‘Ruby’s the daughter of an old colleague of mine,’ said Russell evenly. ‘She needed a job. I gave her one. You’ll meet her tomorrow. I’ve invited her to dine with us.’

‘As your … companion?’ asked Poppy delicately as she handed their father a G and T and dangled a beer in front of Damon. A beer Damon ignored, so intent was he on hearing his father’s reply.

‘Ruby’s younger than you are, Poppet. Credit an old man with some sense.’

Poppy wiggled the beer in front of Damon’s face. Damon took it and remembered how to breathe.

‘So why is she joining us for dinner?’ asked Lena.

‘Ruby’s on her own this Christmas due to … unforeseen circumstances,’ said Russell. ‘I thought you’d enjoy her company and she yours. Damon’s met her.’

Yes, he had. And he hadn’t exactly come away unscathed.

His sisters were eyeing him speculatively. ‘What?’ he asked warily.

‘What’s she like?’ asked Lena.

‘Organised.’ And because he knew his sisters well enough to know that they’d be wanting more, he added, ‘Confident.’

‘Attractive?’ asked Poppy.

‘I guess,’ he muttered and watched in dismay as Poppy and Lena exchanged glances.

‘What?’

‘He likes her,’ said Lena. ‘Yeah, I’m getting that too,’ murmured Poppy.

‘How?’ he wanted to know. ‘How could you possibly get that from this conversation?’

‘Instinct,’ said Lena sagely.

‘Not exactly an accurate science,’ he countered.

Poppy just smiled.

‘So what was Ruby before she became a Christmas elf?’ asked Lena. ‘A stranded socialite?’

‘A corporate lawyer,’ said his father. ‘She’ll go back to practising some form of law soon, I believe. Just not corporate.’

‘Why not corporate?’ asked Lena.

‘Why not ask her yourself?’ Damon murmured and earned another set of curious glances for his efforts. So much easier to dissect someone else’s life as opposed to examining one’s own. ‘Alternatively, don’t be nosy.’

‘He knows,’ Lena said to her sister. ‘Yep,’ agreed Poppy.

‘All I’m saying is that everyone’s entitled to their secrets,’ offered Damon. ‘Why not let Ruby keep hers?’

‘He really likes her,’ said Lena, staring at him in amazement.

Poppy just looked at him and smiled her gentle smile.

Ruby prepared for dinner with Russell West and his family on Christmas Eve with a great many misgivings, most of them centred around seeing Damon again. She toyed with the idea of phoning Russell and pleading ill for the evening. Lies were useful, at times. Everybody lied.

Except she’d made honesty her platform when it came to dealing with Damon West, and how could she demand something from him that she wasn’t prepared to give?

Opening up her wardrobe at 5:00 p.m. with almost two hours to go until pick-up gave some indication of her state of apprehension. The restaurant encouraged formal evening wear. Suits for the gentlemen, couture for the ladies. What would Poppy and Lena be wearing? Not colours, if Damon could be believed, and in this he probably could.

‘What’ll I wear, C?’ she asked the little tortoiseshell beast who hovered in the doorway behind her, hedging his bets as to whether he would come into the room or stay out. ‘Little black dress?’ She pulled two from her cupboard, one strapless and fitted, the other one more modest but still fitted. Not really one for hiding her curves, Ruby.

Curves were assets and assets worked best when seen.

‘Too bleak for a Christmas dinner? I agree. What about the purple? Gorgeous cut, not too daring and there’s a matching headband. Damon’s going to love that. It’ll give him something external to focus on, as opposed to worming his way inside my head and digging around. Excellent idea.’

Showering and dressing for dinner didn’t take Ruby long. Six o’clock arrived, bringing with it yet another bundle of nerves for her to carry to the dinner table. Six-fifteen arrived and Ruby’s patience with waiting and stewing, and stewing and waiting, ran out.

She rang Russell and told him she had a few errands to see to and that she would meet them at the restaurant at seven, no need for anyone to pick her up. Russell agreed and Ruby breathed a sigh of relief because arriving separately gave her mobility and options when it came to ending the evening on her terms.

‘Win for Ruby,’ she told the little cat when she got off the phone. ‘Russell must have been distracted.’

