But not last night.
It had been an odd Christmas Eve, with Finn holed up in his office until late. Like most of the world, Allure models and bookers and accountants did not work for the few days before and after Christmas, but two of their models had been involved in a serious accident. The light aircraft they’d been travelling in had crash-landed in the middle of the Australian desert ten days earlier. The pilot had been killed outright, and one of the models had broken her leg badly and lost a lot of blood.
Both women were now recovering well in hospital, but the crash had made a big story in the Australian press and Finn had flown over to offer his help and support. He’d even made the six o’clock news, with a breathy and beautiful blonde reporter firing questions at him, while Amber had watched the flickering TV screen in their flat, thousands of miles away.
He hadn’t arrived home until the morning of Christmas Eve, jet-lagged and grumpy and distinctly thinner than when he had left, thanks to a bout of flu on his travels. Amber thought he should have gone straight to bed on his return, but he had insisted on wading through a pile of outstanding paperwork.
‘Can’t you leave that?’ Amber had pleaded, but he had resolutely shaken his head.
‘Not with Christmas coming up, I can’t. The office is going to be shut for days, Amber—and it needs to be done.’
‘Then let someone else do it, Finn. Please.’
‘Amber,’ he had sighed. ‘There isn’t anyone else to do it—Jackson’s not back yet. And sometimes only the boss will do. You know that.’
Yeah, she knew that. As she knew that lately she seemed to come very low down on Finn’s list of priorities.
Deciding that his jet-lag must be responsible for such an uncharacteristically early rising, Amber yawned, pushed the sleep-tousled hair off her face and went in search of him.
She didn’t have far to look. She found him sitting motionless in the darkness of the drawing room, hunched up in a chair and staring sightlessly into space. He had obviously just pulled on a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt, and his feet were bare.
Something in his posture made her heart contract with fear, and she stared at him in silence, strangely reluctant to disturb him.
But it seemed that he sensed her presence anyway, for he turned his head slightly to look at her, with fatigue stamped all over his hard profile. ‘Hello, Amber,’ he said slowly.
Was it her imagination, or did his voice sound distant —as if she were a woman he’d brought home for the night, without getting to know her properly?
‘Everything okay?’ she asked him hesitantly.
‘Sure.’ His gaze was steady. ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’
‘Just that you’re up very early.’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘You should have woken me.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘It seems I have.’
Jet-lag, Amber decided, her heart racing. It made people behave oddly. She forced herself to smile at him, determined to have a happy Christmas Day. ‘Let me guess—you’ve just been wrapping my Christmas present?’ she queried brightly.
He shook his head slowly as he gazed without emotion into her eyes. ‘Actually, I haven’t bought you one,’ he told her slowly.
Amber tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter. That Christmas had become an outrageous celebration of commercialisation which went completely against what lay at the heart of the festival itself. But somehow it did matter. Her bottom lip puckered. ‘Oh,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’ Finn rubbed at one of his temples with impatient fingers. ‘Australia got in the way, and then I picked up that stupid bug and I didn’t want to buy you any old thing, just for the sake of it—’
‘Oh, please don’t feel that you have to offer me excuses, Finn.’ She gave a light little laugh which didn’t sound like her laugh at all. ‘You make me feel like a secretary whose boss has forgotten her at Christmas! I think I can just about cope with not getting a present from you.’ But she wondered why he hadn’t got up, or taken her into his arms, or...
The piercing shriek of the telephone startled them both.
Finn scowled. ‘What the hell—?’
‘Bad news,’ gulped Amber instantly as she quickly went to pick it up.
‘Leave it, will you, Amber? I’ll take it!’ Finn’s voice was brusque and authoritative as he began to lever himself stiffly out of the chair, like a novice runner the day after a marathon.
