Chapter Nine

Nik spied Amber jogging alongside the large lake in Victoria Park. After overhearing Josh and Lauren on the phone discussing that Amber had gone for a run in the park, he’d wondered whether they’d bump into each other since he’d already planned to go for a walk there.

What a coincidence.

Okay. He admitted that he’d only half thought about going out. But he wanted to see Amber. To confirm that their kiss was a mistake. Well, not a mistake in that he didn’t enjoy it. He did. A lot. A mistake for all the reasons he’d been rehashing over and over in his mind ever since it happened. Which all related to his real identity.

He ran across the path, skirting behind a large bush until he came out just in front of her.

“Hey. What are you doing here?” She wiped away the beads of sweat on her forehead with her red and white striped wrist band.

“I was out for a walk and saw you.” He noticed the ice-cream van from across where they stood. “Want one?” he asked, pointing toward the vehicle.

“Mmm. Yes, please. I’m so hot from running.” She ran her tongue over her top lip.

His eyes rested on her mouth. His previous thoughts banished, all he wanted to do was draw her into his arms and kiss her. He couldn’t, of course, since they were in full view of everyone in the park. He remembered that first kiss on the bus as if it was yesterday. It haunted him. The pounding of his heart against his chest. The way she’d run her fingers down his back. His nerve endings felt on fire just thinking about it.

But it couldn’t happen again. She’d had cancer, for God’s sake. The last thing she needed was someone playing with her feelings. He knew that Josh would say he should just take each day as it came. They could date and then it might naturally fizzle out. But what if it didn’t? When would he tell her who he really was? As he took off on his plane back to royal tedium?

And how would it change things between them?

It was so complicated.

So I won’t think about it.

“I’ll race you there. Loser pays.” He grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her in the direction of the van.

“You’re on.” She dropped his hand and took off immediately, catching Nik unawares. He hadn’t been ready for that.

“Hey,” he yelled, following her.

He quickly caught up, tapping her on the shoulder as he passed. He glanced behind him and snickered. After a few paces, he slowed down, allowing the distance between them to reduce to almost zero.

“I don’t need any help,” Amber called out as she came level with him, her breathing labored.

Nik reached out and captured her warm hand in his. “We’ll go together.”

They jogged toward the van. The line was long. With only twenty yards to go, Amber stopped dead in her tracks. Nik stood there transfixed as all color drained from her face.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she said, turning away.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The small line of people continued to laugh and chatter as they waited for their turn to get ice cream. So what had happened? Whatever, he wasn’t going to force her stay if she didn’t want to. And he certainly wasn’t going to ask why. She’d tell him if she wanted to.

“Of course,” he said.

They walked in silence until reaching a bench by the lake. There weren’t any people there. Some privacy.

“Sorry,” Amber said, turning to him. “You must think I’m crazy.”

The color had returned to her face, though the haunted expression lingered.

“Hardly. Besides, there were too many people there. I hate crowds.”

He slipped his arm around her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

She tilted her head back to look up at him and squinted as if she were trying to see through him. “Question. Why haven’t you asked me why I just flipped out over there like I had a deathly fear of ice cream?”

He lazily rubbed her shoulder, telling himself it was for her comfort, not because he enjoyed touching her. “It’s not my business. If you want to tell me, you’ll tell me. If you don’t, that’s more than okay with me.”

Kind of.

“Wow.” She was silent for a moment. “You really are one of a kind, Nik Gustafsson.”

The compliment would have felt good if she hadn’t had his false name in her mouth.

“I’ve had people prying into my life since before I was born,” he said without thinking. “I’m not going to do that to you.”

The sidelong look she gave him let him know he’d revealed way too much. “Why? Who are you? The secret son of the fifth Beatle?”

He laughed, despite himself. “How did you know? You haven’t heard of my father? John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Lars?”

“Your father’s name is Lars? Lars the fifth Beatle?” She rolled her eyes and laughed, obviously deciding to play along.