At exactly 7:00 p.m., Ruby walked into the restaurant to find the Wests taking possession of narrow flutes of champagne in the pre-dinner area. They made a pretty picture, all of them together, although the family resemblance was not that strong. Damon had black hair and so did Lena. Poppy’s hair was a honey-blonde colour, and Russell’s had salted to grey.

Poppy had cornflower-blue eyes and a touch of fairy in her, thought Ruby fancifully. Lena’s eye colour tended more towards greyscale than blue and conjured up a touch of the devil. Different souls altogether, these two, but their smiles had a similar shape to them, and their voices—as they greeted Ruby politely—had a velvet musical quality to them that delighted the ear.

Lena wore slimline black trousers and a cream-coloured camisole that served only to emphasise her pallor and her fragility. Poppy fared better in a midnight-blue and silver A-line dress and a pretty pair of strappy silver sandals. Heaven only knew what they thought of Ruby’s choice of apparel for the evening, but she could probably hazard a guess. Too theatrical, way too bright …

Wonder what else they didn’t have in common?

And then Ruby turned to Damon and shouldered the impact of him dressed in crisp evening wear with as much panache as she could. A wry smile for him alone, and a promise to herself not to make this evening any more difficult than it already was. Be polite. Don’t get personal. Keep her fascination for this man to herself. ‘Damon.’

‘Ruby.’ How would he play this, for they hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms? Cool and distant? Politely dismissive? What? All he had to do was give her a clue and she would follow his lead. ‘Nice headband.’

Was he … teasing her?

‘Thank you.’ This one had a chiffon butterfly perched above her left ear. ‘Not too plain?’

‘Not at all.’ A twitch of his lips. ‘It’s very festive.’

‘Well, I try.’ A swift glance down at his elegant charcoal tie, white shirt and charcoal suit, followed by the arch of her eyebrow told him exactly what she thought of his attempts at brightening up a person’s day.

Damon’s smile widened and Ruby felt herself relax, just a little. She turned back to Lena to find the other woman getting rid of a grin but leaning rather heavily on her cane. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you all waiting,’ she said. ‘I hear the dining experience here is superb. Shall we take the champagne in and be seated?’

That took time, and ordering the meals took more. Conversation flowed around food likes and dislikes, and how long Ruby had been living in Hong Kong, and what she liked best about the expat lifestyle. From there it moved on to people’s favourite places around the globe, a conversation even Poppy joined in, albeit shyly.

Social lubrication—Ruby was good at it, she’d been tutored by the best. But she’d been tutored in leading a conversation, not letting it ebb and flow at will. Get so-and-so to talk about this, her father would say, and sometimes he’d simply been training her and sometimes he’d been after information. Not a skill she wanted to employ at this table.

Don’t lead. It was her second motto for the evening, right up there behind don’t drool on Damon.

She managed to avoid both for quite some time. Right up until Russell mentioned that she’d soon be leaving his employ and Damon speared her with a glittering sapphire gaze.

‘Why?’ he wanted to know curtly, all pretence of social distance shattered.

‘I want to get back to practising some kind of law,’ Ruby offered carefully. Nothing to do with Damon, or what had transpired between them; she needed him to know that. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. And then a remark someone made to me recently about my particular skill set cemented the notion that maybe I shouldn’t have given up on a law career quite so quickly. You know how it is.’ She smiled a quick smile. ‘Sometimes it takes a stranger with a fresh eye to point out the obvious.’

‘Will you stay in Hong Kong?’ Another Damon question.

‘There’s no pressing need to stay here, no,’ murmured Ruby. An answer Damon would probably find hypocritical given her fully voiced views on his inability to settle in any one place. ‘I might try Geneva.’

‘Are you interested in humanitarian law?’ asked Poppy tentatively.

‘Maybe. It’s worth exploring as an option, at any rate. I’d need to retrain. Not that that’s a problem.’

Ruby glanced at Damon and found him staring at her as if perplexed, and then his gaze cut to her choice of hair accessory as if that perplexed him even more. ‘It’s just a headband, Damon. A festive touch for a festive occasion. It doesn’t define me.’

