The First Crush Is the Deepest
Frank sat back in his wide leather chair and folded his arms.
‘More to the point—I want you to go out there and bring back an exclusive interview with the lovely Miss DuBois. You can consider this your first assignment.’
Then Frank shrugged. ‘You can thank me for the opportunity later.’
The words stayed frozen in the air as though trapped inside an iceberg large enough to sink his new job in one deadly head-on collision.
Thank him?
For a fraction of a second Sam wondered if this was some sort of joke. A bizarre initiation ceremony into the world of the London office of GlobalStar Media, and there was a secret camera hidden in the framed magazine covers behind Frank’s head which were recording just how he was reacting to the offer of this amazing opportunity.
Sam flexed out the fingers of both hands so that he wouldn’t scrunch up the magazine and toss it back to Frank with a few choice words about what he thought of his little joke, while his normally sharp brain worked through a few options to create a decent enough excuse as to why Frank should find another journalist for this particular gig.
Sam inhaled slowly as each syllable sank in. It had taken him three months to arrange a transfer from the Los Angeles office of the media giant he had given his life to for the past ten years. He had worked himself up from being the post room boy and sacrificed relationships and anything close to a social life to reach this point in his career.
This was more than just a jump on the promotion ladder; this was the job he had been dreaming about since he was a teenager. The only job that he had ever wanted. Ever. No way was he going to be diverted from that editor’s chair. Not now, not when he had come so far.
Sam blinked twice. ‘Sorry, Frank, but can you say that again? Because I think I must have misheard. I’ve just spent the last ten years working my way from New York to Los Angeles on the back of celebrity interviews. I applied to be an investigative journalist not a gossip columnist.’
Frank replied with a dismissive snort and he bit off a laugh. ‘Do you know what pays for this shiny office we are sitting in, Sam? Magazine sales. And the public love celebrity stories, especially when it concerns a girl with the looks of Amber DuBois. It’s all over the Internet this morning that orchestras have been lining up and offering her huge bonuses to come and work for them for one last season before she retires. And then there is her publicity machine. The girl is a genius.’
He raised one hand into the air and gave Sam a Vee sign. ‘She has only ever been seen with two dates in the last ten years. Two. And not your boring classical musician—oh, no, our girl Amber likes top action men. First there was the Italian racing car driver who she cheered on to be World Champion, then that Scottish mountaineer. Climbing Everest for charity. With the lovely Amber at Base Camp waving him farewell with a tear in her eye. She is the modelling musical sweetheart and her fans love her—and now this.’
The pen went back to some serious tapping. ‘Think of it as your first celebrity interview for the London office. Who knows? This could be the last fluff piece you ever write. Use some of that famous charm I’ve been hearing about—the lovely Miss DuBois will be putty in your hands.’
His hands? Sam’s fingers stretched out over his knees. Instantly his mind starting wheeling through the possibility that someone had tipped off this shark of an editor that ten years ago those same hands had known every intimate detail about Amber ‘Bambi’ DuBois. Her hopes, her dreams, the fact that she always asked for extra anchovies on her pizza and had a sensitive spot at one side of her neck that could melt her in seconds. The way her long slender legs felt under his fingertips. Oh, yes, Sam Richards knew a lot more about Amber DuBois than he was prepared to tell anyone.
This job was going to make or break his career, but he had promised himself on the night they’d parted that, no matter how desperate he was for money or fame, he would never tell Amber’s story. It was too personal and private. And he had kept that promise, despite the temptation—but the world he worked in did not see it that way.
Sam had seen more than one popular musician or actor pull celebrity stunts to get the attention of the media, and he had learnt his craft by writing about their petty dramas and desperate need for attention, but Amber had never been one of them. She didn’t need to. She had the talent to succeed on her own, as well as a body and a face the camera loved.
Frank shuffled in his chair. Impatient for his reply.
