Eyes wide, Amber saw the crinkling at the corner of her mother’s eyes and felt like she was seeing a whole new side to her mother.
“You sneaky devil.” A giggle bubbled up her throat and she had no hope of holding it back.
Her mum held one finger in front of her lips and whispered, “Never tell.”
Chapter 19
Lincoln took a pull on his beer and popped a handful of salted peanuts in his mouth. After Amber had announced she was heading off to the shops with Julia for the afternoon, he’d decided to spend Sunday afternoon hanging out with Scott and Derek at their place watching the football. He might like the simple life, but when it came to rugby league, even he could appreciate the size of their enormous LCD screen. The game was deep into its second half when Scott started chucking a tantrum over a bad call from the referee.
He managed about two minutes of ranting before Derek called a halt. “Will you please untwist your knickers,” the other man suggested as he got up and headed for the kitchen.
“Yeah, yeah.” Having run out of steam, Scott flopped back onto the couch. “But the ref’s a total dickhead.”
Derek snorted. “You always say that.”
Scott pointed an accusing finger in his partner’s general direction, his eyes still focused on the game. “That is a blatant lie.”
“No, it’s not,” Lincoln said with a chuckle. “Do you remember the time in senior year when Coach Rosen threatened to ban you from the footy field if you spat the dummy at the ref one more time? I thought you were going to spontaneously combust right there on the spot.”
“Ha!” Derek guffawed at the idea. “Why am I not surprised?”
Scott sent him a mock glare. “Watch it, mate. I’ve got a few less than complimentary stories about you up my sleeve.”
“Yeah, right. Bite me, Scotty.”
“You wish.”
They were interrupted by the sound of Derek clearing his throat and they both turned to look at him. “Should I be worried about you two?” he drawled with mock suspicion.
Scott grinned. “What do you think?” Then he gave Derek a wink that put a smile back on the other man’s face.
Lord save me from horny men, Lincoln thought as he went into the kitchen to grab another beer.
“How are things with you and Amber?” Derek asked as he refilled the pretzel bowl. “Julia tells us the two of you have been joined at the hip for the past three months.”
That was true, as long as you didn’t count the weeks when Amber decided to keep their on-again-off-again relationship set to the off mode, like she did after the dinner with her family. Other than that, they’d taken to all but living in each other’s pockets.
“She’s great.” Lincoln popped the top off his beer and took a swig. “I’ve never met anyone like her.”
Derek lifted his left eyebrow, looking at him sideways. “There’s a but in there bigger than Tasmania.”
“But nothing. We’re having a good time. End of story.”
“Sure you are.” Scott joined them, grabbing himself a can of cola from the fridge. “The woman I’ve seen swanning about work lately with a dreamy smile on her face is not just having a good time. Seems to me she’s been bitten by the Lincoln Love Bug,” he added with a bad Barry White impersonation.
Lincoln rolled his eyes as he shook his head at Scott, though his chest tightened at the idea of putting a dreamy smile on Amber’s face. Unfortunately, reality provided an all too blatant contradiction. “’Fraid not,” he said, taking another sip of his beer. “She ah… she thinks of me as a friend.”
Derek’s right eyebrow joined the left one and they both lifted so high they disappeared under the brown mop that passed for his hair. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty damned sure.” Granted, she hadn’t used the word lately, but he figured that was because she knew it pissed him off. When he noticed the two men were staring at him with blank expressions he added, “We’re very close friends.” The staring continued. “Who have sex, frequently.” He watched as Scott and Derek gave each other a meaningful look he wasn’t even going to attempt to interpret.
“So, it’s not serious?” Derek prodded.
Lincoln shrugged, looking away as he lied through his teeth. “No more serious than it ever gets for me.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Scott said, wagging a finger at him. “You prefer to leave a trail of broken hearts behind you.”
“Just because I’m the one who leaves town at the end of a relationship does not mean any vital organs have been damaged in the process.”
Derek gave him a sceptical glance. “You’re telling me that in all the places you been and all the women you’ve known, none of them have ever asked you to stick around?”
“Well, of course it happens occasionally,” Lincoln admitted, throwing his hands in the air. “But I hardly think those women pined away for me after I left. Amber sure as hell won’t,” he added, disgusted by the dejected tone he heard in his own voice.
“Why do I get the impression things would be different if Amber was doing the asking?” Derek asked. “You’d stay then, wouldn’t you?”
Would he? He’d been so focused on trying to get his fill of this woman, so he could walk away from her with his sanity intact, he’d never considered staying in Melbourne, making this city his home. After three months of being with Amber, his fascination with her still showed no signs of abating. If he left, he knew he’d be taking his longing for her with him. He’d just used the word if, he noted with a modicum of surprise. If he left. He couldn’t remember ever doing that before.
“Maybe,” Lincoln said in answer to Derek’s question. He rubbed the back of his neck as he headed back to the couch. “I don’t know.”
Scott followed, shaking his head. “You need to sort your shit out, mate. Don’t go waiting for her to give you a fucking gilded invitation. If you want to be with Amber, and I mean really be with her, you’re gonna have to tell her how you feel and let the chips fall where they may.”