Amber took one look at him and glared. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ she snapped. ‘You’re still half dead on your feet from jet-lag! I think I can cope with the phone, even if it is bad news!’ But she didn’t say what was uppermost in her mind as she picked the receiver up—that Finn was the one with elderly parents and a huge extended family living in Ireland. And that if it was bad news, it was more likely to concern him.
‘Hello,’ she said, and then had her ear half deafened by the sound of hysterical female sobs. ‘Hello?’ she repeated. ‘Who is this, please?’ But the unintelligible crying continued. Finn was by her side now and she gave him a bewildered shrug.
He took the receiver from her but, even so, the sobbing was still audible to Amber.
‘Finn Fitzgerald here,’ he said. ‘Who’s speaking?’
Amber heard the crying lessen in volume in response to the honeyed balm of his voice, and he listened intently, then nodded.
‘So what have you done?’ he asked. ‘Good. No! Stay there. Don’t worry. No!’ Now his voice sounded harsh. ‘Don’t do that! I’ll be right over.’ He put the phone down and stared at Amber, her face snow-white, her sapphire eyes like ebony-centred saucers.
‘What’s happened? Who was it?’
‘Birgitta,’ he told her reluctantly.
‘Birgitta?’ she echoed in disbelief. ‘What the hell is Birgitta doing calling us here at this time in the morning? On Christmas Day!’
‘Well, it sure as hell wasn’t to chat about the weather!’ he snapped. ‘Or to wish us a happy holiday!’
Amber’s heart raced with anger and humiliation—as much at the scowling look on his face as at the putdown. ‘I wasn’t for a minute suggesting that it was,’ she told him icily. ‘Is there some kind of problem with the flat?’
‘Obviously,’ he returned shortly. ‘There’s water coming through the ceiling from the bathroom—and there’s no way she can get a plumber now.’
‘So naturally she turned to you, did she? Dear, darling Finn—who seems capable of getting most things in a crisis!’ she snapped, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
‘Of course she turned to me!’ he exploded. ‘What else did you expect her to do? Allure does happen to own the flat! And neither of them know anyone in London—’
‘So why didn’t they go back to Sweden?’ she sniped nastily. ‘It is Christmas, after all!’
The look he gave her was withering. ‘I can’t believe you just said that, Amber,’ he told her quietly. ‘The reason they’re in London is because Karolina has to fly out to Barbados tomorrow—’
‘Such a tough life!’ Amber gave an exaggerated sigh.
‘I think it is tough when fame comes so young and so easy,’ he told her slowly. ‘It can detonate the whole infrastructure of your life.’ He met her angry look with a level stare. ‘Look—I told her that I’d go over.’
‘I know you did. I was standing right here listening, remember? Birgitta is a grown woman, isn’t she? Why can’t she cope?’
Finn’s mouth twisted. ‘Call me old-fashioned, if you like, but I happen to be one of those people who think that men handle certain crises better than women—and leaking ceilings is one of them!’
‘Then why isn’t Mr Lindberg around to sort all this out?’ she raged. ‘It’s Christmas morning for goodness’ sake! Doesn’t Birgitta’s husband miss her? Doesn’t Karolina miss her father?’
‘I told you—Birgitta and her husband have separated,’ he clipped out. ‘Temporarily.’
‘Oh, it’s a
lways “temporarily”!’ put in Amber caustically. ‘The word suggests that the marriage will automatically get better—whereas in reality it’s usually a convenient excuse for a woman out looking to find a replacement man!’
‘They’re actually having a pretty miserable time of it, all told,’ he told her coldly.
The icy disapproval on his face made Amber’s heart lurch in alarm, and fear made her even more mean-spirited. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that!’
‘The sentiment would be nice if I thought for a moment that you meant it, Amber.’
‘Well, you’d better go charging round to their rescue, hadn’t you?’ She smiled insincerely. ‘I hope you fed your white horse his oats last night! Oh, and Ursula’s arriving for Christmas lunch at twelve—in case you’d forgotten. So try not to be too late!’ And she headed off towards the kitchen without a backward glance.
