know why the hell Laurence would expect her to be the one to do it.
But she had no time to squander on the prodigal son. After the way he’d neglected his father, Zane was so low on her radar he didn’t register. Right now she’d lost her mentor, a father figure and an inspiration. Most of all, she’d lost a dear friend.
‘Oh, Laurence,’ she whispered, her voice cracking under the strain. ‘I’ll miss you so much.’
The door swung open behind her. She sniffed and took a calming breath. The staff would be wanting her to leave so they could complete the formalities. She lifted her head to acknowledge their presence.
‘I’m almost ready,’ she said, only half turning towards the door. ‘Just a moment longer, if that’s okay.’
There was no immediate response, no drawing back and closing of doors, and a strange feeling of unease crawled its way up her spine. Her back straightened in reaction, her arms prickling into goosebumps as the room chilled to ice-cold.
‘I’d prefer to visit with my father alone.’
Her head snapped around to where the stranger with the ice-cold tone filled the doorway. And yet, for the briefest second, her heart skipped with recognition—until harsh reality resurfaced, snuffing out her momentary joy.
Oh, they might have been Laurence’s eyes she’d been staring at, with their same dark caramel richness, the same shape and heavy-hooded, almost seductive lids. But whereas the older man’s eyes had been filled with a mixture of affection and respect, their corners crinkled with laughter over a shared joke or with natural delight at discovering the perfect pearl, the eyes turned upon her now were cold and imperious.
Zane, she realised, her first-impression sensors screaming a red-light warning. So what that he was Laurence’s son?—clearly that didn’t make him her friend.
His body language made that more than plain. His unyielding stance was imbued with antagonism, from his unshaven jaw and short finger-combed dark hair to his designer black jeans and hand-crafted leather boots, planted on the tiled floor like they owned it. Even the contrasting white shirt failed to soften the impression, instead only emphasising his olive skin and dark features. He wore power like a birthright.
She forced her aching back ramrod straight in her chair as his icy gaze swept over her, noticing when it finally came to a halt where her fingers rested, still curled around his father’s hand. Disapproval came off him in waves, but she pointedly maintained her hold. She had a right to be here even if he didn’t like it. And he obviously didn’t. Too bad.
And yet, whatever his faults, part of her recognized that he had to be hurting, too. Despite the two not speaking for years, his father’s death must still have come as a huge shock. Even just one day ago Laurence had been expected to make a complete recovery, so when Zane had boarded that plane from London, the prospect of his father’s death would have been a remote and unlikely possibility. He would have to be made of granite not to be affected by what he’d discovered once he’d arrived. Nobody could be that hard. Nobody could that insensitive.
‘You must be Zane,’ she said, trying to steer some kind of course through the jagged ice floes cluttering the atmosphere between them. ‘I’m Ruby Clemenger. I worked with your father.’
‘I know who you are,’ he snapped.
She blinked and took a steadying breath, instantly rethinking her earlier assumption. Maybe he was that hard and insensitive, after all.
‘I am sorry about your father,’ she persisted, trying again, if only for Laurence’s sake, because even if she didn’t give a rat’s about Zane, she’d wanted so much for Laurence to have his last wish met. She shook her head. ‘He wanted so much to see you. But you’re too late.’
His eyes narrowed in on hers, intensifying their laser-like quality.
‘Too late?’ he repeated. ‘Oh, yeah, it sure looks that way from where I’m standing.’
She shivered in the frosty atmosphere. Why did she get the distinct impression he was talking about more than his father’s untimely death?
Zane battled to hold his mounting irritation in check. Trust her to be here. He hadn’t seen a single photograph of his father over the last few years that hadn’t also featured this woman clinging to his arm. Ruby Clemenger—his father’s constant companion, his father’s right-hand woman. His father had always been a leg man, and, judging by the long sweep of golden limbs tucked beneath her on the armchair, nothing much had changed.
But right now all he wanted was for her to use those legs to get out of here. This was his father, his grief, his anger. He’d travelled the best part of twenty-four hours, only to be cheated out of seeing his father by one. He didn’t want to share this time with anyone, let alone with the likes of her.
At last it seemed she was taking the hint. The spark of fight that had flared in her azure eyes had dimmed as she unwound herself out of the chair, her movements slow and deliberate, like she’d been sitting too long. But still she didn’t move away from the bed, her filmy skirt floating just above knee length.
Even in their jet-lagged state his eyes couldn’t help but notice—he’d been right about the legs. But now she was standing, it was clear her attributes didn’t stop there—they extended much further north, an alluring mix of feminine curves and sun-kissed skin, of blue eyes framed by dark lashes and lips generous enough to be begging to be kissed—just the way he liked them.
Just the way his father liked them.
Bitterness congealed like a lead weight inside him. She had to be at least three decades younger than Laurence’s fifty-five years; with a body and a face like hers, his father hadn’t stood a chance—she was a heart attack waiting to happen!
As he watched, she lifted the hand she’d been holding and pressed it to her lips before gently replacing it at Laurence’s side. Then she leaned over and smoothed a thumb over his brow. He watched her dip her head, the loose tendrils of her whisky-coloured hair falling free of the clasp at the back of her head as she kissed his father on the cheek one final time.
‘Goodbye, Laurence,’ he heard her whisper. ‘I’ll always love you.’
The words struck him like a blow deep in a place already overflowing with rancour and tainted by a cynicism borne from working on some of the ugliest corporate take-overs in Europe. Her performance was no doubt all for his benefit. He knew what people were capable of when there were fortunes at stake.
Ruby Clemenger was merely an employee of the Bastiani Pearl Corporation, although clearly her ‘duties’ extended way beyond her jewellery design. Of course, she would know the Corporation was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Would she hope to establish there was more to the extracurricular arrangement she had with his father than mutual-needs fulfilment? Was this her way of staking a claim on the business now that Laurence was gone?
She’d have to try one hell of a lot harder than that if it was.
‘How touching,’ he said, the bile rising in his throat, his patience at an end. ‘Now, if you’re quite finished?’
Her back went rigid and she stilled momentarily before reaching out her hand to Laurence’s cheek one last time. Then she turned and, with barely a glance at him from her glacial blue eyes, side-stepped around Zane and slipped out of the room.
Her
