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One Wedding Required!
Sharon Kendrik
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing 100th book! Many of these books are available as e books for the first time.Getting to the church on time!Amber O’Neil was looking forward to the perfect wedding with her gorgeous boss, Finn Fitzgerald. Until after an interview with a magazine, Finn became aloof and distant. He was pushing her away.Was it just pre-marriage jitters, or was there something he wasn’t telling her? Either way, Amber wasn’t going to let Finn go. She loved him and wanted him to love her – for better, for worse and in his bed!Don’t miss the linked books One Bridegroom Required and One Husband Required by Sharon Kendrick!




Three brides in search of the perfect dress—and the perfect husband!
Welcome to this fabulous new trilogy by talented Presents
author Sharon Kendrick. On a bride’s special day, there’s nothing more important to her than a beautiful wedding dress—apart from the perfect bridegroom! Meet three women who are about to find both....
This month in One Wedding Required!, Amber wears the very same dress that Holly Lovelace wore in One Bridegroom Required!
And don’t miss One Husband Required! in April, when Amber’s sister, Ursula, walks up the aisle in it, too!
Read on and share the excitement as Holly, Amber and Ursula meet and marry their bridegrooms!
Dear Reader (#ua9ef7235-ad6d-50b1-a9b0-1993072cc8d4),
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100
story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
One Wedding Required!
Sharon Kendrick


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To legal-eagle Catrin, honey-voiced Hyim,
and their three gorgeous children,
Naomi, David and Daniella
Contents
Cover (#ucdc1e6e9-52a6-5ad1-8c60-5dff7f69bb0b)
Dear Reader (#u89c7289b-3b4f-5bed-bb8a-81df1d1d77bb)
About the Author (#u900ebfc4-a1b2-594b-8c8c-e0dd977442d8)
Title Page (#ub95039aa-f882-5816-a5e2-b941473ef5bd)
Dedication (#u3924c3e7-769f-584a-a2fd-1d421a1b2895)
PROLOGUE (#u02dfb000-4f90-57b7-9932-14fe47fc1ac1)
CHAPTER ONE (#ucab1cf43-c3fd-565a-a9c9-88b66a703e6b)
CHAPTER TWO (#ufc5f6614-160e-5d22-bf7f-da332b2b96a9)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ua9ef7235-ad6d-50b1-a9b0-1993072cc8d4)
THE wedding dress gleamed indistinctly through its heavy shrouding of plastic.
It was an exquisite gown—simple and striking and fashioned with care from ivory silk-satin. Organza whispered softly beneath the skirt and the matching veil was made of gossamer-fine tulle.
At a little over twenty years old, it was ageless and timeless, a future heirloom—to be passed down from bride to bride, each woman adapting it and making it uniquely hers.
The dress already had a history. It had been worn once, by Holly Lovelace, but it had originally been bought for the weddings of two other women: two sisters.
One of those sisters was Amber O’Neil, and it was her destiny to wear that dress.
But everyone knew the many twists and turns that destiny could take...
CHAPTER ONE (#ua9ef7235-ad6d-50b1-a9b0-1993072cc8d4)
‘SO, AMBER—’ the journalist looked up from his notebook and smiled at her encouragingly ‘—can you tell us the story of how you and Finn Fitzgerald actually met?’
Amber hesitated, the question making her uncomfortably aware that she was breaking an unspoken rule. This wasn’t the kind of thing she normally did. She never gave interviews. Neither did Finn. Never allowed cameras inside their home either, and yet she had done just that today. Then had spent the afternoon changing into a variety of outfits and striking a number of different poses all around their home.
There had been Amber in black satin, reclining against huge white cushions on their king-size bed. Amber in a pink cashmere dress, her hair tucked neatly behind her ear, while she pretended to talk into the telephone. Amber in jeans, drinking juice and swinging her legs from the kitchen counter. And, of course, Amber wrinkling her nose at the photographer as she stood in front of the scarlet-ribboned Christmas garlands the journalist had brought with him to decorate her mantelpiece. She was to be in the pre-Christmas edition of the magazine, which they were shooting several weeks before the festival itself—and therefore they had to manufacture an early Christmas.
Amber didn’t mind a bit. Christmas was one of her favourite times of year—a time when she always went rather mad. She had needed very little persuasion to put the tree up a few weeks earlier than she would normally have done. After all, the shops had had them in their windows for weeks and weeks!
The photographer had got quite excited as he gazed into his viewfinder, telling her that the subtle gleam of her golden dress contrasted beautifully against the dark green of the pine needles.
They had wanted to shoot her standing in the garden, wearing a filmy dress, but, apart from the fact that the weather was too cold, Amber knew that trick of old. They would take the shot and carefully use the position of the sun to ensure that the dress ended up looking entirely see-through. Her body would be on show for all the world to see—as surely as if she were naked!
And while Amber still wasn’t sure what Finn’s reaction to this article would be, she knew damn well that he would draw the line at that! For a man who worked in an industry where nudity barely caused a flicker of consternation, Finn Fitzgerald was curiously old-fashioned when it came to his fiancée.
Fiancée!
Amber swallowed down her excitement, and allowed her gaze to drift to the whacking great stone which glittered so brilliantly on the third finger of her left hand. It was still hard to believe, but the engagement ring was solid and real, and confirmation enough. She was engaged to be married to Finn Fitzgerald—the man she loved with a passion which terrified her. The man of her dreams. The man...
‘Amber?’
‘Mmm?’ Amber looked up and stared back at the journalist who had broken into her reverie, her dark blue eyes first blinking, then focussing as she forced her thoughts back to the present.
‘You were saying?’ he prompted, with all the smoothness of the professional interrogator.
Amber blinked. ‘I was?’
‘About Finn. And how you met.’
‘Oh.’ Amber smiled. ‘That!’ Well, what the hell? Why not tell their story to the world? Finn had given her the biggest diamond ring she had ever seen—so he obviously didn’t mind the whole world knowing that they were engaged. And in fact a big part of Amber wanted to tell the world. Wanted to cause something of a stir.
Because after Finn had slipped the ring on her finger, Amber had been aware of a curious feeling of deflation, of anticlimax. As though the engagement should have changed everything between them—and yet everything seemed exactly as it had been before. Was that usual for engaged couples? she found herself wondering worriedly. And was it right?
‘How did I meet Finn?’ Amber mused aloud, in answer to the journalist’s searching stare. ‘Well, it was nothing really special. No, let me put that another way—it was very special, of course it was, but...’ Her voice tailed off and she bit her lip, wondering just how to put into words the physical and mental and psychological impact of falling in love at first sight with a man like Finn. A man who regularly bowled women over like ninepins.
The journalist held up his hand as he fiddled around with the tape recorder, then cleared his throat. ‘Tell you what—’ his smile was fulsome ‘—why don’t we have a drink while we talk?’
‘A drink? What—like tea?’
The man gave a cynical laugh. ‘Ever met a journalist who drinks tea? I was thinking more on the lines of wine!’
‘In the middle of the afternoon?’
The man shrugged, thinking that, for such a babe, she was pretty naive. ‘We won’t be breaking any laws That’s why I brought the bubbly with me.’ He pointed to the frosted and expensive bottle. ‘To celebrate your engagement.’
