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CHAPTER 10
Huling Na-update:
2024-10-29 19:42:56Sasha grimaced as he studied the very obviously cut-through pieces of fencing wire. This was no accident… Someone had quite definitely used wire cutters on them, which meant... The lambs which had been born early in the spring had all gone now, his breeding stock the only flock that remained.
And the deer roaming the home park was a tempting target for poachers. The last time he had seen Henry, the two of them had discussed the pros and cons of tagging their deer.
Like him, Henry had a small herd on his estate, but since their marriage, Mollie, his wife, had added a new strain to them in the shape of the same miniature deer that she had bred so successfully.
As Sasha glanced towards the line of bushes that separated the parkland from the main gardens to the H
Kaugnay na kabanata
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 11
Instinctively her free hand went to her body to check just how far up her T-shirt had ridden.“What is it?” Sasha asked her, his attention caught by the movement of her hand.“Uh… You’re heavy, Sasha. You’re still on top of me and you’re hurting me,” Veronica told him, not entirely truthfully. She tried to bury herself in the night’s cloaking shadows, but it was too late and she could see from the sudden narrowing of his gaze as it followed the action of her hand that he realized, as she had just done herself, that her wretched T-shirt had ridden up far enough to expose the lower curve of her breasts. The last thing, the very last thing Veronica wanted was for Sasha to study her body in any way at all. So why, in God’s name?... Why,
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 12
Veronica frowned as she started to double-check what she had just been reading. In a detailed account for the work involved in treating both the wet and dry rot to Elsinore Hall, she had only just noticed something strange. Just slipped in at the back of the file, was an additional sheet reporting on some dry rot infestation in the Rectory, Sasha’s private property, and with it was a brief note confirming that the work on the Rectory would be put in hand before the contractors started working on Elsinore Hall itself. She could feel her heart starting to thump heavily with a mixture of anger and pain as she read the sheet again. It wasn’t unknown for the owners of the properties the Trust took over to try to drive as hard a bargain as they possibly could.&nbs
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 13
“What? What the hell are you talking about?” Sasha demanded ominously quietly, his expression as well as his voice betraying his outrage. “Listen, Veronica, I don’t like what you’re trying to suggest,” he told her sharply. She shook her head and replied thinly.“Neither do I, Sasha. But the facts speak for themselves.”“Do they?” His mouth twisted bitterly.“I rather think it’s your overheated imagination that’s doing the ‘speaking’ through your totally mistaken interpretation of them,” Sasha added through gritted teeth.“You can say what you want at this point… But you can’t deny the evidence of this report,” Veronica reminded him sternly.“What evidence?” Sasha demanded. “This is
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 14
The fact that he was just shrugging on his jacket as she came down the stairs allowed Veronica to have an unwanted glimpse of the lethal maleness of the muscles in his torso and made her hesitate betrayingly just for a second before continuing walking down the stairs. He had changed his clothes simply to have dinner with her… Why? Because Sasha knew very well the effect his appearance would have on any susceptible woman and because he intended to use that fact to distract her, to confuse her when she needed all her attention, all her concentration to ascertain the truth about what he did? Or was she letting her imagination run away with her again? Was the woman he had dressed so elegantly her or was it…? Was he perhaps seeing the other woman after their meeting had finished?“We&r
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 15
Wearily, Veronica looked at the luminous face of her watch. Half-past one in the morning. She had been awake for the last hour, stubbornly evading sleep, angrily refusing to allow her thoughts to take control, to force her to remember. She was too hyped up for sleep, too afraid to sleep just in case she... In case she did what? Dreamed of Sasha? Veronica looked across at the desk in front of the window. One of the small pleasures of living in the depths of the country was that one didn’t need to close the curtains at night. There was nothing she liked more than being able to see the night sky. When her mother had first married Henry’s father and they had gone to live in his ancestral home, Veronica had been overwhelmed at first by the darkness of the huge house.&
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 16
