The Christmas Eve Bride

They had been together for three months when Rocco had ditched her. For her, anyway, it had been love at first sight. He had called her ‘tabbycat’because of the way she had used to curl up on the sofa beside him. When he had been out of the country over weekends and holidays, he had flown her out to join him in a variety of exotic places. Her feet hadn’t touched the ground once during their magical affair. All her innate caution and sense had fallen by the wayside. Finding herself on a roller coaster of excitement and passion, she had become enslaved. When the roller coaster had come to a sudden halt and thrown her off, she had not been able to credit that he’d been able to just abandon what she had believed they had shared.

That was why she had kept on phoning him at first, accepting that he was furious with her about that ghastly newspaper story, accepting that that story had been entirely her fault and that she had had to be the one to make amends. Loving Rocco had taught her how to be humble and face her mistakes.

And how had he rewarded her humility? He had kicked her in the teeth! Her delicate bone-structure tightened. She pushed her honey-blonde hair off her brow, raking it back, so that it tumbled in glossy disarray round her slim shoulders. Her hair needed cutting: she was letting it grow because it was cheaper. At the rate that her finances were improving, she thought ruefully, she would have hair down to her feet by the time she could afford a salon appointment again. Loving Rocco had also taught her what it was like to be poor…or, at least, how utterly humiliating it was, after a long period of independence, to be forced to rely once more on family generosity to survive.

Her tummy churning with nerves, she focused on Rocco again, noting the outline of his long, luxuriant black lashes, comparing them to Freddy’s… Freddy’s hair was as dark as Rocco’s was fair, black as a raven’s wing. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and prayed for concentration and courage.

‘To what do I owe the honour of this second meeting?’ Rocco enquired drily. ‘I thought we were just about talked out.’

Worrying at her lower lip, Amber tilted her head back. But she could still only see as high as his gold silk tie because he had moved closer. In a harried movement, she stood up again. ‘If you tell Harris Winton that there is the slightest possibility that I might be spying on him for some newspaper, I’ll get the sack!’

Rocco studied her with inscrutable dark eyes. In the charged silence that he allowed to linger, his lean, powerful face remained impassive.

‘I can’t understand why you should even think such a thing of me…it’s nonsensical!’

‘Is it? I remember you telling me that you once very much wanted to be a journalist…’

Amber stilled in consternation and surprise. Had she told Rocco that? During one of those trusting chats when he had seemed to want to know every tiny thing about her? Evidently, she had told him but she hadn’t given him the whole picture. During her teens, Amber’s parents had put her under constant pressure to produce better exam results and, when they’d finally realised that she was not going to become a doctor, a lawyer or a teacher, she had been instructed to focus on journalism instead. They had signed her up for an extra-curricular media studies course on which she had got very poor grades.

‘And how desperately disappointed you were when you couldn’t get a job on a newspaper,’ Rocco finished smoothly.

For the first time it occurred to Amber that, eighteen months back, Rocco had had more reason than she had appreciated to believe that the prospect of media limelight might have tempted her into talking about their relationship. She was furious that one insignificant little piece of information casually given out of context could have helped to support his belief that she was guilty as charged.

‘Do you know the only reason I went for that job? My parents had just died… It was their idea that I should try for a career in journalism, not my own. And what I might or might not have wanted at the age of sixteen has very little bearing on the person I am now,’ Amber declared in driven dismissal.

Rocco continued to regard her in level challenge. ‘I can concede that. But when we met, you were employed in a merchant bank and studying for accountancy exams. Give me one good reason why you should now be pretending to be a gardener?’

‘Because, obviously, it’s not a pretence! It’s the only job I could get…at least the only work that it’s convenient for me to take right now.’ In a nervous gesture as she tacked on that qualification, Amber half opened her hands and then closed them tight again, her green eyes veiling, for the last thing she wanted to touch on was the difficulties of being a single parent on a low wage.

‘Convenient?’ Rocco queried.

‘I live in a cottage in the coachyard here. Accommodation goes with the job. My sister lives nearby and I like being close to her—’

‘You never mentioned that you had a sister while I was with you.’

Amber flushed a dull guilty red for she had allowed him to assume that she was as alone in the world as he was. Rocco was an only child, born to older parents, who had both passed away by the time he’d emerged from his teens.

‘So explain why you kept quiet about having a sister,’ Rocco continued levelly.

But there was no way Amber felt she could tell him the honest truth on that score. She had been terrified that Rocco would meet her gorgeous, intellectual big sister and start thinking of Amber herself as very much a poor second best. It had happened before, after all. It didn’t matter that Opal was twelve years older and happily married. People were always amazed when they learnt that the highly successful barrister, Opal Carlton, was Amber’s sibling. From an early age, Amber had been aware that she was a sad disappointment to her parents, who, being so clever themselves, had expected equally great things from their younger daughter as well. Her best had never, ever been good enough.