Sam took one look into those clever, scheming eyes and the sinking feeling that had been in the bottom of his stomach since he had walked into the impressive office building that morning turned into a gaping cavern.
He was just about to be stitched up.
What could he do? He did not have the authority to walk into a new office and demand the best jobs as though they owed him a future. Just the opposite. But Frank might have waited until his second day as the new boy.
‘I’m sure you’re right, Frank. But I was looking forward to getting started on that investigation into Eurozone political funding we talked about. Has it fallen through?’
Frank reached into his desk drawer and handed Sam a folder of documents.
‘Far from it. Everything we have seen so far screams corruption at every level from the bottom up. Take a look. The research team have already lined up a series of interviews with insiders across Europe. And it’s all there, waiting for someone to turn over the stones and see what is crawling underneath.’
Sam scan read the first few pages of notes and background information for the interviews and kept reading, his mind racing with options on how he could craft a series of articles from the one investigation. And the more he read, the faster his heart raced.
This was it. This was the perfect piece of financial journalism that would set him up as a serious journalist on the paper and win him the editor’s job he had sacrificed a lot to achieve. And it had to be the London office. Not Los Angeles or New York. London.
‘Does your dad still have that limo service in Knightsbridge? We’ve used them a couple of times. Great cars. Your dad might get a kick out of seeing your name on the front page.’
Might? His dad would love it.
His father had sacrificed everything for him after his mother left them. He had been a single parent to a sullen and fiercely angry teenager who was struggling to find his way against the odds. Driven by the burning ambition to show the world that he was capable of being more than a limo driver like his dad.
Sam Richards had made his father’s life hell for so many years. And yet his dad had stuck by him every step of the way without expecting a word of thanks.
And now it was payback time.
This promotion to the GlobalStar London office was a first step to make up for years of missed telephone calls and flying Christmas visits.
Shame that his shiny new career was just about to hit an iceberg called Amber DuBois.
Aware that Frank was watching him with his arms crossed and knew exactly how tempting this piece was, Sam closed the folder and slid it back across the desk. This was no time to be coy.
‘Actually, he sold the limo business a few years back to go into property. But you’re right. He would be pleased. So how do I make that happen, Frank? What do I have to do to get this assignment?’
‘Simple. You have built up quite a reputation for yourself as a hard worker in the Los Angeles office. And now you want an editor’s desk. I understand that. Ten years on the front line is a long time, but I cannot just give you a golden story like this when I have a team of hungry reporters sitting outside this office who would love to make their mark on it. All I am asking you to do is show me that you are as good as they say you are.’
Frank slid the dossier back into his desk drawer. ‘If you want the editor’s desk, you are going to have to come back with an exclusive interview from the lovely Amber. Feature length. Oh—and you have two weeks to do it. We can’t risk someone else breaking Amber’s story before we do. Do we understand each other? Excellent, I look forward to reading your exposé.’
Sam rose to shake hands and Frank’s fingers squeezed hard and stayed clamped shut. ‘And Sam. One more thing. The truth about “Bambi’s Bollywood Babies” had better be amazing or you will be back to the bottom of the ladder all over again, interviewing TV soap stars about their leg-waxing regime.’
He released Sam with a nod. ‘You can take the magazine. Have fun.’
Sam closed the door to Frank’s office behind him and stood in silence on the ocean of grey plastic industrial carpet in the open-plan office, looking out over rows of cubicles. He had become used to the cacophony of noise and voices and telephones that was part of working in newspaper offices just like this, no matter what city he happened to be in that day. If anything, it helped to block out the alarm sirens that were sounding inside his head.
This was the very office block that he used to walk and cycle past every day on his way to school. He remembered looking up at the glass-fronted building and dreaming about what it must be like to be a top reporter working in a place like this. Writing important articles in the newspapers that men like his dad’s clients read religiously in the back seat of the limo.
