by Miranda Lee
‘So tell me,’ Warwick asked with a brief glance her way. ‘In your aunt’s new will—are you the only beneficiary?’
‘No. She left her superannuation policy to Dad. But her house and contents go to me alone.’
‘Hmm. I’ll bet your mother’s somewhat peeved at you being left your aunt’s place, rather than her precious boys.’
Amber’s head swung round at this quite intuitive remark.
‘Did you think I didn’t notice the way she favoured your brothers over you?’ he swept on before she could say a single word. ‘Your father, too. I didn’t have to be in their home for more than five minutes to see the lie of the land. Why do you think I couldn’t wait to get you out of there on Christmas Day? I’m not good at keeping my mouth shut when I’m bearing witness to such an injustice, especially against someone I care about.’
Amber didn’t know what to say. This was the closest Warwick had ever come to saying that he loved her. She was so touched, a huge lump formed in her throat.
‘I … I didn’t realise you noticed,’ she mumbled at last.
‘I noticed all right. The only reason I didn’t say something was because it was Christmas, plus I didn’t want to give your parents more reason to put you down. They’d already made it patently obvious that they didn’t approve of your relationship with me. Not that they said so to my face. I would have thought more of them if they had. Your aunt Kate was a bit of dragon, but at least she loved you enough to give me a piece of her mind.’
‘She did?’
‘Indeed she did,’ he said drily.
Kate had had a reputation for speaking her mind. And a reputation for being a bit of a man hater. Though she hadn’t hated all men. She’d liked Max Richmond and had always sung his praises. But then it was highly unusual, Amber supposed, for a billionaire to give up his jet-setting lifestyle to get married and raise a family away from the spotlight of wealth and fame.
‘What did she say?’ Amber asked, though she feared she already knew the answer.
Warwick shrugged his shoulders. ‘The usual. I was a selfish you-know-what who should be hung, drawn and quartered for taking a sweet young thing like you as my mistress.’
‘Oh,’ Amber choked out.
Warwick’s head snapped round. ‘You’re not crying, are you?’
‘No,’ she denied, but shakily.
‘You are,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I can’t stand it when you cry.’
‘I don’t cry all that often,’ Amber said defensively.
‘You have to be kidding, sweetheart. You cry at the news, and at ads, and during all those soppy movies you like to watch. I put a box of tissues by the sofa to mop up your tears.’
‘They’re not real tears. I’m talking about real tears.’ She’d only wept a few times since moving in with Warwick. Once, when her mother was highly critical of her relationship. And then, when she’d heard that her aunt Kate had died. Oh, and yes, after her argument with Warwick last week.
But he hadn’t been witness to that, had he? He hadn’t even been in the same room.
‘Tears don’t solve anything, you know,’ he growled.
‘They’re not meant to solve anything,’ she shot back, dabbing the moisture from her eyes. ‘They just happen.’
‘I don’t like the way women use tears to get what they want.’
‘I don’t.’
‘No,’ he said, if a little reluctantly. ‘You don’t.’
‘Let’s not argue, Warwick,’ she said, worried that the happiness she’d felt this morning was beginning to disintegrate.
‘Only if you promise not to cry.’
She smiled over at him. ‘See? I’ve already stopped.’
‘What about later when you get to your aunt’s place?’
‘I’ll do my best not to.’ But she rather suspected she would shed a few tears then. She hadn’t been there since her aunt died, the wake having been held at a local club.
‘Mmm. I think I should have given you the car for the day. Let you drive yourself up to Wamberal.’
‘But I want you with me. I need your advice on what I should do with Aunt Kate’s place. Besides, I don’t much like driving your car.’
‘What? You don’t like driving a Ferrari? Are you insane?’
‘I don’t like speed the way you do. Promise me you won’t go fast when we get on the expressway. There’s no reason to. We have all the time in the world.’