Amber nodded, absurdly pleased—but then her new status as Finn’s wife-to-be was still too novel for her to behave in a way which could be described as normal! Did newly engaged women drink champagne in the middle of the afternoon with men who were strangers? The journalist obviously thought so. ‘Okay, Mr Millington,’ she agreed with a smile. ‘Why not?’
The journalist, ‘call me Paul’, took over the task of opening the champagne and pouring two glassfuls with the speed of a man who had performed this particular task many times before.
‘To your future happiness,’ he told her rather insincerely, as they touched glasses.
It sounded like a bell ringing as crystal chinked against crystal. Wedding bells, thought Amber suddenly. She definitely wanted wedding bells. A nice old-fashioned wedding. It didn’t have to be big, but it had to be in a church—not a trendy rush to some upmarket London register office! But they hadn’t even discussed the wedding properly. Not once. And she found herself wondering whether that was right, too.
‘Cheers!’ said Paul. He drank deeply and switched his tape recorder back on. ‘Now, fire away. Tell me how it all started. You wanted to be a model, right?’
Amber shook her head. ‘Not really, no. It certainly wasn’t something I set out to do.’
‘But all your life people had been telling you that you were beautiful, right?’
‘Wrong.’ Amber shook her head again ruefully. ‘I didn’t grow up in that sort of world. I lived in a rough part of London on a big, sprawling estate—’
The journalist expelled a long breath of surprise. He would never have guessed it, not in a million years. With the Dresden delicacy of her looks, she looked like a woman who had been born and brought up in the lap of luxury—waited on and fêted all her life. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ Amber sipped her wine, almost amused by the shock which had registered on his face. ‘My mother was a widow, and money was very tight. She’d worked her fingers to the bone to bring me and my sister up in a pretty hostile world. And in that world, good looks were dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’ The journalist looked at her with interest, sniffing out a different angle on an old story.
Amber nodded, the memories crowding in fast now, demanding to be heard. Painful memories. Her mother’s old-fashioned reluctance to talk to her daughters about growing up and sex. The shock of Amber’s periods starting, and the unfamiliarity of her fast-burgeoning breasts. She had been too frightened to ask her mother to buy her a bra, and even more frightened by the raw gleam of desire she’d seen reflected in the eyes of the men who had lived in the council flats around her.
‘It was the kind of world where girls of sixteen got pregnant, then deserted. Jobs were scarce and men were fickle. Easy come. Easy go. A pretty face meant that you had to fight them off.’ Particularly if that pretty face was outstanding in its prettiness.
Amber had quickly learnt to minimise her assets. Hair scraped back. No make-up. Clothes worn to disguise a body rather than to draw attention to it. While Amber’s contemporaries had been squeezing themselves into tight, tight jeans and clinging tops, Amber had been dressing in the kind of clothes which would have looked good in a maternity department. Her sister Ursula had used a different method of concealment—she had just got fat.
‘Did you ever get fed up with fighting them off?’ asked Paul slyly.
Amber laughed. ‘Never. And I never let them get close enough to have to fight them off. I just knew that there was something better out there. A different kind of life. The flat we lived in was poky—far too small for my mother and sister and me. So I left there just as soon as I could—at sixteen.’
Paul nodded. ‘With qualifications?’
Amber shook her head. ‘You’re joking! The school I went to wasn’t famous for getting its pupils through exams.’ Her voice was wry. ‘If it kept them out of the remand centres and off the streets, it considered that it had done a good job!’
Paul scanned the sheet of paper in front of him. ‘But you didn’t join the Allure agency until you were almost twenty, right?’
‘Right.’
‘So what does a girl of sixteen with no qualifications do?’
‘She gets a job living in. Hotels, usually. You can always find a job in a hotel. I’ve been a chambermaid and a receptionist. I’ve worked behind bars and I’ve waited tables. The money is lousy, but at least you can get yourself a room in central London.’
‘Smart girl.’ The journalist refilled his glass. ‘And you made the most of the city, did you?’
I tried. I did everything that was free—so I knew all the art galleries and museums like the back of my hand.’
‘Exciting times,’ murmured the journalist sarcastically.
‘Those bits I loved,’ Amber defended staunchly. ‘And I started reading, too. Devouring books which filled in the education I’d missed.’
‘Then what?’
Amber shrugged. ‘Too many people kept telling me that I had a beautiful face—’
‘And that was a problem?’
She shook her head. ‘No, of course it wasn’t a problem—I’ d grown up seeing real problems, and having a sympathetically proportioned face certainly didn’t qualify! But after a while it becomes a little difficult to ignore, especially when the novelty of having your own place wears off. The hours at the hotel were long and tedious, and the money was lousy, and all of a sudden my poky little room began to look less like a palace and more of a prison.’ And there had been more men to fight off. Rich, slick businessmen whose rooms she’d cleaned, who’d thought that their fat wallets and fat stomachs would make them appealing to a young girl with only her looks and her natural intelligence as assets.
The whirr of the tape recorder was the only sound in the room. It was a hypnotic sound. ‘Go on,’ said Paul smoothly.
It was strangely cathartic to be able to talk so honestly about her past. Amber narrowed her navy eyes and let the words come spilling out, shuddering as she remembered the corpulent company director who had asked her to become his mistress!
‘I found myself looking into the future,’ she said slowly. ‘And I realised that, if I wasn’t careful, then I was consigning myself to a life of drudgery just like my mother’s had been. Only things were different for me. I wasn’t a widow with two children—I didn’t have to live like that I was limiting my horizons for no other reason than that I feared my attraction to the opposite sex.’
The journalist gave a cynical laugh. ‘So you really threw yourself in at the deep end by getting hooked up to a man like Finn Fitzgerald?’
Amber shook her head. ‘I didn’t get “hooked up” with Finn for ages. First of all, I went along to the Allure agency—’
‘What made you choose Allure? You’d seen a picture of the owner, right?’
‘Wrong. I had no idea that Finn existed—I just knew that Allure was the biggest and the best agency in London, and the most central. I walked in, and...and...’
‘And?’
It was difficult to put into words just how she had felt when she had first set eyes on Finn. She had been dressed to kill. Or so she had thought. Her sister had told her that if she was planning to visit a modelling agency, then she had better do something dramatic about her appearance.
So she had.
Out had gone the stark pony-tail and the layered clothes. The amber-gold hair which had given her her name had been washed and crimped, so that it had blazed around her shoulders like a pleated golden cloud. But she had committed the cardinal crime of the novice where her make-up was concerned. She had borrowed bright blue eye-shadow and boot-black mascara and shiny cyclamen lipstick and had ladled them on freely. If she had had a best friend, then the best friend might have told her that she resembled a pantomime dame. But there had been no one other than Ursula, and her sister had had even less idea about make-up than she had.
Her clothes had been her own—bought specially for the occasion. A skirt which had been too short and a blouse which had been too tight. Market clothes, both of them—and as cheap as you could buy. It made her shudder now to think what she must have looked like. She had tottered into the Allure office on high, squeaky shoes which hurt her feet, and...
‘And?’ prompted the journalist again.
Amber sighed as she remembered the impact of first meeting Finn. Of meeting the kind of man she never would have thought existed, not in real life. Not in her life, anyway...