She had guessed that Wayne was his supplier but had naively assumed then that Wayne was no more than a generous-minded individual who had the contacts to supply his friends with drugs, and that it was they who pressured him into obtaining them for them rather than the other way around. Without directly saying so, Wayne had implied that they were two of a kind, individuals who stood out from the crowd. His street-wise sophistication had reminded Veronica in some odd way of Sasha. Perhaps because, like Sasha, Wayne was older than her and the friends she’d mixed with. Veronica had listened half enviously when he had told her of his plans to spend the summer with a group of eco-warriors, traveling the country, defending and protecting the nature.&nbs
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 17
Unable to keep either her shock or the pain his words had caused her from showing in her eyes, Veronica stared at him.‘It isn’t like that... I’m not interested in Wayne, not romantically, anyway. I don’t...’ She stopped abruptly and looked away from him. How could she tell Sasha of all men... people... that he was the only man she was interested in, the only man she would give herself to…? The only man she had real, strong feelings for when he was seeing was telling the exact opposite? Now Sasha was looking at her in that horribly cynical way, his mouth twisting in mocking contempt.‘Henry asked me to come,’ he told her as she remained silent. ‘He’s had to go away on business but he asked me to come and give yo
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 18
He felt so good, smelled so good… Shyly, she opened her eyes and then her mouth, licking exploratively at his skin. In her ear, Veronica could feel the rapid increase in Sasha’s heartbeat. His arms tightened around her and then, suddenly, Sasha was picking her up, carrying her over to the bed, laying her on it, touching her skin, stroking her body, kissing her in all the ways she had imagined and showing her at the same time just how far short of the astonishing reality her imagination had fallen. In his hands, her breasts swelled and ached, her nipples taut, begging to be touched, kissed, sucked. Unable to stop herself, Veronica started to moan softly as his mouth tugged gently on her breast, her body arching, twisting, filled, driven by such an intensity of need that she herself was lost in i
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29
Pinakabagong kabanata
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 29
She was still in bewilderment, but he was really there, holding her, kissing her, pledging his love to her… After all those years, after all the pain, after all the hurt, finally Veronica was in Sasha’s arms, basking in his love.“I’m here with you and still can’t believe it...” she added, brushing white rose petals off his arms. “It’s... it’s still so... unbelievable. It’s less than an hour since I thought that I’d be driving away from Elsinore… and you, forever. What made you come back? What…?”“You did, sweetheart,” he told her promptly, and then relented when he saw her face. “Mollie talked to me... made me think... see...”“Mollie? But she never said a word when she called me…” Veronic
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 28
Her bags were packed, a note left for Sasha explaining that someone else was going to take over her work, her files were all in order… Well, there was nothing left for her to do other than get into her hire car and drive it to the airport. Still, Veronica couldn’t quite bring herself to go. Irresolutely, she made her way around the house, going slowly upstairs, pausing outside Sasha’s bedroom. She had the house to herself. Mrs. Elliott had left for the day. So, she started walking around just for another look and found herself in front of his room. Impulsively, she opened the door and went inside. The room was just as she remembered it from that single night she had spent here. Veronica went over to the bed, smoothing a trembling hand over the pillow which had been Sasha’s.&
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 27
“It’s a beautiful spot here, isn’t it?” Mollie commented as she walked across the grass to join Sasha where he stood studying the pool in the center of the small tree-filled glade. Once, before her marriage to Henry, this glade had been the scene of disturbing desecration when it had been taken over by a band of travelers, eco-warriors, led by Wayne, an awful man, a drug dealer. That bastard had convinced a then idealistic and innocent Veronica that his sole object in traveling was to assert the rights of the homeless. It had been Veronica who had brought them to this pretty glade on her stepbrother’s land, and ultimately Veronica who had played a major part in the drama which had unfolded when she had realized just how dangerous and unsavory a character Wayne actually was.&nb
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 26
