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CHAPTER 28
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Her 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.
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Bab terkait
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 1
“What the hell are you doing, Veronica? What kind of sick game are you playing right now? Stop it!” Sasha looked at her angrily as he removed her hands, releasing her fingers from his shirt where she had unconsciously curled them in her attempt to get him to listen to what she wanted to say, to understand that she was no longer a child, that she was now completely and totally a woman... A woman who was totally and completely in love with him and wanted to be his.“Sasha, trust me, I know what I’m doing… And this isn’t a sick game,” Veronica protested, her eyes starting to fill with anguished tears as he thrust her away. “Sasha, I want…”“Oh, I know exactly what you want, Veronica! Believe me, I know it quite well!” Sasha interrupted her savagely. “You want me to have sex with you. But right now, what I feel more like doing&hellip
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 2
“You’re kidding, J.J. You didn’t...” Veronica frowned as she studied the synopsis pinned to the front of the file her employer had just handed her. John-James Creed IV (the fourth), J.J for his friends, was the kind of eccentric billionaire who, by rights, only ought to have existed in fairytales… as a particularly genial and indulgent godfather, Veronica thought. She had been introduced to him at a party to which she had been invited by some acquaintances of Henry, her stepbrother. She had only gone to the party because she had been feeling particularly lost and insignificant, having only recently moved to New York. They had got chatting and John-James had begun to tell her about the trials and traumas he had experienced in running the huge wealthy Trust set up by his
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 3
Even so, she gave him an ironic look.“I’m just doing what I know the old man would have wanted me to do...” J.J. informed her loftily.“Really? By buying a decaying neoclassical pile in the middle of Derbyshire?” Veronica asked him dryly and started shaking her head. “You’ll love it, Ronnie... I promise you!” he told her winningly and left the room leaving her alone with her thoughts. Veronica was still tempted to run after J.J. and tell him that she was far too busy and that he would have to find someone else to take charge of this particular project, but her pride, the same pride that had kept her going, kept her head held high and her spirit strong through Sasha’s rejection of her and everything that had followed, refused to allow her to do so.&n
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 4
Five miles or so before her ultimate destination, Veronica pulled the car she had hired at the airport over to the side of the road and switched off the engine. She did it not because she was unsure of where she was going, not even because she wanted to absorb the beauty of the Derbyshire countryside around her, magnificent though it was as it basked warmly in the mid-afternoon sunshine, devoid of any sign of human occupation apart from her own. No… Unfortunately, the reason Veronica had stopped was that she had been significantly aware for the last few miles, not just of the slight dampness of her hands on the steering wheel but, even more betrayingly, of the increasing turmoil of her thoughts and the nervous butterflies churning her stomach. When she finally met... confronted... Sasha, she wanted t
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 5
To her chagrin, Veronica recognized that it wasn’t only Sasha who had moved so much closer and that she was halfway towards the front door now instead of on the perimeter of the portico... When had she moved...? And how? Without knowing what she was doing...? Sasha had always had that kind of effect on her... Had... All that was in the past now, she reminded herself fiercely. And just to ensure that Sasha knew it too, Veronica held out her hand to him and, raising her voice slightly, smiled with cool authority as she greeted him.“Sasha, good! I’m glad you’re here. We can get straight down to work. I’ve studied the plans of the house, but I always find that it makes an enormous difference to actually walk over a property, so...”
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 6
“Mmm... You won’t have seen it as you drove in. It’s on the other side of the estate. I’m living there at the moment and I’ve arranged with Mrs. Elliott, who used to be my cousin’s housekeeper when he lived there, for a room to be prepared for you. J.J. mentioned that you’d probably be working here for a number of months and he and I agreed that in view of Elsinore’s distance from the nearest town, and the fact that he has warned me that you like to keep a very keen eye on the budgets, it makes sense for you to stay at the Rectory rather than waste time and money hunting around for alternative accommodation.” “Wow! Did you now? Still deciding on my behalf…” she whispered this last part more for herself than him. “Yes. Especially since it seems that there could be occasions when you might have to travel abroad to check on work you’ve set in progress at other Trust properties.” Well, what he said made sense
MY FAVORITE SCAR CHAPTER 7
They had covered the ground floor of the house, walked the length of the elegant gallery, with its windows overlooking the parkland and the distant vista of the Derbyshire hills, and were just inspecting the enormous ballroom which opened off it, when Veronica acknowledged inwardly that Sasha might have been right to advise her to wait until after she had rested to inspect the house. Elsinore Hall’s rooms might not possess quite the vastness of the palazzo’s marble-floored rooms, nor the fading grandeur of the Prague palace, but Veronica had already lost count of the number of salons and ante-chambers they had walked through on the lower floor. The gallery felt as though it stretched for miles, and as she studied the dusty wooden floor of the ballroom her heart sank at the thought of inspecting
Bab terbaru
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