Her heart picked up speed as she remembered. ‘I walked into the Allure office and Finn Fitzgerald was sitting there, dressed entirely in black. Black polo-neck sweater. Black jeans. Black hair. And his hair was all ruffled. There was just something about him—I can’t describe it. Something which drew your eye to him, and only him—no matter who else was in the room. As though he had a special, inner illumination all of his own. He was—’ She bit her lip as she tried to think of a way to describe Finn.
‘The sexiest thing on two legs?’ Paul Millington suggested. ‘Testosterone personified?’
Amber burst out laughing. It was an outrageous way of putting it. But true. ‘Well, yes,’ she conceded. ‘But his appeal goes much deeper than his good looks. He’s very charismatic.’
‘Well, that goes without saying!’
‘Mmm,’ agreed Amber dreamily. ‘It does. Anyway, he was sitting at this circular desk, talking into the phone, with pictures of the most beautiful women all over the walls behind him. I nearly walked out at that point.’
‘Why?’
Amber shrugged. ‘Oh, it all looked so daunting—he looked so daunting. I felt like a fish out of water.’
‘So he took one look at you, and he said...?’
Amber took a mouthful of champagne. This part of her recollection still hurt, despite her ability now to see the humour in it. And the truth. ‘He put the phone down and looked at me for what seemed like an awfully long time, and said that if I started wearing high white stilettos, then I would probably make a reasonable amount of money—’
The journalist frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither did I, at first. It was his idea of a joke, you see. Implying that I looked like...like...’
‘Like?’
‘A streetwalker,’ she admitted reluctantly.
‘He said that?’
‘Implied that.’
‘So what did you say?’
‘I told him that his eyes looked like traffic lights—’
‘Traffic lights?’
Amber giggled. ‘Well, yes. His eyes are green, you see—very, very green—only this time they were red as well. He’d had a terrible bout of flu, apparently—first time he’d ever been sick in his adult life. Everyone there said what a terrible patient he had made.’
‘I can’t imagine anyone saying something negative about Finn Fitzgerald’s looks. That must have been a first. Did he mind?’
‘No. He laughed. Just threw back his head and laughed, and said, “Touché,” and everyone stopped what they were doing and just stared at me. At first I thought they were staring because I must have looked such a state. It wasn’t until much later that they told me they had been amazed to see Finn laughing so uninhibitedly. They nicknamed him “Grin” Fitzgerald for a while after that, until he put a stop to it.’
‘You mean he’s a sourpuss usually?’
‘I don’t know if I’d put it quite that way. I mean that not many people can make him laugh.’
‘But you can?’
Amber let her gaze fall demurely to her lap. ‘I hope so.’
‘So he signed you up and asked you out?’
Amber shook her head. ‘No. He told me that I wasn’t tall enough to be a model.’
The journalist let his eyes roam over her. She looked pretty damn good from where he was sitting. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Not really. I’m just over five seven, and most models top six foot these days.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told him he wasn’t polite enough to be my boss, anyway. And that made him laugh. Again.’
‘So you left?’
Amber shook her head. ‘I was about to. Then a phone rang and he started speaking into it, and another one rang and he started gesturing impatiently with his hand, so I picked it up and answered it. I took a message and wrote it down and then started walking out.’
‘So then what happened?’
‘He called me back and asked if I could type and I told him that I could, after a fashion. Then he asked if I could make coffee and I said yes, could he?’
‘And he laughed again, right?’
Amber smiled. ‘That’s right.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then he offered me a job.’
‘As?’
‘A general dogsbody, really—only he gave it a fancy name.’
‘And you told him what he could do with his job?’
‘I was very tempted,’ admitted Amber. And not just by the job, either. ‘But intrigued, at the same time. The atmosphere in this place was wild. And buzzy. I told him that I’d think about it and he said that he didn’t have time to discuss it then, but would I meet him later that evening?’
‘And he took you out for dinner, right?’
‘That’s right,’ smiled Amber. ‘But he brought two models along with him.’
‘So it wasn’t the romantic evening of a lifetime?’
‘Not at all. These two women spent their time being bitchy to one another and trying to compete for his attention.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I let them get on with it. Just sat there enjoying my supper.’
‘And he was surprised?’
‘Amazed. First of all he sent the two models home, then he looked at my empty plate and said he’d never seen a woman put away that much food before. And I told him that was because I didn’t get to eat in restaurants like that every day, and if he didn’t appreciate the yummy things on the menu then maybe his palate was jaded and perhaps he should try a diet of simple food for a while.’
‘And he laughed again, right?’
‘Yes, he did. And he asked me whether I could cook and I told him that, yes, of course I could cook—but was he looking for an assistant or a wife?’
‘Let me guess—he stared into your big blue eyes and said it was the latter and he’d been waiting all his life for a girl like you?’
‘He did not. He frowned at me and told me that if I went to work for him I’d have to do something about my image, and I said, “Like what?” So he told me to report to him first thing the following morning and all would be revealed.’ Amber took another mouthful of wine, really enjoying herself now. Thinking what uncomplicated fun it had been back then. ‘So I turned to him and asked, “Does this mean you’re offering me the job?” and he glared at me and said of course it did.’
‘So you jumped for joy?’
‘I did not I told him that I couldn’t accept a job unless there was accommodation involved, because my job at the hotel was a living-in job. And he said that shouldn’t be a problem—that he could find me accommodation.’
‘Meaning you could move in with him, I suppose, which was where love first blossomed?’
Amber shook her head. ‘Oh, no. He was offering me the grotty old flat above the agency—well, I say grotty. It wasn’t that bad, and Finn had it decorated for me.’ She remembered how he had insisted on choosing the colours and how it had rankled. Colours which would not have been her choice at all. But in the end it seemed that Finn had known best, because Amber had grown to love the decor he had picked out. As in so many other areas of her life, he had been her guide and her mentor. ‘So I moved in.’
The journalist licked his lips. ‘And he joined you?’
Amber shook her head and laughed. ‘Oh, no! I couldn’t have imagined Finn living there! He had a much grander apartment overlooking Hyde Park.’
The journalist looked around him. ‘That’s this apartment?’
Amber nodded. ‘Uh-huh—and eventually I moved in here. With him. But that’s how it all started.’
The journalist swallowed down another mouthful of wine. ‘So it was like—a red-hot romance straight away?’
‘Certainly not!’ Amber’s mouth pursed into a prim little line. ‘I worked for Finn for two years before he even laid a finger on me.’ Until she had grown to want him so much that she’d thought she would die with the wanting. And had convinced herself that a man like that wouldn’t look twice at a working-class girl from the council estate. But in that she had been completely wrong. A smile played around the lush curves of her mouth. ‘He played Pygmalion instead.’
‘And how did he do that?’ asked the journalist casually.
‘Oh, he sent me to a make-up artist and a hairdresser. Then I had my colours done by a colour therapist, and after that I saw a stylist and she advised me about what kind of clothes to wear.’
‘She advised you pretty well,’ murmured the journalist, running his eyes over the gold silk-knitted tunic dress she wore, which showed off the best pair of legs he had ever seen.