‘Well, I have a sister and I’m very fond of her,’ she mumbled, not meeting his eyes because she was ashamed that she had kept Opal hidden like a nasty secret when indeed she could not have got through the past year without her sister’s support.

‘Why are you feeding me this bull?’ Rocco demanded with sardonic bite. ‘Nothing you’ve said so far comes anywhere near explaining why you should suddenly be clutching a wheelbarrow instead of fingering a keyboard!’

Amber swallowed hard. ‘Within a month of that kiss-and-tell story appearing in print, I was at the top of the hit list at Woodlawn Wyatt. They said they were overstaffed and, along with some others, I lost my job.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ Rocco conceded without sympathy. ‘Merchant banks are conservative institutions—’

‘And the regular banks are still shedding staff practically by the day so I couldn’t find another opening,’ Amber admitted, tight-mouthed, hating the necessity of letting him know that she had struggled but failed to find similar employment. ‘I also suspect that, whenever a reference was taken up with my former employers, the knives came out—’

‘Possibly,’ Rocco mused in the same noncommittal tone. ‘But had you stayed in London—’

‘Being out of work in a big city is expensive. I hadn’t been with Woodlawn Wyatt long enough to qualify for a redundancy payment. I moved in with my sister for a while—’

‘This is a rural area but it’s also part of the commuter belt. Surely you could have found employment more—’

Her patience gave out. ‘Look, I’m happy as I am and I only came up here in the first place to ask you to back off and just forget you ever saw me!’

Rocco lounged back against the polished footboard on the elegant sleigh bed, bringing their eyes into sudden direct contact and somehow making her awesomely aware that they were in a bedroom together. ‘Do you really mean that?’

Amber blinked but it didn’t break the mesmerising hold of his arresting dark golden eyes for long enough to stifle the terrifying tide of sheer physical longing that washed over her. Memory was like a cruel hook dragging her down into a dangerous undertow of intimate images she was already fighting not to recall. Rocco tumbling her down on his bed and kissing her with the explosive force that charged her up with the passion she had never been able to resist; Rocco’s expert hands roving over her to waken her in the morning; the sheer joy of being wanted more than she had ever been wanted by anyone in her entire life.

‘What are you t-talking about?’ Amber stammered, dredging herself out of those destabilising and enervating memories.

‘Do you really want me to forget I ever saw you?’ Rocco viewed her steadily from beneath inky black lashes longer than her own.

‘What else?’ Already conscious of her heightened colour and quickened breathing, Amber was very still for every fibre of her being was awake to the smouldering atmosphere that had come up out of nowhere to entrap her.

‘Liar…’ The effect of the husky reproof Rocco delivered was infinitely less than the sudden sensual smile of amusement that curled his wide, eloquent mouth.

Images from a distant, happier past assailed Amber: the sound of a smile in his deep voice on the phone, the feeling of euphoria, of being appreciated when he looked at her in just that way. What way? As if there were only the two of them in the whole wide world, as if she was someone special. Before Rocco came along, nobody had ever made Amber feel special or important or needed.

Her breath catching in her throat, she stared back at him, wholly enchanted by the charisma of that breathtaking smile. ‘I’m not lying…’ she muttered without even being aware of what she was saying.

Rocco reached out and closed his hands over hers. At first contact, a helpless shiver ran through her. Slowly, he smoothed out her tightly clenched fingers, one by one. Like a rabbit caught in car headlights, she gazed up at him, heart banging against her ribcage, aware only of him and the seductive weakness induced by the heat blossoming inside her. He eased her inches closer. His warmth, the feel of his skin on hers again, the powerful intoxicant of his familiar scent overpowered her senses.

‘I said I wouldn’t touch you again if I was dying but…’ The rasp of his voice travelled down her responsive spine like hot, delicious honey.

‘But?’

’Dio…’ Rocco husked, drawing her the last couple of inches. ‘I believe I could be persuaded otherwise, tabbycat…’

The sound of that endearment made her melt.

‘However, you would have to promise to keep it quiet—’

‘Quiet?’ All concentration shot, she didn’t grasp what he was talking about.

‘I don’t want to open a newspaper on Monday morning to find out how I scored between the sheets again—’

‘Sorry…?’

Without warning, Rocco released her hands and, since he was just about all that was holding her upright on her wobbling lower limbs, she almost fell on top of him. He righted her again with deft cool. ‘Think about it,’ he advised, stepping away from her.

