‘Sorry. I also need to return to the office,’ Sam said, opening the back door to the limousine and waiting for Grant to move inside before subtly blocking Ruby’s way with his body.
‘I can tell you’re going to be irrational about this,’ he murmured so that only she could hear. ‘But I would have defended any one of my colleagues in exactly the same way.’
Ruby kept her gaze level with the top of the car. It wasn’t so much Sam’s defence of her that had upset her; it was her own reaction in giving herself away that bothered her. ‘I said I was fine.’
When he didn’t immediately move out of her way she glanced up to find him frowning. ‘Forget Carter Jones and concentrate on the fact that you did a brilliant job in there. You do a brilliant job full stop.’
‘Thanks.’ She felt emotion well up in her throat, clogging it.
Oh, God, she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t be with Sam and not because of work, or her reputation, and not because Veronica had guessed there was something going on between them or because Carter Jones had been crude, but because she had fallen in love with him.
Completely and irrevocably.
An incontrovertible mistake, given that they were only having an affair. An affair she knew would end at some point. Leaving her crushed.
The knowledge slid into place inside her with the ease of a softball player sliding into home plate—followed swiftly by a tide of rising panic.
Finally Sam inclined his head and moved out of her way. ‘You’re not okay, but we’ll discuss it tonight.’
Would they? Ruby was already wondering how she would be able to get out of seeing him. She was so far out of her comfort zone right now she’d need the Hubble space telescope to find it.
And what she needed more than seeing Sam was distance. Distance to work out how she had gone from great, casual sex to love when she’d been so careful to avoid it.
* * *
Back in his office Sam ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
He knew Ruby was upset with the not so subtle threat he’d made to Jones in their meeting but, dammit, she was being unreasonable about that. Sam was used to defending people; it was what he did. No hesitation. No sign of weakness. His father had hated weakness. ‘If you hesitate, you lose—it’s that simple,’ he’d used to say.
Sam had taken the mantra to heart—at first to try and please his father, but after that he’d seen that it worked. But Ruby saw his methods as—what had she said?—being like a Sherman tank. Was that the problem? Was that what she’d reacted to so strongly? Well, he couldn’t say he wouldn’t do it again. That would be a lie. No one insulted his woman and got away with it. Ever.
His woman...
He knew that was what she was even if she didn’t yet. The realisation had hit him hard the night before when he’d been at a work dinner in LA. As usual he’d been thinking about her, wondering what she was up to, and whether or not he should call her, when the woman beside him had placed her hand on his knee beneath the table. Sam had been so surprised he hadn’t reacted immediately. When he had it was to lean in close and tell her that he was taken. She’d pouted up at him, looking at him from beneath her lashes, and asked if he’d been sure, and he’d said, ‘Unequivocally.’ And he was.
Meeting Ruby had knocked him on his backside two years ago and he’d been slowly sliding into love ever since. That night at the Herzog party had sealed his fate, if he had only known it then, but now that he did he couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.
And he was pretty sure she felt the same way about him.
He glanced up as Wilma, the secretary he’d inherited from Mr Kent Senior, knocked and entered his office. ‘I thought you’d left for the night,’ he said.
‘Nearly, Mr Ventura. I just have a few things to tidy up before I go.’
He smiled at her, absently wondering how Tino had first told Miller how he felt. Had he come straight out and said that he loved her, or had he done it with flowers? Serenaded her over a candlelit dinner? Should he organise flowers to fill the grand old beach house he’d just purchased beside Miller and Tino’s? Get someone to deliver a meal there, set up a few candles and maybe attach a note to Kong’s collar? Hadn’t a woman he once dated told him she’d seen it on the internet and it was the cutest move ever?