Читать книгу Her Sweet Surrender: The First Crush Is the Deepest - Нина Харрингтон - Страница 11

FOUR

‘Aren’t you going to ask me what it feels like to finally work in that shiny glass office I used to drag you down to ogle every week?’ Sam called after her. ‘I would hate for you to stay awake at night wondering how I’m coping with being a real life reporter in the big city. Come on, Amber. Have you forgotten all those afternoons you spent listening to my grand plans to be a renowned journalist one day? I know that you’re curious. Give me another five minutes to convince you to choose me instead of some other journalist to write your story.’

Amber slowed and looked back at Sam over one shoulder.

And her treacherous teenage heart skipped a beat and started disco dancing just at the sight of him.

Just for an instant the sound of her name on his lips took her right back to being seventeen again, when the highlight of her whole day, the moment she had dreamt about all night and thought about every second of the day, was hearing his voice and seeing Sam’s face again. Even if it did mean sitting in the back of the limo and in dressing rooms around the country as her mother’s unpaid assistant and general concert slave for hours on end.

It was worth it when Sam took her out for a pizza or a cola for the duration of the concert she had heard so many times she could play it herself note perfect.

She had adored him.

He had not changed that much. A little heavier around the shoulders and the waistline, perhaps, but not much. His smile had more laughter lines now and his boyish good looks had mellowed through handsome into something close to gorgeous. She was sorry to have missed the merely handsome stage. But, if she closed her eyes, his voice was the same boy she used to know.

And the charm? Oh, Lord, he had ramped up the charm to a level where she had no doubt that any female celebrity would be powerless to resist any question he put to them.

Sam had always had a physical presence that could reach out and grab her—no change there, but she had not expected to feel such a connection. Memories of the last time she came to this very garage flooded back. His ready laughter and constant good-natured teasing about watching that she didn’t knock her head on the light fittings. The nudges, the touches, the kisses.

Until he betrayed her with one of her best friends on her eighteenth birthday. And the memories of the train wreck of the weeks that followed blotted out any happiness she might have had.

Amber turned back to face Sam and planted her left hand on her hip.

‘Perhaps I am worried about all of those hidden tape recorders and video feeds which are capturing my every syllable at this very moment?’

He smiled one of those wide mouth, white teeth smiles and, in her weakened pre-dinner state, Amber had to stifle a groan. What was wrong with the man? Didn’t Sam know that the only respectable thing for him to do was to have grown fat and ruined his teeth with sugary food? He had always been sexy and attractive in a rough-edged casual way, as relaxed in his body as she had been uncomfortable in her tall gangly skin. But the years had added the character lines to his face, which glowed with vitality and rugged health. Confidence and self-assurance were the best assets any man could have and Sam had them to spare.

‘In this garage? No. You can say what you like. It’s just between us. Same as it ever was.’

The breath caught in Amber’s throat. Oh, Sam. Trust you to say exactly the wrong thing.

She flicked her hair back one-handed and covered up the bitter taste of so much disappointment with a dismissive choke. He must be desperate to go to such lengths for this interview. She had no idea how much journalists earned, but surely he didn’t need the job that much?

Drat her curiosity.

Of course she remembered the way he used to talk about how he was going to work his way through journalism school at all of the top London newspapers and be the star investigative journalist. His name would be on the front page of the big broadsheet newspapers that his dad read in the car as he waited for his clients to finish their meetings or fancy events.

Maybe that was it?

Maybe he was still hungry for the success that had eluded him. And this interview would take him up another rung in that long and rickety ladder to the front page.

She was a celebrity that he wanted to interview for his paper to win the extra points he needed for the big prize. And the bigger the story the more gold stars went onto his score sheet.

And that was all. Nothing personal. He had walked—no, he had run away from her at the first opportunity to make his precious dream of becoming a professional journalist a reality.

She did not owe him a thing.

‘Same as it ever was? In your dreams,’ she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear. ‘That editor of yours must really be putting the pressure on if you’re resorting to that line.’

Sam shrugged off her jibe but looked away and pretended to tidy up the toolbox on the bench for a second before his gaze snapped back onto her face.

‘What can I say? Unlike some people, I need the job.’ Then he laughed out loud. ‘You always had style, Amber, but retiring at twenty-eight? That takes a different kind of chutzpah. I admire that.’

