by Anna Cleary
She tried to breathe. ‘Ivy, try to understand. This was Mum’s shop. She loved this shop.’
But the humourless round eyes beneath Ivy’s straight brown fringe were as understanding as two hypodermic syringes. ‘Your mother managed to pay the bills. Your mother knew how to take advice.’
Amber flinched. For a small woman, Ivy could pack a lethal punch. Amber knew very well Lise hadn’t always been able to pay the bills. But she wasn’t about to argue over her mother’s faults or otherwise.
Her mother was in the cold, cold ground. And it scraped Amber’s heart every time Ivy dragged her name into the conversation. She couldn’t handle it with her loss still so fresh and piercing.
Amber drew a long, simmering breath. Lucky for Ivy, she was ace at controlling her temper. That was one thing she could do well. If left in peace. That was all she really craved now. Peace, and hours and hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep.
Was that so much to ask? Ever since she’d relinquished twirling around on her toes to care for her poor mother, she couldn’t seem to find those essential things anywhere.
‘Have you seen the price of those long-stemmed roses?’ Ivy carped. ‘Why can’t you just go for the cheaper produce? Why can’t you ever …?’
The words prodded Amber’s insides like red-hot needles. She held her breath.
‘Just look at this item here. Why order freesias out of season? You can’t afford them.’
Amber gritted her teeth and said steadily, ‘You know Mum loves—loved freesias, Ivy. They’re—they were her favourites.’ Inevitably a lump rose in her throat and her eyes swam. Her voice went all murky. ‘It’s important to have flowers with fragrance.’
‘Fragrance, crap. Fragrance is a luxury we can’t afford.’
There were still ten minutes to go before closing. Amber knew Ivy was only trying to teach her the ropes, was doing her best according to her own weird lights, but Amber felt an overpowering need to escape. And quickly. Before she let loose and annihilated the little terrier with a few well-chosen words.
She staggered to her feet. ‘I’m sorry, Ivy, I can’t deal with all this now. I have a killer migraine. I’m going upstairs. Do you mind locking up?’
Ivy’s jaw dropped, then she snapped her sharp little teeth together. Even so, her unspoken words fractured the fragile air like a clarion horn. Your mother never left early.
This was hardly true, but why should it matter? Amber wondered drearily. There’d barely been any customers then and there wouldn’t be any now.
She shoved her way through the potted ferns and the sparse display of bouquets and made her escape into the arcade before the book-keeper had time to lash her with any more advice. As she stumbled down the arcade to the lifts, past all the other glossy shops, she felt her migraine escalate.
In truth, she was starting to feel slightly sick every time she thought of Fleur Elise.
The ninth floor was blessedly silent. Amber unlocked the door to her flat and was met by a wave of hot, musty air. Resisting the temptation of the air-conditioner, she lurched around opening the windows and balcony doors. Then she tore the pins from her hair and let it fall to her waist. Dragging off her clothes, she collapsed at last onto the bed, her nerves stretched taut as bowstrings.
She closed her eyes. If she’d still been in the ballet company she’d be on the tram now, heading home after a beautiful day of music and extreme exercise, humming Tchaikovsky, her muscles aching, her spirit singing with endorphins.
Would she ever feel like that again in her life?
A frightening thought gripped her by the throat. What if Centre Management acted on their rules? What if next she lost the shop?
Fatigued though she was, it seemed like an age before her panic wore itself out. Eventually, though, exhaustion started its work. Her anxiety released its grip, and the pain in her temples lightened a little. A merciful cooling breeze from Sydney Harbour rustled the filmy curtains either side of the balcony doors and whispered over her skin like balm, and she felt herself start to drift down that peaceful river, dozing towards sleep.
She was nearly there, soothed at long last into blissful oblivion, wrapped in sleep’s healing mantle, when a heavy crash jarred through the floorboards and straight through her spinal cord. Her eyes sprang open and her jagged nerves wrenched themselves back into red alert.
The sound came from the other side of the wall.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’
Amber leaped up and tore open her wardrobe to drag out a skirt and the first top she could lay her hands on. There was no time for shoes. In a fury she flew out of her flat to hammer on her neighbour’s door.