The weird thing was—from the very first moment that he had told his dad that he wanted to be a journalist on this paper, his dad had worked all of the extra hours and midnight airport runs, week after week, month after month, to make that possible. He had never once doubted that he would do it. Not once.
And now he was here. He had done it.
The one thing he had never imagined was that his first assignment in his dream job would mean working with Amber.
Sam glanced at the magazine cover in his hand. And reflected back at him was the lovely face of the one woman in the world who was guaranteed to set the dogs on him the minute he even tried to get within shouting distance.
And in his case he deserved it. The nineteen-year-old Sam Richards had given Amber DuBois very good reason to never want to talk to him again.
He might have given Amber her first kiss—but he had broken her heart just as fast.
Now all he had to do was persuade her to overlook the past, forgive and forget and reveal her deep innermost secrets for the benefit of the magazine-reading public.
Fun might not be the ideal word to describe how he was feeling.
But it had to be done. There was no going back to Los Angeles. For better or worse, he had burnt those bridges. He needed this job. But more than that—he wanted it. He had worked hard to be standing on this piece of carpet, looking out, instead of standing outside on the pavement, looking in.
He owed it to his dad, who had believed in him when nobody else had, even after years of making his dad’s life a misery. And he owed it to himself. He wasn’t the second class chauffeur’s son any longer.
He had to get that interview with Amber.
No matter how much grovelling was involved.
THREE
‘And you are quite sure about that? No interviews at all? And you did tell Miss DuBois who was calling? Yes. Yes I understand. Thank you. I’ll be sure to check her website for future news.’
Sam flicked down the cover on his cellphone and tapped the offending instrument against his forehead before popping it into his pocket.
Her website? When did a professional talent agency direct a journalist to a website? No, it was more than that. His name was probably on some blacklist Amber had passed to her agent with instructions that she would not speak to him under any circumstances.
He needed to think this through and come up with a plan—and fast.
Sam wrapped the special polishing cloth around his fist and started rubbing the fine polish onto the already glossy paintwork on the back wheel arch of his dad’s pride and joy. The convertible vintage English sports car had been one of the few cars that his dad had saved when he had to sell the classic car showroom as part of the divorce from Sam’s mother.
It had taken Sam and his dad three years to restore the sports car back to the original pristine condition that it was still today. Three years of working evenings after school and the occasional Sunday when his dad was not driving limos for other people to enjoy.
Three years of pouring their pain and bitterness about Sam’s mother into hard physical work and sweat, as though creating something solid and physical would somehow make up for the fact that she had left Sam with his dad and gone off to make a new life for herself with her rich boyfriend. A life funded by the sale of his dad’s business and most of their savings.
But they had done it. Together. Even though Sam had resented every single second of the work they did on this car. Resented it so much that he could cheerfully have pushed it outside onto the street, set it on fire and delighted in watching it burn. Like his dreams had burnt the day his mother left.
In another place, with another father and another home, Sam might have taken his burning fury out in a sports field or with his fists in a boxing ring or even on the streets in this part of London.
Instead, he had directed all of his teenage frustration and anger and bitterness at his father.
He had been so furious with his dad for not changing jobs like his mother had wanted him to.
Furious for not running after her and begging her to come back and be with them—like he had done that morning when he came down for breakfast early and saw her going out of the front door with her suitcases. He had followed that taxi cab for three streets before his legs gave way.
She had never even looked back at him. Not once.
And it was all his dad’s fault. The arguments. The fights. They were all his fault. He must have done something terrible to make her leave.
Sam’s gaze flicked up at the thin partition wall that separated the cab office from the workshop. Just next to the door was a jagged hole in the plaster sheet the size of a teenage fist.
Sam’s fist.
It was the closest he had ever come to lashing out at his dad physically.
The screaming and the shouting and the silent stomping about the house had no effect on this broken man, who carried on working as though nothing had happened. As though their lives had not been destroyed. And to the boy he was then, it was more than just frustrating—it was a spark under a keg of gunpowder.
