He held out a hand. “Hugo. And you are?”
Feeling as if she was about to step off a cliff, she took his hand. His fingers were long and strong. His grip dry and warm. The tingle that zapped up her arm had her shaking once and letting go.
“Amber.”
“It’s a very great pleasure to meet you, Amber.”
“I’ll bet.”
At that he laughed.
The sound tumbling about inside her belly made her feel empty. Hungry. She breathed through it. “Wicked witch or no, this is private property, so you’d best get moving on. It doesn’t get fully dark for another hour. If you walk with pace you’ll make it to the village in time. There you’ll find somewhere else to sleep.”
The man slid his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, going nowhere.
Amber crossed her arms and shook her head at the guy. But he only smiled back, the directness in his eyes telling her she wasn’t the only one having an “interested at first sight” moment. She rolled her eyes, turned on her heel and beckoned to him over her shoulder.
“Come on, then, Hugo. This way.”
HUGO TWISTED AND STRETCHED, enjoying the creaks and cracks of muscles well-used.
Still half-asleep, he couldn’t be sure if the images skirting the edges of his brain were real, or the remnants of a very good dream. Then slowly, like drops of mercury melting together, he recalled slippery limbs sliding over each other. Warmth easing towards heat. Sighs, laughter, a gasp.
No dream. Just Amber.
A bump to the bed echoed through him, as if it wasn’t the first.
He dragged his eyes open, battling the sharp morning sunshine, to find Amber no longer tucked into his side. Instead, she stood by the other side of her bed, glaring at him.
And he found himself riding a wave of déjà vu.
The first time he’d laid eyes on her she’d worn the white veiled hat and the long, chunky gloves, the bulky overalls and those wild yellow boots. She’d looked like something from a nineteen-fifties space comic. Then she’d stripped down in front of him, all sun-browned shoulders, wildly tangled lashes over whisky-brown bedroom eyes, full lips, her long hair a halo of honeyed gold falling halfway down her back.
The difference this time: her lips were pursed. Her hands white-knuckled on her hips. And her narrowed eyes shot daggers his way.
That didn’t stop him from weighing up the likelihood of dragging her back to bed. He deemed the chances slim.
Brought up never to readily surrender the advantage of position, Hugo sat up, the sheet dragging with him. His feet curled as they hit the rough wooden floor. Then he pulled himself to standing.
Amber’s gaze flickered to his bare chest and she sucked in a sharp breath. The chances looked slightly more promising.
But then her arm lifted, one pointed finger aimed towards her front door, and she said, “Get out.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, get out. Do you not understand what that means? Were you raised by wolves?”
“Nannies. Mostly.”
“Of course you were. Get out of my bed. Get out of my shack. Now.”
Hugo ran both hands over his face, hard and fast. Better to be fully awake for this. “Start at the beginning. You’re not making any sense.”
“Then look at my face. Look deep into my eyes so that you see I am serious. I want you to get out.”
Well, this was new. Her voice rose with each word, rare emotion tinging her words. She was genuinely upset.
“I will go. Of course. If that’s what you want. Look, I’m already out of your bed.” The sheet at his hips slipped as he reached up to scratch his chest.
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, which alleviated his concern, at least a little.
“In the spirit of fair play, I deserve to know why. What has changed in the world since you fell asleep while trying to convince me that honey was better than peanut butter?”
Her hand dropped, just a fraction. Then she regrouped, pointing her finger towards the door with renewed conviction. “Nothing has changed. Not a single thing. Apart from the fact that I now know who you really are.”
Time stood still for the merest fraction of a second, but when it resumed, everything seemed to sit a little off from where it had before.
He nodded, dropped the sheet back onto the bed and ambled over to the metal chair in the corner to gather his clothes. His underwear was nowhere to be seen, and, not about to go searching, he went commando, pulling on his jeans, taking care with the fly.
He’d known their liaison would end. They both had. That had been the underlying beauty of it.
In the first few days it had been diverting, watching things unfold from a safe mental distance. Distance was his usual state of being and Amber had seemed glad of it. The guiltless pleasure, the ease of transaction, the lack of desire on both sides to pry deeper than what the other might like for lunch had led to a beautifully contained affair.
Somehow, in all the hazy sunshine, with the cicadas a constant background hum, the clear edges of their association had begun to blur...until he’d found reasons to come to her earlier, to stay longer. They’d fallen into a rhythm of days lit bright and nights lost to exquisite, immoderate pleasure and murmured nothings in the dark.
As he pushed one arm through his shirt, then the other, he no longer felt distant. The dissatisfaction he felt was real.
But only a fool would have expected the halcyon days to remain that way—like a bug trapped in amber. So to speak. And Hugo was no fool.
“Is that it?” Amber’s words hit his back like bullets. “You don’t have anything to say for yourself?”
He patted his jeans pockets in search of his wallet, phone, keys—then remembered he didn’t carry any. Not here. So he snapped the top button before looking up at her. “What would you like me to say, Amber?”
“I don’t know, that I’m acting crazy? That I’ve been duped—by someone other than you, I mean. That it’s not true.”
She looked so incorruptible, like a force of nature. But something he’d learned in his month in this part of the world—nobody came to Serenity without a good reason. Or a bad one.
He opened his mouth to call her on it, but he stopped himself in time.
He’d never known someone to wear their absoluteness like a badge of honour the way she did. The moment she’d decided to let him into her house she’d decided to let him into her bed. No coquettish equivocation. Only firm decision.
This was the first time he’d seen it waver. Enough for him to take heed. To hold out his hands in conciliation. “I never lied to you, Amber. I am Hugo to my friends, my closest family.”
“To everyone else?”
“I am Prince Alessandro Hugo Giordano, sixth in line to the principality of Vallemont.”
The quiet that followed his statement wasn’t new. The rare times Hugo found himself in a conversation with someone who wasn’t aware of who he was, what he was worth, and who his relatives were, it was clear when the penny dropped.
Though this might have been the first time he was half-dressed when that realisation occurred, he thought ruefully.
A