Her fist halted in mid-crash as the door opened abruptly.
It was him, of course. All six foot two of him. His stubble had progressed, and somehow his lashes seemed blacker too, though his grey eyes still held the same silvery glint. Leaning a powerful shoulder against the frame, he cast another of those long, slow, considering looks over her—like the king of the pride contemplating a plump little wildebeest.
‘Well, well. Amber,’ he said, in his deep growl of a voice. ‘Nice of you to drop by.’
Was he trying to be funny? No doubt in his black tee shirt and the artfully scruffy jeans clinging to his bronzed, muscled frame he was exactly the sort of testosterone machine certain women might have enjoyed bouncing a bit of stimulating repartee back and forth with …
She wasn’t one of them.
‘That noise you’re making,’ she rasped. ‘I’m trying to sleep and it’s disturbing me.’
He lifted his black brows. ‘At six in the evening? You should get a life, sweetheart.’
He started to close the door, but Amber was quick. She shoved her foot into the space. ‘Now, wait a minute. I have a life. A busy life. And it’s because you’ve been assaulting Jean’s piano …’ She shook her head, outraged at the scandal of it. Jean’s beautiful Steinway … ‘You and your friends with those stupid drums … That’s why I need to sleep at six in the evening.’
He looked at her for a long, considering moment, his strong brows still raised in disbelief. ‘You don’t like music?’
Her? Whose first steps had been a dance? She clenched her teeth. ‘I like music, mister. When I hear it. I’ve already asked you politely. Now, if you don’t keep your noise down …’
‘Ah. Here it comes. The threat.’ He tilted his head to one side and made a thorough appraisal of her from head to toe.
The full scorching force of bold masculine interest lasered through the thin fabric of her clothes. She grew conscious that in her rush she’d chosen a close-fitting top with a deep neckline, she wasn’t wearing a bra, and her feet were bare. Only with difficulty did she prevent herself from crossing her arms over her breasts.
‘I love women who talk tough,’ he said, with a lascivious twitch of a black brow. ‘What will you do to me?’
Wild words rocketed to her tongue. The frustrations and anxieties she’d been repressing over days seethed inside their cage. She wanted to rip open his arrogant jugular with her teeth and nails, claw at his lean face, draw his insolent blood.
He broke into a laugh and flash of white, even teeth lit his face. ‘Don’t do it. Why don’t you come in and we’ll see if we can work something out?’
She drew herself up. ‘Look, Mr …’ she hissed.
‘Guy. Guy Wilder.’ His sexy mouth broke into a smile, but she didn’t care that it illuminated his rather harsh face like a sunburst and made him handsome.
‘Whatever.’ Her breath came in short bursts, as if Vesuvius was seething inside her, alive and molten. ‘I came here to ask if your band can practise somewhere else. If you can’t be more considerate I’ll report you to the Residents’ Committee.’
Amusement crept into his voice. ‘We seem to be getting a bit heated.’
‘Does Jean even know you’re here?’
At her escalating pitch his black brows made an eloquent upward twitch. ‘Not only does my dear a
unt know I’m here, she wants me to be here. I’ll give you her address, all right? You can check up. Set your mind at rest.’
‘I know Jean well, and I know she would strongly object to your upsetting her neighbours. She would never have agreed to your setting up your band in here night and day.’
‘It isn’t here night and day.’ His quiet, measured tone made a mockery of her emotion. ‘I write songs. The band you’ve been privileged to hear the last couple of nights—in the early part of the evening, let me remind you—were unable to use their usual venue. They have a gig coming up so they needed a run-through. That means …’
‘I know what it means,’ she snapped. ‘And it was no privilege. You might as well know now—your band sucks.’
His black eyebrows flew up and his eyes drifted over her in sardonic appreciation. ‘I’ll make sure I pass your critique on to the guys.’
She could hardly believe she’d said such a rude thing, but it gave her a reckless satisfaction. Even if he was Jean’s nephew, he’d made her suffer.