“Yes,” he said with mock seriousness. “You must have heard of his hit song, ‘Liesel in the Sky with Diamonds.’”

She put a finger to her chin, pretending to think that one over. “I thought it was Lucy.”

“A common mistake.”

She shook her head, as if unable to believe he’d actually sustained the joke for that long. But then her expression turned serious all of a sudden. “There was someone there, at the stand. Wade. My ex. He was waiting in line.”

Her ex-boyfriend. And it affected her so badly.

His stomach tightened. Josh hadn’t mentioned an ex. Then again, Nik hadn’t asked him Amber’s boyfriend history. The breakup must have hurt a lot if it messed with her head so much that she ran away when all she had done was spot him in public. He waited for her to continue. “It’s the first time he’s been so close. At school, I’ve managed to avoid him.”

Who was this guy and what had he done to Amber? More importantly, did she still have feelings for him?

“What happened between you?”

“He betrayed me.” Her voice trailed off.

Nik could guess what that meant. The bastard. “Do you want to tell me?” he probed gently.

Amber didn’t answer for a few seconds. Tension noticeable around her mouth. “He was seeing another girl behind my back. While I was sick in the hospital.”

His jaw clenched. He longed to go up to this Wade guy and punch him. Of course, he couldn’t really do anything like that. The newspaper headlines at home would be beyond crazy if he was charged with assault, and the fake name on his student ID wouldn’t protect him in a police station. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to confront Wade. What kind of a name was Wade?

“That’s not very manly.” He sneered.

“You could say.” She bowed her head.

“Seems like you are well rid of him,” he muttered.

“That’s exactly what Lauren said.”

The despondent tone in her voice made it sound like she didn’t agree. Did she still like Wade? Better than him? Not that one kiss made whatever was happening between them anything serious.

“Don’t you agree?” His breath hitched in the back of his throat as he waited for her response.

“Of course I do.” Her lips were set in a thin line.

He couldn’t fathom the expression on her face. Hurt, yes. But there was more. He knew it.

“It must have been a dreadful time for you. Being sick, I mean.”

“Yes. I don’t know how I’d have coped if my family and Lauren hadn’t been there. When I was in the hospital, Mom stayed overnight with me. My dad and brother visited every day.”

“You sound very close to your family.” It intrigued him when she spoke of her family, since it was so different from his own. They seemed almost like friends.

“Yes. I couldn’t imagine life without them. Especially when I was sick. They were my lifeline. Lauren, too. She visited as often as she could. She was the one who…” A dark shadow crossed her face.

“Who?” Nik prodded.

“It doesn’t matter.” She waved her hand dismissively, but Nik could tell it was an act. Something was bothering her.

“Tell me.” He gently pulled her even closer, until he could wrap both arms around her shoulders. He wanted to protect her.

“It was after my second round of chemo. I was very sick. My hair was coming out in clumps, and I felt so down. I knew something was wrong by the way Lauren was acting. I finally got it out of her. That Wade had been seeing this other girl.”

Wade disgusted him. Nik would never do anything like that to Amber.

“What did you do?” He loosened his hold around her, and she looked up, staring right into his eyes.

“I confronted him the next time he came to visit me at home,” she murmured.

“And he said?” Nik asked, wondering how the creep could possibly try and get out of such a despicable situation.

“He denied it at first. Then when I presented him with the facts Lauren had told me, he admitted it.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them away.

“And you ended it with him?” How could she have done anything else?

“Not right away. At first, he asked me to forgive him.”

“At first?” He deliberately kept his tone neutral. It wasn’t easy.

“When I ranted about how much he’d hurt me and how I didn’t think I could trust him, he turned the tables and said that it was all my fault for getting sick. He was fed up with being alone all the time. I was always in the hospital. And he needed some comfort.” She swallowed. “A lot of my friends had stopped being in touch because I think it had gotten too hard. I was just so grateful that he’d kept in contact. So in some twisted way, what he said to me sort of made some sense.”