They’d survived three long, hard years before Sam had taken off to America.
And along the way Sam had learnt the life lessons that he still carried in his heart. He had learnt that love everlasting, marriage and family were outdated ideas which only wrecked people’s lives and caused lifelong damage to any children who got caught up in the mess.
He had seen it first-hand with his own parents, and with the parents of his friends like Amber and the girls she knew. Not one of them came from happy homes.
The countless broken marriages and relationships of journalists and the celebrities he had met over the years had only made his belief stronger, not less.
He would be a fool to get trapped in the cage that was marriage. And in the meantime he would take his time enjoying the company of the lovely ladies who were attracted to luxury motors like free chocolate and champagne, and that suited him just fine.
No permanent relationships.
No children to become casualties when the battle started.
Other men had wives and children, and he wished them well.
Not for him. The last thing he wanted was children.
Pity that his last girlfriend in Los Angeles had refused to believe that he had no intention of inviting her to move into his apartment and was already booking wedding planners before she realised that he meant what he said—he cared about Alice but he had absolutely no intention of walking down an aisle to the tune of wedding bells any time soon. If ever.
No. Sam had no problem with using his charm and good looks to persuade reluctant celebrities to talk to him—and he was good at it. Good enough to have made his living out of those little chats and cosy drinks.
But when it came to trust? Ah. Different matter altogether.
He placed his trust in metal and motor engineering and electronics. Smooth bodywork over a solid, beautiful engine designed by some of the finest engineers in the world. People could and would let you down for no reason, but not motors. Motors were something he could control and rely on.
He trusted his father and his deep-seated sense of integrity and silent resolve never to bad-mouth Sam’s mother, even when times had been tough for both of them. And they had been tough, there was no doubt about that.
But there had always been one constant in his life. His dad had never doubted that he would pass the exams and go to university and make his dream of becoming a journalist come true.
Unlike his mother. The last conversation that they ever had was burned into his memory like a deep brand that time and experience would never be able to erase.
What had she called him? Oh, yes. His own mother had called him a useless dreamer who would never amount to anything and would end up driving other people around for a living, just like his father.
Well, he had proven her wrong on every count, and this editor’s job was the final step on a long and arduous journey that began the day she left them.
It was time to show his dad that he had been right to keep faith in him and put up with the anger. Time to show him that he was grateful for everything he had done for him.
All of which screamed out one single message.
He needed that interview with Amber. He knew that she was in London—and he knew where her friends lived. He had to persuade her to talk to him, no matter what it took, even if it meant tracking her down and stalking her. He had come too far to let anything stand in his way now.
Amber DuBois. The girl he left behind.
His hands stilled and he stepped back from the car and grabbed a chilled bottle of water from the mini-fridge in the corner of the workshop and then pressed the chilled bottle against the back of his neck to try and cool down. Time to get creative. Time to...
The bell over the back door rang. Odd. His dad didn’t like customers coming to the garage. This was his private space and always had been. No clients allowed.
Sam turned down the radio to a normal level and was just wiping his hands on a paper towel when the workshop’s wooden door swung open.
And Amber ‘legs up to her armpits’ Bambi DuBois drifted into his garage as though she was floating on air.
* * *
He looked up and tried to speak, but the air in his lungs was too frozen in shock. So he squared his shoulders and took a moment to enjoy the view instead.
Amber was wearing a knee length floral summer dress in shades of pastel pink and soft green which moved as she walked, sliding over her slim hips as though the slippery fabric was alive or liquid.
Sam felt as though a mobile oasis of light and summer and positive energy had just floated in on the breeze into the dim and dingy old garage his dad refused to paint. The dark shadows and recesses where the old tins of oil and catalogues were stored only seemed to make the brightness of this woman even more pronounced.
She took a few steps closer, her left hand still inside the heart-shaped pocket of her dress and he felt like stepping backwards so that they could keep that distance.