‘I noticed that,’ he countered quietly and held her gaze, and Ruby cursed herself for her oversensitivity when it came to what this man thought of her, and for revealing that sensitivity to him and everyone else at this table.

Time to reach for her wine and shut her mouth and hope that someone else’s manners would prevail when clearly hers had not.

‘Geneva’s a pleasant city,’ said Damon as a waiter appeared from nowhere to top up everyone’s wineglasses. ‘I was there this time last week, on my way through from a job in Brussels. Catching up with an old employer.’

Damon didn’t look at her as he delivered his words. He didn’t look at anyone, just locked his gaze on the entreé another waiter placed in front of him and kept it there. ‘He took me on a backdoor tour through the Palace of Nations. I recommend it.’

Ruby wasn’t the only one who stared at him in astonishment. Both Lena and Poppy were gaping at him too.

Where to begin? What to pick up on? What to leave the hell alone?

‘Huh,’ said Lena, amazement running deeply through that one incautious sound.

Ruby couldn’t even manage that.

‘You didn’t tell me you were in Brussels?’ said Poppy, and her voice held disappointment and sorrow rather than amazement. ‘We could have met up somewhere. Oxford’s not that far away.’

‘Sorry, Poppy.’ Damon shot Poppy a guarded glance. ‘You know I don’t do family when I’m working.’

What the hell did Damon West do for a living that he had to eschew his family while he was doing it?

But Damon didn’t say and Ruby sure as hell didn’t ask. She just looked at him and Damon looked back, his bleak gaze meeting hers, and there was no smile in them, no invitation, just a man who knew he’d said too much already and had to shut it down before he came unstuck completely.

‘Pretty place, Brussels,’ she said, in a weak attempt to halt the growing silence. ‘It’s probably my favourite city centre of all the European cities. Not too big or overwhelming.’ Unlike, say, Damon’s attempt at openness and transparency. ‘And then there’s the chocolate.’

‘And the waffles,’ said Lena, joining the rescue party. ‘And the beer.’

‘Cherry beer,’ said Ruby.

‘Trappist beer,’ said Lena, and with a gamine grin, ‘Warm beer. Something for everyone.’

‘Indeed.’ Ruby could come to like Lena. A lot. ‘Damon, what did you like best about Brussels?’ Keeping it casual, forcing a direction, and to hell with letting the conversation find its own ebb and flow. Ruby had the helm now, and she was keeping it.

‘The history,’ he said, and talk turned to the fields of Flanders and the hallmarks of war.

Wine flowed and the food was indeed superb. Conversation flowed too, and turned to future endeavours. To Lena hoping to build her strength and get back to work, and Poppy, who couldn’t decide whether to learn Korean or study Mayan script, and to Russell, who wanted to expand his banking services into Shanghai. No one asked Damon what lay on his horizon and he didn’t say.

Washington, DC, perhaps? Maybe some other old employer would whiz him through the White House in their spare time?

Dessert was worth waiting for, and then it was time for Ruby to thank Russell for the marvellous meal, wish them all a Merry Christmas and see herself home.

She thought she’d executed a clean getaway as Damon rose to pull out her chair.

Until Russell insisted on everyone heading to the hotel foyer together, presumably so they could see her into a taxi, only by the time they got there Russell had rearranged events to his liking, in that everyone could fit in the limo, and his chauffeur would drive everyone home.

Ruby knew when to cut her losses and go with a superior plan, only by the time they arrived at Russell’s high rise the plan had changed again.

Ruby didn’t even see it coming until Russell alighted and helped Lena and Poppy from the car, and then leaned back down and asked Damon to see Ruby home, and by then the limo door was closing, and the limo—with her and Damon in it—was pulling smoothly away from the kerb.

‘Old fox. He planned that,’ she murmured, and Damon responded with a smile. ‘And you let him.’

‘My father has a chivalrous streak,’ countered Damon.’ Surely you know that by now.’

She did know that. ‘And you? What kind of streak do you have?’

‘Right now I’m going to have to go with masochistic,’ he said with a twist of his lips as he leaned his head back against the black leather interior of the limo. Had Damon known how intimate this ride would be with the others gone and just the two of them in here now?

And then he turned his head towards her and the seat space she’d made sure to put between them seemed to disappear. ‘I tried to answer your question,’ he said quietly.

