by Liz Fielding
Any doubts he might have had were banished the moment Rigel, the most intuitive of his horses, had pushed his head into her shoulder. From across the yard he could hear her voice, silky soft, as she brushed him down, coming to her decision.
* * *
Ruby did not need time. She had seen the man with his horses, the way they reached to him, almost purred at his touch, and her decision was made. But this closeness with a horse, once so much part of her life, this was a pleasure she would not surrender. She laid her hand against Rigel’s neck and he turned to look at her, gave her a nudge as if to say, What are you waiting for?
Half an hour later, having returned the brush to the tack room and washed her hands, Ruby found Bram in his mews.
He returned the hawk on his fist to its perch, removed his glove. ‘All done?’ he said, joining her in the yard.
‘I have a question,’ she said.
‘Just one?’
‘Just one.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘If I said no, what would you do?’
The moon had risen, silvering her hair...
‘Bram?’
He shook off the thought. A straightforward business transaction. It had to be that.
‘I wish to see my father, receive his blessing more than anything in the world, Ruby, but not at any price. If you say no, then I will send my father my good wishes for his birthday, as I do every year, and my regret that I cannot be there to celebrate the day with him.’
He saw her throat move as she swallowed, took a breath. ‘Six months?’
‘It’s a great deal to ask.’
‘It’s just a job,’ she reminded him.
‘Yes.’ Silvering her hair, her cheek, her mouth—
‘I don’t know anything about marriage laws in this part of the world,’ she said, cutting off the thought before he could put it into words. ‘Can it be arranged in the time?’
‘Practical as ever.’
‘And?’
The simple answer, the practical answer, was yes. Right at that moment, standing in the moonlight, he was feeling anything but practical.
‘Under normal circumstances there would be months of negotiation over the dowry.’
‘Months?’
‘A man’s sons are his future but his daughters are his wealth. That’s why they’re so carefully protected.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, we don’t have months to haggle but that’s not a problem. What I’m asking for is not up for negotiation.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘One—you will pay Amanda for my services as your temp while I’m here. I will need something to do, you will still need a PA and she’s going to have to reschedule all my bookings so she’s entitled to her fee.’
‘That is eminently reasonable.’
‘Two—you will pay a lump sum, clear of tax, to my lawyer at the end of this engagement as a bonus.’ The amount she named was not a round sum, but down to the last odd pence.
He would have gladly given her four times that, but clearly there was a reason for that odd amount and now was not the time to argue. ‘Consider it done. Go on.’
‘Go on?’
‘Three?’
‘There isn’t a three.’ She gave him an odd little smile. Bright on the surface but suspiciously close to tears underneath. ‘So,’ she said, as they returned to the terrace and their abandoned supper. ‘That’s the dowry taken care of. What comes next?’
Mina arrived, clucking and worrying. He’d explained that Ruby was feeling tired after her journey and now she’d brought mint tea, dates, nuts, little sweet pastries.
He assured her that he would see she ate something and, reluctantly, she left them to it.
‘Next,’ he said, pouring the tea, ‘you eat something or I’ll be in trouble with Mina.’
‘What comes next in the wedding arrangements?’ she asked, taking a date.
‘Next, you would go into seclusion for weeks, seeing no one outside the women in your immediate family until the maksar. That’s a gathering where the entire Ansari tribe come to check out the dowry and eat themselves sick for days. No one will expect that with a disinherited son and a western bride.’
The corner of her mouth tilted up, revealing a dimple. ‘Shame. It sounds like quite a party.’
‘But not one that the bride takes part in. She stays hidden away until her groom fights his way through her family to claim her.’
‘He has to fight his way through?’ she asked. ‘Despite the dowry?’
He found himself hesitating as an old image flooded his mind. The anticipation of the mock battle as he fought his way past her brothers. Safia swathed in veils that he would remove one by one...
He shook his head. ‘All of which is irrelevant in our case. I’ll call my cousin and ask him to draw up a contract. I could do it myself but the seal of the Emir of Ras al Kawi will lend it legitimacy. We will formalise the arrangement tomorrow before the charity dinner.’
‘I hate to break this to you, Bram, but you’re going to need more than a contract to convince your family that this is a genuine marriage.’
‘A contract is hard to ignore,’ Bram pointed out.
‘I agree, but this isn’t an arranged marriage with every detail hammered out by families who have known one another for generations. I can’t speak for the men, but the women in your family will want all the details. The when, where and how we met. How we got from there to here. We’re going to need a story.’
Bram rubbed a hand over his face. ‘I thought this was going to be simple.’
‘It will be,’ she assured him. ‘All it requires is a little preparation so that we get the basics straight.’ She took another date. ‘Let’s start with how we met. London seems the most likely place.’
He shrugged. ‘I was there for a week last December.’
She shook her head. ‘That’s too recent. How often do you go to London?’
‘It varies. About once a month, more often when a new project is kicking off.’
‘Do you take Peter with you?’
