Not a Marrying Man

CHAPTER FOUR

WHEN Amber woke the next morning, all her fears that her relationship with Warwick was coming to an end in the near future had been firmly pushed aside. She smiled as she glanced over at his naked body spreadeagled across the satin sheets, his arms and legs flung wide, his chest rising and falling in the slow, deep rhythm of the truly spent.

Amber could well understand his exhaustion. He’d been insatiable with her last night, showing her with his tireless lovemaking that he was in no way bored with her. It still amazed Amber how well he knew a woman’s body and how to uncover a woman’s secret desires. There’d been a time—pre Warwick—when she hadn’t been that fussed about sex. But, from the first night she’d spent with Warwick, she’d become a virtual slave to the cravings he evoked and satisfied, oh, so well. Amber could not imagine living without the pleasure of his lovemaking … could not imagine living without him!

But you might have to one day, whispered the voice of reason as she slipped out of the rumpled bed and headed for the bathroom.

It was a disturbing thought. What would she do when and if that happened?

Amber grimaced, clinging to the hope that maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe her dream of Warwick falling in love with her and asking her to marry him was still a possibility. There were times, like last night, when she was confident that he had. There was love in his lovemaking: a tenderness and consideration that didn’t equate with the cold-blooded womaniser that her mother had more or less described him as last night.

‘Oh, my goodness!’ Amber exclaimed, bolting back to the bedroom and checking the time on the digital bedside clock.

‘Twenty to eleven!’ she gasped aloud.

She immediately raced over to shake Warwick on the shoulder.

‘Warwick! Wake up! Wake up! I need you.’

He lifted one heavy eyelid, giving her a droll if bleary look. ‘You have to be joking, Amber,’ he drawled in that cultured voice of his. ‘I would have thought you’d had enough for at least twenty-four hours.’

‘Not for that, silly!’ she said. ‘I need you to drive me over to Mum’s place before midday, then up to Wamberal. To Aunt Kate’s place.’

His second eyelid opened much more quickly, his sleepy expression replaced by bewilderment. ‘Run that by me again, would you? I mean … I’m absolutely sure that your aunt Kate is no longer in residence. So why are we driving up to her place?’

‘She left it to me,’ Amber announced rather baldly. ‘In her will. A new one which she’d made recently and which has only just come to light. Mum rang me about it last night but I forgot to tell you. No, don’t start asking me endless questions right now,’ she raced on when he sat up abruptly with his mouth already opening. ‘We haven’t the time. We have to be out of here in about fifteen minutes flat if we’re going to get to Carlingford before midday. I promised to pick up the keys to Aunt Kate’s before Mum leaves to go to the hairdresser’s.’

Amber took it as testimony to Warwick’s caring that he didn’t argue, or tell her that he had more important things to do that day. He just got up and got on with what she’d asked. Just after eleven they were zooming through the harbour tunnel, though Amber was still a little tense that they might not make it in time.

‘I’ll give Mum a ring once we’re out of the tunnel,’ she said, and fished her mobile out of her handbag. ‘Let her know my estimated time of arrival.’

‘So tell me,’ Warwick asked with a brief glance her way. ‘In your aunt’s new will—are you the only beneficiary?’

‘No. She left her superannuation policy to Dad. But her house and contents go to me alone.’

‘Hmm. I’ll bet your mother’s somewhat peeved at you being left your aunt’s place, rather than her precious boys.’

Amber’s head swung round at this quite intuitive remark.

‘Did you think I didn’t notice the way she favoured your brothers over you?’ he swept on before she could say a single word. ‘Your father, too. I didn’t have to be in their home for more than five minutes to see the lie of the land. Why do you think I couldn’t wait to get you out of there on Christmas Day? I’m not good at keeping my mouth shut when I’m bearing witness to such an injustice, especially against someone I care about.’

Amber didn’t know what to say. This was the closest Warwick had ever come to saying that he loved her. She was so touched, a huge lump formed in her throat.

‘I … I didn’t realise you noticed,’ she mumbled at last.

‘I noticed all right. The only reason I didn’t say something was because it was Christmas, plus I didn’t want to give your parents more reason to put you down. They’d already made it patently obvious that they didn’t approve of your relationship with me. Not that they said so to my face. I would have thought more of them if they had. Your aunt Kate was a bit of dragon, but at least she loved you enough to give me a piece of her mind.’

‘She did?’

‘Indeed she did,’ he said drily.