Warwick almost laughed. All the time in the world was something he certainly did not have. Which meant he didn’t want to spend what precious time he did have with her at Wamberal where she was sure to get weepy over her aunt all over again. Next thing he knew, she’d want to keep the damned place. Maybe even go up there on weekends.
She wanted his advice? Warwick already knew what that advice would be. Put the property in the hands of a good real estate agent to sell, then come back to Sydney with him. He’d already decided he couldn’t be without her just yet. Last night had shown him that. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her. But maybe soon he’d find the strength to end things. Until then, however, he aimed to keep things exactly as they were, with her by his side, and in his bed.
‘I’ll wait for you in the car,’ he said when they finally arrived at her parents’ home in Carlingford just before midday. ‘Got a few things to attend to.’ And he picked up his BlackBerry.
Amber didn’t argue with him. Quite frankly, the last thing she wanted was him by her side when her mother answered the door. She climbed out of the car and hurried up the steep front path to the equally steep front steps. Running up them, she reached the front porch and was about to ring the bell when the door was wrenched open and her mother stood there, looking very annoyed.
‘I’d almost given up on you coming,’ she said sourly.
‘But I rang you from the car to say I’d be here.’
‘I don’t know why you had to leave it to the last minute,’ her mother snapped. ‘It’s not as though you work.’
Amber could think of nothing to say to that. It was true, after all.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she heard herself apologising the way she’d been doing all her life. ‘We had a late night and we … er … slept in. If you’ll just give me the keys I’ll be on my way.’
Doreen sniffed her distaste as she swung away and picked up two sets of keys from the nearby hall table. ‘Here they are,’ she said, and handed them over. ‘The second set belongs to Kate’s car. That’s yours too, it seems.’
‘Really?’ Amber could not help feeling pleased at this news. She’d only ever owned one car, a rust-bucket she’d bought when she’d been eighteen and had taken a second job as a waitress and needed wheels to get to and from work at night. Naturally, her parents had refused to let her use either of their vehicles. Neither had they offered to subsidise the purchase of one for her as they had with the boys.
It had taken all of her savings—frugally put together when she’d started working at a fast-food restaurant at sixteen—to buy the ancient car, which had broken down within weeks of her purchasing it. After that Amber had decided to do without it and had managed by only ever applying for jobs where public transport was available. She’d occasionally thought about buying herself another car, but had decided that if she couldn’t afford a good one, then she’d rather not have one.
Now, she had her aunt Kate’s, which was a very good one, if she recalled rightly, a relatively new white hatchback.
‘So what does Lover Boy think of your becoming an heiress?’ her mother asked in acid tones.
‘Don’t call him that, Mum. His name is Warwick and he’s very happy for me.’
‘I doubt that, dear. Men like that enjoy pulling the strings. The last thing he’ll want is for you to have independent means.’
‘I don’t know why you keep saying such dreadful things about him. What’s he ever done to you?’
‘It’s what he’s done to you that I object to.’
‘And what’s he done t
o me that’s so dreadful? Tim lived with his wife before they got married. And Tom was a real tomcat before he met Viv. It seems to me that you have one set of standards for my brothers and a different one for me. But then, you love them a lot more than you love me, don’t you?’
Her mother looked shocked. ‘That’s not true!’
‘Oh, yes, it is, Mum. It’s always been true. I’m not sure why. I’ve tried to be a good daughter. But nothing I’ve ever done has been good enough. Not that I could ever match it with either of the boys. I wasn’t brilliant at school, or at sport the way they were.’
All she’d ever had going for her was her looks, which her mother had rarely complimented her on.
Yet she looked very much like her mother. Or as Doreen had been when she was younger.
It came to Amber suddenly that maybe her mother was jealous of her youthful beauty. Although Doreen Roberts had aged quite gracefully, she could never compete with a girl thirty years younger.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Amber,’ her mother said stiffly. ‘But you’re wrong. All I want is for you to be happy.’
