Read Online Not a Marrying Man by Miranda Lee - Free Book Online Page A

engine. ‘This isn’t the end of us, Amber Roberts,’ he threatened in an ominously low voice. ‘I’ll be back once you’ve calmed down.’
    Amber gripped her handbag defensively in front of her as she watched him do a rather savage U-turn, chewing up some of the grass as he accelerated out onto the road and sped off.
    For almost a minute, she just stood there, listening to the slowly decreasing noise of his angry departure, till finally the only sound she heard was the low hum of distant traffic.
    It was then that she started to cry, deep wrenching sobs, which she feared the neighbours might hear. There were houses on either side.
    Not wanting contact with anyone at that moment, Amber dropped her phone back into her bag and snatched up the keys to the house. Naturally, the key to the back door was the last one she tried. By the time she locked the door behind her, her weeping had subsided somewhat.
    But not her distress. Amber dropped her handbag onto the hall table before burying her face in her hands.
    ‘Oh, Warwick … Warwick,’ she cried heartbrokenly.
    He had vowed to come back. But she doubted that he would. That had just been his ego talking again. Once he thought about it more rationally, he’d see that there was no point in trying to keep their relationship going. Not when it was obviously on borrowed time. As soon as Warwick realised he’d disposed of his Australianmistress very cheaply indeed, he would be a fool not to cut and run.
    And Warwick was no man’s fool.
    Despite knowing that their break-up was all for the best, such thinking depressed Amber. She’d honestly believed that he’d come to care for her; that she meant more to him than just a temporary plaything, to be bought off when he tired of her, or when she committed the unforgivable sin of becoming ‘emotionally involved’.
    Amber noted, however, that even then Warwick couldn’t bring himself to say the world
love.
It was some comfort to her own pride that she’d never told him she’d fallen in love with him. Now, she never would.
    She sighed as she lifted her head from her hands.
    ‘Maybe I should have accepted the apartment,’ she muttered dispiritedly. ‘People will think
me
a fool for ending up with nothing.’
    But if she had taken it, then she would have become what everyone had probably been calling her behind her back. A rich man’s whore. At least she did have her pride, which, she supposed, was something.
    Or was it?
    What was that saying about pride being a lonely bedfellow?
    Her mobile phone suddenly ringing was a telling moment. For in that split second Amber became brutally aware that pride was not as powerful as love. The truth was she
wanted
it to be Warwick calling her. She wanted him to come back.
    Unable to stop herself, she hurriedly retrieved her phone from her handbag and flipped it open, her heart thudding loudly behind her ribcage.
    ‘Yes?’ she choked out.
    ‘It’s me, Amber. Your mother.’
    ‘Oh …’ Impossible to keep the disappointment from her voice, or the dismay from her heart.
    ‘Are you at Aunt Kate’s yet?’ her mother asked abruptly.
    Amber sighed. ‘Yes.’
    ‘Look, I forgot to tell you that Max Richmond wants you to give him a call. Kate used his solicitor, it seems, to make her new will and there are papers you will need to sign to transfer the house and car, et cetera, into your name.’
    ‘Fine,’ she said wearily. ‘Do you have his number?’
    Amber put the number into her menu.
    ‘Is that all, Mum?’
    ‘Yes. No. I … er … can you talk for a moment? ‘
    ‘What about?’
    ‘Well … I’ve been thinking about the things you said to me today and I feel really terrible. I do love you, Amber. Yet I can see why you might think I favour the boys. Please … I’d like to try to explain how it was when you came along.’
    Did her mother honestly think she didn’t know how it had been? She was well aware that her father had wanted to stop having children after the two boys