She clattered around with cups and saucers, ostensibly making herself a pot of tea, but in reality she was listening out for Finn, and when the front door slammed shut without him having come in to say sony—or even goodbye—she felt like bursting into tears. She briefly thought about going back to bed, but knew for certain that she would be unable to sleep.
Instead, she took her tea into the drawing room and drew the curtains back to watch the sun come up. The windows were as large as a cinema screen, and she sat in front of them feeling very small and isolated.
It was a strange time and a strange day to be on her own. There were none of the usual sounds of dawn breaking over London. No milk floats out, with their bottles clanking noisily in crates. No distant rumble of lorries and cars, as early drivers began to populate the roads in an attempt to beat the traffic. Instead, there was complete and utter silence outside.
And it wasn’t as though she could ring anyone. Just who could you ring at five-thirty on Christmas morning? Her sister, sure, if it was a real emergency. But it was not a real emergency—it was more a case of appalling jealousy, and Ursula would probably tell her to pull herself together and not to be so stupid.
Because what was she actually jealous of?
Surely she didn’t think that Finn would allow himself to be ensnared by a sixteen-year-old model who had a crush on him, however beautiful she was? Or her mother—just as beautiful—and much closer in age to Finn.
Amber put her mug of tea down, her hand shaking violently. Women came on strong to Finn. That was a fact—a fact he had acknowledged at the time of their engagement. He was always going to appear sexy and desirable to the opposite sex—but that didn’t mean that he was about to start taking up any of the offers which came his way. Either she trusted him or she didn’t—and if she didn’t trust him then she should extricate herself from the relationship. Fast.
Because otherwise she could drive herself quite mad with her fears and suspicions.
The seconds and the minutes ticked by interminably, and Amber was reduced to switching on television and tuning into one of the many breakfast shows—something she never normally had the time nor the inclination to do. But the presenters were being relentlessly cheerful—their brittle-bright smiles and inane chatter making Amber’s already stretched nerves jangle even more—and after five minutes she switched the set off.
She sat staring at her own Christmas tree, and the shiny presents stacked beneath it. Gifts for both of them, sent over from Ireland by his family. And there were little things, too—bought for them by the staff at Allure. And, inevitably, there were gifts for Finn alone, from some of the models.
But none for her, from Finn.
She thought about the new skis she had bought for him, which Ursula would be bringing over with her at lunchtime. She had wrapped them and taken them to Ursula’s flat because their shape had been too much of a give-away for Amber to risk trying to hide them around their flat! She had bought him cashmere socks too, and chocolate-covered macadamia nuts—his favourite—and some sexy silk boxer shorts in an outrageous crimson colour. She had imagined him trying them on...and her taking them off again...
Amber swallowed down the first hint of tears and switched the radio on instead. A Christmas service was being broadcast and the sound of the carols made her feel unbearably nostalgic, but at least they focussed her mind. She showered and dressed and forced herself to put on the gold tunic dress and apply some make-up to her face.
When she was wrapped up in a warm, mock furtrimmed velvet coat, she left the flat and stepped outside into the bitter chill, where a meagre amount of snowflakes were fluttering down, as though the sky couldn’t bear to let them go. She turned her collar up, and set off for church.
The service was wonderful, but poignant, and Amber found herself missing her mother more than ever.
She sang her heart out during the carols, and when the congregation filed out almost an hour later the snow had begun to settle. The soft white mantle gave the city a curiously clean and pure look, and Amber felt her heart lift unexpectedly as she shook the hand of the priest who had taken the service.
He sent a rueful glance up at the heavy grey sky. ‘Looks like the bookies will be set to lose a fortune!’ he commented irreverently.
Amber knotted her scarf firmly around her neck, only half listening. ‘And why’s that, Father?’