‘Then you have a strange way of showing it,’ Amber said sharply. ‘You’d better get going to your hairdresser. I wouldn’t want to make you late for anything so important. Bye.’
Amber battled to keep the tears at bay as she whirled and hurried back down the steps, clutching the keys in her hand so tightly that they dug painfully into her palm. Warwick was still on his phone when she climbed into the car, talking no doubt to one of his many contacts. He did most of his business on his BlackBerry.
‘Sounds good,’ he was saying. ‘We’ll be there by then. Thanks, Jim.’
‘We’ll be where by when?’ Amber asked as Warwick put his phone away.
‘Your aunt’s place around two. I’ve organised for one of the area’s top real estate agents to meet us there.’
Amber could not help feeling mildly irritated. Which was crazy. She didn’t really want to keep the place, did she? That would be a rather silly decision. An emotional one.
‘Did I do something wrong?’ Warwick asked.
‘No,’ Amber replied with a sigh.
‘I thought you’d want to sell.’
‘I do. It’s just … ‘
‘Just what?’
‘I don’t know, Warwick. Honestly.’
‘Your mother said something to upset you.’
Amber laughed. ‘My mother always says something to upset me.’
‘What was it this time? Something about your relationship with me, I presume.’
‘Amongst other things. Look, I really don’t want to talk right now. Could you just drive, please?’
‘Fair enough. I’ll put some music on.’
They didn’t exchange a word till the Ferrari hit the freeway north, by which time Amber’s distress had calmed somewhat and she turned her mind to the problem of her aunt’s place.
‘I’m not sure Aunt Kate left me her place for me to sell it,’ she said. ‘I think she might have envisaged my actually living there and running the B & B.’
Warwick shot her a startled glance. ‘Why would she think you would do that? ‘
‘Why not? I’ve worked in the hospitality industry all my life. I could run a B & B, no trouble.’
‘I’m sure you could. But it would be a very lonely existence. After all, now that your aunt has passed away, you have no family up here, or friends that I know of.’
‘That’s not strictly true. I do know the Richmonds. They live in Wamberal.’
‘Who are the Richmonds? You’ve never mentioned them before.’
‘They were close friends of Aunt Kate’s. In fact they witnessed her new will. Tara and Max Richmond.’
‘Good Lord, you don’t mean Max Richmond, the hotel magnate!’
‘Yes. Do you know him?’
‘I know of him. I had heard on the grapevine that he’d sold off most of his international hotels and retired somewhere. I just didn’t know where. I rather imagined the Riviera or Monte Carlo, not Wamberal Beach. Did he marry a local girl, is that it?’
‘No. I’m sure Tara was a Sydney girl. Aunt Kate told me a little about their romance. Apparently, she and Max had been dating for some time when Tara fell pregnant quite accidentally. But she was afraid Max wouldn’t believe her and ran away, to Aunt Kate’s B & B. It seems seriously rich men are paranoid about gold-diggers trying to trap them into marriage with a baby. Is that true?’ she asked Warwick, such a thought having never occurred to her before. She religiously took her pill every evening, not believing in having children unless you were happily married. Nowadays she always carried a spare packet of pills with her in her handbag in case Warwick swept her off on one of his impulsive overnight getaways without her having a chance to go home and pack properly.
‘Perfectly true,’ Warwick replied drily.
‘I would never do something like that,’ she said firmly.
‘I know you wouldn’t. Obviously, Max Richmond came to the conclusion that his girl wouldn’t, either.’
‘Oh, yes, I was telling you about them, wasn’t I?’
‘I presume they got married and lived happily ever after.’
‘As far as anyone can tell. They always look the perfect family. They have two children now, a little girl as well as their son.’
‘If they were such good friends of your aunt, why weren’t they at her place last Easter? I’m sure I would have remembered them if they were.’
‘They were overseas. They travel quite a bit. They were actually away when Aunt Kate died.’