‘Well, Finn certainly thinks so,’ said Amber, an unmistakable note of reproof in her voice which told the journalist in no uncertain terms to back off.
‘Er, yes. Finn.’ Averting his eyes from the milky-white stockings which made her legs sheen so provocatively, the journalist took another sip of his champagne instead. ‘He’s doing pretty well for himself.’
Amber nodded. Sometimes she thought he was doing a little too well. The business was booming—and so successful that Finn rarely seemed to have time to draw breath just lately. Even acquiring a partner hadn’t helped, not really—even though Jackson Geering was a faultless choice. In fact, maybe Jackson was just too good.
He had been taken on by Finn to ease some of the workload at Allure—but such was Jackson’s talent for the business that he had succeeded in drumming up a whole load of new openings! He was currently in New York, looking into the possibility of opening a branch of Allure over there. Amber knew that Finn was excited by the prospect and she was worried. How far did a man have to drive himself before he could accept his own success?
But, while she might suggest that he was in danger of overdosing on stress, she couldn’t tell a man of nearly thirty-four how to live his life...
She sneaked a quick glance at her watch. It was getting on for five o’clock. And once Paul Millington had left she would be free to start cooking, which she loved so much that Finn often teased her about it. She liked to prepare robust food—full of vegetables and pulses. Hearty, healthy, economical meals, and, even though Finn told her time and time again that they were rich enough to eat caviare non-stop if they wanted to, some part of her loved concocting the simple meals which had been a part of both their childhoods.
The journalist saw her looking at her watch, recognising that she wanted to end the interview. Good. When the subject was impatient for him to leave, that was when they were often at their most indiscreet. And indiscretions made the best stories, no doubt about it...
‘So how did Finn propose?’
Amber laughed and shook her head, the thick hair swaying as fluidly as golden syrup. ‘Oh, no—I’m not falling for that one! He’d kill me if I told you!’
‘In bed, then?’ he quizzed mischievously.
Amber blushed like a thousand sunrises, and then could have kicked herself. ‘I’m not saying!’
Actually, they hadn’t been in bed at the time. They had been closeted in a sumptuous downstairs bathroom at a weekend house party which neither of them had really wanted to attend, hosted by the owner of one of the country’s best-selling glossy magazines.
Finn rarely did anything he didn’t want to do, and he didn’t like socialising much. For a start, he didn’t get the time. And when he did he liked to live a simple life, far away from the glamour of the industry in which he worked. But even Finn had been able to see the sense of attending such a party.
‘Shall we go?’ he had queried casually one morning as they had been driving in to work together.
‘Do we have to go?’ Amber had asked.
She still felt shy in the company of huge gatherings of strangers—probably because most people were captivated by Finn. He was the one they wanted to talk to, not her. For all her blue-eyed, golden-haired beauty, people still gravitated to the dark man with the streetwise eyes by her side. Sometimes, Amber felt like a dim satellite next to Finn’s bright, blazing planet.
Finn shook his head. ‘We don’t have to do anything, sweetheart—but it might be fun.’
‘Fun?’
‘Mmm. Show you the sort of life we could be living.’
As an exercise in comparison, it proved invaluable, showing Amber—if she had needed showing—that the glossy high life was not for her.
She was forced to put up with beautiful women flirting outrageously with Finn all evening, acting for all the world as though he had not brought a woman with him.
He saw her resigned expression across the table as she picked at her smoked salmon, and attracted her attention without too much trouble, leaning across the table to talk to her.
‘What’s up?’ he quizzed softly.
Amber shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘Something,’ he contradicted. ‘Is it the other women?’
She gave him a rueful smile. ‘It goes with the territory, Finn—you’re an extremely attractive man, and they just can’t seem to stop themselves!’
‘No,’ he agreed thoughtfully, his dark lashes framing the emerald brightness of his eyes. ‘But maybe you think I encourage them?’
‘No.’
‘Even subconsciously?’
She shook her head. ‘You don’t need to have legions of women fawning over you in order to boost your self-esteem—your ego is healthy enough without that!’ But maybe she ought to make more of an effort to enjoy herself in a similar way. ‘Go back to your fan club, Finn Fitzgerald,’ she told him softly. ‘I’m fine.’
She forced herself to chat to the man on her right—a wunderkind film director who, she soon discovered, had an irreverent sense of humour. Even though she was aware of the beauty busy pouting beside Finn, the wunderkind managed to keep her halfway entertained all the way through the impressive array of different courses. She was just unwrapping another chocolate mint when she glanced up to find Finn looking at her very intently.
She put the mint down, untasted, and leaned across the table towards him. ‘Is something wrong, Finn?’
‘Meet me downstairs,’ he urged her suddenly.
Amber blinked. ‘Why?’
He shook his head and his green eyes glittered. ‘No questions.’
‘Not even to ask where?’
He laughed. ‘Why don’t you hide in one of the shadowed recesses in the hallway,’ he suggested in a sexy murmur, ‘and let me come and find you?’
Her heart was beating very strongly with excitement as she rose to her feet, convinced that people must have guessed at their elaborate charade, but the wunderkind was now chatting to the woman on the other side of him, and no one else looked in her direction as she slipped away.
She went into one of the downstairs bathrooms, where she brushed her hair and washed her hands, and applied a faint lick of lipstick. She was just about to leave when Finn appeared in the doorway, a look of anticipation and excitement on his face as he came inside and silently closed and locked the door behind him.
‘Finn?’ Amber said breathlessly.
‘Shh!’ He took her into his arms and began to kiss her with a sweet determination which Amber knew could only mean one thing...
‘Finn!’ she protested breathily as he began to stroke her nipple absently with his thumb.
He eased her against the wall. ‘What?’ came the smoky reply.
‘You mustn’t.’
‘Why mustn’t I?’
‘Because...’ Amber’s head tipped back helplessly as he began to anoint her neck with kisses. ‘Because...’
‘Lost for words?’ he tormented sweetly, as his hand snaked possessively between her thighs, the silky fabric of her dress parting like magic for his fingers.
Lost, yes. Definitely. Lost in an inimitable sensual world of his making. She moulded her hands helplessly around his buttocks, feeling the hard ridge of his desire as he pressed willingly against her pelvis. ‘We... we... shouldn’t be doing this,’ she gulped, as she felt him ruck the silky fabric up her legs.
‘Why not?’
‘Because people are upstairs—’
‘So what?’
‘W-what...?’ Her voice trailed away with excitement as she heard the rasping of his zip. ‘What if they guess?’
‘Guess what?’
‘That you’re...you’re...’
‘I’m what?’ He stared straight into her face, seeing her eyes dilate with shock and excitement as he pushed the lace panel of her panties aside and slowly eased himself into her molten tightness.
‘Unscrupulous!’ she gasped, as he began to move against her.
‘And?’
‘Gorgeous,’ came her breathy admission, just as pleasure and excitement and guilt all combined to give her the most heart-stopping orgasm she could remember, and she knew from the sudden tension in his body that his was not far behind. She felt him shudder helplessly within the circle of her arms and she held him very tightly until the storm had subsided.
Afterwards they stood wrapped around each other, Amber’s skin all pink and glowing as she yawned lazily against his neck, and he tilted her head to face him.
‘I’ve been thinking—’ he began.
