CHAPTER ELEVEN
AFTER spending the night alone, Amber was nowhere near as stoic. She missed Lucas desperately. She had not slept. She couldn’t work, and finally mid-morning she decided to walk down to the pier. Tomso waved her into the bar and over a cup of coffee he rhapsodised in fractured English over Lucas and their marriage, informing her they had never seen Lucas so happy, and if anyone deserved to be happy he did after the terrible loneliness of the past few years.
Amber presumed Tomso meant the deaths of all Lucas’s family members and it made her think. She had acquired a whole new family that had taken her into their home and hearts while Lucas had lost his. His grief must have been horrendous. Strolling back along the beach, she sat down on the hot sand and took a long, hard look at herself, and was not impressed at what she saw.
She claimed she loved Lucas, but she was too proud and too frightened of being hurt to tell him. But she was hurting now anyway. If she truly loved him, and she did, she should be declaring it from the rooftops, not hiding it as though it were something shameful. Was she really so lacking in courage?
As for Lucas, he had an inherent need to be in control at all times. He was a dynamic, arrogant man, but not a man to talk about his feelings or show them. He was a loner; he withdrew behind a cool, aloof mask at the least sign of challenge to his real emotions. Yet when they made love Amber was almost sure he was as overwhelmed as she was, but far too proud to admit it. But then so was she…
Lucas had hinted she stay with him and have his child. Perhaps that was as near as he could get to admitting he wanted her every way a man wanted a woman, and not just as the sex object he had once labelled her. Christina was dead, and Amber was pretty certain there was no other woman in his life. Dared she take a chance and tell him how she felt? Was she strong enough to cope if he rejected her love? The answer to both questions was yes.
The bible said, ‘hope deferred maketh the heart sick,’ and it was happening to her. Surely it was better to know the truth one way or the other and get on with her life? And, with that thought in mind, she had made her decision.
The following morning Amber dressed with care in one of her Milan purchases. A sleek white linen dress, with a slightly scooped neckline, buttoned from top to bottom and skimming her slender body from shoulder to mid-thigh, with a matching fabric high-heeled sandals and shoulder-bag to complete the outfit. Her long hair was swept up in a twist on top of her head, and even in the late summer heat she looked coolly sophisticated. She had talked Tomso into bringing her to the mainland by boat and he had also arranged the taxi to carry her to the tower block that housed the offices of Karadines International.
Getting out of the taxi, she hitched her bag on her shoulder and took a step towards the entrance and froze. She blinked and blinked again. It couldn’t be—she was seeing things. The woman was dead…
‘Amber, it’s good to see you again. I was sorry to hear about Spiro, but I hear congratulations are in order, and, hey, Lucas isn’t a bad old stick. Even after our divorce he still looks after me, though he does not have to. We have just been to see him.’
It was Christina, a slim, beautiful, positively glowing with life Christina, and obviously pregnant, accompanied by a very handsome young man whom she proudly introduced as her husband with love shining in her dark eyes.
The blood drained from Amber’s face. She was pole-axed. She said something and it must have been okay, because a few minutes later she was standing on her own, her dazed eyes watching Christina and her husband walk down the street.
‘Hi, Amber.’ She vaguely heard her name and turned her head; it was Joe. ‘Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Maybe I have,’ she said without thinking in her shocked state, her stomach twisted with nausea and sweat dampening her smooth brow.
‘Funny! I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour. Lucas has been acting like a bear with a sore head for the last two days. For the sake of his poor beleaguered workforce, try and cheer him up, will you? You are going up to see him?
‘Oh, yes.’ See him! She was going to kill him… Lucas had lied…
‘Come. I’ll show you to his private lift.’ With Joe leading the way, Amber stalked into the Karadines building. Joe ushered her into the small lift.
‘It opens into his private office suite. I’ll probably catch you later,’ Joe said with a grin as the doors swished shut.
Amber sank back against the wall, her mind a mass of teeming emotional pain, humiliation, sheer disbelief. It was a horrible thought, but until now she had not realised how much she had counted on Christina being finally out of his life to win Lucas’s love. Tim had told her to take a chance, but she had never had one… Lucas had told her his wife was dead. It was a lie of such magnitude no one with any sense of morality could forgive it. Not only was Christina alive and well, but she had divorced Lucas and married a gorgeous young man and was pregnant. But Lucas was still looking after her.
With blinding clarity Amber saw it all. It must have been a hell of a jolt to Lucas’s colossal ego to be rejected by the woman he loved, the woman who had lost his child, and then to see Christina happily married and pregnant again.
Amber had felt sympathy for him and had hoped that once the grieving was past he would fall in love with her. Only last night she’d decided to tell him how much she loved him, and all the time the swine had lied to her. His request she have his baby took a much more sinister turn in the light of Christina’s pregnancy. Lucas hated to lose at anything. If his ex-wife could have another child, then so could he. Lucas didn’t care about her, Amber realised. She was obviously a convenient pawn to be
used in the competition with his ex-wife, and Spiro’s legacy was an added bonus.
Amber had been second best once in Lucas’s life and she was damned if she would be again. She didn’t need the lying, conniving pig, and she was about to tell him so. By the time the lift stopped Amber’s overriding emotion was murderous rage.
Her golden eyes leaping with fury, she strode out of the lift, and on past a stunned-looking secretary who cried, ‘You can’t go in there,’ as Amber thrust wide the door of Lucas’s office, and slammed it shut behind her.
The object of her fury was sitting behind a large desk. His head shot up as the door slammed, his black brows arching enquiringly, and not a flicker of emotion disturbed his hard-cut handsome features. ‘Amber, to what do I owe this honour?’
‘Honour, honour!’ she screeched, striding across to the desk and planting her hands flat on it. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word, you devious, lying bastard.’
‘Be careful what you say, Amber.’ Lucas shoved back his seat and stood up, moving around the desk. ‘A Greek will not allow anyone to cast a slur on his honour. Even you, my beautiful virago,’ he drawled mockingly, but with a hint of steel in his tone.
‘How could you?’ she demanded wildly. ‘How could you tell me Christina was dead? What kind of sick joke was that? You want to get down on your knees and pray for your immortal soul or you will surely go to hell.’ She was in full flood now. Her golden gaze clashed with his. ‘The night before our wedding Tim convinced me to take a chance on you growing to love me. After all, you were a man with a man’s need and your first wife was dead. So I did.’ Amber didn’t see the brilliant flare of triumph in Lucas’s eyes—she was on a roll. ‘The other night when you flung my pills from my hand…’ she accompanied the word with the gesture, knocking a desk lamp flying to the floor with a resounding crash, but even that did not stop her ‘…then you suggested I have your baby, I, idiot that I am, actually felt guilty for denying you. I spent all yesterday thinking how really you were a caring guy, but too shy to show your emotions!’ A hysterical laugh escaped her. ‘Shy! You don’t have any genuine emotions, only devious plans!’
‘Amber,’ Lucas slotted in, ‘you’ve got it all wrong.’ Reaching out, he grasped her upper arms.
‘No. I have finally got it right! After five long, miserable years I am over you. I actually came here today to tell you the opposite. What a joke! I got out of the taxi and, low and behold, risen from the dead on your doorstep I meet Christina, the woman you really love. God! How it must have dented your pride to have your young wife discard you. But I am through being a substitute for any woman.’