It seemed that she only had to take a breath and he glanced her way. It was unnerving. He was unnerving. Why on earth had she become so carried away on Friday night that she’d ignored every cautionary note in her head that screamed Stop! and instead had listened to the racy one that had moaned More?
‘Thank you all for coming today. I know it wasn’t that convenient but I truly believe if we stand together we can win this case for you,’ Sam began. ‘I also think that it’s vital that we win this case for you. Your lives mean something here, they mean something to us, but you need to stand up and believe that too if you want to see justice done for each and every one of you, now and in the future.’ A couple of the boys fist-pumped the air in agreement, while others shifted uneasily in their seats, none unmoved by Sam’s passionate discourse. ‘I know you have to think about everything that was said today but if you could email Ruby by the end of the week with your decision as to how you want to proceed we would greatly appreciate it.’
Relieved to have the meeting over with, Ruby stood up hastily and shook each one of the boys’ hand as they headed for the door. A couple of them gave her a hug and she returned it enthusiastically. Grant stopped beside her, giving her a that went well look, but before she could head out with him Sam asked her to stay behind in a voice that brooked no argument.
Glancing back, Ruby found that Sam was scrawling notes in a file and not even looking at her. Grant raised a brow at her in question. Sam’s directive had come across more like a command but the last thing she wanted to do was extend the meeting. Her nerves were shot.
‘Actually, I have another meeting I need to prepare for,’ she said politely. ‘Can it wait?’
Sam frowned as he glanced up at her. ‘No. It can’t.’
Ruby moistened her lips. ‘Perhaps an email, then?’
Grant coughed into his hand and quickly gathered up his laptop and file notes as he caught Sam’s darkening expression. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
Aware that she had probably overstepped the lines of professional decorum with that last suggestion, she stood tensely waiting for Sam to finish making his notes.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally he leaned back in his chair and looked at her, his long, thick lashes concealing his expression from her. ‘Mind telling me what that was all about?’
‘What?’ she asked, stalling for time.
‘Your desire to scramble out of here as quickly as possible.’
‘I don’t scramble,’ she said indignantly.
‘You also don’t have a meeting to get to. I checked with your secretary earlier because I wanted you to stay back and go over a few key points with me.’
Irritated at his high-handedness, Ruby bristled. ‘How dare you go over my head and ask Veronica about my movements? If you want to know my schedule you can ask me.’
‘I didn’t go over your head. You were busy talking and I saw no point in interrupting you for something so small.’
His raised brow told her she was overreacting—and not only that but it was also a reminder that he was her boss and could do what he damned well pleased—so she sucked in a deep breath and forced her lips to curve upwards. ‘Fine. What key points?’
‘Thabo and Jeremiah were particularly nervous today and their stories didn’t seem to stack up with their original depositions. Why is that?’
‘Jeremiah has a minor learning disability. It’s one of the reasons he was ridiculed in the workplace. He’s been on medication ever since to manage his anxiety and I think it messes with his memory.’
‘We should strike him from the client list, then.’
‘We can’t. He deserves to be heard as much as anyone else.’
‘I didn’t say he didn’t. But we have to be practical. He’ll get compensation like the others, but he shouldn’t be subjected to the witness box if this goes to court. It could make his health worse.’
‘If?’
‘Don’t get your back up again. I very much doubt Carter Jones will let it go all the way.’
‘But it has to. How else will our clients receive full validation for how they were mistreated?’
‘Money will go some way to appease them.’
‘That’s not true,’ she fumed. ‘You know they’re not motivated by money. They want justice.’
‘They’ll get justice. Now tell me about Thabo.’
‘I have a feeling Thabo is standing in for someone else who doesn’t want to come forward.’ She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and noticed his eyes follow the movement. ‘I think it might be a woman. If you haven’t noticed there are no women on the case because they’re too frightened to come forward. I think that’s why Thabo is defensive.’
‘Which also makes him a weak link.’ Sam frowned. ‘But the women need to be as equally compensated as the men. Can you find out if we can get any of them to come on board?’
‘Of course.’ She cleared her throat, suddenly aware that she’d moved closer to him during their discussion. ‘Is that all?’
‘You tell me?’ His rough tone did nothing to placate her frazzled nerves.
‘I have nothing else to tell you,’ she said carefully, unnerved by the sexual tension that suddenly permeated the air between them.
‘I think you do.’
The way he looked at her tangled her insides up and twisted her emotions into a tight ball. He was so attractive with his shirtsleeves rolled up and the top button of his shirt loosened, the curl of chest hair overlapping the button screaming that he was all male. Something she already knew by heart.
‘And I think it’s past time we addressed the elephant in the room, don’t you?’
‘Elephant?’ She had a sick feeling she knew where this was heading. ‘There is no elephant.’
‘Then why are you so keen to avoid me every chance you get?’
Ruby hunted around for an explanation and went with what was uppermost in her mind. ‘If you must know, I don’t think we can work very well together.’
‘Why not?’
