at least. He was committed to his sport, his business, his charity work, and for ten years it had been clear to everyone involved that that didn’t leave room for commitment to anything else.
As they headed back to the green room Amber kept her eyes dead ahead, and her shoulders seemed to stiffen and rise with every step that she took. Mauro hung back, nothing at all to do with wanting to keep an eye on that peachy culo, revealed with every swing of her jacket. But something about being close to Amber had made him concerned for her. That neon sign that had shown over the wobbly dividing screen looked different up close. There was hurt behind it, and a vulnerability that was making him wonder whether he had made a mistake in picking her. He had thought that it had been the straightforward, risk-free option, but now he wasn’t so sure. He would give her space, he told himself. Space that she so desperately seemed to want.
She dropped onto the sofa in the green room and rested her head in her hands. Mauro moved in front of her and couldn’t help but reach for one of her hands and brush it with his fingertips, before he remembered what he had told himself about giving her space. ‘Hey, it’s not that bad, is it?’ he asked with a forced smile. It wasn’t exactly flattering, that she seemed so traumatised at the thought of a date with him, but he knew from her answers on the show that this wasn’t personal. She had had no intention of being the one to go on this date. He had thwarted whatever plan it was she had going on, and she was annoyed about it.
‘I’ve made you angry?’
She looked him right in the eye.
‘Maybe. Or maybe I’m angry at myself. I... It doesn’t matter, anyway. Look—’ she started gathering up her things, throwing her phone and bits of make-up into her handbag ‘—this has been...fun, and really nice to meet you and everything. But I’ve got to get back.’
‘You’re not staying for the party?’ There were drinks planned—everyone on the show at a hotel in the city, where those from out of town were being put up. He wasn’t staying at the hotel—he kept a penthouse suite in Mayfair for when he was in London—but it should be a fun couple of hours. From the looks he was getting from contestants numbers one and two he guessed that they would be at the party when he showed up. But for once the promise of a pretty face waiting for him in a bar didn’t have its usual effect.
There was something about Amber that intrigued him.
Some of the things he’d worked hardest for in life had been the sweetest: his first gold medal the sweetest of them all. But with women...what could he say? He’d never had to work that hard. Women fell for him easily, and before things got too complicated, he got out. His life was too full, too packed with ambition and drive to fit in a relationship as well, but the board of the sports charity had assured him that just turning up for this date, making nice for a week for the show, would help their fundraising efforts no end. It didn’t mean that he was here looking for a relationship.
He was so distracted by trying to work out what was really going on with Amber that he missed her moving towards him, until she was so close that he could smell that shampoo again. Her lips brushed against his cheek, soft and plump, and he wondered what she would have done if he’d turned his head slightly, so that they touched against his own. So that he would have the taste of her on his mouth.
‘I have to go. It was nice to meet you, Mauro.’
Something about the way she said it raised his hackles. Nice to meet him, but she wasn’t planning on seeing him again, he thought. She was going to try and back out of their date. Well, he’d see about that.
AMBER TURNED UP to the airport with a fake smile plastered onto her face, her ears ringing with the warning her boss had just given her: go on this date or lose your job. OK, so it had been more nuanced than that, but that was what it came down to.
Recently, the feedback on her articles had been taking something of a dive. The comments on her online column had started off unpleasant and steadily descended into venomous. She’d stopped reading them, chalking them up to bullies with nothing better to do. But her boss had told her in no uncertain terms that the powers that be at the paper were paying attention.
And maybe they were right; Ever since her heart had been broken, she’d lost her home, and realised that the best advice she could dish out to anyone looking for romance tips was to get out, get your life together on your own, and make yourself happy. The words that had been bandied around in that meeting—cynical, bitter—when had she become that?
But how was she meant to undo the hurt and the anger that had been simmering under her skin? The pain that had become such a part of her that she wasn’t sure if, never mind how, she was meant to shake it off.
This wasn’t just about her feelings. If Maddie was right and her job was at stake...well, there was nothing that she wouldn’t do to save her job. It was all she had. She’d literally lost the roof over her head when her relationship had broken down. Now her rent ate up most of her salary, and her travel card to get in from Zone Three took the rest. Even a month without work would be a disaster. She could not lose this job.
She’d thought she’d be able to beat the check-in queues by doing it online last night, only to be told at bag-drop that she had to go to the desk after all. It was taking an age—an immaculately manicured woman in an airline colours scarf was tapping at a computer and frowning at her passport.
‘I’m sorry for the delay, madam.’ She looked up and Amber forced her mouth back into a smile. There was nowhere she could escape the judgemental gaze of her readers. ‘Some of the information from your passport was missing from the upgrade request, but it’s all sorted now. Here’s your boarding pass, and the executive lounge is just over there. Mr Evans asked me to let you know that he has already checked in.’
Executive lounge? With budget cuts at work, and the unmitigated disaster that was her personal finances, she’d got so used to travelling economy that she’d forgotten that there was any other way.
She determinedly ignored the flutter in the base of her stomach as she walked towards the lounge. There was no way she was going to allow Mauro Evans to have that effect on her. No way she’d be pulled into those sparkling green eyes and be tempted to flirt. The man was incorrigible—a playboy who was with a different woman on the front page of each week’s trashy magazines, and remembering that was her best defence. She was sure that she was going to need one. She’d felt a pull of attraction from the second that she had realised who she was speaking to. A relationship, a fling, a flirtation was the last thing that she wanted, or needed. Especially with someone that the sidebars of shame told her regularly saw, conquered and came all in the space of a weekend. Every weekend.
Ugh, she didn’t even know why she was worrying about this. It wasn’t as if he was going to be interested in her. He had picked her for some perverse reason of his own. He must have wanted to annoy the producers of the show for some reason. Anyway, she had more important things to concentrate on.
She needed an image update. She needed her readers to see something different in her. Something that they could identify with. So far she’d been honest in her columns, brutally honest. But that wasn’t what the readers wanted. She wasn’t what the readers wanted. So while the cameras were rolling, she was going to have to be someone else.
Perhaps Mauro could help her out. No doubt he’d just gone into this whole thing looking for the image boost that came with charity work. She needed to show a softer side. Maybe there was a way they could both get what they wanted.
She