‘I know.’ And in doing so he’d got to her. Again. ‘Did you think it would get you into my bed?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘Then why do it?’

‘Maybe I just wanted to know what it felt like to be that open.’

‘And what did it feel like?’

‘Wrong.’

They lapsed into silence again, a brooding, swirling silence that complemented the black leather seats and the cavernous limo interior. Ruby rested her head back against the seat and closed her eyes against the pull of him.

She’d wanted honesty from him. She hadn’t realised just how much it would hurt.

‘Maybe it’ll get easier,’ she offered quietly. ‘Maybe you just need to find the right person.’

‘Maybe.’ But the word held a world of defeat in it, and Ruby opened weary eyes and turned her head and held his gaze.

She edged a little closer, moving slowly. It was the only way she knew to approach such a wild and wary thing. He didn’t move towards her, but he didn’t move away. Just watched in silence and when she set gentle lips to his he shuddered in silence too, before pulling slowly away.

‘What was that for?’ he whispered.

‘That was for you. For trying, because I asked you to, even if it didn’t go so well. Consider it my Thank You.’

‘Oh.’

This time he was the one to initiate the meeting of lips, and although he had no way with words he knew exactly how to pour emotion into a kiss. Longing and regret and she knew he still wanted her in spite of his inability to be open with her, and it made her want to cry.

‘That was You’re Welcome,’ he whispered.

And then he kissed her again and she wound her arms around his neck and his hands were gentle on her waist as he drew her onto him, over him, and pressing up into her with a sensuality she’d always known he commanded.

Not just kisses any more but the slide of her body against his and the rapid beating of his heart beneath her hand. He had a connoisseur’s touch and she had a powerful need for that touch tonight. Did it really matter that she knew next to nothing about him and probably never would? She knew he wanted her—wasn’t that enough?

Passion fed and passion burned as their kisses grew deeper and more urgent, and when the limo started to slow and Ruby looked out of the window through glazed eyes and saw her high rise up ahead she groaned, and Damon groaned with her.

‘Drive with me a while,’ he whispered, and she knew what he was asking and she’d resisted him before but there was no resisting him now.

Slowly, she lifted her hand to her headband and slid it from her head and dropped it to the floor. ‘Yes.’

Damon reached for the intercom switch and said, ‘Take us for a drive,’ and the limo moved off.

Time enough now to loosen Damon’s tie, and the buttons on his shirt, with her forehead pressed to his and their breath mingling as he slid the straps of her dress down her arms with gentle fingers.

‘Tell me you know what you’re getting us into,’ he muttered. ‘Tell me you know what you’re doing.’

‘I know what I’m doing.’ While the top of her dress peeled away from her body and she drew his head down to the curve of her breast. ‘So do you.’ As her strapless bra came apart beneath his fingers and he claimed her nipple with his lips and set her to arching back and biting her own.

He explored every hollow and worshipped every curve and before too many minutes had passed he had her beneath him on the seat, half naked and wholly mindless as he moved inside her, every stroke a revelation.

‘Tell me you can taste the truth in this,’ he whispered. ‘In me.’

‘I do taste it.’

In the way he savoured her, honoured her, and in the way his touch made her tremble. ‘Tell me you won’t regret this.’

‘Never. Damon, not ever.’ As the driver kept driving and Ruby and Damon got lost in each other.

It had to end eventually. Love-making always had to end. With Ruby climaxing in Damon’s arms as he emptied himself into her. With Damon swallowing her cries of completion and groaning softly as her body grew boneless and his did too, and somehow she ended up stretched out on top of him, with Damon’s arms around her waist keeping her there.

The interior of the limo looked like someone’s messy closet. Her clothes would be here somewhere and she would get around to putting them back on soon.

But not just yet.

‘That was …’ Damon didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence ‘… a revelation.’

‘I concur.’ Ruby pushed herself up into a sitting position, still straddling him, still very, very naked. Damon’s gaze fell to her breasts and his lazy grin turned lopsided.

‘Here’s a tip,’ he said huskily. ‘If you ever want to win an argument with me, just get naked.’

‘Something to remember,’ she murmured. ‘Are we going to argue now?’