He stepped forward towards her and nodded towards her arm, his eyes narrowed and his jaw loose. ‘Is it your wrist? I know you said that it was a clean break, but...’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It’s nothing to do with my wrist.’

‘I am glad to hear it. Then how about the other rumours? A lot of people think that you are using this announcement to start a kind of bidding war between rival orchestras around the world. Publicity stunts like this have been done before.’

‘Not by me. I won’t be making a comeback as a concert pianist. Or at least I don’t plan to.’

Amber swallowed down her unease, reluctant to let Sam see that she was still uncertain about where her life would take her.

She had made her decision to retire while recovering in hospital and she’d imagined that a simple press statement would be the easiest way to close out that part of her life. Her agent was not happy, of course—but he had other talent on his books and a steady income from her records and other contracts—she was still valuable to him.

But the hard implications were still there on the horizon, niggling at her.

Music had been her life for so long that just the thought of never performing in public again was so new that it still ruffled her. Playing the piano had been the one thing that she did well. The one and only way that she knew to earn her mother’s praise.

Of course Julia Swan would have loved her daughter to choose the violin and follow in her footsteps, but it soon became obvious that little Amber had no talent for any other instrument apart from the piano.

For a girl who was moving from one home to another, one school to another, one temporary stepdad to another, music had been one of the few constants in her life. Piano practice was the perfect excuse to avoid tedious evenings with her mother and whatever male friend or violin buff she was dating at the time.

The piano was her escape. Her refuge. It was where she could plough her love and devotion and all of the passion that was missing in her life with her bitter and demanding, needy and man-hunting mother.

So she had worked and worked, then worked harder to overcome her technical problems and excel. It was her outlet for the pain, the suppressed anger. All of it. And nobody knew just how much pain she was in.

Because there was one thing that her mother never understood—and still did not understand, even when she had tried to explain at the hospital. And then in the endless texts and emails and pleading late night phone calls begging her to reconsider and sometimes challenging her decision to retire.

Amber had always played for the joy in the music.

She was not an artist like her mother, who demanded validation and adoration. She just loved the music and wanted to immerse herself in the emotional power of it.

And Sam Richards was the only other person on this planet who had ever understood that without her having to explain it.

Until this moment she had thought that connection between them would fade with the years they had spent apart.

Wrong.

Sam was looking at her with that intense gaze that used to make her shiver with delight and anticipation of the time that they would spend together and, just for a second, her will faltered.

Maybe this was not such a good idea?

Getting her own back on Sam had seemed a perfectly logical thing to do back in the penthouse, but here in the garage which was as familiar as her own apartment, suddenly the whole idea seemed pathetic and insulting to both of them. She had made plenty of poor decisions over the past few years—surely she could forgive Sam the mistakes he had made as a teenager desperate to improve his life?

Amber opened her mouth and was just about to make an excuse when Sam tilted his head and rubbed his chin before asking, ‘I suppose this is about the money?’

And there it was. Like a slap across the face.

Her lower lip froze but she managed a thin smile. ‘Are you talking about the blood money you took from my mother to leave me alone and get out of London? To start your new career, of course.’

His mouth twisted and faltered. ‘Actually, I was thinking more about the generous donation the paper will be contributing to your favourite charity. Although I should imagine that we are not the only ones to offer you something for your time. Not that you need the money, of course. Or the publicity.’

‘You don’t think that I need publicity?’

‘Come on, Amber, your face was on billboards and the sides of buses, your last CD went into the top ten classical music charts and you have set new records for the number of followers you have on the social media sites. Publicity is not your problem.’

‘It goes with the job—I am in showbiz. Correction. Was in showbiz. That doesn’t interest me any longer.’

‘Okay then. So why are you even talking to me about doing an interview? Seeing as you don’t need the publicity.’

‘Logistics. I thought that the press would get bored after a couple of weeks and move onto the next musician. Wrong! I was almost mobbed outside the record company this morning. So it makes sense to do one comprehensive interview and get it over with.’

She waved one hand in the air. ‘One interview. One journalist.’

Sam shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, his casual smile replaced by unease.

‘Wait a minute. Are you offering me an exclusive?’ he asked. ‘What’s the catch?’

‘Oh, how suspicious you are. Well. As it happens, I might be willing to give you that interview.’ She cleared her throat and tilted her head, well aware that she had his full attention. ‘But there are a few conditions we need to agree on before I talk on the record.’

