Forbidden Seduction [ Forbidden Obsession]

What is it? What’s wrong?’ she demanded, not understanding. ‘Last night-‘

‘Last night was a mistake,’ Roth interrupted her curtly. ‘It should never have happened and I wish to God… Why didn’t you tell me you were still a virgin?’

‘I… I…’ Elena could feel her eyes starting to fill with tears.

This wasn’t how it should be-Roth aloof, cold and distant, almost accusing.

‘Roth, I love you,’ she told him shakily. ‘I want us to be together… married…’

‘Married? You’re a child still, Elena… Your mother…’

‘I’m not a child, I’m nearly twenty,’ she protested frantically.

‘You’re a child,’ Roth insisted, ‘and if I’d known… Why didn’t you tell me?

Why did you let me think that you and Wayne were lovers?’

‘I did tell you but you wouldn’t listen. I thought you’d be pleased… that you’d want to be the first… the only one…’ she told him pathetically.

‘Pleased? Oh, my God.’ Roth started to laugh, a harshly bitter laugh. ‘The only thing that could make this appalling situation any worse would be to discover that you’re pregnant…’

Elena’s face went white. Last night, lost in the throes of her love and their shared intimacy, she had craved the conception of his child, and to have to listen to him now, telling her that that was the last thing he wanted, that she was the last person he wanted, was the cruellest blow she had ever experienced.

‘I’m on the pill,’ she told him quietly, ducking her head as she explained, ‘There were… I had… My doctor recommended it for other reasons.’

It was the truth, and it made her blood run cold now to remember how unwilling she had been to take it. Thank God she had. To have exposed a child, her child, to the dislike, the bitterness she could see in Roth’s eyes and hear in hisConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

voice would have been more than she could bear.

All her dreams and her hopes lay in ruins around her, destroyed by his rejection of her.

‘Go and get dressed, please,’ she heard him demanding. ‘I have to leave soon, but first we need to talk.’

Get dressed!

Suddenly she felt as acutely self-conscious, as guilty as the first Eve must have done. As she tugged on her clothes in the privacy of her bedroom she knew that she had paid a heavy price for the intimacy of Roth’s lovemaking-the loss

not just of her innocence, but the destruction of her love, her faith, her belief in herself as a woman. She felt as though she never wanted to see Roth again, as though she could never bear to face him again, as though someone had wrenched

away a protective curtain. She saw that last night could have been nothing more to him than the mere satisfying of a sexual itch, that she had been nothing more to him than someone, a body, to relieve his sexual frustration with.

As she walked back into the living room he handed her a mug of coffee.

Taking it from him, she was careful to make sure that not only did her fingers not touch his but that they did not even touch the mug where his had done. She felt scorched, besmirched, soiled from the experience of knowing just how little he had actually wanted her. What she wanted more than anything else now was to get him out of here, out of her flat, out of her life, out of her heart for ever.

‘Elena…’

‘I don’t want to talk about it, Roth’ she told him proudly, turning her back to him. ‘It happened. It was a mistake, we both know that, but a girl has to lose her virginity some time…’ She gave a small painful shrug. ‘Wayne will be pleased.

Like you, he didn’t want to be the first…’

What on earth was she saying… implying…? Elena wondered sickly as her pride demanded, commanded, forced her to retaliate, lie and to convince Roth that he hadn’t hurt her, that he couldn’t possibly have the power to hurt her.

‘You begged me to make love to you so that you could have sex with Wayne?’

She could hear disbelief and something else in the harsh fury of Roth’s voice, but shakily she ignored it, holding up her head as she turned round to confront him.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ she agreed.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Roth told her flatly, adding grimly, ‘You said you loved me. You were even talking about marriage…’

Elena gave a small dismissive shrug.

‘Isn’t that what a virgin is supposed to do?’ She pulled an uncaring face.

‘How could I possibly love you, Roth? Why should I love you? All you ever do is criticise me. I want you to leave…’

‘Elena, you can’t just-‘

‘Wayne will be coming round soon,’ she fibbed, adding carelessly, ‘He’s been telling me for ages to find someone to… to lose my virginity with. He’s very experienced and he likes his lovers to know… to know what sex is all about… Wayne’s the man I love.’

What was she saying? Elena could hardly believe the lies she was hearing herself speak, but Roth seemed to have no difficulty in accepting them. Slamming down his barely touched mug of coffee, he came towards her.

Immediately Elena backed away.

‘I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss,’ she told him, adding flippantly, ‘It’s no big deal after all-‘

No… maybe not to you,’ Roth interrupted her grimly.

‘Not to you either,’ Elena told him. Her phone started to ring and she hurried towards it, telling him over her shoulder, ‘That will be Wayne…’

It wasn’t, and she knew that the poor double-glazing salesperson must have been astonished and probably shocked by the tone of her conversation as she

overrode his sales pitch, telling him that she had done what he wanted and that she couldn’t wait to see him, to be with him properly, if he knew what she meant. Blowing noisy kisses into the receiver, she ended the call and then turned

to Roth, telling him coolly, ‘Wayne’s on his way, so unless you want to stand and watch to see just how quick a learner I am…’

She was still smiling-the hurting, false, ridiculous smile she had pinned to her face as she’d challenged him-when she heard the door slam behind him, and then continued to wear it for several minutes after he had gone, despite the

fact that tears were flooding from her eyes.