‘Oh, is that what you call it?’ she teased him, her voice all slurred and satiated.
‘About those women.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Oh, but it does, sweetheart. It does. And it bothers you, doesn’t it, Amber?’
She thought about it ‘Of course it bothers me,’ she admitted carefully. ‘I think it would bother most women—but I hope that I manage to conceal it well—’
‘Not from me, you don’t.’
‘Well, from everyone else, then. I mean—it isn’t as though I threw a tantrum at dinner and marched off to bed. I thought I hid my impatience fairly well.’
‘You did,’ he agreed softly, and kissed her tenderly on the tip of her nose. ‘I only picked it up because I know you so well and I can recognise all the tell-tale signs.’
‘And what are they?’
‘It was when you ate that fourth after-dinner mint that I knew you were feeling tense!’
Amber giggled.
He pushed a wayward strand of golden hair off her flushed cheek. ‘Although I noticed that you soon found yourself an interesting diversion,’ he told her carefully.
Amber’s heart hammered. ‘I take it you’re referring to the film director?’
‘You know I am.’
Surely that wasn’t jealousy colouring his voice? Finn? Jealous of her? It thrilled her almost as much as it shocked her. ‘And did you mind?’ Amber’s voice was equally careful.
‘I guess I did. Stupid, isn’t it?’
‘Not stupid.’ She rested her head on his shoulder. ‘It’s natural to feel jealous—even when you know that your fears are groundless.’
‘I guess so.’ He planted a kiss on the silky curtain of her hair and Amber raised her head reluctantly.
‘Do we have to go back up there, Finn? From the predatory gleam in the eyes of some of those women, they’ll probably suggest throwing car keys into the middle of the room! Quite apart from the fact that I feel a little...’ she met his eyes, and blushed ‘...sticky.’
‘Me, too.’ He smiled back at her.
‘So do you suppose we could get away with sneaking off to our room and hope that no one will notice?’
He shook his head and Amber noticed that he looked oddly keyed up. ‘Not yet. I’ve got something I want to say to you first.’
She looked around the gleaming bathroom and wondered if a queue might be gathering outside, until she remembered that there were probably more bathrooms than guests in a house this size! Still, as an environment for talking, it did leave a little to be desired! ‘Can’t it wait?’
‘No, sweetheart. I’m afraid it can’t.’
Amber raised her eyebrows quizzically, as some gritty quality in his voice alerted her to the fact that this was not your average run-of-the-mill post-coital chat. ‘Sounds ominous.’
‘Does it? I hope not.’ He lifted a shiny strand of amber hair and twisted it around his finger. ‘These women that come on to me—they don’t exactly show you any respect, do they, sweetheart?’
She gave a hollow laugh. ‘Not exactly, no!’
‘And maybe that’s because they think that you’re just a girlfriend—’
‘Just?’ she interrupted indignantly. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Kind of impermanent, I suppose,’ he observed slowly.
‘But we’ve been living together for almost two years!’
‘But they’re not to know that, are they?’ he questioned patiently. ‘They probably don’t think we’ve made any kind of commitment to each other.’
‘Well, that’s true. We haven’t,’ she pointed out truthfully. ‘But lots of people don’t—not these days. And it’s not as though I mind,’ she added hastily.
‘I know you don’t—but suddenly I do mind. I mind very much. And I want to do something about it.’
‘You’re talking in riddles, Finn Fitzgerald,’ she chided gently. ‘And it isn’t at all like you.’
‘Well, I’m a bit of a novice at this kind of thing.’ He grinned.
Amber blinked. ‘And what kind of thing is that?’
His eyes darkened and, when he spoke, his voice sounded so husky that he didn’t sound like Finn at all. ‘Proposals of marriage—that kind of thing.’
‘Pro-proposals of marriage?’ she echoed incredulously.
‘Do you want to?’
‘What?’ She needed to hear him say it out loud, because half of her wondered whether she wasn’t just dreaming the whole thing up.
‘Marry me?’
Her heart stilled with disbelieving joy and she didn’t stop to question his intent for a second, because there was one thing she knew about Finn—and that was that he never said things he didn’t mean.
‘Oh, Finn,’ she whispered ecstatically. ‘My gorgeous, gorgeous Finn! How can you ask me a question like that? Of course I want to marry you!’
And it wasn’t until they had stopped kissing that he withdrew a small leather box from his pocket, and Amber’s eyes widened with amazement to see that it contained a diamond ring which fitted her finger perfectly when he slid it on.
‘Good heavens!’ she squealed, as it sparkled like a starburst. ‘It’s the biggest diamond I’ve ever seen!’
‘That should keep predatory women away in future,’ he growled. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Don’t ask such idiotic questions! Of course I like it—I love it! But it fits! And fits so well!’
‘So?’
‘So you mean you had this whole proposal thing planned?’
He gave her a slow smile. ‘Now who’s asking the idiotic questions? Of course I did! Or do you imagine I’d leave something as important as marriage just to whim?’
‘So you went out—and bought the ring?’
‘Well, I sure as hell didn’t steal it,’ he teased.
‘You guessed my size?’
He shook his head. ‘I borrowed that tiny moonstone thing you wear. I took it from the dressing table weeks ago.’
‘And I thought I’d lost it!’
And their eyes met in a long moment.
‘I love you,’ he said simply.
‘Snap,’ she told him shakily.
‘Amber? Amber?’
Lost in her reverie, Amber looked up to find the journalist staring at her.
His eyes were hard, but his words were casual—casual enough to lull her into a false sense of security. ‘So where exactly did he propose?’
His question seeped insidiously into the mists of her consciousness, and Amber heard herself saying automatically, ‘In the bathroom—of all places!’
‘The bathroom?’
‘Yes, but I don’t really want to answer any more questions, certainly not on that—would you mind?’
The journalist gave a contented smirk as he shook his head. He had a pretty good idea of what must have happened in the bathroom—she had one of those beautifully transparent faces that were a huge boon to his job! ‘Of course I don’t mind.’ He twirled his pencil in between his thumb and forefinger and drew in a deep breath as he psyched himself up to ask what he always termed his face-slapping question. Though, come to think of it, Amber O’Neil—despite her fiery golden hair—looked far too much of a lady ever to slap him round the face—no matter what the provocation!
‘You’re a good-looking woman, Amber—’
‘Why, thank you,’ she put in drily. ‘Very nice of you to say so!’
‘But you work in an industry peopled with beautiful women, some who—dare I say it?—are far more beautiful than you.’
Amber’s voice was wry. ‘Oh, you can say it, Mr Millington—’
‘Paul.’
‘Paul,’ Amber echoed obediently, and smiled. ‘Other people have said it before, time and again.’
‘So will you share with our readers the secret of your mystery weapon?’
‘The weapon with which I entrapped Finn, you mean?’
‘Exactly!’
His eyes glinted rather insultingly and Amber knew exactly what he was not-so-subtly implying. What did the man expect, for heaven’s sake? That she was going to suddenly announce that she was pure dynamite in bed? That, surely, was a testimony which only Finn could give...
‘I have no secret weapon,’ she told him quietly. ‘The very word suggests conflict, and—so far—there has been remarkably little of that in our relationship. Touch wood,’ she added superstitiously. ‘Whatever works between us I think is down to one thing, pure and simple. Love,’ she explained, in answer to his puzzled expression.