This was totally ludicrous. After all, this was his space and she was his visitor.
His beautiful, talented, ridiculously lovely visitor who looked as though she had just stepped out from a cover shoot for a fashion magazine.
She was sunlight in his darkness—just the same as she had always been, and seeing her again like this reinforced just how much he had missed her and never had the courage to admit it.
Amber looked at him with the faintest of polite smiles and slipped her sunglasses higher onto her nose with one fingertip.
‘This place has not changed one bit,’ she whispered in a voice what was as soft and musical and gentle and lovely as he had remembered. A voice which still had the power to make his blood sing.
Then she glanced across at the car. ‘You even have the same sports car. That’s amazing.’
Sam had often wondered how Amber would turn out. Not that he could avoid seeing her name. Her face was plastered on billboards and the sides of buses from California to London. But that was not the real Amber. He knew that only too well from working in the media business.
No. This was the real Amber. This beautiful girl who was running the manicured fingertips of her left hand along the leather seat of the sports car he had just polished.
Maybe she had decided to forgive him for the way they had parted.
‘My dad kept it.’ He shrugged. ‘One of a kind.’
Amber paused and she sighed. ‘The last time I saw this car was the night of my eighteenth birthday party and you were sitting in the front seat with your tongue down the throat of my so called friend Petra. About twenty minutes after you had declared your undying love for me.’
She gave a strangled chuckle. ‘Oh, yes, I remember this car very well indeed. Shame that the driver was not quite as classy.’
Or maybe she hadn’t.
Sam pushed his hand down firmly on the workbench behind him.
So. Here we go. In her eyes he was still the chauffeur’s son who had dared to date the rich client’s daughter. And then kissed her best friend.
Goodbye editor’s desk.
Time to start work and turn on the charm before she chopped him into small pieces and barbecued him on the car’s exhaust pipe.
‘Hello, Amber. How very nice to see you again.’ He smiled and stepped forward to kiss her on the cheek but, before he got there, Amber flipped up her sunglasses onto the top of her head and looked at him with those famous violet-blue eyes which cut straight through any delusion that this was a social call.
Her eyes might have sold millions of tubes of eye make-up, but close up, with the light behind her, the iridescent violet-blue he remembered was mixed with every shade from cobalt to navy. And, just for him today...blue ice.
The contrast between the violet of her eyes and her straight blonde hair which fell perfectly onto her shoulders only seemed to highlight the intensity of her gaze. The cosmetic company might have chosen her for her peaches and cream ultra-clear complexion, but it had always been those magical blue eyes that Sam found totally irresistible. Throw in a pair of perfect sweet soft pink lips and he had been done for from the first time he had seen her stepping out of his dad’s limo with her diva mother screaming out orders from behind her back.
She didn’t seem to know what to do with her long legs, her head was down and she peered at him through a curtain of long blonde hair before brushing it away and blasting his world with one look.
Now she was standing almost as tall as he was and looking him straight in the eyes. The smile on her lips had not reached her eyes and Sam had to fight past the awkwardness of the intensity of her gaze.
‘My agent mentioned that you were back in town. I thought I might pop in to say hello. Hope you don’t mind.’
Her gaze shifted from the casual trainers he had found stuffed in the bottom of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom, faded blue jeans and the scraggy, oil-stained T-shirt he kept for garage work. ‘I can see that your fashion sense hasn’t changed very much. Shame, really. I was hoping for some improvement.’
Sam glanced down at his jeans and flicked the polishing cloth against his thigh. ‘Oh, this little old outfit? Don’t you just hate it when all of your chiffon is at the dry cleaner’s and you can’t find a thing to wear?’ He crossed his arms. ‘And no, Amber, I don’t mind you popping in at all, especially since my editor has been harassing your agent for weeks to arrange an interview. He will be delighted to hear that you turned up out of the blue, expecting me to be here.’