‘So Richmond hasn’t given up the hotel industry entirely?’
‘Not quite. He still owns hotels in Asia and the Regency Royale in Sydney. He has a penthouse apartment there which Aunt Kate stayed in once. She said it was gorgeous.’
‘How old would Richmond be? Forty?’
‘Mid forties, I’d say.’
‘And his wife?’
‘I’m not sure. Thirty something. And drop-dead gorgeous.’
‘Not surprising. Seriously rich men don’t marry plain girls.’
Some don’t marry at all, Amber almost shot back, just biting her tongue in time.
‘I’m not surprised Richmond hasn’t totally retired,’ Warwick went on. ‘He’d be bored if he stayed home every day, twiddling his thumbs. You’d be bored too, Amber, running a B & B. Bored and lonely.’
‘But I’d meet people.’
‘For one night only. Come the next morning they’d be up and gone. Running a B & B is a job for a couple. Or an old maid like your aunt was. It wouldn’t suit you at all. Surely you’re not seriously considering doing it.’
‘That depends …’
‘On what?’
Amber hesitated to answer for a long moment. When she’d woken this morning, she’d been very quick to put aside her worries over Warwick’s very selfish behaviour of late. Listening to her mother’s low opinion of her lover’s character, however, had revived all her doubts about the depth, plus the lasting nature, of their relationship.
The temptation to keep putting her head in the sand was acute. She loved Warwick and didn’t want what they had to end, however short-lived that might be. But a little voice in her head kept nagging at her to stop being naïve and so disgustingly weak.
Nausea swirled in her stomach at the prospect of finding out she was skating on thin ice where he was concerned. But it had to be done sooner or later.
‘It depends on how long our relationship lasts,’ she said at last.
‘I see,’ he bit out.
Amber tried to gauge what he meant by that. But it was hardly a forthcoming statement, which was so typical of Warwick.
‘I know you don’t like talking about the future,’ Amber went on, suddenly determined to have things out with him. ‘I’ve done my best to live in the moment the way you do. But I’m not really like that, Warwick. I’ve always been a practical person, a planner. This past ten months with you have been marvellous and
I’ll never regret them. But I need to know if I have any chance of a future with you. I gave up everything to live with you: my job, a boyfriend I was going to become engaged to, my friends. Even my family, to a degree. When and if we break up, I’ll have nothing.’
CHAPTER FIVE
WARWICK wished later that he’d thought before he’d opened his mouth. But, at the time, it annoyed him that Amber thought he would dump her with nothing.
‘If and when we do break up, Amber,’ he snapped, ‘you will be well looked after. I have every intention of giving you the Point Piper apartment. And this car.’
Even if he hadn’t glanced over and seen her face go a ghastly shade of grey, the sound of her shocked gasp warned him that his offer of a generous parting settlement did not please her.
Which he should have realised. For goodness’ sake, the girl was obviously in love with him. It was perfectly understandable that Amber wouldn’t want to be treated like some gold-digging mistress who was only with him for what she could get out of it, when all she actually wanted was love and marriage. And his children, no doubt.
Her aunt Kate had spelled out the truth for him. Why did he keep forgetting?
Once again Warwick was tempted to reveal everything. But the thought of seeing pity in Amber’s eyes repulsed him. He’d rather see dislike, or even outright hatred.
‘I gather that suggestion doesn’t find favour with you?’ he said in a tone of voice that she could only interpret as indifferent.
Amber struggled for composure. She’d thought he could not hurt her any more than he had with his disgustingly materialistic offer. But, suddenly, she felt not just cheap but almost worthless.
‘Did you expect that it would?’ she threw at him.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have learned to expect the unexpected when it comes to women.’
Amber stared over at him. Was this the same man who’d made love to her so tenderly the night before?
Her family had been right. He was heartless. And she … she was a fool!
But no longer. Her own heart hardened towards him as she pushed aside her distress for the moment and considered her options.