‘Conditions. This sounds like the catch part.’

‘I prefer to think of them as more of a trade. You do something for me, I do something for you. And, from what I have seen so far, you might find some of them rather challenging. Still interested?’

‘Ah. Now we have it. You know you have the upper hand so you decided to come down here to gloat?’

‘Gloat? Do you really think I would do that?’ she repeated, her words catching at the back of her throat. Was that how he thought of her? As some spoiled girl who had come to impress him with her list of achievements?

‘I haven’t changed that much, Sam. We’ve both done what we set out to do. You need an interview and I have a few things I need doing which you might be able to help me with. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Simple? Nothing about you was ever simple, Amber.’

Sam leaned back against the workbench and stretched out his long arms either side of him so that his biceps strained against the fabric of his T-shirt across his chest and arms. The sinewy boy she had known had been replaced by a man who knew his power and had no problem using it to get his way.

And the tingle of that intense gaze sent the old shivers down the back of her legs and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop them. Her heart started thumping and she knew that her neck was already turning a lovely shade of bright red as his gaze scanned her face.

She could blame it on the hot May sunshine outside the garage door, but who was she trying to kid?

What had Kate said about Petra? That she had bedazzled Sam that night? Well, the Sam who was scanning her body was quite capable of doing his own bedazzling these days.

Sam had been the first boy who had ever given her the tingles and there had only been two other men in her life. All god-handsome, all rugged and driven and all as far removed from the world of music and orchestral performance venues as it was possible to imagine.

And every single one of them had swept her off her feet and into their world without giving her time to even think about what she was doing or whether the relationship had a chance. Little wonder that she had ended up alone and in tears, bewildered and bereft, wondering what had just happened and why.

But one thing was perfectly clear. Sam had been the first, and there was no way that she was going to go through that pain again, just to score a few points on the payback scoreboard.

Decision time.

If she was going to do this, she needed to do it now, and put the tingles down to past stupidity. Or she could turn around and run as fast as she could back to the penthouse and lock the door tight behind her. Just as her kind friends thought that she should. Just as she would have done only a few months earlier, before her life had changed.

‘I hadn’t planned to give any more interviews after the press release. That part of my life is over,’ she said, her chin tilted up. ‘But I have a few things you could help me with and you need this interview to impress your editor and make your mark in the London office. Am I getting warm?’

He shrugged and tried to look casual. But there was just that small twitch at the side of his mouth which he used to have when things were difficult at home and he didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Warm enough.’

‘Warm? If I was any hotter I would be on fire. If I go to another paper, you will be waiting on the pavement for movie stars to stagger out from showbiz parties wearing their underpants as hats.’

Sam’s hands gripped onto the bench so tightly that his knuckles started to turn white. ‘Ah. Now I am beginning to understand. You want to see me suffer.’

Amber winced and gave a small shoulder shrug. ‘You walked out on me and broke my heart. So yes, it would be a shame to miss the opportunity for some retribution. And I am not in the least bit ashamed.’ She took a breath. ‘But that was a long time ago, Sam. And I am keen to put that away in a box labelled “done and dusted”. I think this will help me do that.’

Sam closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side before blinking awake and laughing out loud. ‘Done and dusted, eh? I am almost frightened to ask what form my punishment is going to take. But please, do continue, let’s get it over with.’

He stood to maximum height, pushed his shoulders back and lifted his chin. ‘Hit me.’

Amber strolled into the garage and focused her attention on the sports car, her fingertips lingering on the old leather seats, her face burning with awareness that Sam’s gaze was still locked onto her. ‘I want to get this done as soon as I can, but time is tight. I’m redecorating my apartment and the girls want to celebrate my birthday this week.’

She almost turned around at the sound of Sam’s sharp intake of breath. ‘May eighteenth. Hard to forget.’

Amber flung her head up and twisted around at the waist, ready with a cutting remark, but bit it back when she saw the look on Sam’s face was one of sadness and regret.

His lips twitched for a second before he replied. ‘Busy week. No problem. Just give me your email address and I can send over some questions so you can work on them when you have time.’

‘Email questions? Oh, no. This interview has to be in person.’

Sam coughed twice. ‘Are you always so awkward?’

She tilted her head slightly to one side before replying. ‘No. Just with you.’