If he was. She had some vague recollection of Jean’s stories about various family members. There was the brilliant one who wanted to direct movies, the scientist who’d fallen in love on a voyage to Antarctica, the boy whose girlfriend—the love of his life, Jean had said—had stood him up at the altar and run away with a soldier. She couldn’t remember any mention of a musician.
The guy moved slightly. Enough for Amber’s critical eye to catch a glimpse of the indoor garden Jean kept in her foyer. Shocked by what she saw, she couldn’t restrain herself. ‘Just look at those anthuriums. Jean would be furious if she knew you were letting her precious plants die. Surely she explained her watering system to you?’
He gave a careless shrug. ‘She may have said something.’
‘And what about her fish?’
‘Fish?’
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been feeding them? That aquarium is Jean’s pride and joy.’ She glared at him—at the grey eyes alight in his dark unshaven face, his black eyebrows tilted in quizzical amusement. She’d never in all of her twenty-six years wanted so much to do violence to someone.
‘I’m not sure how the fish are doing,’ he said smoothly. ‘Why don’t you come inside and check them out? You can take inventory while you’re here, in case I’ve damaged something.’
She caught the sarcasm but didn’t allow it to deter her. She pushed past him into Jean’s beautiful, immaculate flat and halted in the middle of the sitting room.
Twilight had invaded. Only one lamp was lit, casting a soft apricot glow, but with the skylight in the foyer and the glow from the aquarium it was enough for her to see the damage. Newspapers were thrown carelessly on the coffee table beside a functioning laptop, more scattered on the rug. A sheet of Jean’s expensive piano music had been tossed on the floor as well, near to where a couple of her Swedish crystal wine glasses rested against the rumpled sofa.
‘Better, don’t you think?’ The guy’s smug, complacent gaze shifted from the disaster scene to connect with hers. ‘Some rooms are like some people. Just cry out for a little messing up.’
Words failed Amber. Too late to try resolving this conflict without the use of aggression. This man deserved aggression—he begged for it—and she was in too deep now to pull out.
She snatched up Jean’s precious sonata from the floor, then marched over to the aquarium. It was almost annoying to see the tank as tranquil as ever. No bloated bodies floated on its placid surface.
She glanced back and saw him watching her with his thumbs hooked into his belt, a quirk to his mouth. ‘You have been feeding them, haven’t you?’ In her aggravation she rolled Jean’s sonata—rolled it and rolled it into a tighter and tighter cylinder. ‘This was just a ploy to get me in here, wasn’t it?’
He spread his hands. ‘Aha. You’ve guessed my master plan.’
She made a sharp, repudiating gesture with the sonata. ‘Don’t you mock me. I have every right to complain about your noise.’
‘Sure you do.’
He moved a couple of steps, so his big, lean body was close. Close enough for her to feel the heat of him. She couldn’t step backwards without crashing into the fish tank, so she stood her ground, her heart rate escalating.
His growly voice was deep and smooth as butter. ‘All right, I’m sorry to have stirred you up, Amber. I can see you’re a woman of strong passions. I think maybe you are a bit tired. People get overwrought.’ He drew his brows together and looked narrowly at her. ‘Amber? Are you sure that’s your name?’
‘What?’
‘I think it should be Indigo. Or Lavender. Your oldies must have been drunk.’ Missing her unamused glare, he shrugged. ‘Never mind. I accept your apology. How about a drink?’
‘I’m not apologising.’ Her voice trembled as she lost the final vestiges of control and reasonable behaviour. ‘And I don’t want a drink. Just look what you’ve done to Jean’s lovely home. You have no right to touch her precious piano. You’re a—a vandal. I don’t want to know you, or see you, or hear any more of your awful, awful noise.’
He studied her with a solemn, meditative gaze. But she knew, damn him, it was an act. Underneath he was dying to laugh. At her.
‘You’re a bit wired up.’
He advanced further, so that his chest was a mere five centimetres from her breasts. She inhaled the clean, male scent of him and sensed something else in him besides laughter. A high-voltage buzz of electricity that charged her own nerves with adrenaline.
‘You should calm down.’
His sensual gaze touched her everywhere, caressed her hair, her throat, lingered on her mouth.