Kate had had a reputation for speaking her mind. And a reputation for being a bit of a man hater. Though she hadn’t hated all men. She’d liked Max Richmond and had always sung his praises. But then it was highly unusual, Amber supposed, for a billionaire to give up his jet-setting lifestyle to get married and raise a family away from the spotlight of wealth and fame.

‘What did she say?’ Amber asked, though she feared she already knew the answer.

Warwick shrugged his shoulders. ‘The usual. I was a selfish you-know-what who should be hung, drawn and quartered for taking a sweet young thing like you as my mistress.’

‘Oh,’ Amber choked out.

Warwick’s head snapped round. ‘You’re not crying, are you?’

‘No,’ she denied, but shakily.

‘You are,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I can’t stand it when you cry.’

‘I don’t cry all that often,’ Amber said defensively.

‘You have to be kidding, sweetheart. You cry at the news, and at ads, and during all those soppy movies you like to watch. I put a box of tissues by the sofa to mop up your tears.’

‘They’re not real tears. I’m talking about real tears.’ She’d only wept a few times since moving in with Warwick. Once, when her mother was highly critical of her relationship. And then, when she’d heard that her aunt Kate had died. Oh, and yes, after her argument with Warwick last week.

But he hadn’t been witness to that, had he? He hadn’t even been in the same room.

‘Tears don’t solve anything, you know,’ he growled.

‘They’re not meant to solve anything,’ she shot back, dabbing the moisture from her eyes. ‘They just happen.’

‘I don’t like the way women use tears to get what they want.’

‘I don’t.’

‘No,’ he said, if a little reluctantly. ‘You don’t.’

‘Let’s not argue, Warwick,’ she said, worried that the happiness she’d felt this morning was beginning to disintegrate.

‘Only if you promise not to cry.’

She smiled over at him. ‘See? I’ve already stopped.’

‘What about later when you get to your aunt’s place?’

‘I’ll do my best not to.’ But she rather suspected she would shed a few tears then. She hadn’t been there since her aunt died, the wake having been held at a local club.

‘Mmm. I think I should have given you the car for the day. Let you drive yourself up to Wamberal.’

‘But I want you with me. I need your advice on what I should do with Aunt Kate’s place. Besides, I don’t much like driving your car.’

‘What? You don’t like driving a Ferrari? Are you insane?’

‘I don’t like speed the way you do. Promise me you won’t go fast when we get on the expressway. There’s no reason to. We have all the time in the world.’

Warwick almost laughed. All the time in the world was something he certainly did not have. Which meant he didn’t want to spend what precious time he did have with her at Wamberal where she was sure to get weepy over her aunt all over again. Next thing he knew, she’d want to keep the damned place. Maybe even go up there on weekends.

She wanted his advice? Warwick already knew what that advice would be. Put the property in the hands of a good real estate agent to sell, then come back to Sydney with him. He’d already decided he couldn’t be without her just yet. Last night had shown him that. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her. But maybe soon he’d find the strength to end things. Until then, however, he aimed to keep things exactly as they were, with her by his side, and in his bed.

‘I’ll wait for you in the car,’ he said when they finally arrived at her parents’ home in Carlingford just before midday. ‘Got a few things to attend to.’ And he picked up his BlackBerry.

Amber didn’t argue with him. Quite frankly, the last thing she wanted was him by her side when her mother answered the door. She climbed out of the car and hurried up the steep front path to the equally steep front steps. Running up them, she reached the front porch and was about to ring the bell when the door was wrenched open and her mother stood there, looking very annoyed.

‘I’d almost given up on you coming,’ she said sourly.

‘But I rang you from the car to say I’d be here.’

‘I don’t know why you had to leave it to the last minute,’ her mother snapped. ‘It’s not as though you work.’

Amber could think of nothing to say to that. It was true, after all.

‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she heard herself apologising the way she’d been doing all her life. ‘We had a late night and we … er … slept in. If you’ll just give me the keys I’ll be on my way.’

Doreen sniffed her distaste as she swung away and picked up two sets of keys from the nearby hall table. ‘Here they are,’ she said, and handed them over. ‘The second set belongs to Kate’s car. That’s yours too, it seems.’

‘Really?’ Amber could not help feeling pleased at this news. She’d only ever owned one car, a rust-bucket she’d bought when she’d been eighteen and had taken a second job as a waitress and needed wheels to get to and from work at night. Naturally, her parents had refused to let her use either of their vehicles. Neither had they offered to subsidise the purchase of one for her as they had with the boys.

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