Forbidden Seduction [ Forbidden Obsession]

She had felt uncomfortable about doing so, but after a small pause, when she had stammeringly explained that she had loaned some money to a friend, he had said quietly that she could leave the matter with him.

Naively she had assumed that that meant that he would send her a cheque, and suddenly she’d had more important things to worry about than money. David, her friend, was dead. He had collapsed at a rave party and been rushed into hospital, but it had been too late to save him.

His family had taken him home to bury him and they had also made it plain that they did not want any of his university friends to attend his funeral.

‘They blame us for what happened to him,’ one of his other friends told Elena angrily. ‘They’re the ones who are at fault. He never wanted to come here…’

Elena was too upset to make any comment when Wayne asked for another loan, and he was moody and sharp-tempered with her, mocking her upbringing and taunting her with her naivete and innocence.

That hurt Elena but she said nothing. She knew that he would soon be leaving the city to join the eco-warriors, who were beginning to drift away from the site of their recent defeat over a large motorway extension and to make their way south to meet up with another group, who were trying to persuade the Government to give permission for some land previously owned by the Army to be opened to the general public.

To Elena it sounded a good cause.

‘Come with us,’ Wayne suggested, and then he laughed sneeringly as he added, ‘But no, of course you won’t… Mummy wouldn’t like it, would she?’

Elena said nothing. She was still too numbed by David’s death. University life, which at first had seemed to promise so much freedom… which she had hoped would be the passage which would carry her effortlessly into womanhood

and Ran’s love… was proving to be far more painful and difficult than she had envisaged.

She had lost weight and hope, and now her work was beginning to suffer too. The weather was hot and sticky, with the threat of thunder forever present in

the air. They needed a good storm, Elena reflected early one evening as she returned to her small flat. She wasn’t hungry, and the prospect of an evening spent over her books didn’t appeal in the least. She missed David and their discussions and she missed Roth even more.

The day had been so hot and the flat was so airless that she showered in a vain attempt to get cool, pulling over her naked body an old cotton shirt which had once belonged to Alex, too drained and lethargic even to think of getting properly dressed. Half an hour later Wayne arrived, carrying a bottle of properly dressed. Half an hour later Wayne arrived, carrying a bottle of wine which he insisted on opening even though she told him that she didn’t want anything to drink. In the end it was easier to give in than to argue, but she stood her ground over the drug he offered her, firmly shaking her head.

‘Please yourself,’ he told her easily, but Elena noticed that he didn’t have one himself either.

‘Any chance of letting me have that money?’ he asked her a few minutes later as he lounged on her small sofa, watching her as she tried to work. There was a look in his eyes that made her feel uncomfortable, and not just because she

couldn’t give him the loan he wanted; no, it was more than that, and suddenly she was acutely conscious of her nudity beneath Lucas shirt.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t… not at the moment,’ she apologised. ‘I… I’m waiting for lucas to send me a cheque. Wayne, I don’t want to be a bad host, but really I have to work…’

‘You want me to leave…’

‘If you don’t mind,’ Elena agreed, waving her hand in the direction of the books she had spread out on the small table in front of her.

For a moment she thought he was going to argue with her, but to her relief he didn’t, walking instead towards the door. Eager to see him leave, Elena went with him. As she opened the door for him she saw the Land Rover pulling to a

halt a little further down the road and her heart started to race with frantic excitement. As though aware of her loss of attention, and angered by it, to her shock Wayne suddenly reached for her, grabbing hold of her and forcing herCòntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

back against the open door, his mouth hot and wet on hers as he kissed her roughly.

Immediately Elena pulled away, but not in time to stop Ran, who was stepping out of the Land Rover and walking towards her, from seeing what had happened, nor from witnessing how she was dressed, she saw uncomfortably as she felt his glance scorch her shirt-clad body.

To her relief Wayne’s mobile phone had started to ring and he was already heading for his car, his back towards her as he talked in a low voice into the telephone.

As Roth’s long-legged, determined stride brought him closer to her door, elena could only stand and watch.

‘Roth!’ she exclaimed weakly when he reached her. ‘What a surprise. I didn’t know… I didn’t expect…’

‘Obviously not,’ was Roth’s terse response as he stepped past her and into her small hallway, firmly closing the door behind him as he told her sardonically,’I’m sorry if my arrival is inopportune, although something tells me that it would

have been a lot less opportune had I arrived, say, half an hour ago.’

Elena’s face flamed as she saw the way he was looking at her and realised what he meant. Roth thought that she and Wayne were lovers.

‘It’s not… we weren’t… Wayne is just a friend…’ she finally managed to tell him defensively. Roth’s eyebrows immediately shot up.

‘A friend! Tell me, Elena, do you normally receive your friends wearing just one of their shirts…?’

‘This isn’t Wayne’s shirt; it’s one of Luca’s old ones,’ she protested, hotfaced.

What was Roth doing here? Why had he come to see her? Her heart started to thump frantically.

‘lucas shirt?’ Roth was frowning at her as he studied her.

‘Yes… I… I like to wear it… It makes me think of home… of lucas and you. I miss you both,’ she told him daringly, holding her breath as she waited for his response.

There had to be some reason for his being here and his reaction to Wayne’s presence… Was she daring to hope too much in thinking that beneath his anger he might just be a little jealous? She was a woman now, she reminded herself, not a child, and- ‘Home…?’ Roth cut across her increasingly buoyant thoughts.

‘I doubt your mother would enjoy hearing you describe Otel Place as your home.’

Elena bit her lip. It was true that her mother did not approve of her attachment to Otel Place and would have preferred it if, like her, Elena had been a city person.

‘I’m an adult now,’ she told Ran bravely. ‘I make my own decisions, my own choices…’

‘I see… And entertaining your friends wearing nothing but one of lucas’s shirts is one of those choices, is it, Elena?’

Her face burned. There was no hint of jealousy in his voice now, only a familiar older-brother note of censure.

‘I… I wasn’t expecting Wayne to come round. It was so hot. I had a shower and…’

‘Wayne… This wouldn’t be the friend who’s borrowed half your last quarter’s allowance from you, would it?’ Roth challenged her.