Lincoln wasn’t so sure that was the best course of action. Granted, these two men had been in a relationship with each other for upward of six years. The addition of Julia as a third to their partnership only made them seem stronger. To a guy who’d never celebrated so much as a first anniversary with a woman, these guys were legends. They knew how to make a relationship work. On the other hand, Lincoln knew Amber, and pushing her would be tantamount to pushing her away.
“That’s not going to work. Not with Amber,” he said. “What happens next has to be up to her.”
Scott was unimpressed. “Don’t you get a say?”
“No.”
“Why the hell not? It’s your life too.”
Because her father’s a fucking abusive control freak, you great ning-nong. He would never betray Amber’s trust by saying the words out loud, so instead he simply said, “It’s what she needs.”
“You’re being an arse, Linc. At some point you’re going to have to reattach your balls and claim your woman. If she doesn’t want to be claimed by you she’ll tell you to go screw yourself. Either way, you’ll have your answer and you won’t be sitting here wringing your dainty hands and wondering where the hell you stand.”
Lincoln glared at his old friend, but Scott glared right back. “I know you, man,” he said in an obstinate tone. “And you can’t live like that.”
Maybe Scott had a point. Years ago, he’d promised himself he’d never end up in a one-sided relationship. He’d travelled that road too long as a kid and he knew there was nothing but disappointment at the end of it. That’s why he always left when he knew things wouldn’t work out with women. He didn’t need to hang around and witness the desire fading from his lover’s eyes. Life was too short for that.
But if he was willing to be honest with himself for one freaking moment, he could admit he wanted to be with Amber long-term. He wanted to make it work. She was messy and she loved to wear makeup and high heels and she stuck shit in her hair that s
topped it from moving and made it feel like crap. Meanwhile, he liked dirt and didn’t own a television and had an irrational aversion to junk mail. The two of them were as different as chalk and cheese. Despite all that, every time she smiled at him, he forgot the rest of the world existed. The truth of it was, he was totally, utterly in love with Amber O’Hara.
Shit.
What the hell was he going to do now?
He was distracted from his epiphany when Derek walked back into the room and flopped onto the couch beside Scott. “Personally, I understand your caution,” he said. “Amber is a hell of a woman and you don’t want to lose her by pushing too hard. But I will say this, if I hadn’t pushed Scott into asking Julia out on our first date we wouldn’t have her in our lives. We probably never would have seen her again after she stopped working for us. He hated me pushing him by the way,” he added with a head nod in Scott’s direction. “He didn’t want to take the risk either. In the end though, it worked out better than either of us could have hoped.”
“Don’t act like you’re immune to a good push,” Scott teased. “Let’s not forget who kissed who first when we were suffering under the guise of friends.”
The smile Derek gave Scott was pure masculine sexuality. “I remember.”
Lincoln rolled his eyes. “Should I leave you two alone so you can work that off?”
Scott’s jaw clenched, then he took a swig of his drink, his gaze still locked on Derek. “Nah,” he said finally, “he’ll keep.” He turned his attention back to the TV for the last few minutes of the game.
“Seriously though,” Scott popped a pretzel into his mouth and chewed, “your balls, man. I’ve got a staple gun around here somewhere. We can pop those back on for you if you get them out of your purse. Cause you’re gonna need to man up if you’re going to hold onto a woman like Amber.”
Chapter 20
Amber had only just arrived at work on Thursday morning when she got a phone call from Julia. She hadn’t even had time to make her morning coffee, and her friend was talking way too fast for her caffeine-deprived brain to keep up.
“You’re gonna have to start from the beginning and slow the hell down,” she said, as she grabbed her mug. “You sound like a chipmunk.”
“I said,” Julia spoke at an excruciatingly slow speed now, “we have an emergency that requires your presence at a girls’ weekend.” Having made her point, she returned to her normal voice. “We’re leaving for the Mornington Peninsula after work tomorrow, we’ll be out there in time for dinner. Then we’ll come back on Sunday afternoon. Can you make it?”
“Yes, of course.” In fact, the timing couldn’t have been better. Between Lincoln’s declaration of devotion, her own conflicted feelings for him, and her discovery she could be as controlling as her dad without realising it, getting away for a couple of days was exactly what she needed. If nothing else, it would give her some room to breathe. “What’s the emergency?”
“Kelly and Simon broke up.”
“You’re kidding me!” All other thoughts flew out of her mind. Amber never would have believed that would happen. She didn’t know the couple well, and hadn’t seen the two of them together since the dinner party at Julia’s place, but they’d seemed happy enough then. Amber and Julia had met Kelly through Derek’s sister, Trina, and while they had all become friends, they hadn’t known each other that long. Still, the break-up of a long-term relationship was going to suck on all levels. Amber didn’t need prior experience of long-term relationships to know that.
“Do you know what happened?”
