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 funny? No doubt in his black tee shirt and the artfully scruffy jeans clinging to his bronzed, muscled frame he was exactly the sort of testosterone machine certain women might have enjoyed bouncing a bit of stimulating repartee back and forth with …
She wasn’t one of them.
‘That noise you’re making,’ she rasped. ‘I’m trying to sleep and it’s disturbing me.’
He lifted his black brows. ‘At six in the evening? You should get a life, sweetheart.’
He started to close the door, but Amber was quick. She shoved her foot into the space. ‘Now, wait a minute. I have a life. A busy life. And it’s because you’ve been assaulting Jean’s piano …’ She shook her head, outraged at the scandal of it. Jean’s beautiful Steinway … ‘You and your friends with those stupid drums … That’s why I need to sleep at six in the evening.’
He looked at her for a long, considering moment, his strong brows still raised in disbelief. ‘You don’t like music?’
Her? Whose first steps had been a dance? She clenched her teeth. ‘I like music, mister. When I hear it. I’ve already asked you politely. Now, if you don’t keep your noise down …’
‘Ah. Here it comes. The threat.’ He tilted his head to one side and made a thorough appraisal of her from head to toe.
The full scorching force of bold masculine interest lasered through the thin fabric of her clothes. She grew conscious that in her rush she’d chosen a close-fitting top with a deep neckline, she wasn’t wearing a bra, and her feet were bare. Only with difficulty did she prevent herself from crossing her arms over her breasts.
‘I love women who talk tough,’ he said, with a lascivious twitch of a black brow. ‘What will you do to me?’
Wild words rocketed to her tongue. The frustrations and anxieties she’d been repressing over days seethed inside their cage. She wanted to rip open his arrogant jugular with her teeth and nails, claw at his lean face, draw his insolent blood.
He broke into a laugh and flash of white, even teeth lit his face. ‘Don’t do it. Why don’t you come in and we’ll see if we can work something out?’
She drew herself up. ‘Look, Mr …’ she hissed.
‘Guy. Guy Wilder.’ His sexy mouth broke into a smile, but she didn’t care that it illuminated his rather harsh face like a sunburst and made him handsome.
‘Whatever.’ Her breath came in short bursts, as if Vesuvius was seething inside her, alive and molten. ‘I came here to ask if your band can practise somewhere else. If you can’t be more considerate I’ll report you to the Residents’ Committee.’
Amusement crept into his voice. ‘We seem to be getting a bit heated.’
‘Does Jean even know you’re here?’
At her escalating pitch his black brows made an eloquent upward twitch. ‘Not only does my dear aunt know I’m here, she wants me to be here. I’ll give you her address, all right? You can check up. Set your mind at rest.’
‘I know Jean well, and I know she would strongly object to your upsetting her neighbours. She would never have agreed to your setting up your band in here night and day.’
‘It isn’t here night and day.’ His quiet, measured tone made a mockery of her emotion. ‘I write songs. The band you’ve been privileged to hear the last couple of nights—in the early part of the evening, let me remind you—were unable to use their usual venue. They have a gig coming up so they needed a run-through. That means …’
‘I know what it means,’ she snapped. ‘And it was no privilege. You might as well know now—your band sucks.’
His black eyebrows flew up and his eyes drifted over her in sardonic appreciation. ‘I’ll make sure I pass your critique on to the guys.’
She could hardly believe she’d said such a rude thing, but it gave her a reckless satisfaction. Even if he was Jean’s nephew, he’d made her suffer.
If he was. She had some vague recollection of Jean’s stories about various family members. There was the brilliant one who wanted to direct movies, the scientist who’d fallen in love on a voyage to Antarctica, the boy whose girlfriend—the love of his life, Jean had said—had stood him up at the altar and run away with a soldier. She couldn’t remember any mention of a musician.
The guy moved slightly. Enough for Amber’s critical eye to catch a glimpse of the indoor garden Jean kept in her foyer. Shocked by what she saw, she couldn’t restrain herself. ‘Just look at those anthuriums. Jean would be furious if she knew you were letting her precious plants die. Surely she explained her watering system to you?’
He gave a careless shrug. ‘She may have said something.’
‘And what about her fish?’
‘Fish?’
‘Don’t tell me you