For an instant, Amber hovered, breathing in deep, striving to get her brain into gear again. She did not have to think very hard. ‘Apart from the obvious, what are you trying to imply?’

‘I’m bored this weekend and you challenged me.’

In considerable emotional disarray as she appreciated that she had been standing there transfixed and hypnotised, entirely entrapped by the sexual power he had exercised over her, Amber spun round. ‘I beg your pardon?’

Rocco sent her a sizzling glance of mockery. ‘Maybe I want to see you faking it for my benefit.’

Amber reddened to the roots of her hair. ‘No chance,’ she said curtly and stepped past him to hurry back out to the sitting room.

Without the slightest warning whatsoever, the door she was heading for opened and Kaye Winton walked in. At the sight of Amber, she frowned in astonishment, pale blue eyes rounding. ‘What are you doing up here?’

Mind a complete blank, Amber found herself glancing in desperation at Rocco.

Brilliant dark eyes gleaming, Rocco said, ‘I asked for someone to remove the flowers.’

‘The flowers?’ the beautiful brunette questioned.

‘I’m allergic to them.’ Rocco told the lie with a straight face.

‘Oh, no!’ Kaye surged over to the centre table as if jet-propelled. Gathering up the giant glass vase, she planted it bodily into Amber’s hastily extended arms. ‘Take them away immediately. I’m so sorry, Rocco!’

Her sweater soaked by the water that had slopped out of the vase with the other woman’s careless handling, Amber headed for the corridor at speed, her shaken expression hidden by the mass of trendy corkscrew twigs and lilies she had arranged earlier that day. It was ironic that she should be grateful for Rocco’s quick thinking, even more relieved that her employer’s wife had not come in a minute sooner and found her in his bedroom. How on earth would she ever have explained that?

Indeed, how could she even explain to herself why she had allowed Rocco to behave as he had? She had acted like a doll without mind or voice and offered no objection to his touching her. Sick with shame at her own weakness, Amber disposed of the floral arrangement and pulled on her work boots again with unsteady hands. Rocco was bored. Rocco was playing manipulative games with her to amuse himself. Dear heaven, that hurt her so much. And she knew it shouldn’t hurt, knew she should have been fully on her guard and capable of resisting Rocco’s smouldering sexuality.

Wasn’t she supposed to hate him? Well, hatred had kept her far from cool when he’d turned up the heat. And there she was blaming him when she ought to be blaming herself! Rocco had made her want him again…instantly, easily, reawakening the hunger she had truly believed she had buried for ever. But with every skin-cell alight with anticipation, she had just been desperate for him to kiss her. And he hadn’t kissed her either, which told her just how complete his own control had been in comparison to her own.

Well, she was going to spend the rest of the weekend at her sister’s house and stay well out of Rocco’s way, she told herself impulsively. Then she recalled that she couldn’t do that. True, she was babysitting at her sister’s that evening, but she had to work Saturdays and would have to turn in as usual. Harris Winton was usually home only at weekends and the reason Amber got a day off mid-week instead was that her employer insisted that she be available for his weekly inspection tour of the grounds.

She trudged round to the old coachyard and climbed into the ten-year-old hatchback her brother-in-law, Neville, had given her on loan, saying it had been a trade-in for one of the luxury cars he imported, but not really convincing her with that less-than-likely story. Furthermore, the car was on permanent loan, Amber reflected heavily, once again reminded of just how dependent she was on Neville and Opal’s generosity.

The independence she had sought was as far out of her reach as it had ever been, she conceded heavily. Her sole source of pride was that she was no longer living under her sister’s roof. But she was only able to work because she shared the services of the expensive but very well-trained nanny her sister employed to look after her own child. Amber’s low salary would not stretch to full-time childcare or indeed towards much of a contribution towards the nanny’s salary. So she kept on saying thank you to her family and accepting for Freddy’s sake, striving to repay their generosity by making herself useful in other ways. It occurred to her then that she could have wiped the sardonic smile from Rocco’s darkly handsome features with just a few words.

As she drove over to the exclusive housing development where her sister lived, she asked herself why she hadn’t spoken those words to Rocco when she had finally got the opportunity.

‘Rocco Volpe is pond scum,’ her sister, Opal, had pronounced on the day of Freddy’s birth. ‘But I’d sooner cut my throat than watch you humiliate yourself trailing him through the courts to establish paternity and win a financial settlement. Rich men fight paternity suits every step of the way. The whole process can drag on for years, particularly when the father is not a British citizen. He could leave the country and stonewall you at every turn. Keep your pride…that’s my advice.’

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