‘Oh.’ He looked positively crestfallen, and Amber almost felt sorry for him until she caught a glimpse of the time.
‘I really ought to wind this up now,’ she told him apologetically. ‘If there are no more questions...?’
He smiled. ‘Just one.’
Amber blinked at him, the curving sweep of her dark lashes beautifully framing the deep blue of her eyes. ‘Oh?’
‘It’s the obvious one, really—when’s the wedding going to be?’
If only she knew! ‘Well, Finn mentioned Valentine’s Day in passing, but I’m not sure whether we’ll get it organised for then. It’s only a couple of months away.’
The journalist’s eyes gleamed like twin beacons. ‘A Valentine’s Day wedding!’ he breathed. ‘It would make a wonderful piece. Front-page spread,’ he added, a sly light gleaming in his eyes. ‘I can promise you that!’
Amber rose to her feet. Not with Finn co-operating, she would wager!
She felt vaguely uneasy as she showed Paul Millington out, but reasoned that he couldn’t write anything too racy. Apart from those last few comments, she hadn’t said anything that people didn’t already know. And there wasn’t much of a story about someone having been proposed to in a bathroom, was there? Not much of a scoop there!
She was humming gently to herself as she began to chop onions in preparation for making Finn’s dinner.
CHAPTER TWO (#ua9ef7235-ad6d-50b1-a9b0-1993072cc8d4)
FINN was delayed.
After the journalist had left, Amber kept glancing up at the clock as she chopped garlic and fresh coriander, wondering where her busy man had got to. He was often held up, but he usually let her know when he was going to be late.
Eventually he rang her on his mobile phone from the car, his voice faint and indistinct.
‘Amber?’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’ve been tied up with New York,’ he told her tiredly. ‘Karolina Lindberg has been throwing tantrums and they’ve—’ There was a loud crackling on the line and then a long squeak. Amber could hear the impatience in Finn’s voice as he said, ‘Listen, I’ll tell you all about it when I get home, sweetheart, but I’m snarled up in traffic right now—’
‘Okay,’ murmured Amber, holding her hand up in the air, and watching while the hall light glittered and sparkled on the facets of her diamond ring. ‘Drive carefully.’
‘Don’t I always?’
‘No, you drive too fast!’
‘Nag, nag, nag!’ he laughed, and cut the connection.
She put the phone down, turned the chicken off and made herself a cup of tea, then settled down to read a magazine whilst trying not to look as though she was waiting—though of course she was waiting. Waiting for Finn, just as she always waited for Finn. But what choice did she have? He was a busy man, his business interests were diverse, and, although she worked for Allure as well, she couldn’t stay beside him all the time.
It was a side of herself that she had grown to dislike and fear—the side that didn’t feel complete unless Finn was somewhere around, as though a major part of her was missing. Though that much, she supposed, was true. Finn was a major part of her life.
It just went against everything she believed in—that a woman simply couldn’t function properly when she was on her own. That, although she was living, she simply didn’t feel alive unless the tall, ruffle-haired man with the hard, lean body and the bright green eyes was somewhere in the vicinity.
She must have dozed off, something she never normally did, and awoke with a muzzy head to find Finn standing over her, his face pale and unsmiling.
She sat up immediately. ‘Hello, darling,’ she mumbled, and blinked at him rapidly while her eyes tried to accustom themselves to the overhead light he must have snapped on.
‘Hard day?’ he murmured sardonically.
‘No.’ Amber found herself frowning defensively. ‘You knew I was taking the afternoon off—’
‘I wasn’t criticising you,’ he said tetchily. ‘Just that you couldn’t have picked a worse day for it if you’d tried. The office has been going crazy—and it’s never easy when Jackson is away.’
It wasn’t like Finn to be this grouchy, and it contrasted so markedly with the cute version of their romance which she had given to the journalist that Amber felt a bit of a fool. ‘Well, I wasn’t to know that, was I?’ she questioned sweetly. ‘Not when I booked it last month, after your accountant specifically told me to take some of the holiday which was owing to me.’
‘No, I guess not.’ He tipped his head back and wearily rubbed the back of his neck.
‘Hard day?’ she asked him sympathetically.
‘Tiring.’ He pulled a face. ‘I’ve had Birgitta on the phone from New York for most of the afternoon.’
‘And just who is Birgitta?’
‘She’s Karolina Lindberg’s mother. You met her—don’t you remember? She’s rather beautiful.’
Amber frowned. She met so many beautiful women every day of her life that she had sort of grown immune to them. But Finn, it would seem, had not. Not judging by the remark he had just made. It was his job to assess women on how they looked, but Amber found it oddly hurtful to hear the mother of one of his models described as ‘rather beautiful’. She forced herself to put on an expression of interest. ‘Tall? White-blonde hair? Used to be a model herself before she had Karolina?’
‘That’s the one!’
Amber forced herself to be generous. ‘It’s easy to see where Karolina got her beauty from.’
‘She’s a good-looking woman,’ conceded Finn. ‘They both are.’
Karolina was Finn’s latest signing and one of Allure’s biggest potential earners, a star in the making—the kind of woman who came around once every couple of years. If you were lucky.
It was difficult to pinpoint exactly what star quality was, but whatever it was Karolina had more than enough to go round. Six feet of exquisite white-blonde beauty, at sweet sixteen, she was a male fantasy come to life. Like her mother...
Amber narrowed her navy eyes, unaccustomed antennae alerted. ‘And isn’t there a Mr Lindberg on the scene?’ she enquired casually.
Finn shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, she’s just separated from Karolina’s father, and things are a little strained in the Lindberg family just now. Birgitta and Karolina are showing a distinct aversion to going back to Sweden. They’ve decided they want to be based in London.’
Amber felt unfamiliar fingers of fear whisper over her skin. ‘And what’s that got to do with you?’
‘Well, they want to use the company flat, for starters.’
‘Oh. I see.’
Like other leading model agencies, Allure owned a property solely for the use of its models—especially young and up-and-coming models, who needed a safe and cheap place to stay in the big city. For a nominal rent, the company flat could provide them with the security they needed. ‘Karolina and her mother want to live there?’ queried Amber. ‘Isn’t Birgitta a little old to be staying somewhere as basic as that?’
Finn shot her a narrow-eyed look and Amber thought how pale his face looked when contrasted against the dark hair. ‘She’s Karolina’s chaperon.’ He frowned. ‘Where else are they going to stay? It’s only Karolina’s second job—she hasn’t earned enough yet to put herself up in any of the London hotels. Not long-term. And you know how much they need reassurance and guidance at this stage, sweetheart’
‘And you give it them,’ she observed.
‘Well, that’s all part of my job.’
‘Sure.’ Amber gave an automatic smile, but her heart felt unaccustomedly heavy. ‘Just that sometimes I wish that we could have a little more time together, that’s all.’
‘You’re wishing away our success?’ he queried, a half-smile hovering around his lips. But it was a rueful smile.
Amber played with her engagement ring. ‘I just wish there was something in between having no work and having so much work you can’t think straight.’
‘But that’s life, business.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s all or nothing.’