In the pretty living room, which his wife had made so much her own, Henry grinned in appreciation as their son headed eagerly towards him, swinging him up into his arms as Mollie looked on placidly. Henry looked lovingly at her. She was in the early stages of pregnancy with their second child and suffering from morning sickness. “I’ve just had a phone call from Sasha,” he told his wife. “Mmm... How is he… and Ronnie...?” “He wants to come down for a few days. Apparently, he wants to pick my brains for ideas on making the estate more self-sufficient.” “Do you think he and Ronnie will ever work things out?” Mollie asked him anxiously. Henry raised his eyebrows. “Why ask me? You’re the one who thinks that they are madly in love with one another.” “My love, I don’t think, I KNOW,” Mollie corrected him sternly. “But the pair
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 25
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Veronica, but Sasha said that you might like a cup of coffee.” Forcing a welcoming smile to her lips, Veronica took the tray from Sasha’s housekeeper. She had been working in the library all morning, painstakingly going through the accounts and costings for the work she had already commissioned for Elsinore Hall. She knew she had to leave everything in perfect order for whoever was going to take her place. But now, even though she hadn’t eaten any breakfast and she knew that she ought to be hungry, the only hunger she had was the neverending, consuming hunger for Sasha’s love. And, as he had made more than plain to her, that was something she could never have. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Elliott,” she replied. “I will drink it in a while.” Half an hour later, Veroni
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 24
But Sasha was ignoring her body language, her silent plea for the intimacy of his body weight lying heavily and sensuously against hers on the bed behind her. Instead, he was picking her up and gently placing her on the bed.“It’s alright, baby…” she heard him saying softly to her. “Everything’s alright… We’re going to take this nice and slow…” And he was cupping her feet in his hands, slowly massaging them so that tingles of sensation and heat shot through her veins like liquid fire. The feeling of his lips brushing her toes, so unexpected and astonishingly intimate, made her gasp in shock. When she instinctively tried to pull away, Sasha stopped her, his tongue weaving a rainbow patter of sensation against her skin as he caressed her to
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 23
Sasha closed his eyes. The last thing he needed right now was to start thinking about… to start remembering. Forcing himself to suppress the thoughts, the memories, and the emotions which were running riot inside him, Sasha stopped to pick her up, intending to lay her down on the bed. But as he did so, a dog fox out in the woodland beyond the garden, howled to his mate. The sound carried into the bedroom on the still night air, forcing him to stand still and waking up Veronica almost immediately.“Sasha...what...?” He could hear the shocked anxiety in her voice as she stared around his moonlit bedroom.“Ronnie… Uh… You were sleepwalking,” he tried to reassure her. “I heard a noise... and I… I found you on the landing...”&n
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 22
“You’ve been away a long time. What happened?” Guiltily, Veronica spun around, dropping her Armani carrier bag as she did so. She had arrived back at the Rectory five minutes ago and had decided to go straight to her room. She had just reached the top of the stairs when Sasha emerged from his room, his curt comment coupled with her own guilt startling her.“You’ve been shopping…” he said sharply in disbelief, answering his own question as he saw the bag she had just dropped and the contents spilled out from it onto the carpet.“What if I have?” Veronica retorted defensively, bending down to gather up her purchases but not fast enough to match Sasha. He bent and got there before her, scooping up the soft, expensive cloth and then, pausing, shocking her by removing it completely from the carrier
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 21
“We’ll have to call at the Rectory first,” Veronica warned J.J. as she drove north. “I don’t have the keys to Elsinore Hall with me.”“That’s fine by me,” J.J. assured her. “How are you and Sasha getting along, by the way?”“He’s a client of the Trust,” Veronica pointed out severely.“So, you haven’t fallen in love with him, then,” J.J. teased her. Somehow, Veronica managed to force a responsive smile. J.J. had no guilt in this, she tried to remind herself. He meant no harm. He took a paternal interest in her and often told her, only semi-jokingly, that it was time she fell in love. He had no idea about the real state of affairs between her and Sasha, the real state of her heart, her emotions.“I have to say, this is a really b