The priest shook his head in mock dismay. ‘Do you young folk never read the betting news? The odds were stacked firmly against a white Christmas—heaven knows, I’ve lost a good few pounds myself!’ he informed her, with a twinkling smile which made Amber wonder whether or not he was joking!
She slithered her way back to the flat to find that Finn still wasn’t home—but at least church had put things in some kind of perspective. Would she really have wanted to be tied to a man who would suggest that a sixteen-year-old and her mother go and find their own plumber? On Christmas morning? Finn was doing no more than she would have expected him to do under the circumstances—she really shouldn’t chastise him for playing the good Samaritan. And when he came back she would tell him so...
She turned the central heating up and touched up her make-up, and then, after she had manoeuvred the huge turkey into the oven, she started peeling the vegetables.
She had just cut a cross into the last Brussels sprout when the doorbell rang, and, thinking it must be Ursula, struggling under the weight of the skis, Amber rushed to answer it. Her sister was early.
But it wasn’t Ursula.
Standing on the step, the upper part of his body almost completely obscured by foliage, stood Finn, weighed down by the countless blooms he was holding in his arms.
There were hothouse flowers of every variety and every hue—more flowers than Amber could ever remember seeing. Peach-coloured roses and pure white lilies. Deep-blue cornflowers and fragrant ice-pink frangipani. There were palest freesia and waxy stephanotis. Scarlet peonies and early narcissi. The sight and the smell of the massed blossoms assailed Amber’s senses and her mouth fell open in wonder as she stared at him.
Green eyes sparked loving fire at her over the rainbow petals and Amber just stood there, afraid to speak for a moment, in case she should start crying.
‘Finn?’ was all she could manage.
He walked straight past her like a man on a mission and deposited all the flowers in a great heap on the dining-room table, and then he came back to where she still stood, framed in the doorway.
‘W-what are all these flowers for?’ she wanted to know, but he shook his head.
Gently closing the door, he wordlessly took her into his arms and held her tightly as he buried his face in the fragrance of her hair. It seemed a long time before he spoke. ‘You know what they’re for, Amber,’ he told her, his voice muffled against the top of her head. ‘They’re nothing but an inadequate token of my love for you, sweetheart.’
Amber’s eyes closed in relief, her arms tightening fiercely across the broad expanse of his back, her fingers slithering over the leather flying jacket which he wore, and she didn’t want to speak again. Didn’t want to break thi
s spell, this sense of having reached some kind of watershed where nameless fears would not touch her again.
Eventually he raised his head and lifted her chin with a gentle finger, capturing her eyes with his glittering gaze, and Amber was shaken by the conflict she saw written in the grass-green depths.
‘What?’ she whispered, as softly as if she had been back in church. ‘What is it, darling Finn?’
He shook his head, as though her simple question had wounded him, and she would have unsaid her words if she could.
‘Tell me,’ she urged. ‘If there’s some kind of problem, then just come out and tell me. That’s what I’m here for.’
He hesitated. ‘I’ve been unbearable to live with,’ he said suddenly. ‘Foul and grumpy and bad-tempered.’
Amber felt as though a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Was that all? But she also remembered the desolation she had felt building up over the past few weeks. She didn’t want to string him up for his behaviour, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to condone it! This was the first really bad row of their relationship, and how she handled it would affect how they handled their disagreements in the future.
She glanced up at him from between the protective shield of her eyelashes, searching for the right blend of understanding and forgiveness. ‘Do you want me to disagree with you, Finn Fitzgerald?’
He laughed, but the self-recrimination which coloured the sound of his laughter was unmistakable. ‘No. I don’t want you to do that, Amber O’Neil,’ he murmured back, with some of his habitual mocking humour.
‘Well, do you want to tell me why you’ve been acting the way you have?’
‘Overwork, I guess. I think we both need a holiday.’
Amber looked at him in delight. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’ He sighed. ‘I just never dreamed that the agency would grow as big as it has done.’
One Wedding Required! Page 8