The anger inside threatened to spill over. Who could do that to someone facing a life-and-death situation? Especially someone like Amber, who didn’t seem to have a malicious bone in her body. At that precise moment, if he could bring his full royal weight down on Wade, he would do it gladly and to hell with the consequences.

Not a good idea.

Okay, he knew that. But he felt so helpless.

“It makes no sense. What sort of person does that?” he asked, more to himself than to Amber.

“Exactly. I know that now,” she said. “I was actually starting to think about maybe trying again, until he said he’d cheated because I could never go out with him, do the things ‘normal’ people our age did.” She made finger quotes when she said the word normal. “He used that word, normal. As if I’d chosen to have cancer! As if my being sick was some kind of inconvenience for him. I called him a self-centered jerk and told him to get the hell out of my life. That was the last time we spoke.”

“You were brave.” Nik nodded.

“Again, that’s what Lauren said. But I wasn’t. It’s taken me a long time to even talk about it without it getting to me.”

“Because you miss him?”

“No. A hundred percent no. He betrayed me at a time when I was at my lowest. The cancer. I had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The awful treatment. I spent most of the time lying in my hospital bed scared that I wouldn’t wake up the next day. That I’d die and never see my family again. I-I…” She paused as tears trickled down her cheeks.

He swallowed hard. Feeling privileged that she’d confided in him. And angry that he couldn’t take the pain away. One thing was for sure. He could never do anything to hurt Amber. Never.

…

Amber gazed at the unreadable expression on Nik’s face. She shouldn’t have told him about Wade. She certainly didn’t want to dwell on what had happened in the past. It did no good at all. Other than putting a damper on their friendship. Except that Nik was special. Something about him made her want to trust him with her secrets. She leaned in until their shoulders were touching.

“Tell me more about your family,” she asked, wanting now to take the spotlight off of her. “Are your mom and dad still together?”

“Of course. Why shouldn’t they be?” The look of horror on his face staggered her. She hadn’t intended to ask anything confrontational.

“Sorry. It’s just that over here, so many people get divorced. It’s more common to be part of a blended family than anything else.” Maybe it wasn’t like that in his country. Though she thought that divorce was common the world over. “At least, it is over here.”

“Are your parents together?” he countered.

“Yes. And so are Lauren’s.” They shared a humorous glance, the mood between them suddenly much lighter. “So the three of us are the exceptions. Oh, and Josh.” She paused for a moment. “Seriously, not counting our families, a huge number of people get married more than once over here.”

She had this joke with Lauren that whenever they saw people of their parents’ age holding hands, they’d say in unison “second marriage.” And it happened a lot.

“Divorce is fairly common in Lutgenstadt, too,” he acknowledged.

At last they’d found a similarity between their two countries. She wished it could be something nicer, though.

“Do you have any brothers and sisters?” If she had to guess, she’d say he was definitely an eldest child, like her. He seemed like such a conformist. Birth order particularly fascinated her, ever since she’d watched a documentary on it. She was the epitome of an eldest child.

“I have an older brother and two younger sisters.”

Well, that proved her wrong. She didn’t mind. Two eldest children together wasn’t the best combination. They’d continually butt heads as each one wanted to be in charge. The same went for friendships. Lauren was the youngest in her family. A perfect balance against Amber being the eldest.

“And what does your dad do?” She hoped he didn’t mind her grilling him like this. She was curious. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t just revealed everything about herself to him.

“He likes fishing. And he plays golf,” he replied after a few seconds silence.

Oops. Yet another misunderstanding. She should be used to that by now. Thank goodness for the unspoken language of making out. If they ever got to do that again. Which of course they wouldn’t because they were just friends.

“Sorry, I meant for a living. What job does he do?”

“He’s head of a large corporation.”

“What sort of corporation?”