Now, there was a question she had no intention of answering. ‘The why, or why not, isn’t important.’ She hated that she felt so flustered and defensive and that only made her feel more so. ‘I respect you as a fellow lawyer and as my boss, I just don’t respect...’ Her eyes shot to his as she realised what she’d been about to say.
‘You just don’t respect what, Ruby?’ His voice was predator-soft. ‘You don’t respect me as a man. Is that what you stopped yourself from saying?’
Yes, it had been because how could she respect a man who had sex with random women whose names he didn’t even know? ‘I didn’t say that—you did. But I don’t see any point in letting this get personal between us. It will only make things harder.’
Sam gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think, angel?’ The tone of his voice had all the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. ‘Things are about as personal as they can get between us, I’d say.’
Ruby tried not to overreact to the word ‘angel’, fighting to remain calm. ‘If you’re talking about how I wanted to leave the meeting, I—’
‘I’m not talking about that.’ He dismissed with a careless flick of his wrist, his gaze disturbingly direct. ‘I’m talking about Friday night.’
He waited a beat but Ruby found her tongue frozen to the roof of her mouth.
‘Last Friday night, to be exact.’ When she remained mute he gave her a sardonic smile that only elevated his good looks. ‘You know... You and me. Sizzling-hot sex outside at the Herzog party. Or are you going to tell me it wasn’t you in the lavender silk dress and black lace mask?’
Oh, God, she had been wrong.
He knew. He knew! The words reverberated inside her head, a stinging heat singing along her cheekbones as if she were being pricked by a t
housand tiny hot needles.
Their gazes clashed and held and Ruby couldn’t look away from his gorgeous brown eyes to save herself.
‘I can see you’re still going to try and deny it,’ he said, the savage note in his voice letting her know that he was far from impressed with her. ‘Which is a little disappointing, to say the least.’
‘I’m not going to deny it,’ she said with asperity, mortification setting in as she recalled how she had begged him for more that night.
‘Well, that’s a start,’ he grated, his gaze penetrating every one of her natural defences in a way no man ever had before.
What was it about Sam that made him so lethally attractive to her? It just wasn’t fair.
‘A start to what?’ she asked, recognising for the first time that he was truly annoyed, but at a loss as to know why he would be. She hadn’t demanded anything from him, or called his phone off the hook like a love-struck fool. Shouldn’t he be rejoicing about that instead of scowling at her?
‘To you being honest. I did wonder if you were going to try and blame the alcohol. Maybe claim that you’d had so much to drink that you didn’t know what you were doing. That you didn’t know who you were doing it with.’
If only I could! But what did he want her to say? That she found him so completely and utterly irresistible that she hadn’t been able to stop? That she had wondered what it would be like to be intimate with him for so long that when it finally happened she hadn’t wanted to stop? ‘I knew what I was doing.’ She lifted her chin, determined that he would never guess how deeply she was affected by the intimacies they had shared—or how much she had enjoyed it. ‘And I’m not ashamed of what happened.’
A scowl darkened his face. ‘Were you ever going to mention it?’
‘No,’ she answered after a brief pause, her heart pounding like a jackhammer behind her breastbone.
‘You had an itch and I scratched it.’ His lips twisted into a cool smile. ‘Is that it?’
Taken aback by the force of that comment, Ruby scowled. ‘There’s no need to sound so crass.’ Was that the way it had been for him? She felt a little sick at the thought, immediately reminded of the soft curse of regret he’d made before he’d set her on her feet. ‘But yes, I suppose you could put it that way. What’s your excuse? Or don’t you need one? You’re a man, I was an available woman. Isn’t that the way the story goes?’
Dead silence followed her accusation and when he spoke his voice was grim. ‘That would imply that I got more out of our lovemaking than you did. Which is not my recollection of events.’
Embarrassment at just how much she had begged him to keep going burned a hot trail down her throat. ‘Oh, come on, Sam. Lovemaking? Let’s at least call it what it was.’
‘By all means.’ A muscle flexed in his jaw. ‘Enlighten me.’
Ruby gripped her laptop tighter. ‘It was sex. Great sex, by the way. Ten out of ten to you, but it was still just sex.’
‘It was nowhere near ten out of ten,’ he corrected her.
Well, sorry. Hurt cut across raw nerves as if he’d just lashed her with a whip.
His dark eyes held hers as if he knew exactly where her mind had taken her. ‘Ten out of ten would have meant we were in a bed, naked, and we had all night together.’
‘Oh.’
Well, then.
Not sure where to look, she watched him covetously as he moved to the window and stared outside. Without his eyes on her, Ruby breathed a little more easily, but her reprieve was short-lived as he swung back to face her.
‘There’s something I want to know.’
Ruby held her breath at the serious note in his voice. ‘What?’
‘Was that your first time?’
Caught completely off guard by the question she blinked at him. Had it been so obvious?
A soft curse rent the air.
Crimson-faced, she turned to leave.
‘I didn’t use protection.’
His words landed between them like boulders off the side of a mountain, staying her. ‘I’m on the pill.’
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. ‘Why is a virgin on the pill?’
‘Because I was planning to have sex with someone that night, and you were the lucky recipient. Why do you care?’
