Red-Hot And Reckless

Ben glared down at the rolled up paper. He conceded that it was this ongoing obsession with Amber Hollingsworth which made him keep on subscribing to this pathetic rag. Why couldn’t he get over his masochistic fascination with the female? Why couldn’t he bear to sever the link once and for all by cancelling his subscription and never returning to Sunrise Point, not even at Christmas?

It seemed that such a final action was beyond him. For one thing he could not hurt his gran by never returning to the farm. She was a right pain in the neck, but she had been good to him when he’d desperately needed someone. If it hadn’t been for his gran’s support and encouragement, he probably would have ended up on the other side of the law.

Ben accepted that this coming Easter—which was less than a month away—he would drive back to Sunrise Point and sit in that damned church again, dreading yet aching to see his eternal torment one more time.

He drained the last of his drink, placed the empty glass on the coffee table, scooped up the paper from his armchair and plonked himself down. With angry sweeping movements, he spread the paper out on his lap.

The headline jumped out at him, and then the photo of his gran. His heart began to thump as he read the story, a mounting fury sending his blood charging hotly around his body. But along with the fury was frustration. Why hadn’t his Gran told him? Why hadn’t she rung?

He practically ground his teeth as he thought of Amber Hollingsworth, smugly thinking she could sweet-talk a seemingly defenceless old lady into parting with her home and land. For a pittance, no doubt.

Well, she didn’t know his gran, did she? Amber thought she could have anything she wanted, when she wanted it, simply because she’d been born rich and beautiful. Her motto in life was, ‘I want. And what I want, I get. And when I don’t want it any more, I get out’.

He felt sorry for that poor bastard who’d married her. No doubt she’d led him a merry dance. She’d led every male who cared about her merry dances. Chris Johnson had been given short shrift straight after that graduation ball. He’d been no longer wanted once the richest man in town gave his darling daughter a fancy trip around the world. Chris had bad-mouthed Amber around town for months afterwards, finally revealing the true nature of their relationship. His opinion of her was no higher than Ben’s own.

Ben clenched his teeth hard in his jaw. He’d denied her instant gratification once, and, by God, he’d make sure she didn’t have it this time, too.

No way was Ben going to allow his Gran to sell that land to the Hollingsworths. He’d buy the useless damned farm himself, if need be! The time for getting even with the Princess of Sunrise Point had finally arrived.

CHAPTER THREE

‘PERHAPS you don’t realise it, Amber, but, aside from that scandalous business in the paper yesterday, your father is very disappointed in you.’

Amber closed her eyes momentarily, grateful that her back was turned to her stepmother. Every time they were alone these days, Beverly trotted out some subtle criticism or other. Plus some not so subtle criticisms lately.

It hadn’t always been like that. When Edward Hollingsworth had first started dating Beverly, over ten years ago, she’d been all milk and honey around Amber. Amber had quite liked the woman, despite feeling naturally jealous that her father suddenly had no time for her at all. When they’d married, during Amber’s last year at school, she’d tried to be happy that her father had finally found someone to share his life with. His first wife, Amber’s mother, had tragically drowned only three years after their wedding, and less than two years after Amber’s birth.

Beverly had been an attractive widow in her forties back then, with a grown son of her own who didn’t live with her. She’d kept up a very convincing sweet stepmamma act even after the marriage, though Amber had always wondered whose idea it had been to send her overseas as soon as she’d left school. And she suspected Beverly had been thrilled when Amber had married an American.

It was easy to be nice from a distance. Over the telephone she’d been sweet as apple pie. But when Amber had come home to live, suddenly she could do nothing right in her stepmother’s eyes. Yet Amber had tried to stay out of her way, going every day to the office with her father and leaving the home front totally in her stepmother’s hands.

Beverly’s change in attitude had become even more marked, however, after her husband’s stroke. Clearly she had hoped that her own son, Carl—who had a business and marketing degree—would be brought up from Sydney and put in charge of the family company, which had a wide range of business interests. Hollingsworths Pty Ltd owned several shops in town, as well as all over northern New South Wales. They also had investments in holiday resorts, units, restaurants, and a lot of land.

When Edward had given the job as acting managing director to Amber, Beverly had been hard pushed to hide her resentment. When Amber had begun making a success of her new position, the gloves had really come off.

Beverly especially hated the new adult closeness which had developed between father and daughter. She was always trying to drive wedges between them. The article in the paper had provided her with a wonderful weapon over the past twenty-four hours. But it seemed it wasn’t enough.

Amber finished pouring herself a glass of white wine whilst pondering her amazing capacity for making enemies over the years. Most of the girls at school had loathed her. Her stepbrother, Carl, despised her. Her ex-husband, Chad, had tried to kill her when she’d said she was leaving him. Chris, her high school sweetheart, had never forgiven her for making a fool of him on that ghastly night.

But all of them paled into insignificance beside what Ben Sinclair felt for her. No doubt murder would be too good for Amber Hollingsworth, in his opinion.

But she wouldn’t think about Ben just now. Thinking about Ben always disturbed her far too much, and she needed every ounce of composure she owned to combat Beverly once she got on her ‘tear Amber down to size’ bandwagon.

