Oh, all right, he was sexy—in a down-and-dirty, unshaven sort of way. Those jeans he wore should be dumped on the nearest bonfire. And as for that ragged old tee shirt she’d seen him in yesterday morning at the bakery … It looked to her as if someone had tried to claw it off him. Some desperate person.
No, not like her at all. She wasn’t desperate. She simply had a distinctive personality type that could be deeply affected by the sight of sweat glistening on bronzed, masculine arms. She was a highly sensual woman, with a sensual woman’s needs.
Very much the Eustacia Vye type, in fact.
She’d discovered Eustacia yesterday, during a few guilty moments of escapist reading in the shop. Well, there were never any customers at that time. If Ivy hadn’t insisted on coming in to help out this afternoon Amber might have had a chance to learn more about her exotic heroine. As it was she’d had to hide the book in her secret cache behind the potted ferns.
Eustacia was a woman so sensuous, so voluptuous, that if ever a dangling bough happened to caress her hair whilst she was rambling under the trees in the Wessex woods, the bewitching creature would turn right back and ramble under them again.
Fine. Amber accepted that she wasn’t all that beautiful or bewitching. Unless swathed in tulle and feathers, that was. On stage, illuminated in a pool of magic light. She could be pretty bewitching then. Just stick her in front of the footlights with an orchestra swelling to a crescendo and Amber O’Neill could bewitch the pants off a sphinx.
And her hair craved caresses. Ached for them. Though preferably administered via a lean, masculine hand rather than a twig.
She yawned again. Weren’t musicians supposed to have skinny arms and hollow chests?
‘Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk.’ Even a tongue click from Ivy could attack the cerebral cortex like an ice-pick. ‘Have you been hiding these bills, Amber?’
Amber felt herself getting hot. ‘Not hiding. I just … may have … put them aside for a … Look, Ivy, I don’t feel like doing this now.’
But Ivy would show no mercy. Once she had her sharp little teeth into something she held on like a terrier until she’d pulled out all the entrails.
She waved a bunch of invoices in front of Amber’s face. ‘You know what I think? You’re going downhill. You’ll just have to face it, girl. Your best option is to sell. Do you want to be declared bankrupt?’
The word scrambled Amber’s insides like a butter churn.
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