“None of the details, no. But I do know Simon ended it. Kelly is furious. They were together for five years. I’m pretty sure she thought they were a hairs-breadth away from getting married and having babies. Anyway, Trina wants to take her away for the weekend so she can drink too much, eat too much delicious food, and possibly drop a small fortune on new clothes at the boutiques to make herself feel better. Or possibly rant and cry until her tears dry up. Are you still in?”
Amber smiled. “I can listen to a rant until the cows come home,” she confirmed. “Just don’t forget the vodka.”
She didn’t get home from work until after seven that evening. She’d had to stay back to finish a report she’d been working on all week and now she wanted nothing more than a hot meal and a hotter shower. Dragging her feet up the stairs, she entered her apartment with a grateful sigh and dumped her purse and keys on her otherwise empty sideboard. She’d cleaned and decluttered the small surface last week when she’d gotten sick of hunting for her keys. Now she placed them in the same place every day as soon as she walked in. The simple act saved her ten minutes of searching in the mornings and it was only one of the many ways Lincoln had rubbed off on her. A sudden urge to hurl the keys across the room into an unknown location seized her. With a mental shake she put them in their new ‘home’ and dug her phone out of her purse to call Mister Organised himself.
“Hello, princess,” he drawled when he answered. “How was your day?” The sound of his deep, rumbling voice made her heart sigh in contentment, even as it made her feet itch to run in the other direction.
“Fine,” she said as she headed into the kitchen to grab some dinner. She’d been too busy to eat a real lunch and now she was famished. “I called to let you know we won’t be seeing each other this weekend. I’m going out of town after work tomorrow and I won’t be back until Sunday afternoon.” If he believed in any way, shape or form that she would not go away with her girlfriends because he’d decided to make himself a fixture in her life, he had another thing coming—devotion be damned!
There was a short silence before he asked, “Where are you off to?”
“I’m not sure yet.” She knew where they were heading generally, but Trina had booked the actual accommodation so her answer was technically correct.
“Okay.” She could hear the hesitation in his voice, clear as day. He didn’t want her to go. Typical. “Who are you going away with?”
“Just some friends.” She pulled some leftover lasagne out of the fridge and put it in the microwave to reheat.
“What kind of friends?” There was a harshness in his voice that told her he was annoyed—as she’d expected.
If there’d been any inkling in her mind he was different from other men, he was about to prove her wrong. As if he had any say in who she went away with. “What does it matter?” she asked, her words short and clipped. “I’m a grown woman, Linc. If I wish to go away for the weekend I have every right to do so. I don’t need permission from you.”
“Who said anything about permission?” He was angry now and the knowledge of it only served to make her own blood boil. “I’m only asking who you’re going away with.”
“And I don’t have to tell you anything, especially when you’re all but yelling at me.” There was a terse silence while she took a couple of deep breaths. “Look, I’ll be back on Sunday night, we’ll talk then.”
He started to say something but she hung up. Setting the phone down on the counter she stared at it, expecting Lincoln to call her back in an outrage. The apartment was deathly quiet, apart from the pounding of her heart and the sound of her raged breathing.
Loud beeps pierced the silence, signalling her dinner was ready. She pulled the dish out of the microwave and grabbed a knife and fork before she sat down at the kitchen table. It smelt delicious, but she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to eat. It seemed her appetite was now a casualty of her fight with Lincoln.
Twenty minutes later, she was still pushing the majority of the now cold meal around her plate when there was a loud pounding on her door. She jumped. Her fork slipped from her fingers and fell with a clatter onto the table.
“Amber!” The muffled sound of Lincoln calling her name was followed by another pounding. “Open the door.”
With an irritable sigh, she crossed the room and pulled the door open. He stormed past her into the room. Locking the door behind him, she turned to learn agai
nst the back of it with her arms crossed and waited for him to speak.
He faced her from across the room, all thunderous frown and stormy eyes. She realised she’d never seen him angry, until now. It looked kind of hot on him. “I wasn’t finished speaking when you hung up on me,” he said in a growl.
“So speak.” She didn’t know yet what tactic he would use to try to convince her not to go. Perhaps he’d simply command her to stay, though he probably already knew that one wouldn’t go down well. Maybe he’d try to seduce a promise out of her, with vows of how he’d make it worth her while. When neither of those worked, he might try inventing a reason why she had to stay in town. He’d suddenly fall ill, or he’d need help with something that would turn out not to be urgent or even necessary. Her father had done that once, when her mum had planned to go away for a weekend with her sisters. He’d suddenly been called into work and hadn’t been able to take care of Amber and her siblings. With not enough notice to arrange for a babysitter, her mother had ended up cancelling her plans and stayed home. They’d later discovered her dad had volunteered for the extra hours of work. He’s spent the extra money buying her mum a new gold bracelet, but that had been entirely beside the point.
Now here she stood in front of a male who claimed to care deeply about her, but at the end of the day she was still being faced with the same old shit.
“I have no hold over you, you’ve made that perfectly clear.” His voice shook as he stood there, fury emanating from every pore. “But I want to make it very clear, if you do this, if you go away this weekend, we are through.”
Amber gasped. She’d expected his anger when he muscled his way in here, but not some bullshit ultimatum. “How dare you? Who the hell do you think you are?”
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