marie and herself.

Marie looked regretful. ‘And I suppose I should get back to Dominic.’ The smile she gave him was radiant, her hand once again through the crook of his arm as she looked up at him affectionately.

‘I think we should be going now,’ Sara told Pete.

‘Surely not?’ To her surprise it was Dominic Thorne who made the objection. ‘I was just going to ask you if you would care to dance.’

Sara loved to dance, although Pete had assured her that he was absolutely tone deaf and so hopeless at dancing. But despite her love of dancing she didn’t relish the idea of being relatively alone with Dominic Thorne.

‘I really think we should be leaving now.’ She put as much regret in her voice as she could in the circumstances.

Those hard blue eyes remained fixed on her face. ‘One dance isn’t going to delay you too long, surely?’ he persisted.

‘I—’

‘Oh, go on, Sara,’ Pete encouraged. ‘Five minutes isn’t going to make that much difference.’

‘It never pays to argue with Dominic,’ even Marie added her argument in favour of the dance.

Sara gave a resigned shrug. ‘Very well, I’d love to dance, Mr Thorne.’

‘Dominic, please,’ he could be heard saying as he manoeuvred her on to the space that had been cleared for dancing, some of the couples around them doing more than dancing as the alcohol they had consumed hit their bloodstream. Sara was quite embarassed by some of the things that were going on. ‘Ignore them,’ Dominic advised, seeing her shocked expression.

‘I—That’s a little difficult,’ she gasped as she saw one man blatantly touching the bare breast of his dancing partner.

Dominic saw it too, not bothering to dance any more but taking her hand and leading her out of the double doors that led to the garden.

Sara snatched her hand away, eyeing him warily. ‘Is it always like that?’ she asked disgustedly.

‘It gets worse,’ he derided.

Then thank goodness she was leaving. And thank goodness she hadn’t actually got to dance with this man. Even in the brief moment he had pulled her into his arms she had been aware of his masculinity, of the sensual air that surrounded him. Not that she felt any safer completely alone with him out here, where the noise of the party sounded strangely muted. And she soon realised why—he had closed the doors behind them.

He took a packet of cigars out of his breast pocket, lighting one with a gold lighter. ‘You’ve obviously never been to one of Cynthia’s parties before,’ he mocked.

Sara moved restlessly, wishing he would stop staring at her with those curiously intent eyes, as if he were trying to see into her very soul. ‘No,’ she confirmed nervously.

‘Have you been in England long?’ The query sounded casual, and yet Sara had the feeling it wasn’t any such thing.

She shrugged. ‘A few days.’

He nodded. ‘Are you here with your parents?’

‘They were both killed in a car accident six months ago,’ she said jerkily.

‘I see. I’m sorry,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘So you’re over here on holiday?’

‘Yes.’ No point in mentioning that she was slowly recovering from her own injuries in the car accident, it wasn’t of interest to this man.

‘So Mr Glenn is a relatively new acquaintance?’

‘Very new.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t understand the reason for these questions, Mr Thorne.’

He shrugged. ‘You didn’t seem surprised by Marie’s likeness to you, and as you are obviously an American and have only just arrived in England I wondered how you’d learnt of Marie’s existence.’

Sara stiffened. ‘I’m not sure that I like your tone, Mr Thorne.’ He sounded almost accusing, as if he suspected her of something but hadn’t yet stated these suspicions.