Flirting With Intent (6 page)

That had been six months ago.

Damn right ‘Have you heard from Jared?’ was the first question everyone in this family asked.

Supper that evening had a festive note to it, thanks in no small measure to Ruby Maguire’s pampering.

A tree had appeared in the atrium. A fibre-optic plastic fantastic, with a scattering of perfectly wrapped presents beneath—including one for him from his father that Damon knew full well meant that Ruby had shopped again for him on his father’s behalf.

The tree should have looked gaudy but dim the regular lights and set it to shining and it looked magical instead. Fine wine filled the wine chiller and the light supper fare Russell pulled from the fridge found immediate favour with the girls.

‘Dad, is there something you’re not telling us?’ asked Lena from her perch on the sofa as Poppy beat an unhurried path to the
bar, poured two glasses of wine and took one over to Lena with low-key grace and unobtrusiveness. ‘Supper is perfect, Poppy’s just handed me a glass of my favourite white, there are fresh flowers everywhere, and are those
fairy
lights out on the terrace? They are, aren’t they? I’m sensing a woman’s touch. And not just a housekeeper.’

‘Ruby’s been in,’ said Russell, offhand, and Damon smothered a grin as Lena tried to digest that little snippet without giving in to rampant curiosity.

‘Ruby’s Dad’s social planner,’ Damon murmured helpfully.

‘His what?’

‘She’s doing Christmas for him,’ he added, unable to resist winding his sister up just that little bit more.

‘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.