hadn’t turned up when I had. Or have I got it all wrong? Maybe you liked that creep pawing your thigh like that? Maybe you couldn’t wait to get back to his room for him to give you a “square meal”.’
‘Of course I didn’t! He was a complete creep. They all were.’
He shook his head in exasperation. ‘So why the hell couldn’t you have taken a normal job? Worked in a shop? Or a café?’
‘Because shops and cafés don’t provide accommodation! And the club said if I worked a successful month’s trial, then I could have one of the staff rooms in the hotel! Which would have coincided neatly with me being evicted from my apartment.’ She glared at him. ‘And I don’t know why you’re suddenly trying to sound like the voice of concern when it’s your fault I’m going to be homeless.’
He gave an impatient sigh. ‘I can’t believe you’d be so naïve. You must realise how these places operate.’
‘I’ve been to more nightclubs than you’ve had hot dinners!’ she retorted.
‘I don’t doubt it—but you went there as a rich and valued customer, not a member of staff! Places like that exploit beautiful women. They expect you to earn your bonuses—in a way which is usually some variation of lying flat on your back. Haven’t you ever heard the expression that there’s no such thing as a free lunch?’
The way she was biting on her lip told him that maybe she wasn’t as sophisticated as her foxy appearance suggested, or maybe her wealth had always ensured that she’d frequented a classier kind of club, up until now. Unwillingly, he let his gaze drift over her and once he had started, he couldn’t seem to stop. Her black hair was spilling down over the shoulders of her raincoat and her green eyes were heavy with make-up. The fading scarlet streak of her lipstick matched those killer heels she’d been wearing when he’d watched her sashaying across the bar, making him have the sort of unwanted erotic thoughts which involved having her ankles wrapped very tightly around his neck. Hell, it would be easy to have those kinds of thoughts even now—even when she was bundled up in an all-concealing raincoat.
He tapped his fingers against one taut thigh. It would be better to wash his hands of her. To tell Ambrose that she was pretty much a lost cause and maybe he would just have to accept that and let her carry on with an open chequebook and a life of pure indulgence.
But as the car passed a lamp post and the light splashed over her face, he noticed for the first time the dark shadows beneath her long-lashed eyes. She looked as if she hadn’t had a lot of sleep lately—and she’d lost weight. Her cheekbones were shockingly prominent in her porcelain skin and the belted raincoat drew definition to the narrowness of her waist. She looked as if a puff of wind might blow her away. As if on cue, her stomach began to rumble and he frowned.
‘When did you last eat?’
Her expression was mulish. ‘What do you care?’
‘Stop being so damned stubborn and just answer the question, Amber,’ he growled.
She shrugged. ‘At the club they advised you not to eat for at least four hours before your shift. Actually, it was pretty sound advice because it seemed to be club policy to give you a uniform dress which was at least one size too small.’
‘And do you have food back in your apartment?’
‘Not much,’ she admitted.
‘Spent it all on cigarettes, I suppose?’ he accused.
She didn’t correct him as he leaned forward to tap the glass panel which divided them from the chauffeur and the panel slid open.
‘Take us to my club,’ he commanded.
‘Conall, I’m tired,’ she objected. ‘And I want to go home.’
‘Tough. You can sleep afterwards. You need to eat something.’
He didn’t say anything more until the car drew up outside the floodlit classical building a short distance from Piccadilly Circus. A uniformed porter sprang forward to open the car door to let her get out and Conall felt a stab of something he couldn’t decipher as he followed her sexy sway as she made her way up the marble steps. As she handed over her raincoat he thought he saw her shiver and he took his own cashmere scarf and wound it around her neck, leaving the ends to dangle concealingly in front of her magnificent breasts.
‘Better wear this,’ he said drily. But it was more for his benefit than any attempt to conform to the club’s rather outdated dress code. This way he wouldn’t have to look at the pinpoint tips of her nipples thrusting their way towards him from beneath her sweater and making him imagine what it would be like to lock his lips around each one in turn.
It was very late, but they were shown into the long room known as the North Library which overlooked Pall Mall, where a table was quickly laid up for them. Conall ordered soup and sandwiches for Amber and a brandy for himself. He watched in silence as she devoured the comfort food with the undivided attention of someone who was genuinely hungry and, for the first time that evening, he began to relax.
He sipped his drink. Outside the busy city was slowing down. He could see the yellow lights of vacant cabs and the unsteady weave of people making their way home, while in here all was ordered and calm. It always was. It was one of the main reasons why he’d joined, because it had an air of stability which had always attracted him.
Antique chandeliers hung from the corniced ceiling and at one end of the room was a polished grand piano. Despite its traditional air, it was a club for movers and shakers—the kind of place to which few were granted entry because the membership requirements were so high. But there had been no shortage of proposers keen to get him onto the members’ list and Conall had defied the odds brought about by youthful misdemeanour. He’d been proposed by a government minister and seconded by a peer of the realm and that fact in itself still had the ability to make him smile wryly. Whoever would have thought that the boy who had been born with so little would end up here, with the great and the good?
He signalled for a fire to be lit and then watched as Amber dabbed at her lips with a heavy linen napkin. Now that the edge had been taken off her hunger, she relaxed back into the leather armchair and began to look around—like a rescued kitten which had been brought from the cold into the warmth. He wondered what the waiter who came to remove her plate must think, because he didn’t usually bring women here, to this essentially male enclave—where deals were done over dinner and alliances formed over summer drinks taken outside on the pretty terrace. On the rare occasions he’d brought a date, they hadn’t been dressed in skinny jeans and a sweater, like Amber Carter. They had worn subtle silk, with shoes the same colour as their handbags and make-up which was soft and discreet—not laden on so thickly that from a distance she appeared to have two black eyes.
And yet not one of them had made him feel a fraction of the desire which was currently pulsing through his blood and making him achingly aware of his erection.
‘So,’ he said heavily, putting his glass down on the table and raising his eyebrows in what he hoped was a stern expression. ‘I think you’ve just proved fairly conclusively that independence is not an option— unless you want to take another job like that. The question is whether or not you’re finally ready to knuckle down and see sense.’
Amber didn’t answer straight away, even though he was firing that impatient look at her. She felt much better after the food she’d just eaten, no doubt about it—but just as one hunger had been satisfied, so another had been awoken