He laughed out loud and planted a fist on each hip. ‘Don’t try and kid me, girl. You have been planning this for ages and are having way too much fun teasing this out.’ He flicked his chin in her direction. ‘You could have asked your agent to make the call and organised the interview over the phone. But that wouldn’t have been nearly so satisfying, would it?’

He waved her spluttering away. ‘And I understand that perfectly. Really. I do. I made a horrible mistake and treated you badly, and now you’re going to make me pay.’

Then his stance softened and his gaze darted from side to side. ‘I’m not proud of what happened the last time we met. Far from it. But that was ten years ago and we’re different people now. At least I am. I’m not sure about you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You never had a vindictive thought in your life, Amber DuBois. So why don’t you just take me through that list of little things you want me to help you with and we can get this over and done with, and we can put the past behind us?’

Amber inhaled slowly and turned to face Sam, her head tilted slightly to one side, and she carefully pushed the slip of paper deeper into the heart-shaped pocket of her dress.

‘What makes you think I have a list?’ she asked in the best innocent and surprised voice she could muster at short notice.

‘Amber. You always had a list. For everything. A list of things to do that day, a list of how long you practised that week. You are a listy type of person and people don’t change that much. So it makes sense for you to have a list of all the things I am going to have to do in exchange for one interview.’

He shot her a glance which made her eyes narrow. Why did he have to remember that small detail, of all things? There was no way she could talk him through her list now.

‘I prefer to think of them as challenges. But you are right about one thing—I have thought about what you could possibly give me in exchange for an exclusive, and you can take that smirk off your face right now. You would not be so lucky. So I came up with a new approach.’

She crossed the space between them until her face was only inches away from his and licked her lips before speaking.

‘Look, Sam,’ she said in low, calm voice as her gaze locked onto his. ‘I know people are interested in why I decided to retire when I did, but my reasons are very personal and very close to my heart.’ She took a breath and swallowed before rolling her shoulders back a little. ‘It would be very easy for a reporter to do a hatchet job with some crazy headline just to sell more papers. So...I need to know that I can trust the journalist I go for to give me a fair hearing.’

‘That’s not going to be easy,’ he replied in a voice which sang with resignation and disappointment.

‘I know. This is why you are going to have to prove to me that you are the right man for the job before I say a word on the record.’

His eyebrows went skywards. ‘Any ideas on how I do that?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she sniffed. ‘You are going to have to pass an audition before I give you the job. You see, this week is crazily busy and my wrist is a problem. So I need someone to be my Man Friday for the next few days. Unpaid, of course, and you provide your own uniform. But all refreshments are provided by the management. And I just know how much Saskia and Kate are looking forward to having you around the place.’

‘A Man Friday,’ Sam repeated, very, very slowly. ‘So, basically, I have to be your man slave for the next week before you’ll even think about giving me the interview?’

Amber picked her business card out of her dress pocket with two fingers, gave Sam her sweetest camera-ready smile and looked deep into his startled eyes as she held the card high in the air. ‘Well, it’s good to know that your powers of deductive reasoning are as sharp as ever. The audition starts at my apartment at ten tomorrow morning. Oh—and just to make it a little more interesting, I’ll have a new challenge for you every day. See you there, Sam. If you are man enough to accept the challenge.’

The air bristled with tension for all of ten seconds. Then Sam took two powerful steps forward, his brows low and dark-eyed, his legs moving from the hips in one smooth movement. Driven. Powerful.

And, before Amber had a chance to complain or slip away, Sam splayed one hand onto her hip and drew her closer to him. Hip to hip.

Amber’s breath caught in her throat as his long clever fingers pressed against the thin silk of her dress as though it was not there. She could feel his hot breath on her face as she inhaled a scent that more than anything else she had seen or experienced today whipped her right back to being held in Sam’s arms. It was car oil, polish, man sweat, dust and ambition and all Sam. And it was totally, totally intoxicating.

His gaze locked onto her eyes. Holding her transfixed.

‘Bambi, I am man enough for anything that you have to offer me,’ Sam whispered in a voice which was almost trembling with intensity, one corner of his mouth turned up into a cheeky grin as though he knew precisely what effect he was having on her blood pressure. And there was not one thing she could do about it.

Then, just like that, he stepped back and released her, and it took a lot to stay upright.

And then he winked at her.

‘See ya tomorrow—’ he smiled with a casual lilt in his voice ‘—looking forward to it.’