‘Because I was worried I might have made you pregnant,’ he argued. ‘An unwanted pregnancy is the last thing either one of us needs right now.’
The image of Sam Ventura’s baby growing inside her womb did weird things to Ruby’s equilibrium. Not wanting to consider that any of those things were bad, she shook her head. ‘Rest assured, I’m not pregnant. No need to worry.’
An emotionally charged beat passed between them and all Ruby could think about was the way his sexy mouth had felt on hers and how much she wanted it there again.
Deep down, she rued the day she had approached Sam in that bar two years ago. It had set off a series of wants and needs inside of her that she could only ever imagine him fulfilling. She hated the romantic feelings he had once inspired in her and she was very afraid that if she gave herself to Sam—truly gave herself to him—he would take more than she would want to give, knocking down every one of the barriers she had built up specifically to keep him out.
‘I apologise,’ he said, a measure of self-disgust running through his voice. ‘It shouldn’t have happened.’
Did he mean they shouldn’t have had sex? Somehow that only made her feel worse. She really didn’t need more proof as to how divergent their experience of that night had been. She’d already seen the regret on his face; she didn’t need to see it again.
‘Please don’t.’ She put her hand up as if to ward him off but he was still on the other side of the room. ‘We’re both adults and it was my decision as well.’
‘I wasn’t apologising for the sex, Ruby.’ His brown eyes glittered dangerously into hers. ‘I’m apologising for not protecting you. For being...rough.’
‘You weren’t rough,’ she assured him huskily.
His eyes pierced hers. ‘I should have realised that you weren’t experienced.’
‘Why should you?’
‘Because it’s a man’s job to take care of a woman in that situation.’
‘I disagree. This is the twenty-first century. Women are emancipated, in case you didn’t realise.’
A muscle ticked in his jaw. ‘Emancipation had little to do with Friday night,’ he growled. ‘But let’s just say it’s not the way I usually behave with a woman.’
At the mention of his other women Ruby expelled a rushed breath. This was information she didn’t want inside her head. Ever. ‘Look, can we just not discuss this any more?’ Surely there was a much more important and safer topic for them to discuss. Or they could both just leave the room and pretend this conversation had never happened at all. ‘Don’t you have a meeting to go to or a new client to woo?’
Ignoring her question, he came around the table until he was no more than two feet from her. She nearly took a step back but caught herself just in time.
‘Why did you run away afterwards?’
Startled by his question, she met his gaze. ‘Sorry?’
‘It’s a simple question, Ruby. I want to know why you left before I returned with your water.’ His bronzed throat worked as he swallowed. ‘Did I scare you somehow?’
Being so close to him now, she couldn’t avoid the sensation of heat and male power emanating from him. There was also impatience, as if he wanted to close the gap between them and take her into his arms again. Or was that just her who wanted that to happen?
Jarred by the unexpected vision of how he would look naked, and desperate to close down this attraction any way she knew how, Ruby shook her head. ‘I was fine. I just didn’t see the point in hanging around.’ Not to mention that she’d been terrified at how easily he had made her feel s
o much, so quickly. Terrified at how easily she had given in to the attraction between them. It had made her feel weak and powerless; two states she had often seen her mother fall into with the men in her life. ‘I mean, it wasn’t as if either of us was looking for a repeat performance, was it?’
Sam’s jaw clenched. ‘You have no idea what I wanted, but be that as it may, it would have been polite for you to have been there when I returned. I didn’t know if I’d hurt you in some way.’
‘You didn’t hurt me, Sam,’ she said on a rush, memories of the pleasure he had given her making her knees tremble. ‘And you didn’t scare me. I was just... I wanted to put the whole incident behind me as soon as possible.’
‘Incident? It wasn’t a car accident,’ he bit out.
‘I know that! Really, I’d rather not talk about it, if it’s all the same to you.’
‘I can see that.’ She didn’t like the derisive glint in his eyes, or the way he stepped forward. ‘But I very much doubt that you’ve been able to put the whole incident behind you.’
Heat flamed through her. It was pretty hard to put something behind you that came back in full, cinematic glory every night when you tried to go to sleep. Not to mention those times it was standing right in front of you. Like now.
‘God, you’re arrogant.’ Against her better judgment she took a step towards him. ‘But be that as it may, we work together now. You’re my boss.’
Sam frowned. ‘I didn’t know that on Friday night. It wasn’t as if Drew sent me a list of Kent’s employees to pore over.’
‘So if you’d known I would be working for you on Friday night then it wouldn’t have happened?’ she challenged.
‘Believe it or not, Ruby, I didn’t mean for things to go as far as they did.’
‘So you’re blaming me for the fact that they did!’
‘No.’ He braced his hands on his hips, scowling down at her. ‘Dammit, would you stop being such a little hothead? I’m telling you that I never mix business with pleasure, and I usually take a woman out to dinner before I sleep with her.’
‘We didn’t sleep together, Sam.’ A charged silence followed her statement and Ruby suspected Sam was remembering exactly what they had done, just as she was.
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