Nearly knocking over one of the paralegals as she exited the bathroom, she apologised profusely over her shoulder and stepped straight into the path of the long, self-assured strides of her current boss and...her new boss.
Heart hammering, Ruby first met blue eyes and then molten brown, her breath backing up in her lungs, her brain automatically registering how big and devastatingly good-looking Sam Ventura was sans mask. He was a couple of inches taller than Drew, his white shirt with the blue stripe perfectly complementing his olive skin tone, his navy-blue suit jacket stretched perfectly across his broad shoulders.
Her gaze lingered on his clean-shaven jaw and sensual mouth. He had pleasured her so thoroughly on Friday night her body immediately felt hot all over. Hot and weak. Especially when she remembered the way his mouth had felt on her breast, the way he had used his teeth and his tongue to torture her with mindless pleasure.
Coffee surged out of the spout of her to-go cup and dribbled over her fingers. Squeaking in dismay, she brought her hand to her mouth to capture the drops before they hit the carpet and nearly tipped the whole contents out instead.
Sam reached forward to pluck the cup out of her nerveless fingers while Drew handed her a handkerchief from his breast pocket.
‘Ruby? Hell. Are you burnt?’ Drew asked, concern lacing his voice.
‘No,’ Ruby croaked. Just embarrassed. ‘It was cold.’
She kept her focus on Drew, knowing she would turn stop sign-red if she looked at Sam.
‘Okay, well, I’m glad we caught you. I didn’t see you in the conference room at the meet and greet,’ Drew said.
‘I was there,’ she assured him. ‘I uh...had to duck out.’
‘So you know Sam and I are sharing the managing-partner role?’
Ruby’s lips stretched into a tight smile. She’d missed that bit of the speech as well. ‘Great. Congratulations.’ She cast a quick glance at Sam to include him in her felicitations, only to find him studying her far too intently.
Ordering herself to act normal, she gritted her teeth and broadened her smile to make it more genuine. ‘Welcome to the team.’ A team that would soon be less one lawyer. Her. Because her first instinct had been spot-on: she would have to resign. There was no way she could see him in the office every day and remember everything they had done in Technicolor detail and then actually work for him in any sort of professional capacity.
‘Thanks.’ Sam’s deep voice reverberated through her whole body, tightening every nerve ending to an excruciatingly fine point. ‘I’m pleased to be here.’
She nodded, wondering if he had known she worked at the firm before Friday night...which was completely irrelevant because he didn’t know he’d even been with her on Friday night. The cad!
‘It’s good we ran into you,’ Drew said, cutting into her increasingly irrational thoughts. ‘I was just bringing Sam to your office.’
Ruby tried not to show her alarm. ‘You were?’
‘Yes. With Mandy about to go into labour any day now, Sam has agreed to oversee the Star Burger case and I’d like you to bring him up to speed. Once this thing hits the media it’s going to be bigger than Ben Hur, and I’d feel much better having a senior partner on board.’
As much as Ruby wanted to ease Drew’s mind right before his first child was born, she had this case well in hand. ‘Really, I have everything under control,’ she advised him, hoping she sounded cool instead of defensive.
‘Your last update said you were planning to put a political bigwig on the stand. This thing is getting huge, Ruby.’
‘I’m not just planning it,’ she stated crisply. ‘I intend to do it.’ She didn’t mean to bristle but she knew Drew had been dubious about her taking this pro bono case in the first place, and there was no way she was going to pull her punches now or, heaven forbid, drop the case altogether. Star Burger was an immensely popular chain of restaurants throughout Australia. The owner, Carter Jones, had franchised his business but had neglected to put in ethical standards to protect his employees. As a result everything from discrimination to racism and underpayment ran rampant throughout the organisation, and Ruby aimed to prove that it started at the top down.
Winning would not only mean that her badly treated clients were paid the money owed to them, it would also give a group of young people who were typically vulnerable in the community a voice they’d never had before. ‘And it already is huge.’
‘Which is why Sam needs to help you out,’ Drew said, ‘he has experience with cases like this.’ He looked from Sam to her. ‘Plus he said you already know each other.’
He had? Ruby swallowed. ‘Only because my best friend married his brother. We don’t actually know know each other.’ Okay, so that time she had definitely sounded defensive; she knew it and steadfastly refused to look at Sam.
‘I can take it from here, Drew,’ Sam assured the other man calmly. ‘You still want this?’ He held the cup of cold coffee up to her.
‘No. But it’s a reusable cup, so you can’t throw it away.’
‘Fine.’ He held on to it for her. ‘You’ll have to lead the way. I have no idea where your office is.’
Unable to come up with a plausible reason to defer their meeting, she gave him a tight smile. At least he didn’t know what had transpired between them on Friday night. It was a small comfort, considering she did know and it was all she could think about, but she clung on to it anyway.
* * *
Cool as a cucumber, Sam thought, watching the sway of Ruby’s body as she marched ahead of him, her pencil skirt lovingly outlining the sweet curves of her bottom and long legs that ended in skyscraper heels. This was the Ruby he’d met two years ago in the bar, all sharp edges and take-charge attitude wrapped in a glossy, unruffled package.
