Sharon Kendrick - One Wedding Required!

Amber took a mouthful of champagne. This part of her recollection still hurt, despite her ability now to see the humour in it. And the truth. ‘He put the phone down and looked at me for what seemed like an awfully long time, and said that if I started wearing high white stilettos, then I would probably make a reasonable amount of money—’

The journalist frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Neither did I, at first. It was his idea of a joke, you see. Implying that I looked like...like...’

‘Like?’

‘A streetwalker,’ she admitted reluctantly.

‘He said that?’

‘Implied that.’

‘So what did you say?’

‘I told him that his eyes looked like traffic lights—’

‘Traffic lights?’

Amber giggled. ‘Well, yes. His eyes are green, you see—very, very green—only this time they were red as well. He’d had a terrible bout of flu, apparently—first time he’d ever been sick in his adult life. Everyone there said what a terrible patient he had made.’

‘I can’t imagine anyone saying something negative about Finn Fitzgerald’s looks. That must have been a first. Did he mind?’

‘No. He laughed. Just threw back his head and laughed, and said, “Touché,” and everyone stopped what they were doing and just stared at me. At first I thought they were staring because I must have looked such a state. It wasn’t until much later that they told me they had been amazed to see Finn laughing so uninhibitedly. They nicknamed him “Grin” Fitzgerald for a while after that, until he put a stop to it.’

‘You mean he’s a sourpuss usually?’

‘I don’t know if I’d put it quite that way. I mean that not many people can make him laugh.’

‘But you can?’

Amber let her gaze fall demurely to her lap. ‘I hope so.’

‘So he signed you up and asked you out?’

Amber shook her head. ‘No. He told me that I wasn’t tall enough to be a model.’

The journalist let his eyes roam over her. She looked pretty damn good from where he was sitting. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Not really. I’m just over five seven, and most models top six foot these days.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told him he wasn’t polite enough to be my boss, anyway. And that made him laugh. Again.’

‘So you left?’

Amber shook her head. ‘I was about to. Then a phone rang and he started speaking into it, and another one rang and he started gesturing impatiently with his hand, so I picked it up and answered it. I took a message and wrote it down and then started walking out.’

‘So then what happened?’

‘He called me back and asked if I could type and I told him that I could, after a fashion. Then he asked if I could make coffee and I said yes, could he?’

‘And he laughed again, right?’

Amber smiled. ‘That’s right.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then he offered me a job.’

‘As?’

‘A general dogsbody, really—only he gave it a fancy name.’

‘And you told him what he could do with his job?’

‘I was very tempted,’ admitted Amber. And not just by the job, either. ‘But intrigued, at the same time. The atmosphere in this place was wild. And buzzy. I told him that I’d think about it and he said that he didn’t have time to discuss it then, but would I meet him later that evening?’

‘And he took you out for dinner, right?’

‘That’s right,’ smiled Amber. ‘But he brought two models along with him.’

‘So it wasn’t the romantic evening of a lifetime?’

‘Not at all. These two women spent their time being bitchy to one another and trying to compete for his attention.’

‘And what did you do?’

‘I let them get on with it. Just sat there enjoying my supper.’

‘And he was surprised?’

‘Amazed. First of all he sent the two models home, then he looked at my empty plate and said he’d never seen a woman put away that much food before. And I told him that was because I didn’t get to eat in restaurants like that every day, and if he didn’t appreciate the yummy things on the menu then maybe his palate was jaded and perhaps he should try a diet of simple food for a while.’

‘And he laughed again, right?’

‘Yes, he did. And he asked me whether I could cook and I told him that, yes, of course I could cook—but was he looking for an assistant or a wife?’

‘Let me guess—he stared into your big blue eyes and said it was the latter and he’d been waiting all his life for a girl like you?’

‘He did not. He frowned at me and told me that if I went to work for him I’d have to do something about my image, and I said, “Like what?” So he told me to report to him first thing the following morning and all would be revealed.’ Amber took another mouthful of wine, really enjoying herself now. Thinking what uncomplicated fun it had been back then. ‘So I turned to him and asked, “Does this mean you’re offering me the job?” and he glared at me and said of course it did.’

‘So you jumped for joy?’

‘I did not I told him that I couldn’t accept a job unless there was accommodation involved, because my job at the hotel was a living-in job. And he said that shouldn’t be a problem—that he could find me accommodation.’

‘Meaning you could move in with him, I suppose, which was where love first blossomed?’

Amber shook her head. ‘Oh, no. He was offering me the grotty old flat above the agency—well, I say grotty. It wasn’t that bad, and Finn had it decorated for me.’ She remembered how he had insisted on choosing the colours and how it had rankled. Colours which would not have been her choice at all. But in the end it seemed that Finn had known best, because Amber had grown to love the decor he had picked out. As in so many other areas of her life, he had been her guide and her mentor. ‘So I moved in.’

The journalist licked his lips. ‘And he joined you?’

Amber shook her head and laughed. ‘Oh, no! I couldn’t have imagined Finn living there! He had a much grander apartment overlooking Hyde Park.’

The journalist looked around him. ‘That’s this apartment?’

Amber nodded. ‘Uh-huh—and eventually I moved in here. With him. But that’s how it all started.’

The journalist swallowed down another mouthful of wine. ‘So it was like—a red-hot romance straight away?’

‘Certainly not!’ Amber’s mouth pursed into a prim little line. ‘I worked for Finn for two years before he even laid a finger on me.’ Until she had grown to want him so much that she’d thought she would die with the wanting. And had convinced herself that a man like that wouldn’t look twice at a working-class girl from the council estate. But in that she had been completely wrong. A smile played around the lush curves of her mouth. ‘He played Pygmalion instead.’

‘And how did he do that?’ asked the journalist casually.

‘Oh, he sent me to a make-up artist and a hairdresser. Then I had my colours done by a colour therapist, and after that I saw a stylist and she advised me about what kind of clothes to wear.’

‘She advised you pretty well,’ murmured the journalist, running his eyes over the gold silk-knitted tunic dress she wore, which showed off the best pair of legs he had ever seen.

‘Well, Finn certainly thinks so,’ said Amber, an unmistakable note of reproof in her voice which told the journalist in no uncertain terms to back off.

‘Er, yes. Finn.’ Averting his eyes from the milky-white stockings which made her legs sheen so provocatively, the journalist took another sip of his champagne instead. ‘He’s doing pretty well for himself.’

Amber nodded. Sometimes she thought he was doing a little too well. The business was booming—and so successful that Finn rarely seemed to have time to draw breath just lately. Even acquiring a partner hadn’t helped, not really—even though Jackson Geering was a faultless choice. In fact, maybe Jackson was just too good.