I am prepared to pay you very generously for say, six months of your life… Very generously,’ he repeated significantly, his eyes resting on the tell-tale pulse throbbing in her throat.
‘No!’
‘No?’ Again he seemed more amused than annoyed. ‘I’m going to give you the night to think over your decision, Amber, and don’t forget, will you, that I saw the look on your face in the car when I said I was prepared to be generous.’
Hating herself for the question, but knowing she just had to ask it, Amber ran her tongue nervously across dry lips and asked huskily, ‘How generous?’
She almost missed the surprised contempt in his eyes—it was banished so quickly by mocking satisfaction.
‘Twenty-five thousand pounds!’
Her heart almost stopped beating. Twenty-five thousand pounds—far, far more than she had imagined. Far, far more than she could ever envisage earning in so short a space of time, and more than enough to cover all the expenses of her operation, plus the plastic surgery she would need afterwards.
‘You can’t do it,’ a tiny inner voice warned her. ‘It isn’t right. You’ll have to refuse.’
The words were on the tip of her tongue when she looked down at her leg and all her good resolutions fled. What were six months, after all?
‘It would have to be purely a business arrangement,’ she began hesitantly. ‘I mean…’
‘I think we can take what you mean as read,’ came the smooth rejoinder, ‘and certainly I can assure you that I have no sexual designs upon your person, if that’s what’s worrying you.’
Amber flushed to the roots of her hair. Of course he hadn’t. What man in his right mind would have, never mind a man as stunningly attractive as Joel Sinclair?
Chagrined, exhausted and defeated by her own desire to be restored to what she had once been, she gave in.
‘Very wise,’ Joel Sinclair told her softly. ‘I am glad we were able to reach an agreement. Tell me, the money—do you need it for any special purpose?’
In a moment he might guess about her leg, and Amber couldn’t bear his pity. Quickly she interrupted, ‘No more special than any other woman’s. I want to enjoy life before it’s too late. I’ve always fancied a world cruise…’
‘With the bonus of some gullible male thrown in?’ Joel Sinclair suggested sardonically. ‘Still, why should I complain? In this instance your mercenary greed is furthering my ends as well as yours. I’ll take you to your room now,’ he told her. ‘I have to go out again—some business I have to attend to, but in the morning we’ll talk again.’
They had reached a long landing and he had paused outside a panelled mahogany door, and Amber had almost collided into him before she realised he had stopped.
He opened the door and stood back to allow her to enter the room. It was furnished with timelessly elegant Regency antiques, but despite the expensive furniture, the soft pale green carpet and daintily femine décor the room had a cold almost unwelcoming atmosphere, and Amber shivered as she stepped inside it.
‘The bathroom’s through there,’ Joel Sinclair told her, indicating another door opening off the bedroom. ‘We normally have breakfast about eight. I have business interests in Kendal and try to leave the house by nine, although recently my schedule has been somewhat interrupted.’
Amber stared up at him, wanting him to leave and yet reluctant to be abandoned in a strange house.
‘Something wrong?’ he enquired dulcetly, watching the shadows chase across her golden eyes. ‘Or are you waiting for me to seal our bargain in the traditional manner?’
It was several seconds before Amber realised what he meant, and she cringed inwardly wondering if he thought she had been mutely hoping that he would kiss her.
‘Certainly not,’ she told him with as much cool composure as she could muster. ‘You’re buying my time, not my body.’
His suave, ‘Perhaps that’s just as well,’ left a bitter aftertaste long after he himself had gone, reminding her yet again that she was no longer a girl men would want to hold in their arms or kiss. For several totally irresponsible seconds she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to be kissed by Joel Sinclair. His kisses wouldn’t be like Rob’s, she thought instinctively; there would be nothing tentative or rushed about them. He would know exactly how to arouse a woman’s desire; how to fan it until it threatened to become a raging inferno. Horrified by the train of her thoughts, she started to undress, realising almost too late that she had nothing to wear. Shrugging wearily, she decided that she was too tired to care whether she slept in a nightdress or the nude. Fortunately the bathroom, unlike the bedroom, was adequately heated, and she was able to wash out her undies and tights and place them on the hot towel rail to dry ready for the morning.
IT was the sound of a child crying that eventually roused Amber. She sat up in bed, listening in the darkness preceding dawn, and stretched her ears for the sound which had disturbed her slumbers. It came again—bitterly hopeless sobs; not the normal cry of a young child, and strangely moved, she slid out of bed, intent on discovering what was happening.
She was halfway across the room before she remembered she had no robe. The bathroom afforded a huge bathsheet which she wrapped sarong-wise around her too thin body, before opening her bedroom door.
It wasn’t hard to find Paul’s room; but what did surprise Amber when she opened the door was that the little boy was all alone, curled up in a small foetal ball in the middle of a rumpled heap of bedclothes.
‘Paul.’ She whispered his name, and had the satisfaction of seeing his tears stop as he registered her presence.
‘Who are you?’ The words were wrung from him between sobs.
Amber walked awkwardly towards the bed and switched on the lamp, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the small boy’s features properly for the first time. He was a perfect miniature replica of his father!
‘My name’s Amber.’ she answered matter-of-factly. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Paul Sinclair, and this is my daddy’s house.’
‘Were you having a bad dream?’ Amber asked him conversationally.
The small face closed up. ‘Sort of.’ The reply was deliberately uncommunicative.
‘Horrid, aren’t they?’ Amber sympathised, pretending she had not noticed his withdrawal. ‘Would you like me to get you a glass of milk?’
‘I’m not thirsty. What are you doing here?’
‘Your daddy brought me,’ Amber explained, starting to smooth the crumpled sheets. As she did so, she accidentally revealed the thin child’s body, dressed in over-large pyjamas which had ridden up to reveal a scarred and very frail-looking leg.
She could feel Paul going rigid when he knew she was looking at him, and her heart went out to the small child. She