He had struggled so hard to get to where he was today that Amber sometimes wondered whether he would be able to function normally without that struggle. Because Finn had had to fight every inch of the way to become the man he was today.
The youngest of seven children, Finn had come as a complete surprise to his brothers and sisters. And as a total shock to his mother—who had been in her late forties at the time of his birth and had thought her childrearing days were over. She’d been too tired to cope with the dark-haired infant’s vitality, so the afterthought had been brought up mainly by his eldest sister, Philomena—who had allowed him a lot more freedom than a strict mother might have done. As a consequence, Finn had grown used to quietly going about and getting what he wanted.
And what he’d wanted was success.
His good looks and natural grace had taken him out of the small Irish village of his birth and propelled him onto the international modelling scene like a rocket, at the age of eighteen—but he had soon tired of earning a living from his good looks. With a determination which was characteristic of the man, he had modelled when he could and laboured on the roads when he couldn’t, and by the time he was twenty-five had saved enough money to start his own model agency.
He stifled a yawn. ‘God, I need a drink.’
Normally Amber would have taken herself off and poured him one, but then normally he would have already taken her into his arms and kissed her very thoroughly indeed.
Which, so far, he hadn’t. So far all he had talked about was Birgitta and Karolina.
‘I wouldn’t mind a drink myself,’ she told him.
He blinked in surprise. ‘Okay. Wine do you?’
The champagne had made her thirsty for a soft drink, but she wanted to go through the whole togetherness thing of sharing a bottle with Finn. Tonight she needed some reassurance of their closeness. ‘Why not?’ She smiled.
She followed him out into the kitchen and put some heat beneath the chicken and rice while Finn opened a bottle. He was just about to throw the cork away when he noticed the empty golden-foiled bottle of very expensive champagne which was lying in the bin.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Been celebrating?’
For some extraordinary reason Amber felt both defensive and indignant, though when she thought about it afterwards it was a question she might have asked herself, had the situation been reversed.
Though perhaps not with as much accusation in her voice.
‘Not really,’ she hedged, knowing his dislike of journalists and wondering what mad blip had possessed her to give an interview.
The dark eyebrows rose even higher. ‘Just consuming costly bottles of champagne on your own?’ he queried mildly.
‘Well, of course I wasn’t alone!’ she retorted, guilt making her sound much snappier than usual. ‘You must know by now that I’d never be able to drink that much on my own! Especially in the middle of the day!’
‘I don’t know anything, Amber,’ he contradicted stubbornly. ‘Since you seem determined to clothe your actions in secrecy.’
Amber’s blue eyes widened into sapphire circles. If it hadn’t been so preposterous, it might almost have been funny, but she had never felt less like laughing. ‘Clothe my actions in secrecy?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘Did you mean to sound like the lead role in a poor spy movie, Finn, or was it unintentional?’
‘Damn you, Amber O’Neil’ he said softly. ‘What the hell has been going on here today?’
This time she stared at him in utter confusion. What was happening? Why were they arguing? Why on earth was he talking to her like this? Suddenly Amber felt the shiver of misgivings as they trickled their way down her spine.
She had never known Finn be so prickly and confrontational. Oh, they had sparred often enough in the time they had been living together—and before that. Plenty of times. But humour and affection had lain behind those exchanges, while there was certainly no humour or affection lurking in the depths of Finn’s emerald gaze right now.
She bit her lip and wondered how to answer him, because now did not seem the right time to tell him that she had sold the story of their meeting to Wow! magazine.
And he looked tired, too. Dog-tired. For the first time since he had arrived home Amber took a really close look at him—noting the blue-black shadows beneath his eyes and the tension around his jaw. His nerves were clearly jangled and stretched, and she frowned. He had been working too hard; that much was apparent. For where was the cool, calm Finn who coped equably with most things which were thrown at him?
‘Ursula came round for a drink,’ she told him, and offered a silent prayer of contrition for the lie. It was necessary, she told herself firmly. She would pick a better moment than this one to tell him the truth. A time when she was sure he would give her that easy, familiar laugh of his and tell her that, no, she shouldn’t have done it—but that no real harm had been done.
‘Ursula?’ He frowned. ‘Your sister?’
‘I know only one Ursula.’
‘What was Ursula doing round here in the middle of the day? Drinking champagne?’
Amber rounded on him. Enough was enough. ‘There’s no need to make it sound as though we were up to no good!’ she told him furiously. ‘Some of the women that work in Ursula’s company go out to wine bars every single lunchtime!’
‘And do absolutely zilch in the way of work afterwards, I’ll bet!’
‘But it was my afternoon off!’ Amber pointed out, and to her horror she burst into tears.
Finn stared at her in amazement. ‘Amber—’
‘Shut up! Just shut up!’ she sobbed, and ran from the kitchen towards the bedroom.
She flung herself down on the bed, her shoulders shaking with the effort of trying to keep the tears back, but it was no good. Great rivulets came streaking their way in a salty path down her nose and into her mouth and she swallowed them down like medicine. She was just scrubbing at her eyes and sniffing back the last of her tears when she heard the door open quietly, and Finn began to walk towards the bed.
She held her breath, froze into total stillness, her body language screaming out a wordless message of rejection. But it was a message which he was clearly choosing to ignore, for he put his hand on her shoulder.
She tried to shake it off. ‘G-go away!’
‘You know you don’t want me to.’
‘How do you know what I want?’ she demanded.
‘Why don’t you tell me?’ he suggested tenderly.
‘Okay, I’ll tell you!’ She sat up on the bed, aware that she must look an absolute fright. Strands of golden hair were sticking to her cheeks like glue. ‘I want a little respect, Finn Fitzgerald—that’s what I want!’ Then tell him the truth about this afternoon, a little voice inside her head urged her. She ignored it.
He sighed. ‘Shall we start this evening all over again?’
‘And how do you propose we do that?’ she asked him quietly, but the instant the words were out of her mouth she realised that they could be interpreted as provocation.
His eyes briefly flickered, and Amber immediately recognised the dark, gleaming shutters of desire.
He smiled as he gave a shrug of his broad shoulders, clad in their habitual black. ‘I don’t know, Amber,’ he murmured. ‘Any ideas?’
She knew what he wanted. What she wanted, too, if she was being honest with herself. A sizzling session of making up, which would banish the memory of their angry words and make everything seem all right again. But she was damned if she was going to lie back on the bed and start giving him the come-on, pouting and desperate, with no pride.
She quickly got up off the bed, and Finn frowned.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To the kitchen. I’ve left the rice and chicken cooking. Remember?’
‘So this is what an engagement means, is it?’ he taunted softly. ‘That you put supper before making love?’
Amber paused by the door, his words unsettling her. She found herself wanting to placate him, to run back over to the bed and start to massage the knotted tension from his shoulders in the way he so liked. And that would inevitably lead on to something else, in the way that massage always did. But that type of behaviour would consign her to a lifetime of being considered a doormat. She already had his supper ready and waiting for him every night—she sure as hell wasn’t going to start agreeing to sex when she most emphatically did not feel like it!
‘My behaviour isn’t unique,’ she countered quietly. ‘Before we got engaged you wouldn’t have dreamed of coming home and hurling accusations at me like that. You sounded like a bear with a sore head! No, worse!’
