Letters only ever contained bad news and all her bills were paid by direct debit and if people wanted her that badly, they could always send an email. Because that was what people did, wasn’t it?
But in the meantime, she wasn’t going to take any notice of this shadowed-jawed man with the mocking voice and a presence which was strangely unsettling. All she had to do was to speak to her father. There had to be some kind of mistake. There had to. Either that, or Daddy’s brain wasn’t as sharp as it had once been. Why else would he choose to sell one of the jewels in his property crown to this...this thug?
‘I’d like you to leave now, Mr Devlin.’
He raised dark and mocking brows. ‘So you’re not interested in my offer? A proper job for the first time in your privileged life? The chance to show the world that you’re more than just a vapid socialite who flits from party to party?’
‘I’d sooner work for the devil than work for you,’ she retorted, watching as he rose from the sofa and moved across the room until he was towering over her, with a grim expression on his dark face.
‘Make an appointment to see me when you’re ready to see sense,’ he said, putting a business card down on the coffee table.
‘That just isn’t going to happen—be very sure about that,’ she said, pulling a cigarette from the pack and glaring at him defiantly, as if daring him to stop her again. ‘Now go to hell, will you?’
‘Oh, believe me, baby,’ he said softly. ‘Hell would be a preferable alternative to a minute more spent in your company.’
And didn’t it only add outrage to Amber’s growing sense of panic to realise that he actually meant it?
AMBER’S FINGERS WERE trembling as she left the bank and little rivulets of sweat were trickling down over her hot cheeks. Impatiently brushing them aside, she stood stock-still outside the gleaming building while all around her busy City types made little tutting noises of irritation as they were forced to weave their way around her.
There had to be some kind of mistake. There had to be. She couldn’t believe that her father would be so cruel. Or so dictatorial. That he would have instructed that tight-lipped bank manager to inform her that all funds in her account had been frozen, and no more would be forthcoming. But her rather hysterical request that the bank manager stop freaking her out had been met with nothing but an ominous silence and now that she was outside, the truth hit her like a sledgehammer coming at her out of nowhere.
She was broke.
Her heart slammed against her ribcage. Part of her still didn’t want to believe it. Had the bank manager been secretly laughing at her when he’d handed over the formal-looking letter? She’d ripped it open and stared in horror as the words written by her father’s lawyer had wobbled before her eyes and a key phrase had jumped out at her, like a spectre.
Conall Devlin has been instructed to provide any assistance you may need.
Conall Devlin? She had literally shaken with rage. Conall Devlin, the brute who had stormed into her apartment yesterday and who was responsible for her current state of homelessness? She would sooner starve than ask him for assistance. She would talk her father round and he would listen to her. He always did.
But in the middle of her defiance came an overwhelming wave of panic and fear, which washed over her and made her feel as if she were drowning. It was the same feeling she used to get when her mother would suddenly announce that they were leaving a city, and all Amber’s hard-fought-for friends would soon become distant and then forgotten memories.
She mustn’t panic. She mustn’t.
Her fingers still shaking, Amber sheltered in a shop doorway and took out her cell phone. She rang her father’s number, but it went straight through to his personal assistant, Mary-Ellen, a woman who had never been her biggest fan and who didn’t bother hiding her disapproval when she heard Amber’s voice.
‘Amber. This is a surprise,’ she said archly.
‘Hello, Mary-Ellen.’ Amber drew in a deep breath. ‘I need to speak to my father—urgently. Is he there?’
‘I’m afraid he’s not.’
‘Do you know when he’ll be back or where I can get hold of him?’
There was a pause and Amber wondered if she was being paranoid, or whether it sounded like a very deliberate pause.
‘I’m afraid it isn’t quite as easy as that. He’s gone to an ashram in India.’
Amber gave a snort of disbelief and a passing businessman shot her a funny look. ‘My father? Gone to an ashram? To do yoga and eat vegan food? Is this some kind of joke, Mary-Ellen?’
‘No, it is not a joke,’ said Mary-Ellen crisply. ‘He’s been trying to get hold of you for weeks. He’s left a lawyer’s letter with the bank—did you get it?’
Amber thought about the screwed-up piece of paper currently reposing with several sticks of chewing gum and various lipsticks at the bottom of her handbag. ‘Yes, I got it.’
‘Then I suggest you follow his advice and speak to Conall Devlin. All his contact details are there. Conall is the man who’ll be able to help you in your father’s absence. He’s—’
With a howl of rage, Amber cut the connection and slung her phone back into her bag, before starting to walk—not knowing nor caring which direction she was taking. She didn’t want Conall Devlin to help her! What was it with him that suddenly his name was on everyone’s lips as if he were some kind of god? And what was it with her that she was behaving like some kind of helpless victim, just because a few obstacles had been put in her way?
Worse things than this had happened to her, she reminded herself. She’d survived a nightmare childhood, hadn’t she? And even when she’d got through that, the problems hadn’t stopped coming. She wiped a trickle of sweat away from her forehead. But those kinds of thoughts wouldn’t help her now. She needed to think clearly. She needed to go back to the apartment to work out some kind of coping strategy until she could get hold of her father. And she would get hold of him. Somehow she would track him down—even if she had to hitchhike to the wretched ashram in order to do so. She would appeal to his better judgement and the sense of guilt which had never quite left him for kicking her and her mother out onto the street. Surely he wasn’t planning to do that for a second time? And surely he hadn’t really frozen her funds? But in the meantime...
She caught the Tube and got out near her apartment, stopping off at the nearest shop to buy some provisions since her rumbling stomach was reminding her that she’d had nothing to eat that morning. But after putting a whole stack of shopping and a pack of cigarettes through the till, she had the humiliation of seeing the machine decline her card. There was an audible sigh of irritation from the man in the queue behind her and she saw one woman nudging her friend as they moved closer as if anticipating some sort of scene.
‘There must be some kind of mistake,’ Amber mumbled, her face growing scarlet. ‘I shop in here all the time—you must remember me? I can bring the money along later.’
But as the embarrassed shop assistant shook her head, she told Amber that it was company policy never to accept credit. And as she rang the bell underneath her till deep down Amber knew there had been no mistake. Her father really had done it. He’d frozen her funds just as the bank manager had told her.
She thought about her refrigerator at home and its meagre contents. There was plenty of champagne but little else—a tub of Greek yoghurt, which was probably growing a forest of mould by now, a bag of oranges and those soggy chocolate biscuits which were past their sell-by date. Her cheeks growing even hotter, Amber scrabbled around in her purse for some spare change and found nothing but a solitary, crumpled note.
‘I’ll just take the cigarettes,’ she croaked, handing over the note but