She turned to face her stepmother, feeling oddly curious over what the woman had come up with this time. ‘Really, Beverly? In what other way is Dad disappointed in me?’

‘Just look at you,’ Beverly said, with a faint curl of her thinnish upper lip. ‘Twenty-eight years old and you’re husbandless, childless and sexless.’

Amber’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Sexless, Beverly? What on earth do you mean?’ No point in defending the husbandless and childless part. They were all too evident. And if her stepmother’s tactless remark hurt, she certainly wasn’t going to show it. Amber was a past master at hiding hurts.

‘You know very well what I mean,’ Beverly continued curtly. ‘Oh, you’re beautiful enough, I suppose, though far too thin in my opinion...’

Amber’s blue eyes moved tellingly over her stepmother’s growing bulk, but she said nothing. She didn’t have to. Beverly’s snaky remark had said it all.

‘You haven’t dated once in the three years you’ve been living at home since your divorce. Clearly you don’t care for male company.’

Amber sipped her drink as she walked slowly across the finely furnished lounge room and settled herself on the silk brocade sofa. Beverly was sitting in her usual chair, nursing a generous whisky and soda.

‘You’re wrong, Beverly,’ she said, quite calmly. ‘I like male company a lot. I prefer it, actually, to female company. I enjoy talking with Father and the other men I work with very much. As for your accusation about my dating, I’ve been out to dinner with several men this past year.’

‘That’s not what I mean and you know it,’ Beverly snapped. ‘They were just business dinners. One could not call them proper dates by any stretch of the imagination.’

‘Oh, I see—you’re talking about sex!’ Amber said bluntly, having learnt since going into business that, occasionally, attack was the best defence.

‘That’s right. I’m talking about sex. Is that a dirty word with you?’

‘Not if it’s accompanied by the word ’love’, Beverly. I’m one of those peculiar girls who needs to be in love to enjoy making love.’

And that’s the most hypocritical thing you’ve ever said in your life, whispered her conscience. A lie of the most mammoth proportions. A whopper, in fact. The most memorable lovemaking you ever experienced in your life was when love had nothing to do with it.

Amber tried to keep the hot memory of that incredibly brief and incredibly torrid encounter from tumbling into her mind. But it was impossible.

She was back there in her head, and in her body. Behind the staff block, pressed up against the darkened door, panting as Ben pushed her panties aside and entered her as they stood there.

My God, she could still remember how it had felt as he’d done it to her! She’d been consumed by a wild, hot pleasure, plus the most compelling need. How would it have felt if he’d continued? she’d often wondered since.

She hadn’t been sure why he’d stopped at first. Till he’d sneered his contempt at her.

‘You might be incredibly beautiful,’ he’d snarled, ‘and you might be filthy rich. But underneath that high and mighty touch-me-not air you’re nothing but a slut, Amber Hollingsworth. A cheap little slut! Don’t go imagining for one moment I really like you. I just wanted to show you how easily I could have you. But, quite frankly, I’ve never been partial to girls who open their legs at the drop of a hat.’

If he’d been expecting her to argue, or cry, or fall apart, he’d been sadly mistaken. Amber had always possessed a fierce self-protective pride which made her react to hurt and embarrassment—and, yes, shame —by withdrawing behind a façade, a shell of cool, even icy indifference.

People often thought her a snob at times like that—or a hard-hearted bitch—but that was not so. It was simply a survival mechanism she’d learnt as a little girl when she hadn’t had a mother to advise or protect her. In those days her father had rarely been home, leaving the childminding to paid help who hadn’t given a damn about Amber on a personal level. It had been easier to withdraw from a distressful or confusing situation than ask a virtual stranger how to handle it. Eventually it had become an automatic behaviour pattern to deal with any kind of emotional conflict.

Which was why she’d always behaved so badly around Ben Sinclair. From the first moment he’d walked into their class, when she’d been fifteen, she’d been bewildered by her feelings for him. She’d been strangely drawn to those dark, angry eyes and his intriguingly antisocial personality. She hadn’t liked him, but she’d been attracted nevertheless. Oh, how she’d wanted him to look at her, to chase after her like most of the other boys in school. When he hadn’t, she’d tried to rouse some sort of reaction by making sarcastic remarks.

On the one day she’d caught him actually staring at her, with undisguised lust in that brooding black gaze of his, she’d been in danger of self-combustion. So rattled had she been by the instant heat he’d evoked in her, she’d only just managed to hide her fluster behind another of her highly caustic comments.

There was no doubt she’d hurt him that time with her barb, for he’d glared at her with hatred in his eyes. After that encounter he had not looked at her again with anything other than contempt.

Not till the night of the graduation ball...

Dear heaven, she’d nearly died when he’d walked into the school hall that night. He’d been smoulderingly handsome in that black dinner suit. He’d looked a man where the rest of her classmates had been just boys.

And he’d looked at her as a man would have looked at her.

His very adult desire had seared across the dance floor, sending darts of fire licking along her veins. She hadn’t been able to stop glancing back at him; hadn’t been able to stop wanting him to ask her to dance. Yet when he’d finally come over, he hadn’t asked her to dance. He’d asked her to go outside with him.

She’d known what he wanted. She’d heard the recent rumours about him, how he only took girls outside from school dances for one thing.