‘You think I’m going to let someone like you loose in a business I’ve spent the last fifteen years building up?’ he questioned, raking his fingers back through his thick black hair with an unmistakable gesture of irritation. ‘You think that selling the most expensive commodity a person will ever buy should be entrusted to someone who hasn’t ever held down a proper job, and has spent most of her adult life falling out of nightclubs?’
Amber bristled at his damning assessment and a flare of fury fizzed through her as she listened to his disparaging words. She wanted to do a number of things in retaliation, starting with taking that jug of water from his desk and upending the contents all over his now ruffled dark hair. And then she would have liked to have marched out of his office and slammed the door very firmly behind her and never set eyes on his handsome face ever again. But that wouldn’t exactly help foster the brand-new image she was trying to convey, would it? She wanted him to believe she could be calm and unruffled. She would give him a glimpse of the new and efficient Amber who wasn’t going to rise to the insults of a man who meant nothing to her, other than as a means to an end.
‘I can always learn,’ she said. ‘But if you think I’d be better suited to shifting a few paintings, I’ll happily give that a go. I...I like art.’
He made a small sound at the back of his throat, which sounded almost like a growl, and seemed to be having difficulty holding on to his temper—she could tell that by the way he had suddenly started drumming his fingertips against the desk, as if he were sending out an urgent message in Morse code.
But when he looked up at her again, she thought she saw the glint of something in his dark blue eyes which made her feel slightly nervous. Was it anticipation she could read there, or simply sheer devilment?
‘I think you’ll find that selling art involves slightly more of a skill set than one described as shifting a few paintings,’ he said drily. ‘And besides, my plans for you are very different.’ He glanced down at the sheet of paper which lay on the desk before him. ‘I understand that you speak several languages.’
‘Now it’s your turn to sound surprised, Mr Devlin.’
He shrugged his broad shoulders and sat back in his seat. ‘I guess I am. I didn’t have you down as a linguist, with all the hours of study that must have involved.’
Amber’s lips flattened. ‘There is more than one way to learn a language,’ she said. ‘My skill comes not from hours sitting at a desk—but from the fact that my mother had a penchant for Mediterranean men. And as a child I often found myself living in whichever new country was the home of her latest love interest.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘And, believe me, there were plenty of those. Consequently, I learnt to speak the local language. It was a question of survival.’
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her thoughtfully. ‘That must have been...hard.’
Amber shook her head, more out of habit than anything else. Because sympathy or compassion—or whatever you wanted to call it—made her feel uncomfortable. It started making her remember people like Marco or Stavros or Pierre—all those men who had broken her mother’s heart so conclusively and left Amber to deal with the mess they’d left behind. It made her wish for the impossible—that she’d been like other people and lived a normal, quiet life without a mother who seemed to think that the answer to all their problems was being in love. And remembering all that stuff ran the risk of making you feel vulnerable. It left you open to pain—and she’d had more than her fair share of pain.
‘It was okay,’ she said, in a bored tone which came easily after so many years of practice. ‘I certainly know how to say “my darling” in Italian, Greek and French. And I can do plenty of variations on the line “You complete and utter bastard”.’
Had her flippant tone shocked him? Was that why a faintly disapproving note had entered his voice?
‘Well, you certainly won’t be needed to relay any of those sentiments, be very clear about that.’ He glanced down at the sheet of paper again. ‘But before I lay down the terms of any job I might be prepared to offer—I need some assurances from you.’
‘What kind of assurances?’
‘Just that I don’t have any room in my organisation for loose cannons, or petulant princesses who say the first thing which comes into their head. I deal with people who need careful handling and I need to know that you can demonstrate judgement and tact before I put my proposition to you.’ His midnight eyes grew shadowed. ‘Because frankly, right now, I’m finding it hard to imagine you being anything other than...difficult.’
His words hurt. More than they should have done. More than she’d expected them to—or perhaps that had something to do with the way he was looking at her. As if he couldn’t quite believe the person she was. As if someone like her had no right to exist. And yet all this was complicated by the fact that he looked so spectacular, with his black sweater hugging his magnificent body and his sensual lips making all kinds of complicated thoughts that began to nudge themselves into her mind. Because her body was reacting to him in a way she wasn’t used to. A way she couldn’t seem to control. She could feel herself growing restless beneath that searing sapphire stare—and yet she didn’t even like him.
He was like some kind of modern-day jailer. Strutting around in his Kensington mansion with all his skinny, miniskirted minions scurrying around and looking at her as if she were something the cat had dragged in. But she had only herself to blame. He had backed her into a corner and she had let him. She had come crawling here today to ask for his help and he had taken this as permission to give her yet another
piece of his mind. Imagine working for a man like Conall Devlin.
A familiar sense of rebellion began to well up inside her, accompanied by the liberating realisation that she was under no obligation to accept his dictatorial attitude. Why not show him—and everyone else—that she was a survivor? She might not have a wall covered with degrees, but she wasn’t stupid. How hard could it be to find herself a job and a place to live? What about tapping into some of the resilience she’d relied on when she’d been dragged from city to city by her mother?
Rising to her feet, she picked up her handbag, acutely aware of those eyes burning into her as if they were scorching their way through her frumpy navy-blue dress and able to see beneath. And wasn’t there something about that scrutiny which excited her as much as terrified her? ‘I may be underqualified,’ she said, ‘but I’m not desperate. I’m resourceful enough to find myself some sort of employment which doesn’t involve working for a man with an overinflated sense of his own importance.’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘So your answer is no?’
‘My answer is more along the lines of in your dreams,’ she retorted. ‘And it’s not going to happen. I’m perfectly capable of being independent and that’s what I’m going to do.’
‘Oh, Amber,’ he said slowly. ‘You are magnificent. That kind of spirit in a woman is quite something—and if you didn’t reek of cigarette smoke and feel that the world owed you some sort of living, you’d be quite worryingly attractive.’
For a moment Amber was confused. Was he insulting her or complimenting her—or was it a mixture of both? She glowered at him before walking over to the door and slamming her way out—to the sound of his soft laughter behind her. But the stupid thing was that she felt like someone who’d jumped out of an aeroplane and forgotten to pull the cord on their parachute. As if she were in free fall. As if the world were rushing up towards her and she didn’t know when she was going to hit it.
I’ll show them, she told herself fiercely. I’ll show them all.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I’M SO SORRY!’ Quickly, Amber mopped up the spilled champagne and edged away from the table as the customer looked at her with those piggy little eyes which had been trailing her movements all evening. ‘I’ll get you another drink right away.’
‘Why don’t you sit down and join me instead?’ He leered, patting the seat beside him with a podgy hand. ‘And we’ll forget about the drink.’
Amber shook her head and tried to hide her ever-present sense of revulsion. ‘I’m not supposed to mix with the customers,’ she said, grabbing her tray and heading towards the bar on feet which were far from steady. She was used to wearing high heels, but these stilt-like red shoes were so gravity defying that walking in them took every ounce of concentration and it wasn’t helped by the rest of the club ‘uniform’. Her black satin dress was so tight she could scarcely breathe and meanwhile the heavy throb of the background music was giving her a headache.