while. All she had to do was be friendly.
When had that started to be something she needed to work at? Since when had friendly seemed like such an effort?
Her boss was right. Something had to change, and a luxury holiday to a sunny destination—all on someone else’s budget—seemed like as good a place as any to start a little soul-searching.
‘Amber, you found us!’
Mauro greeted her as she stepped through the door to the lounge. He was already sipping from a glass of champagne, with the camera and a microphone pointed at him. The two members of the TV crew swung round at his words, and a camera was thrust in her face. She moulded her features once again into the smile that she’d practised in the mirror, and hoped that it looked more convincing that it felt.
‘Mauro! This was a surprise. An upgrade?’
‘The best way to travel,’ he said with a smile, and the smallest salute from his champagne flute. ‘Don’t worry,’ he added, and Amber guessed that some uncertainty had shown on her face. She’d thought that she’d kept her smile pinned in place, but he had seen through it. ‘I matched the cost of the upgrade with a donation to the charity, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Maybe she should have been worried about it. This was a PR exercise after all. But that hadn’t been what she was thinking. What she’d been thinking was that his white shirt highlighted the hint of red in his hair and the golden warmth of his skin. That his hair looked as if it had been carefully undone, perhaps by some other woman’s hands as he left her bed that morning. That the smile on his face was warm and open, as genuine as hers was strained.
‘A great surprise, I should have said.’ She forced the words out. ‘Here’s to the start of a great week.’ Ayisha, the TV producer, had passed her a glass and she matched Mauro’s toast with one of her own.
‘To us,’ Mauro said, with a searching look.
‘To us,’ Amber agreed, fixing her smile in place again, trying to hide the effect that Mauro was having on her.
God, he was attractive. Far too attractive for his own good, or for hers. He had been sent to test her. That was the only way she could think of it. One week, trying to show a softer side. Showing that she wasn’t the bitter old hack that the Internet had labelled her. But did the dating gods really have to send this guy to help? Someone who it seemed she was physically programmed to react to. Someone whose eyes seemed to twinkle into the depths of her own, who seemed to sense her discomfort, however hard she tried to hide it.
She sat beside him, and he reached for her hand, pulling her towards him for a friendly kiss on the cheek. A day’s worth of stubble scratched her cheek—he’d lain in bed too long that morning perhaps. Had something more tempting than a close shave kept him there?
Good for him if it had.
Just because she was sworn off romance and men, and sex by default, that didn’t mean everyone had to live her celibate life. If he was getting some, she was pleased for him, really. And not in any way the teeniest, tiniest bit jealous. She settled into her seat and glanced at the screen showing flight details. Another hour until they had to be at the gate. Were they meant to make small talk until then? With the camera rolling?
‘I think I might just have a look round the shops until they call our flight.’
She needed something to read, something to bury her nose in during the flight, to keep her eyes from wandering over to Mauro.
‘Great idea,’ Mauro said, draining his glass. ‘Lead the way.’
‘I meant—’
‘You were trying to get away from me?’
He said it with a laugh, but the question in his eyes was serious enough.
‘Of course not. I’m just surprised that you’re so keen on shopping.’
‘Casual sexism? I’m shocked at you, Miss Harris.’
She smiled, not quite sure whether he’d shamed her or charmed her into it. ‘Well, shopping it is, then. We’ll meet you back here before we go to the gate,’ she told Ayisha, pre-empting any thoughts of them following. She was going to have to get used to a camera watching her every move, of making sure that every word and action was projecting the image that she needed it to, but she couldn’t just turn it on from nowhere. She needed to practise without the cameras on her. One misstep and she was sure that they would be all over her.
‘So, then, what’s it going to be?’ Mauro asked. ‘Handbags? Clothes? Are you going to disappear into the make-up for an hour?’
‘Who’s sexist now?’ she asked. ‘None of the above.’ Her interest in make-up hadn’t survived her relationship with Ian. She’d never seemed to get it right, however hard she’d tried—too slutty, too shabby, too colourful, too drab. In the end, she’d stopped trying.
She strode purposefully across the concourse towards the bookshop, dodging tourists dragging cases behind them with no sense of spacial awareness.
‘What? My witty repartee isn’t going to be entertaining enough for you?’ Mauro asked as he zipped into a space in front of her, using his chair to clear a path through the throngs of holidaymakers. ‘I’m clearly not making a great impression.’
‘What can I say?’ Amber replied with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘I’m a writer. Which by default makes me a reader. We get a free pass to have our nose in a book whenever we want.’
‘Even when there’s something better to do.’
She laughed.
‘Wow. I’m surprised you got that ego of yours in the terminal. And, for the record, I have absolutely no intention of doing you.’ There, if she was going to try and flirt for the cameras then that needed to be said. She could pretend to be attracted to him now with a clear conscience. There was no leading him on if she’d already told him it wasn’t happening. He’d understand friendly banter. No doubt flirting came to him as easily as breathing.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘We’ll see about that.’
‘I want to be honest with you, Mauro. I’m here for the charity, because my work insisted on it, and for a week in the sun. I’ll smile for the cameras and if you want to get to know each other while they’re rolling then fine. But that’s all. No funny business.’
He held her gaze for a second longer than was comfortable. What was he seeing? What was making him search her features like that, as if he was trying to get inside her head?
* * *
Managgia, she was driving him crazy already. He’d fixed her with his most challenging look. The one that had got impossible contracts signed, and unattainable goals achieved. And she still hadn’t shown him who she was. She was carrying this front of hers like some sort of armour, and all he wanted was a glimpse at what was behind.
He’d heard the real her on the show, he was sure. The take-no-prisoners, ‘I’d be a killer whale’ Amber. The one whose caustic humour had hit him so hard he’d had to go off script, just to see what happened if he called her bluff.
So where was she now? Because she damn sure