Or so she would have him believe. Because she wasn’t entirely unruffled if her inability to maintain eye contact with him was any indication. That could be shock, of course, at having him turn up at her workplace. He was a little in shock himself. He hadn’t known where Ruby worked before today and there was no way she could have known he was about to merge his firm with Kent’s.
They had deliberately kept the merger quiet so as not to tip off the markets until it was a fait accompli. But this development, having Ruby as an employee, certainly threw a spanner in the works. He’d planned to get her phone number off Miller this week and call her up. Demand an explanation as to her actions last Friday night and then tell her what he thought about them. Tell her that next time she had sex with a man, she needed to wait around so that he could make sure she was okay and see her home.
Given that she was treating him like a veritable stranger right now, she probably wouldn’t have responded to his call very positively. But they weren’t strangers at all. They were lovers. Well, maybe not lovers. A lover didn’t run out on a man after she’d sent him to heaven and back, did she?
Sam frowned, his earlier fury with her returning full force. Did Ruby even know it was he who had been inside her delicious body not fifty-eight hours ago? He who had made her come so hard that she had clung to him like a baby koala about to fall out of a tree? The thought that maybe she hadn’t known had crossed his mind more than once over the weekend, but he’d immediately dismissed the notion. She’d known it was him. He was sure of it.
But what if she hadn’t? What if he’d been little more than a random hook-up she’d used to scratch an itch? Sam felt a deep growl rumble inside his chest. A part of him didn’t like to think that was all it had been for her, which was slightly irrational because wasn’t that all it had been for him?
Her stride slowed as she reached a secretarial desk, her face only slightly softening as she listened to the woman seated behind it. He studied Ruby’s profile. Her thick, straight hair was bound tightly at the base of her skull and he wanted to unwind it and mess up each blonde strand until it sifted like silk through his finge
rs.
‘If you’ll give me a minute,’ she said coolly, turning to look at him. ‘I need to take an important call before our meeting.’
Sam planted his hands on his hips as he regarded her. Was this a power play? Make him cool his heels while he had to wait for her?
‘Fine,’ he finally said, attempting to give her the benefit of the doubt.
‘Would you like a coffee while you wait, Mr Ventura?’
‘Sam,’ he automatically corrected the secretary. ‘And no. I’m fully caffeinated. Thanks.’
‘No worries.’ She smiled widely at him and he could see she wanted to say more but he paced around the small space like a caged tiger, his mind boiling over with the possibility that Ruby had no clue as to who he was other than her best friend’s brother-in-law.
‘You can send Mr Ventura in now, Ronnie.’ Ruby’s voice sounded over the intercom, raising his hackles. Mr Ventura, was it?
Of course, idiot, you’re in the office, not a bar.
Fine. He’d be calm and professional in return. Let her know he preferred first names in the office just as Drew did and then he’d ask her if she was okay. And perhaps why she’d sent him on a fool’s errand on Friday night and then run away from him.
‘I’d like to get something straight,’ she said, seated behind her desk like a queen attempting to exert control over a particularly unruly minion. ‘I know how busy you must be with the merger, and the move to new office space this afternoon, so I don’t want you to feel that you have to involve yourself in the Star Burger case. I have an incredible team working with me and we really do have everything well in hand.’
The woman had spunk; he’d give her that. ‘And hello to you too, Ruby. It’s good to see you again,’ Sam drawled, somehow managing to hold his fast-rising irritation in check.
She had, he noticed with some satisfaction, the good grace to blush. ‘It’s ah...nice to see you too.’
Like hell it was, he thought, refusing to sit down opposite her like the good boy she expected him to be. Instead he took his time studying her office as if he were truly interested.
‘I just don’t want you to think that I need your assistance right now,’ she continued as the silence lengthened between them. ‘I know you must be incredibly busy.’
‘So you said.’ He picked up a colourful paperweight from her bookcase and tossed it into the air. ‘Nice piece. Who gave it to you?’
‘My mother.’ She moistened her cherry-red lips, a signature look of hers if he remembered correctly. ‘After I made Senior Associate.’
‘That’s right.’ He looked across at her. ‘Drew said you’re very good at your job.’
‘Extremely good,’ she corrected, more defensive now than uncertain. ‘I’ve worked hard to get where I am at Kent’s.’
‘I didn’t say you hadn’t.’
‘I know, but some people assume it’s because of Drew’s affirmative action strategy and—oh, never mind.’
‘Relax, Ruby,’ he said, finally dropping into the club chair opposite her desk now that he had control of the conversation. And her. ‘This isn’t a job interview. I wasn’t having a go at your position in the firm. I’m sure you’ve earned it.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Yes, I have. Now, what is it you need from me exactly?’ Before you hurry up and leave, her tone implied.
‘That depends.’ Sam quirked a brow. ‘What are you offering? Exactly?’
She took a deep breath and he took more pleasure than he should in knowing that he’d succeeded in riling her. ‘Mr Ventura—’
‘Sam,’ he interrupted. ‘You can start by calling me Sam and then you can continue by telling me why you’re so prickly.’
