The Christmas Eve Bride. Lynne Graham

swell of her full breasts. Within her bra, the tender peaks of her sensitive flesh pinched tight with stark awareness. As his stirring scrutiny slid lazily down to the all-female curve of her hips, an almost forgotten ache clenched her belly.

      ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Amber folded her arms with a jerk, holding her treacherous body rigid as if by so doing she might drive out those mortifying responses. Only now she was horribly conscious of her wind-tossed hair, her lack of make-up and her workworn T-shirt and jeans. Once, she recalled, she had taken time to groom herself for Rocco’s benefit. Suddenly she wanted to dive into the wretched compost heap and hide! Rocco, so smooth, sophisticated and exclusive in his superb charcoal-grey business suit and black cashmere coat. He had to be wondering now what he had ever seen in her and her already battered pride writhed under that humiliating suspicion.

      ‘Why are you working for Harris Winton as a gardener?’ Rocco asked drily.

      ‘That’s none of your business.’ Pale and fighting a craven desire to cringe, Amber flung her head high, determined not to be intimidated.

      ‘But I am making it my business,’ Rocco countered levelly.

      Amber could not credit his nerve. Her temper was rising. ‘Being one of the Wintons’ guests doesn’t give you the right to give me the third degree. Now, why don’t you go away and leave me alone?’

      ‘You really have changed your tune, cara,’ Rocco murmured in a tone as smooth as black velvet. ‘As I recall, I found persuading you to leave me alone quite a challenge eighteen months ago.’

      That cruel reminder stabbed Amber like a knife in the heart. Indeed, she felt quite sick inside. She had not expected that level of retaliation and dully questioned why. Rocco was a ruthless wheeler-dealer in the money markets and as feared as he was famed for his brilliance. In automatic self-protection from that cutting tongue, she began walking away. Eighteen months ago, Rocco had dumped her. Indeed, Rocco had dumped her without hesitation. Rocco had then refused her phone calls and when she had persisted in daring to try and speak to him, he had finally called her back and asked her with icy contempt if she was now ‘stalking’ him!

      ‘Where are you going?’ Rocco demanded.

      Amber ignored him. She had been working near the house. Obviously he had seen and recognised her and curiosity had got to him. But it struck her as strange that he should have acted on that curiosity and come outside to speak to her. A guy who had suggested that she might have stalking tendencies ought to have looked the other way. But then that had only been Rocco’s brutally effective method of finally shaking her off.

      ‘Amber…’

      Bitterness surged up inside her, the destructive bitterness she had believed she had put behind her. But, faced with Rocco again, those feelings erupted back out of her subconscious mind like a volcano. She spun back with knotted fists, her small, shapely figure taut, angry colour warming her complexion. ‘I hate you…I can’t bear to be anywhere near you!’

      Rocco elevated a cool, slanting dark brow. He looked hugely unimpressed by that outburst.

      ‘And that is not the reaction of the proverbial woman scorned,’ Amber asserted between gritted teeth, determined to disabuse him of any such ego-boosting notion. ‘That is the reaction of a woman looking at you now and asking herself how the heck she could ever have been so stupid as to get involved with a rat like you!’

      Alive with sizzling undertones and tension, the splintering silence almost seemed to shimmer around them. Glittering dark golden eyes flamed into hers in a crash-and-burn collision and she both sensed and saw the fury there that barely showed in that lean, strong face. No, he hadn’t liked being called a rat.

      ‘But you’d come back to me like a bullet if I asked you,’ Rocco murmured softly.

      Amber stared back at him in shock. ‘Are you kidding?’

      ‘Only making a statement of fact. But don’t get excited,’ Rocco advised with silken scorn. ‘I’m not asking.’

      Unfamiliar rage whooshed up inside Amber and she trembled. ‘Tell me, are you trying to goad me into physically attacking you?’

      ‘Possibly trying to settle a score or two.’ With that unapologetic admission, Rocco studied her with cloaked eyes, his hard bone-structure grim. ‘But let’s cut to the baseline. You can only be working here to spy on the Wintons for some sleazy tabloid story—’

      ‘I beg…your pardon?’ Amber cut in unevenly, her eyes very wide.

      Ignoring that interruption, Rocco continued,’ Harris is a friend. I intend to warn him about you—’

      ‘What sleazy tabloid story? Warn him about me?’ Amber parroted with helpless emphasis. ‘Are you out of your mind? I’m not spying on anyone… I’m only the gardener, for goodness’ sake!’

      ’P-lease,’ Rocco breathed with licking contempt. ‘Do I look that stupid?’

      Amber was gaping at him while struggling to master her disbelief at his suspicions.

      ‘How much money did you make out of that trashy kiss-and-tell spread on me?’ Rocco enquired lazily.

      ‘Nothing…’ Amber told him after a sick pause, momentarily drowning in unpleasant recollections of the events which had torn her life apart eighteen months earlier. A couple of hours confiding in an old school-friend and the damage had been done. What had seemed like harmless girly gossip had cost her the man she loved, the respect of work colleagues and ultimately her career.

      Rocco dealt her a derisive look. ‘Do you really think I’m likely to swallow that tale?’

      ‘I don’t much care.’ And it was true, Amber registered in some surprise. Here she was, finally getting the opportunity to defend herself but no longer that eager to take it. But then the chance had come more than a year too late. A time during which she had been forced to eat more humble pie than was good for her. She had stopped loving him, stopped hoping he would contact her and stopped caring about his opinion of her as well. After he had ditched her, Rocco had delighted the gossip columnists with a series of wild affairs with other women. He had provided her with the most effective cure available for a broken heart. Her pride had kicked in to save her and she had pulled herself together again.

      ‘You already have all the material you need on the Wintons?’ Rocco prompted with strong distaste.

      The rage sunk beneath the onslaught of sobering memories gripped Amber again. ‘Where do you get off, throwing wild accusations like this at me? What gives you the right to ignore what I say and assume that I’m lying? Your superior intellect?’ Her green eyes flashed bright as emerald jewels in her heart-shaped face, her scorn palpable. ‘Well, it’s letting you down a bucketful right now, Rocco—’

      ‘My ESP is on overload right now. I don’t think so,’ Rocco mused, studying her with penetrating cool.

      A hollow laugh was wrenched from Amber’s dry throat. ‘No, you naturally wouldn’t think that you could be wrong. After all, you’re the guy who’s always one hundred per cent right about everything—’

      ‘I wasn’t right about you, was I? I got burned,’ Rocco cut in with harsh clarity, hard facial bones prominent beneath his bronzed skin.

      I got burned. Was that how he now viewed their former relationship? Amber was surprised to hear that, but relieved to think that the hurt, the embarrassment and the self-recriminations had not only been hers. But then he was talking about his pride, the no-doubt wounding effect of his conviction that she had somehow contrived to put one over him. He wasn’t talking about true emotions, only superficial ones.

      ‘But not enough,’ Amber responded tightly, thinking wretchedly of the months of misery she had endured before she’d wised up and got on with her life without looking back to what might have been. ‘I don’t think you were burned half enough.’

      ‘How