And she flounced out of the room before either of them had a chance to say anything else which they might later regret.
Her hands were shaking as she switched the gas off and took two plates out of the oven, where they were heating. She carried them through to the dining room, where she found Finn standing staring at the Christmas tree, its white candle lights reflected in the big glass windows which overlooked the park. There was a look of soft wonder in his eyes, some brief, faint glimpse of the innocent boy in the hard, handsome face of the man, and her heart turned over with love.
She put the plates down on the table. ‘Do you like it?’
‘You don’t usually put it up quite so early,’ he observed, his attention still caught by the bright glitter.
‘I couldn’t wait,’ she prevaricated, vowing to tell him about the interview. Tomorrow. ‘And you still haven’t answered my question. Do you like it?’
He turned to face her, his eyes as darkly and as beautifully green as the fragrant pine. ‘Sweetheart, I love it—it’s the most beautiful tree I’ve ever seen!’
‘You said that last year.’
‘Did I?’ he smiled.
‘Yes! And the year before!’
‘In fact, every Christmas we’ve spent together, even before we were officially a “couple”,’ he murmured, his eyes slowly travelling over her, looking at her properly for the first time since he had arrived home. ‘And how many Christmases is that, Amber?’
‘F-four,’ she stumbled, because the way his eyes were searing over her was sending her pulses racing. ‘Can’t you remember?’
‘I’m having a little difficulty with my thoughts just now,’ he admitted deliberately.
Now she was ready to play the game. There was no danger of the flat burning down and, quite frankly, the sight of the chicken congealing in its coconut and coriander sauce was making her feel slightly queasy. She just wanted to lose herself in his arms and forget about the hurtful things they had said. And the lie she had told him...
‘Are you?’ she asked, her voice husky.
‘Mmm.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because you’re distracting me, sweetheart, that’s why. I can’t seem to think of anything right now, except...’ His voice tailed off as his pupils dilated in a look of desire that made Amber feel positively brazen.
‘Except?’
‘Come here,’ he whispered.
Amber supposed that a more liberated woman than herself might have requested that he come to her. Because he was the one who had arrived home in such a foul temper,
She opened her mouth to say so, but something irresistibly compelling in the depths of those thick-lashed eyes made the words die hopelessly on her lips and she went straight into his arms.
He enfolded her in his embrace, rubbing his chin against the silky softness of her hair, and she felt his body come alive against her. It had always been like that between them. That instant. That overwhelming. Sometimes she worried that the physical side was almost too good between them—because if that ever faded, then would there be enough left to sustain them?
‘God—I want you, Amber,’ he groaned.
‘I’d n-never have guessed.’ She swallowed down her excitement.
‘So badly.’
She felt her pulse pick up speed. ‘So what do you want to do about it?’
‘This.’ His forefinger skated over the golden silk towards the zip-fastening at the front, brushing carelessly against her breast on its travels, so that she sucked in a painful breath of agonised longing.
‘Finn!’ This as he unhurriedly began to slide the zip down, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as it tugged with resistance over the luscious swell of her breasts.
‘What?’
She briefly closed her eyes with helpless pleasure. ‘I don’t remember,’ she murmured, her voice sounding slurred—almost drugged—heavy and sweet as honey. He had taught her this, had taught her everything she knew about lovemaking, and he was a grand master. She knew what pleasures lay ahead. For Finn had shown her that anticipation was everything, no matter how long the preliminaries took. He had taught her to indulge her senses—all of them. Shown her that a cup of coffee would taste all the more delicious if you savoured the aroma first.
He eased the zip down to past her navel, so that her breasts, straining exquisitely against the ivory-coloured lace of her bra, were exposed to his hot and hungry gaze. ‘God, I’m glad you never reached the ideal height for modelling,’ he said suddenly.
Amber’s eyes snapped open. ‘What an odd thing to say! Especially at a time like this! Why on earth not?’
‘Because then, my beauty, you would have dieted all these succulent curves away and there would be no heavy mounds of silken breast for me to take in my mouth and suckle. No rounded belly on which to cushion my head—’
‘Finn!’ His words made her weak and dizzy with desire. She swayed like a sapling in the wind, and Finn had to catch her hips between his hands to support her.
‘Steady, sweetheart,’ he murmured appreciatively as he observed her instantaneous response to the things he was saying. ‘Steady.’
Words failed her. How could she be steady when his hands had begun working their magic in the secret places and crevices of her body?
‘Is this a new dress?’ he wanted to know as he eased it over her shoulders and it pooled with a silken whisper to the floor, and she was left standing in the ivory lace bra and matching knickers and the milky-sheened stockings.
His question let a little unwelcome reality seep into her mind. She had bought it to wear on Christmas Day, and then, when the photographer from Wow! had turned up, it had seemed the perfect outfit to put on. Because it was a Christmassy colour and also because there was something about new clothes which made a woman feel extra-confident...
Maybe now was the time to tell him about the interview—but Amber didn’t even give it a second thought, because by now Finn was ruthlessly rubbing at one of her nipples through the ivory lace, the pad of his thumb creating a soft, sweet sorcery that had her melting against him again. ‘Yes, it’s new,’ she sighed helplessly against him. ‘I bought it last week. D-do you like it?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he mused, as he eased a practised knee between her thighs and followed it with purposeful fingers. ‘I think on balance it looks better off than on.’
Amber gave a little yelp of pleasure as he skimmed a moist path along the centre of her panties, and she couldn’t have stopped her thighs from opening in mute invitation even if she had wanted to.
‘Do you like that?’ he queried unnecessarily.
She shook her head. Sometimes she resented him for this. For reducing her to such a boneless, shaking wreck within seconds of laying one seductive finger on her. ‘Hate it,’ she husked defiantly.
He gave a low laugh. ‘Oh, do you?’ He slid the panties down to mid-thigh, then stopped, and Amber realised that she had been doing a hell of a lot of taking and not much giving. She often felt shy about taking the lead. But that wasn’t really surprising, not when she stopped to think about it. For Finn had been making love to beautiful women since he was eighteen, while she had only ever known him...
With trembling fingers she lightly flattened the palm of her hand against his black jeans, to touch and incite the great throbbing swell of him. Then she began to falteringly unbuckle his belt, wondering whether she would ever acquire his smooth undressing technique, and he gave another low laugh of pleasure.
‘Oh, that’s what I like about you, sweetheart,’ he murmured, his voice sultry with pure elation. ‘The way you tremble and gasp with shock and excitement whenever I lay a finger on you. The way you touch me with hands which are both scared and eager. The way your eyes widen with disbelief when I fill you right up with every inch of me. You’re like a virgin every time we make love, Amber.’
‘Am I?’ For some reason his words fired her up with both rebellion and desire. Was she always such a predictable lover? Didn’t his words imply that she was somehow in awe of him? Gazing on him in wonderment, as if finding it difficult to believe that the great Finn Fitzgerald should be making love to her, poor little Amber O’Neil, from the wrong side of town? ‘But I’m not a virgin, am I, Finn? Because a virgin wouldn’t touch you here. Like this.’ And she boldly splayed her hand across the most elemental part of him and felt him buck beneath her.

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