‘He usually takes advantage of my absence to go into the desert with his camera.’ Then, catching her meaning, ‘I suppose, if I needed someone, he could ask his godmother to provide a PA.’
‘That seems likely and, naturally, she would have sent her very best.’
‘Naturally.’
‘And you were so impressed—’
‘—that I always asked for you when I was in London.’
‘Anyone would,’ she assured him and he rewarded her with a smile for her cheek. ‘Obviously, when Peter called asking her to send someone to cover for him, she would have asked me to drop everything and fly to Ras al Kawi.’
‘Obviously.’ His grin faded. ‘And that first moment, when I saw you—’
‘—you realised that you couldn’t live without me.’
For a moment they just stared at one another as the whisper of a breeze caught the flame of the candle and sent it dancing, throwing shadows up the walls.
‘Well, that’s a great start but we’re going to need more than that.’
‘Are we?’
Ruby firmly suppressed a little shiver that ran up her spine. It was getting chilly.
‘Me,’ she said. ‘I’m going to need more. You’ll probably just get a blokeish slap on the back, but the women in your family—your mother, your sisters—will give me the full who-the-heck-are-you-and-what-makes-you-think-you’re-good-enough-for-our-boy? interrogation.’
Amused, he said, ‘I didn’t realise you’d met them.’
‘Mothers, sisters, are the same the world over, Bram, and once they’ve sorted out the how and where they’ll want every detail of how we got from personal assistant to personal.’
His s
mile faded.
He clearly hadn’t thought this through before he’d asked for her help. He’d been solely focused on protecting Bibi Khadri from her father’s machinations and was only now beginning to realise the extent of what he’d taken on. Or, more realistically, what she’d taken on, because men didn’t do personal stuff. She was the one who would be facing the in-depth interrogation.
‘Will you be able to handle that?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but we will need to have our stories straight.’
Neither of them spoke for a moment, then Bram said, ‘Okay, keeping it real...I could have kept you late one night and then insisted on taking you out to dinner.’
‘To thank me for all my hard work?’
‘Maybe I was being selfish,’ he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his lip. ‘I didn’t want to eat alone and you are an intelligent and attractive woman.’
It was ridiculous to blush. He said attractive, not beautiful, and they were creating a legend, a story. A lie.
‘You eat alone?’ she asked, ignoring the little cold spot at her core. The realisation that she was inventing a history, just as her father had done a hundred times or more. And so easily...
In a good cause, she told herself. In a good cause.
‘My life has changed,’ Bram said, distracting her. ‘I no longer move in the same circles as I did when I lived in Europe.’
He was lonely?
No, no...
Stick to the details. Working late. Dinner... It could have happened exactly like that. She’d had the invitations, but had always said no...
‘Right, well, that’s real enough,’ she said briskly. ‘So, where did you take me?’
He thought about it for a moment before naming a selection of the most exclusive and expensive restaurants currently fashionable in the city.
‘Bram Ansari, you are the kind of boss I’ve always dreamed of,’ she said, ‘but I would have been working for ten hours and would have needed a shower and change of clothes for anywhere that special.’
‘The shower I could arrange...’ He cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps not. Besides, it was late and there was no way I could have got a table. My gratitude would have had to wait until the following evening.’
‘You were leaving the following day,’ she reminded him.
‘I was?’
‘Your plane was waiting at London City Airport, the flight plan filed. And neither of us had eaten since I shared my packed lunch with you at lunchtime.’
He looked at her for a moment and then, unexpectedly, he laughed. ‘You’re really getting into this.’
Of course she was. She was a con man’s daughter and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree but she wasn’t hurting anyone, cheating anyone...
‘I’m the go-to woman for detail,’ she said.
‘Okay, so it’s late, we’re tired and hungry. What do you suggest?’
‘A quick trip to the nearest fast food outlet?’ she offered, mentally waving goodbye to the Michelin stars. ‘Or we could have ordered in a Chinese. Where would we have been? You don’t have an office in London.’
‘I have a service flat at the Savoy,’ he said. ‘I work from there.’
Okaaay... ‘Well, no problem. Obviously, you called up room service. I would have been happy with scrambled egg and a pot of tea but you insisted on a proper meal and champagne because one of the ventures you’d financed had just been launched on the Stock Exchange...’ She snapped out of her story. ‘Do you drink champagne?’
‘It has been known,’ he said wryly.
‘Oh, yes...’ Colour rose to her cheeks as she recalled the photographs of him in that fountain, naked, his arm around a girl who had stripped down to transparently wet underwear, his mouth open as he’d poured champagne over them both. She cleared her throat. ‘So let’s say this happened about eighteen months ago. That would have been about the time of the Maxim Sports flotation.’
‘How would you know that?’ he asked, losing the smile.
‘It’s not a secret.’
‘I’m not suggesting that it is. I’m asking how you know that off the top of your head,’ he persisted. ‘Please don’t tell me that you read up on it on your way here.’
