he asked. ‘What’s the catch?’
‘Oh, how suspicious you are. Well. As it happens, I might be willing to give you that interview.’ She cleared her throat and tilted her head, well aware that she had his full attention. ‘But there are a few conditions we need to agree on before I talk on the record.’
‘Conditions. This sounds like the catch part.’
‘I prefer to think of them as more of a trade. You do something for me, I do something for you. And, from what I have seen so far, you might find some of them rather challenging. Still interested?’
‘Ah. Now we have it. You know you have the upper hand so you decided to come down here to gloat?’
‘Gloat? Do you really think I would do that?’ she repeated, her words catching at the back of her throat. Was that how he thought of her? As some spoiled girl who had come to impress him with her list of achievements?
‘I haven’t changed that much, Sam. We’ve both done what we set out to do. You need an interview and I have a few things I need doing which you might be able to help me with. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Simple? Nothing about you was ever simple, Amber.’
Sam leaned back against the workbench and stretched out his long arms either side of him so that his biceps strained against the fabric of his T-shirt across his chest and arms. The sinewy boy she had known had been replaced by a man who knew his power and had no problem using it to get his way.
And the tingle of that intense gaze sent the old shivers down the back of her legs and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop them. Her heart started thumping and she knew that her neck was already turning a lovely shade of bright red as his gaze scanned her face.
She could blame it on the hot May sunshine outside the garage door, but who was she trying to kid?
What had Kate said about Petra? That she had bedazzled Sam that night? Well, the Sam who was scanning her body was quite capable of doing his own bedazzling these days.
Sam had been the first boy who had ever given her the tingles and there had only been two other men in her life. All god-handsome, all rugged and driven and all as far removed from the world of music and orchestral performance venues as it was possible to imagine.
And every single one of them had swept her off her feet and into their world without giving her time to even think about what she was doing or whether the relationship had a chance. Little wonder that she had ended up alone and in tears, bewildered and bereft, wondering what had just happened and why.
But one thing was perfectly clear. Sam had been the first, and there was no way that she was going to go through that pain again, just to score a few points on the payback scoreboard.
Decision time.
If she was going to do this, she needed to do it now, and put the tingles down to past stupidity. Or she could turn around and run as fast as she could back to the penthouse and lock the door tight behind her. Just as her kind friends thought that she should. Just as she would have done only a few months earlier, before her life had changed.
‘I hadn’t planned to give any more interviews after the press release. That part of my life is over,’ she said, her chin tilted up. ‘But I have a few things you could help me with and you need this interview to impress your editor and make your mark in the London office. Am I getting warm?’
He shrugged and tried to look casual. But there was just that small twitch at the side of his mouth which he used to have when things were difficult at home and he didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Warm enough.’
‘Warm? If I was any hotter I would be on fire. If I go to another paper, you will be waiting on the pavement for movie stars to stagger out from showbiz parties wearing their underpants as hats.’
Sam’s hands gripped onto the bench so tightly that his knuckles started to turn white. ‘Ah. Now I am beginning to understand. You want to see me suffer.’
Amber winced and gave a small shoulder shrug. ‘You walked out on me and broke my heart. So yes, it would be a shame to miss the opportunity for some retribution. And I am not in the least bit ashamed.’ She took a breath. ‘But that was a long time ago, Sam. And I am keen to put that away in a box labelled “done and dusted”. I think this will help me do that.’
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