Читать книгу One Wedding Required! - Шэрон Кендрик - Страница 10

CHAPTER ONE

‘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.