Not a Marrying Man (7 page)

When he glanced over at her flushed cheeks and defiantly upturned chin he experienced a surge of desire even more intense than he had the night before. The thought that he would never make love to her again was simply not on. So was the idea that he would be leaving her up here and driving back to Sydney alone.

‘There’s a set of lights coming up,’ Amber said. ‘Turn right there and I’ll direct you to Aunt Kate’s the back way. It won’t take much longer.’

‘No sweat,’ he replied. ‘I’m not in any hurry.’ And he glanced over at her again.

When Amber’s head turned and her eyes met his, her heart jolted in her chest. She knew that look, knew what it meant.

Over my dead body, she thought angrily, even as that same body instinctively responded, as Warwick had programmed it to this past year. Her heartbeat quickened, her belly tightening, as did her nipples.

She could not let him go inside Aunt Kate’s with her, she accepted immediately. That would be the kiss goodbye to her resolve to have done with him today. He was way too good at seduction—and she was way too weak once in his arms—for her to risk being alone with him in a house with bedrooms.

Amber steeled herself as she issued brusque directions to her aunt’s place.

She should have foreseen that he wouldn’t like her being the one to break up with him. It would have piqued his ego. Which was the reason behind that sexually charged look. His massive male ego insisted that
he
had
to be the one to do the breaking up in his relationships.
He
made the rules and
he
made all the decisions.

Well not this time, buster, Amber vowed. I might have been a pushover once, but not any more. I’ve always despised girls who go back to boyfriends who’ve treated them badly, trotting out the excuse that they love them. If loving someone means you let them treat you without respect, then I don’t want any part of that kind of love.

Not that she deserved his respect, came the sudden shaming realisation. In his eyes she was obviously no better than all his previous—mistresses. Worse, really. Hadn’t she moved in with him without a single promise of anything but fun and games? He’d warned her right from the start that their relationship was temporary. Yet she’d still agreed. And now … now here she was, prepared to accept payment for services rendered.

How cheap could you get?

Not that her own behaviour exonerated Warwick’s. His admitting that he was a callous womaniser didn’t make it right.

Still, as long as silly girls like herself allowed him to use them shamelessly, then pay them off, he would continue going from woman to woman as powerful men had been doing since time began.

‘I know the way from here,’ Warwick said when they turned into Ocean View Drive.

Thirty seconds later they were driving down her aunt’s street, which ran alongside the lagoon.

The sight of the sign announcing Kate’s B & B brought a lump to Amber’s throat. How strange it would be not to have Aunt Kate open the door with her wonderfully welcoming smile.

Warwick turned the Ferrari into the driveway, which led into the large back yard where there was plenty of
room for guests and visitors to park. Because of the way the house was located on the block, the back door had always been used as the front door. Warwick drove right up close to the back porch whilst Amber glanced around the yard.

Despite her father having mown the lawn recently, some of the flowerbeds were looking unloved. Aunt Kate had been an avid gardener and would never normally have let her roses go unpruned during the winter months. She must have felt unwell for quite some time to neglect her garden this way.

Sadness overwhelmed Amber as she looked up at the back of the two-storeyed house with its drawn curtains and general air of emptiness. A sigh—almost a sob—escaped her lips.

‘I knew it,’ Warwick said rather impatiently after he cut the engine. ‘You’re going to cry.’

It infuriated her, his lack of compassion where her aunt’s death was concerned.

Her head whipped round, her blue eyes now blazing with fury.

‘Not in front of you, I won’t be,’ she snapped, snatching her handbag up from the floor and opening the passenger door. ‘Don’t bother getting out,’ she swept on, when his hand went towards the handle on the driver’s door. ‘You’re not coming inside. I don’t want to see you ever again.’

His eyes narrowed as he glared over at her. ‘Is that so? What about the apartment? I’ll have to see you again, if you want that.’

‘Actually, I’ve been thinking about your most generous offer,’ she lied on a surge of anger. ‘I’ve decided I don’t want it. I don’t want anything from you, Warwick Kincaid, except your absence from my life.’