She swallowed, wishing she’d kept her smart mouth shut instead of getting carried away with their story. Too late and now he’d gone all suspicious on her. She would never tell him the truth—that she’d hoped to recoup a large amount, at least large enough to finally settle her father’s debt. She wouldn’t have seen a penny of that money for herself.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘because I invested some of my hard-earned in the launch shares.’
‘You play the market?’ he asked with an edge in his voice sharp enough to cut steel.
‘I don’t play at anything.’ She had done nothing wrong and yet all her instincts had instantly gone on the defensive. As had his. There was no smile now, none of the warmth that a moment ago had fed their game, only suspicion as she was forced onto the back foot, having to justify what she did. ‘That six-month maternity cover was for a stockbroker. I’ve learned a lot from him over the years, including the advice to follow a smart venture capitalist by the name of Bram Ansari.’
‘No doubt. And I imagine that as you go from company to company you pick up a great deal of privileged information,’ he said, ignoring her last comment, ‘which you feed back to him.’
On the word of a friend, the assurance of a young man who’d never met her, he had confided in her, laid himself bare, hostage to her discretion. With one careless remark she had shattered that trust. She didn’t answer but reached into her bag for her tablet, calling on every ounce of self-control to keep her hands steady as she pulled up a folder.
‘That’s my portfolio. If you check it against my work diary you’ll see that I’ve never invested in any of the companies I’ve worked for.’ She stood up, placed it in front of him and turned to leave but he caught her hand.
‘Ruby...’
‘It’s all there. Dates, amounts, profits...’
‘Sit down.’
When she didn’t move he looked up, his golden eyes gleaming in the light of the candles.
‘Will you please sit down, Ruby?’
She lowered herself to the edge of the chair but he still kept his hand lightly wrapped around hers as he flicked through her trading history. He wasn’t restraining her, simply holding her hand. She could have pulled away. She should have pulled away—
‘You had funds from the sale of the Maxim shares but you didn’t invest in Oliver Brent’s venture,’ he said after a while.
‘No.’
He looked up. ‘Was there any special reason for that?’
‘Nothing that would make sense to you.’
‘Try me.’
‘It was nothing.’ Bram Ansari simply waited. ‘He had a smile that could sell false teeth to a shark.’ She lifted her shoulders a millimetre or two. ‘I’m sure Oliver Brent is solid as a rock. Shares in his company have gone through the roof in the last twelve months. My mistake,’ she added.
‘No.’ He released her hand, sat back in his chair, putting a little distance between them so that she could breathe again. ‘You have to trust your instincts. If your gut tells you to walk away, no matter how good it looks, then that’s the right decision.’
He looked up, met her gaze then closed her tablet and handed it back to her.
‘An interesting portfolio but you take your profit too soon.’
‘I have expenses.’
He nodded. ‘Take a look at the pitches in my pending file when you have time. I’d be interested to know if anything catches your eye.’
He hadn’t apologised for jumping to the wrong conclusion, accusing her of insider trading, but she had been given some
thing infinitely more precious. His trust.
‘So tell me, Ruby, what did we eat that first night?’
She blinked at the abrupt change of subject, taking a moment to catch up. ‘Eat? I don’t know. I’ll have to check the Savoy’s menu online.’
‘They will prepare anything at the Grill but there is a great seafood bar.’ He glanced up and his eyes glowed amber in the candlelight. ‘Do you enjoy shellfish?’
‘Yes,’ she said quickly. ‘Yes, I love it.’
‘Then maybe we’d have started with a shared platter. Oysters, lobster tails, smoked salmon?’
The night was still, black and warm around them. The only sounds were the soft swoosh of the sea lapping against the sand in the cove below them, a cicada warming up in fits and starts. They were alone in the small circle of candlelight and for a moment the beginning of this make-believe love affair felt real. She could imagine them sitting over supper, talking, just like they were tonight.
‘D-delicious,’ she said, her voice thick.
‘What next? Will you stay with fish or they do a very fine burger?’
‘We were talking,’ she said. ‘I didn’t notice what we had next except there was something out of this world made of chocolate for dessert and the richest coffee I’ve ever tasted.’
‘Oh?’ He propped his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his hands, smiling now. ‘What were we talking about that was so distracting?’
‘I asked you about the company you were about to invest in, why them...’
‘Eighteen months ago?’ He thought about it for a moment. ‘That would have to be Shadbrook. It’s still early days.’
‘I read something about them last week,’ she said. ‘Eco-energy?’ And, just like that, they were off and talking about the company, the passion of the people involved, and she didn’t notice that she’d demolished the dish of fruit and sweets that Mina had brought them.
Eventually she ran out of questions and they fell silent.
‘And then, Ruby?’ he said softly, looking at her intently. ‘When we stopped talking what did we do then?’
‘I...’ For a moment it had been so real, almost as if they were back in London eighteen months ago, eating fabulous food, talking about something that fascinated them both. ‘It was late,’ she said. ‘You called for your car and sent me home in style.’