‘I’m not prickly.’
‘As a porcupine being poked with a stick.’ He relaxed back in the seat. ‘Unless this is your usual working demeanour, and if it is then I might start questioning how you got so far so fast after all.’
‘I apologise,’ she said stiffly, smart enough not to take his bait again. ‘I didn’t mean to sound rude. I’m still getting my head around today’s announcement about the merger and the changes that will bring.’
‘Understandable. Now, tell me what the phone call was about.’
‘Phone call?’
‘The one you had to take while you left me outside, cooling my heels.’
‘I didn’t do that.’
‘You did, but I’m not going to quibble over it. Did the call have anything to do with the Star Burger case?’
She frowned, clearly not wanting to share any information with him. ‘Yes. But, as I said, I know you must have a hundred things on your plate, so you don’t need to worry about this case right now.’
Sam looked at her, taking in the smooth line of her jaw and the challenging glint in her green eyes. Of course he had to worry about the case. Star Burger Restaurants was owned by one of the wealthiest men in Australia, a known pig of a man, who habitually treated people badly. Four months ago a group of young migrant workers had formed an alliance and decided to do something about their shocking working conditions and had approached legal aid for help. Legal aid had directed them to Ruby’s desk and the case had grown exponentially until they now had a class action on their hands. It would be a landmark case in Australia if they won.
But he’d get to that later. First up he wanted to find out what Ruby’s deal was and whether it had anything to do with their tryst on Friday night. ‘So your resistance to having me work on this case is not because you’re worried that Drew thinks you can’t handle it, but for my benefit—is that right?’
‘I can handle the case just fine.’ She frowned darkly. ‘And I think it’s overkill to have you stepping in at this point, especially if you’re under the impression that I need you. I mean, that I need your help or...anything.’
‘Pity that’s not your call to make, isn’t it?’
His tone was cool and challenging and Ruby had no comeback because they both knew he was right: it wasn’t her call to make.
‘This is a David and Goliath case, Ruby,’ he continued softly. ‘Once it hits the media, Carter Jones will go after your clients’ reputations with a vengeance and you’ll need to be ready.’
‘I know all this. I know we’re the underdogs.’ Concern pleated her brow. ‘It’s an impossible case to win, everybody says so, but no matter what you say to me, I have no intention of dropping it.’
‘Dropping it?’ Where had that come from?
‘Yes. I know Drew was concerned about Kent’s taking it on in the first place, and I know he’s worried about how big it’s going to get, but it’s too important to drop now. We’ve come too far.’
Sam frowned. ‘Have I asked you to drop it?’
‘No.’ Her chin came up and she unconsciously moistened her lips again. ‘Are you going to?’
‘No. But I know Carter Jones and I know how ruthless he can be. If this case goes to court it could severely damage his standing in the community, not to mention Star Burger Restaurant’s profit margin. He won’t allow that at any cost.’
‘Then he should have made sure he took better care of his employees,’ she said with a spiritedness Sam couldn’t help but admire. ‘Because this case is going all the way, Sam. These boys need justice and I intend to see that they have it.’
‘Well said, and you’ll get no argument about that from me. But surely you can see how having a lead partner on the case transmits a level of gravitas to the proceedings that might not otherwise be there.’
‘You mean it will intimidate the opposition to have Sam Ventura on the case?’
Sam inclined his head. ‘I have a reputation for winning, but then so do you. I think Drew’s idea is that together we’ll make a formidable team.’
‘And if I disagree?’ she asked archly.
Sam regarded the jut of her chin and stiff back and deci
ded to push her some more. ‘Another decision that isn’t yours to make.’
She made a low sound in the base of her throat, her eyes shooting daggers at him. ‘Fine. Do whatever you like. It’s not as if I can stop you from coming in and taking over, is it?’
Sam ran a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘Ruby, this isn’t about your ability to run the case, or us dropping it, and it’s not about me coming in and taking over. But this case is a class action. You’re going to need senior counsel on it whether you like it or not.’
She gave a heavy sigh, her shoulders slumping a little. ‘It’s not a class action any more. Another client has dropped out, leaving only six.’
‘Six?’ That shocked him. ‘You started with nineteen.’
‘I know. Carter Jones and his cronies have already started intimidating them. The boys don’t understand the system and therefore they don’t trust it. But the remaining six want to go ahead and I intend to stand by them.’
Sam drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Six wasn’t going to be enough to defeat Jones. ‘Set up a meeting with all nineteen,’ he said decisively. ‘I’ll speak with them.’
‘All nineteen?’ Ruby looked at him dubiously. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I don’t want the remaining six to pull out as well.’
Sam raised a brow. ‘You don’t trust me very much, do you, Ruby?’
‘It’s not a question of trust,’ she said, her eyes not meeting his. ‘I don’t want you wasting your time if you don’t have to.’
‘Now it’s my turn to get something straight with you,’ he began quietly. ‘I’m a big boy, Ruby, and believe it or not I’m fully able to decide what is, and what isn’t, a waste of my time. Understand?’
The Billionaire's Virgin Temptation (HQR Presents) Page 5