‘You don’t really mean that. You’re just angry with me at the moment.’

‘Too right I am.’

‘You don’t have any right to be. I haven’t treated you badly.’

‘You used me and you know it.’

‘I told you what kind of man I was up front. I warned you that I didn’t do love and marriage, or for ever. You seemed happy enough to still come along for the ride.’

Amber shook her head in a kind of despair. ‘Yes, I did. And I feel deeply ashamed of myself for doing so. All I can say in my defence is that I didn’t really believe you could be that cold-blooded.’

‘I’m not cold-blooded, as you very well know.’ And he gave her that desire-filled look again.

Amber clenched her jaw hard. ‘I don’t want to have this conversation any more, Warwick,’ she ground out. ‘It’s over. We’re over. Just go.’

‘I don’t want to leave you like this,’ he said, scowling.

‘I’ll well aware of that! I know what you want, Warwick Kincaid. But you’re not getting it. Ever again.’ She climbed out of the car and slammed the door. ‘If you don’t go, I’ll call the police.’ And she fished her mobile out of her bag.

‘I’ll ring you,’ he said.

‘Please don’t.’

‘You can’t stop me ringing you.’

‘I’ll buy a new phone.’

‘How will you afford that?’

‘I have money, Warwick,’ she enjoyed telling him. ‘You think my life began the moment you walked into it? I have almost twenty thousand dollars in my savings account. I’ll survive very well without your wretched apartment!’

‘What about your clothes? And your jewellery? ‘

‘I don’t want them, either. Maybe you can recycle some of it for your next mistress.’

He glowered up at her before starting the engine. ‘This isn’t the end of us, Amber Roberts,’ he threatened in an ominously low voice. ‘I’ll be back once you’ve calmed down.’

Amber gripped her handbag defensively in front of her as she watched him do a rather savage U-turn, chewing up some of the grass as he accelerated out onto the road and sped off.

For almost a minute, she just stood there, listening to the slowly decreasing noise of his angry departure, till finally the only sound she heard was the low hum of distant traffic.

It was then that she started to cry, deep wrenching sobs, which she feared the neighbours might hear. There were houses on either side.

Not wanting contact with anyone at that moment, Amber dropped her phone back into her bag and snatched up the keys to the house. Naturally, the key to the back door was the last one she tried. By the time she locked the door behind her, her weeping had subsided somewhat.

But not her distress. Amber dropped her handbag onto the hall table before burying her face in her hands.

‘Oh, Warwick … Warwick,’ she cried heartbrokenly.

He had vowed to come back. But she doubted that he would. That had just been his ego talking again. Once he thought about it more rationally, he’d see that there was no point in trying to keep their relationship going. Not when it was obviously on borrowed time. As soon as Warwick realised he’d disposed of his Australian
mistress very cheaply indeed, he would be a fool not to cut and run.

And Warwick was no man’s fool.

Despite knowing that their break-up was all for the best, such thinking depressed Amber. She’d honestly believed that he’d come to care for her; that she meant more to him than just a temporary plaything, to be bought off when he tired of her, or when she committed the unforgivable sin of becoming ‘emotionally involved’.

Amber noted, however, that even then Warwick couldn’t bring himself to say the world
love.
It was some comfort to her own pride that she’d never told him she’d fallen in love with him. Now, she never would.

She sighed as she lifted her head from her hands.

‘Maybe I should have accepted the apartment,’ she muttered dispiritedly. ‘People will think
me
a fool for ending up with nothing.’

But if she had taken it, then she would have become what everyone had probably been calling her behind her back. A rich man’s whore. At least she did have her pride, which, she supposed, was something.

Or was it?

What was that saying about pride being a lonely bedfellow?

Her mobile phone suddenly ringing was a telling moment. For in that split second Amber became brutally aware that pride was not as powerful as love. The truth was she
wanted
it to be Warwick calling her. She wanted him to come back.

Unable to stop herself, she hurriedly retrieved her phone from her handbag and flipped it open, her heart thudding loudly behind her ribcage.

‘Yes?’ she choked out.