‘No.’ He slid his hand around the back of her neck and rose up to kiss the side of her mouth. He wasn’t done with her yet, and the notion delighted her. ‘Not right now.’

She couldn’t seem to get enough of his touch. Of his kisses. ‘So what shall we do?’

‘Ladies’ choice.’ He leaned back against the seat, his slitted gaze not leaving her face as he began to harden against her once more.

‘Good. Because, right now I just want to sit back and enjoy the ride.’

They found their clothes and put them on eventually. They made it back to Ruby’s apartment building, and it was after one, and technically Christmas Day already, and Damon had places to be—like with his family—and Ruby had things to do, like go inside and figure out what she was going to do with Damon West for the rest of the undoubtedly short time he would be around.

He was as dishevelled as Ruby, but he got out of the car when it stopped at her door, and extended his hand for hers and brought it to his lips as she alighted from the limo with most everything in place, including her headband.

‘Merry Christmas, Ruby.’

‘You too,’ she murmured, and took her hand back and headed quickly for the door before she turned around and held out her hand for him to join her. Only when she was safely inside the foyer and heading for the lifts did she look back and smile at what she saw.

Damon, leaning against the car with his hands in his pockets as he watched her retreat, and secrets or not she knew more of him now and she had not met with disappointment.

He didn’t want true intimacy from her, and a wise woman accepted the things she could not change.

A wise woman took the gift of passion and pleasure that he had given her and cherished them for what they were.

Best Christmas present ever.

Damon West had as much self-awareness as the next man. He knew what he was good at, and seduction was one of those things. He knew what derailed him, and commitments of the personal kind headed that list. He’d set foot on the hackers’ path at the tender age of twelve when he’d hacked into his school’s academic database. At seventeen—with five more schools under his belt—he’d blitzed his exams, hacked the filter the department of education used to expose students of interest, and MIT had come knocking. He’d hacked into their system too and they’d sent him back a six-page mathematical proof of his predictability and offered him an education.

That education, and the one that had followed, had given him travel, a reason for being, and all the excitement he could handle and then some. All they’d asked from him in return was absolute discretion and a willingness to go anywhere, any time.

At twenty, he thought he’d found heaven.

At twenty-five he knew he had.

He would be thirty-three in January and as he headed back to his father’s apartment with the scent of Ruby Maguire on his skin and the image of her naked and open for him dominating his mind, Damon West took the time to mourn the loss of the ordinary lifestyle he’d so willingly given up.

CHAPTER FIVE

CHRISTMAS Day started late for Ruby. Nowhere to be, no reason to get up. The two gifts beneath her tiny tree were ones she’d put there herself. A book on humanitarian imperialism—that one was supposedly from the cat. The other was a bottle of her favourite perfume. A light and woodsy scent to lift the spirits and brighten the day.

A Merry Christmas phone call came in from her mother before Ruby had found her way out of her sleepwear. A mother who sounded happy and content and who urged Ruby to come and stay a while in the New Year. A mother who asked if the courier had arrived yet, and sighed her exasperation when Ruby said not.

Ruby promised to ring back when they had.

A sashimi breakfast feast for a contented little cat followed. Freshly brewed coffee for Ruby and a butter croissant with fig and honey jam got her positively cheerful. The gourmet food hamper and the ridiculous peacock-feathered hair comb from her mother made her smile. Shoulders back, Ruby, she could hear her mother saying. Chin up, there’s my pretty girl.

It had been very important to her mother that Ruby be a pretty girl.

Her father had been the one to encourage her to use her brains.

Ruby’s mother had wanted to share custody of their only child once divorce had been imminent but, for reasons known only to him, Harry Maguire had been having none of that.

In the end Ruby’s mother had taken the settlement money and run, leaving her daughter behind with the promise that she was always just a phone call away.

Better than nothing.

Better than a laughing, smiling father who’d disappeared one day without a word but plenty of money to be going on with.

Ruby had bought him a set of pewter chess pieces for Christmas this year—how stupid was that? The gaily wrapped parcel was burning a hole through the shelf in her bedroom closet and the child in her remained hopeful that her father would contact her today. The child in her would doubtless wait all day for her charming, laughing father to arrive. Foolish Ruby.

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