‘I think I know a way I can help you to relax.’
‘Oh.’ Fury must have overheated her brain, because she lifted Jean’s sonata and whacked him across the face with it.
Danger flashed in his eyes like a lightning strike. She watched, aghast, as a thin red line appeared where the rolled up edge of the paper had struck his cheekbone.
How could she have?
The universe shuddered to a stop. There was a moment when they both stood paralysed. Then in a quick, shocking movement he caught hold of her arms.
‘You need to learn some control,’ he said softly, steel in his voice, his eyes.
Her heart took a violent plunge as his hands burned her upper arms. The breath constricted in her throat.
‘Let go of me,’ she said, trying to sound calm while her thunderous heartbeat slammed into her ribs. She blustered the first thing that came into her head. ‘Don’t … don’t you even think of trying to kiss me.’
His brows swept up in surprise, then his rainwater eyes sparkled like diamonds. As if she’d said something funny.
His lashes flickered half the way down. ‘Are you sure you really mean that, Amber?’
Knowing her Freudian slip was flashing a bright neon, while her traitorous lips still tingled with … Well, for goodness’ sake his lips were the most ravishing pair she’d encountered at close range for months. Her chaste, unkissed mouth was making a purely kneejerk and understandable chemical response.
Then, in an avalanche of bodily betrayal, her nipples joined in. She could feel a definite weakening arousal in them of a warming kind and wouldn’t you know it? More arousal, all the way south.
At the exact instant those sensations registered with her a high-voltage, purely sexual flare lit Guy Wilder’s eyes.
‘Take your hands off me.’ His grip slackened at once and she twisted away. ‘Thank you.’ Rubbing an arm, she hissed, ‘There may be women who buckle at the knees when they meet you, Guy Wilder, but I can assure you I’m not one of them.’
The heat intensified in his gleaming gaze. He gave a knowing, sexy laugh. ‘If you say so.’ He crossed to the foyer in a couple of long strides and held the door wide. ‘You’d better run home, little girl, and cool down. The wicked, wicked man might tempt you into doing something you enjoy.’
She brushed past him, racking
her brains for a parting gibe. Then, with an insolent smile, she pointed to the angry patch on his cheek. ‘Better put something on that.’
He touched the wound with his fingers. A smile curled the edges of his mouth as he retorted softly, ‘Be seeing you, sweetheart.’
The door clicked to behind her.
Guy stood like a man who’d just been slammed somewhere strange by a tornado. It took some time for his aggravated pulse to ease. The fiery little exchange had stirred him in more ways than one.
He whistled. Whew. What a spitfire.
Nothing like a tempestuous woman to whip up a man’s blood. His creative spirit was zinging. The way she held herself with that straight, proud back. If only he could get her in front of a camera.
He groaned, thinking of the way she’d glided across the room with that lithe, graceful walk. He felt aroused and at the same time amazingly energised, his whole being like an electric rod.
His blood quickened. How long since he’d felt this way?
God, it felt great.
Safe inside her flat, Amber buried her face in her pillow, her mind churning with images of his handsome, taunting face. The things he’d said. The things she’d said.
Run home, little girl. The sheer arrogance of that. She clenched her teeth and tried to think of a hands-off way to murder the beast. Though with what she’d done so far, maybe hands-on would be more fitting. Why had she done such a terrible thing?
She should be wrung with shame, but to be honest she couldn’t even feel very sorry. What was wrong with her? To have actually used violence like some wild virago was completely out of character for her. No one who knew her would believe Amber O’Neill, meek and mild as honeydew, could be capable of behaving with such a lack of restraint.
Well, no one now.
She’d once disgraced herself by pouring a glass of beer over Miguel da Vargas’s handsome, lying head, but that was ancient history. Blood under the bridge. And he’d deserved it. This was all about sleep. If she didn’t get some soon she’d have to be locked up to keep the public safe.
She punched her pillow, tossed and turned, but all to no avail. It was no use. She’d acted like a fool and she knew it. What had happened to her resolve to stay calm in a conflict situation? He’d been the one who’d stayed cool, while she …
