Nina Harrington - Her Sweet Surrender - The First Crush Is the Deepest

She pushed herself to her feet and waved a couple of fingers in the air. ‘See you around, Sam.’

And, without hesitating or looking back, Amber strolled towards the garage door on her wedge sandals, the skirt of her floaty dress waving back and forth over her perfect derrière as she headed out of his life, taking any chance of a career in London with her.

FOUR

‘Aren’t you going to ask me what it feels like to finally work in that shiny glass office I used to drag you down to ogle every week?’ Sam called after her. ‘I would hate for you to stay awake at night wondering how I’m coping with being a real life reporter in the big city. Come on, Amber. Have you forgotten all those afternoons you spent listening to my grand plans to be a renowned journalist one day? I know that you’re curious. Give me another five minutes to convince you to choose me instead of some other journalist to write your story.’

Amber slowed and looked back at Sam over one shoulder.

And her treacherous teenage heart skipped a beat and started disco dancing just at the sight of him.

Just for an instant the sound of her name on his lips took her right back to being seventeen again, when the highlight of her whole day, the moment she had dreamt about all night and thought about every second of the day, was hearing his voice and seeing Sam’s face again. Even if it did mean sitting in the back of the limo and in dressing rooms around the country as her mother’s unpaid assistant and general concert slave for hours on end.

It was worth it when Sam took her out for a pizza or a cola for the duration of the concert she had heard so many times she could play it herself note perfect.

She had adored him.

He had not changed that much. A little heavier around the shoulders and the waistline, perhaps, but not much. His smile had more laughter lines now and his boyish good looks had mellowed through handsome into something close to gorgeous. She was sorry to have missed the merely handsome stage. But, if she closed her eyes, his voice was the same boy she used to know.

And the charm? Oh, Lord, he had ramped up the charm to a level where she had no doubt that any female celebrity would be powerless to resist any question he put to them.

Sam had always had a physical presence that could reach out and grab her—no change there, but she had not expected to feel such a connection. Memories of the last time she came to this very garage flooded back. His ready laughter and constant good-natured teasing about watching that she didn’t knock her head on the light fittings. The nudges, the touches, the kisses.

Until he betrayed her with one of her best friends on her eighteenth birthday. And the memories of the train wreck of the weeks that followed blotted out any happiness she might have had.

Amber turned back to face Sam and planted her left hand on her hip.

‘Perhaps I am worried about all of those hidden tape recorders and video feeds which are capturing my every syllable at this very moment?’

He smiled one of those wide mouth, white teeth smiles and, in her weakened pre-dinner state, Amber had to stifle a groan. What was wrong with the man? Didn’t Sam know that the only respectable thing for him to do was to have grown fat and ruined his teeth with sugary food? He had always been sexy and attractive in a rough-edged casual way, as relaxed in his body as she had been uncomfortable in her tall gangly skin. But the years had added the character lines to his face, which glowed with vitality and rugged health. Confidence and self-assurance were the best assets any man could have and Sam had them to spare.

‘In this garage? No. You can say what you like. It’s just between us. Same as it ever was.’

The breath caught in Amber’s throat. Oh, Sam. Trust you to say exactly the wrong thing.

She flicked her hair back one-handed and covered up the bitter taste of so much disappointment with a dismissive choke. He must be desperate to go to such lengths for this interview. She had no idea how much journalists earned, but surely he didn’t need the job that much?

Drat her curiosity.

Of course she remembered the way he used to talk about how he was going to work his way through journalism school at all of the top London newspapers and be the star investigative journalist. His name would be on the front page of the big broadsheet newspapers that his dad read in the car as he waited for his clients to finish their meetings or fancy events.

Maybe that was it?

Maybe he was still hungry for the success that had eluded him. And this interview would take him up another rung in that long and rickety ladder to the front page.

She was a celebrity that he wanted to interview for his paper to win the extra points he needed for the big prize. And the bigger the story the more gold stars went onto his score sheet.

And that was all. Nothing personal. He had walked—no, he had run away from her at the first opportunity to make his precious dream of becoming a professional journalist a reality.

She did not owe him a thing.

‘Same as it ever was? In your dreams,’ she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear. ‘That editor of yours must really be putting the pressure on if you’re resorting to that line.’

Sam shrugged off her jibe but looked away and pretended to tidy up the toolbox on the bench for a second before his gaze snapped back onto her face.

‘What can I say? Unlike some people, I need the job.’ Then he laughed out loud. ‘You always had style, Amber, but retiring at twenty-eight? That takes a different kind of chutzpah. I admire that.’

He stepped forward towards her and nodded towards her arm, his eyes narrowed and his jaw loose. ‘Is it your wrist? I know you said that it was a clean break, but...’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It’s nothing to do with my wrist.’

‘I am glad to hear it. Then how about the other rumours? A lot of people think that you are using this announcement to start a kind of bidding war between rival orchestras around the world. Publicity stunts like this have been done before.’

‘Not by me. I won’t be making a comeback as a concert pianist. Or at least I don’t plan to.’

Amber swallowed down her unease, reluctant to let Sam see that she was still uncertain about where her life would take her.

She had made her decision to retire while recovering in hospital and she’d imagined that a simple press statement would be the easiest way to close out that part of her life. Her agent was not happy, of course—but he had other talent on his books and a steady income from her records and other contracts—she was still valuable to him.

But the hard implications were still there on the horizon, niggling at her.

Music had been her life for so long that just the thought of never performing in public again was so new that it still ruffled her. Playing the piano had been the one thing that she did well. The one and only way that she knew to earn her mother’s praise.

Of course Julia Swan would have loved her daughter to choose the violin and follow in her footsteps, but it soon became obvious that little Amber had no talent for any other instrument apart from the piano.

For a girl who was moving from one home to another, one school to another, one temporary stepdad to another, music had been one of the few constants in her life. Piano practice was the perfect excuse to avoid tedious evenings with her mother and whatever male friend or violin buff she was dating at the time.

The piano was her escape. Her refuge. It was where she could plough her love and devotion and all of the passion that was missing in her life with her bitter and demanding, needy and man-hunting mother.

So she had worked and worked, then worked harder to overcome her technical problems and excel. It was her outlet for the pain, the suppressed anger. All of it. And nobody knew just how much pain she was in.