Her Sweet Surrender: The First Crush Is the Deepest. Nina Harrington

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.

      Because there was one thing that her mother never understood—and still did not understand, even when she had tried to explain at the hospital. And then in the endless texts and emails and pleading late night phone calls begging her to reconsider and sometimes challenging her decision to retire.

      Amber had always played for the joy in the music.

      She was not an artist like her mother, who demanded validation and adoration. She just loved the music and wanted to immerse herself in the emotional power of it.

      And Sam Richards was the only other person on this planet who had ever understood that without her having to explain it.

      Until this moment she had thought that connection between them would fade with the years they had spent apart.

      Wrong.

      Sam was looking at her with that intense gaze that used to make her shiver with delight and anticipation of the time that they would spend together and, just for a second, her will faltered.

      Maybe this was not such a good idea?

      Getting her own back on Sam had seemed a perfectly logical thing to do back in the penthouse, but here in the garage which was as familiar as her own apartment, suddenly the whole idea seemed pathetic and insulting to both of them. She had made plenty of poor decisions over the past few years—surely she could forgive Sam the mistakes he had made as a teenager desperate to improve his life?

      Amber opened her mouth and was just about to make an excuse when Sam tilted his head and rubbed his chin before asking, ‘I suppose this is about the money?’

      And there it was. Like a slap across the face.

      Her lower lip froze but she managed a thin smile. ‘Are you talking about the blood money you took from my mother to leave me alone and get out of London? To start your new career, of course.’

      His mouth twisted and faltered. ‘Actually, I was thinking more about the generous donation the paper will be contributing to your favourite charity. Although I should imagine that we are not the only ones to offer you something for your time. Not that you need the money, of course. Or the publicity.’

      ‘You don’t think that I need publicity?’

      ‘Come on, Amber, your face was on billboards and the sides of buses, your last CD went into the top ten classical music charts and you have set new records for the number of followers you have on the social media sites. Publicity is not your problem.’

      ‘It goes with the job—I am in showbiz. Correction. Was in showbiz. That doesn’t interest me any longer.’

      ‘Okay then. So why are you even talking to me about doing an interview? Seeing as you don’t need the publicity.’

      ‘Logistics. I thought that the press would get bored after a couple of weeks and move onto the next musician. Wrong! I was almost mobbed outside the record company this morning. So it makes sense to do one comprehensive interview and get it over with.’

      She waved one hand in the air. ‘One interview. One journalist.’

      Sam shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, his casual smile replaced by unease.

      ‘Wait a minute. Are you offering me an exclusive?’ he asked. ‘What’s the catch?’

      ‘Oh, how suspicious you are. Well. As it happens, I might be willing to give you that interview.’ She cleared her throat and tilted her head, well aware that she had his full attention. ‘But there are a few conditions we need to agree on before I talk on the record.’

      ‘Conditions. This sounds like the catch part.’

      ‘I prefer to think of them as more of a trade. You do something for me, I do something for you. And, from what I have seen so far, you might find some of them rather challenging. Still interested?’

      ‘Ah. Now we have it. You know you have the upper hand so you decided to come down here to gloat?’

      ‘Gloat? Do you really think I would do that?’ she repeated, her words catching at the back of her throat. Was that how he thought of her? As some spoiled girl who had come to impress him with her list of achievements?

      ‘I haven’t changed that much, Sam. We’ve both done what we set out to do. You need an interview and I have a few things I need doing which you might be able to help me with. It’s as simple as that.’

      ‘Simple? Nothing about you was ever simple, Amber.’

      Sam leaned back against the workbench and stretched out his long arms either side of him so that his biceps strained against the fabric of his T-shirt across his chest and arms. The sinewy boy she had known had been replaced by a man who knew his power and had no problem using it to get his way.

      And the tingle of that intense gaze sent the old shivers down the back of her legs and