“Finance. Too complicated to go into details. It’s very boring.” He shrugged, his eyes not quite meeting hers. “Tell me more about your family,” he asked.

She frowned, puzzled at his deflection of her questions. Why didn’t he want to talk about his family and their business? It wasn’t the first time that he’d done that. She couldn’t deflect the nagging thought at the back of her mind that he was holding out on her.

“I have a younger brother. My dad’s an orthopedic surgeon, and my mom’s an interior designer. That’s it.”

That wasn’t really it. What she wanted to say was that she had the best family in the world. That without them, she’d never have gotten through her illness. Of course they argued. They weren’t a Disney Channel family. But they looked out for each other. It was hard for her to put it into words without coming across as being really cheesy. And she suspected that his family life was very different. She didn’t want him to think that she thought badly about his family for not being the same as hers.

“Does your brother attend school here?” Nik asked.

“Yes. Not that I’ve seen him much since he’s in ninth grade. But Mom is happy that we’re here together. Except she misses us during term time. I expect your family is missing you being so far away?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” she probed.

“I’ve been at boarding school since age seven. My parents are too busy to worry about me not being there. Even during vacation time, we don’t see them often. Just at dinner if they’re home.”

He acted like it was no big deal. But how could anyone live that sort of existence and not be upset by it? It seemed really cold. She couldn’t hack anything like that. She shuddered just thinking about it.

“Don’t you mind?” She had to know more; it was so weird.

“No. It’s how life is.” He lifted his hand loosely, indicating that he didn’t care.

“But there’s no fun in living like that,” she pushed, trying to get her head around it.

“Family isn’t there for fun. That’s why you have friends.”

“You think?” Amber couldn’t hide her incredulous tone.

“Yes. I do think. Do you have fun with your family?” He frowned, as if the conversation was totally beyond his comprehension.

“Yes. Lots. At the end of every term, we take a family vacation. Just the four of us. I love it. Fishing. Out to the movies. Barbeques. Swimming. It’s great.” She knew that a lot of people her age would think it weird that she loved to hang out with her family. But she didn’t care. No one looked out for you in the same way as your family. Not counting Lauren, of course. And she seemed more like a sister.

“I have been on vacation with my family in the past.” An anxious expression crossed his face. It was almost like he wanted to find something similar that they’d done.

“And did you enjoy it?” She hoped he had.

“Not exactly. It was combined with business, so it involved dinners and meeting dig—business associates of theirs.”

She frowned. This world of his was so far removed from hers that it wasn’t funny. Not that it mattered. What really counted was the two of them and they did get on well. Who cared about each other’s family anyway?

“Sounds like your parents are very important,” she murmured.

“Yes. In their field.” There was no mistaking the pride in his voice, in a distant sort of way.

“Your family seems very different from mine.”

“Yes. They also don’t believe in shows of affection.”

“That’s sad.” Her tone was wistful.

“Not at all. We trust each other implicitly and see it as our duty. It’s good to have a family like that. Even if we keep our emotions in check, it doesn’t mean we’re not there for each other.”

Duty. Trust. Emotionless. It didn’t sound like the sort of family she’d want to be part of. “Sure. It’s just different from mine. A cultural thing, I guess.” She laughed, but it sounded false to her ears.

She wished she could take him home to meet her parents, so he could see what a warm family was really like. Maybe she’d invite him during the next vacation. Hopefully, her parents would like him as much as she did.

Stop.

What the heck was she doing? She’d only known him a few weeks, and already she’d planned to invite him home. Hadn’t she learned anything from her relationship with Wade?

Nik isn’t Wade.

True. She knew he wouldn’t be that unkind. But she still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was hiding something. The times he stumbled on his words. His occasionally vague answers. The way he rapidly changed the subject when she asked too many questions about him or his background.

Plus, the photography internship was important to her, and she was already behind in her application, because she’d spent entirely too much time without her camera and with him.

As friends.

It had to stop.