‘It’s me, Amber. Your mother.’

‘Oh …’ Impossible to keep the disappointment from her voice, or the dismay from her heart.

‘Are you at Aunt Kate’s yet?’ her mother asked abruptly.

Amber sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘Look, I forgot to tell you that Max Richmond wants you to give him a call. Kate used his solicitor, it seems, to make her new will and there are papers you will need to sign to transfer the house and car, et cetera, into your name.’

‘Fine,’ she said wearily. ‘Do you have his number?’

Amber put the number into her menu.

‘Is that all, Mum?’

‘Yes. No. I … er … can you talk for a moment? ‘

‘What about?’

‘Well … I’ve been thinking about the things you said to me today and I feel really terrible. I do love you, Amber. Yet I can see why you might think I favour the boys. Please … I’d like to try to explain how it was when you came along.’

Did her mother honestly think she didn’t know how it had been? She was well aware that her father had wanted to stop having children after the two boys were born. He’d only ever wanted sons, according to a conversation she’d once overheard. She’d been an accident, then had compounded things by turning out to be a girl, an unsporty, non-academic girl who just couldn’t compete with her overachieving, highly competitive brothers.

‘Mum … please … I don’t want to have this conversation right now.’

‘You know, Amber,’ her mother said, back to her usual stroppy tone. ‘Ever since you got mixed up with that man, you never have time to talk to me.’

Amber momentarily considered telling her mother that she’d broken up with Warwick, but fortunately stopped herself in time. No way could she stand the third degree over what happened. Or all the inevitable recriminations.

‘We’ve only just arrived, Mum, and I haven’t even had time to go to the toilet. I’ll give you a call later.’

‘Promise?’

‘Yes,’ Amber said, her chin beginning to wobble dangerously. ‘Bye for now.’ She choked back a strangled sob and hung up, after which she turned her mobile off.

For a long time she just stood there, clutching the phone and staring into space. The tears didn’t come, thank heaven. But she felt awful over the way she’d reacted to the phone ringing. How could she possibly want Warwick back? He was a bastard. An arrogant, selfish bastard!

And yet she’d fallen in love with him. Why? What had he ever done to deserve her love?

Okay, so he was a good lover. No, a
great
lover, she had to admit.

Amber shook her head from side to side. Was her so-called love for Warwick based on nothing more substantial than sexual pleasure? If so, then she was a terribly shallow person.

Her mind searched for other qualities Warwick possessed that deserved loving.

He was honest. She had to give him that. He’d never lied to her. At least, she didn’t think he had. He was also very generous, dispensing great chunks of money to this and that charity every other week.

But then, he could afford to, couldn’t he? came a cynical voice in her head. Easy to be generous when you were filthy rich.

What kind of man would he have been if he’d been born poor?

Amber decided it would be an interesting experiment to somehow put Warwick in a position where his life wasn’t so damned cushy. How would he handle adversity? Would it bring out the worst, or the best in him?

Amber shrugged her shoulders. She would never find out, would she? He was gone. Gone from her life, though not from her heart. She
did
love him, unfortunately. Love, it seemed, wasn’t always subject to reason, or reasons. It just was.

At last she dropped her phone back into her bag and made her way slowly along the hall to the tiny downstairs toilet, which was tucked under the staircase.

As she washed her hands afterwards the small mirror above the equally small hand basin showed nothing of the sadness she was feeling. She actually looked good, her bout of tears not having lasted long enough to bring on puffiness or dark circles. Finger-combing her windblown hair into place, she made her way back along the hall into her aunt’s roomy country-style kitchen to make herself a cuppa. There she took off her leather jacket and draped it over the back of a wooden kitchen chair before filling the kettle with water. She was just getting a mug down from the pine cupboard above the counter when the doorbell on the back door rang.

Once again, that shocking vulnerability hit home. She practically ran to the door, despising herself even as she flicked open the lock and wrenched the door wide.

It wasn’t Warwick. The tall, good-looking man standing on the back porch was a perfect stranger.

‘Y
ES
?’ Amber said, unable to keep the dismay from her voice.