knows,’ Lena said to her sister. ‘Yep,’ agreed Poppy.
‘All I’m saying is that everyone’s entitled to their secrets,’ offered Damon. ‘Why not let Ruby keep hers?’
‘He really likes her,’ said Lena, staring at him in amazement.
Poppy just looked at him and smiled her gentle smile.
Ruby prepared for dinner with Russell West and his family on Christmas Eve with a great many misgivings, most of them centred around seeing Damon again. She toyed with the idea of phoning Russell and pleading ill for the evening. Lies were useful, at times. Everybody lied.
Except she’d made honesty her platform when it came to dealing with Damon West, and how could she demand something from him that she wasn’t prepared to give?
Opening up her wardrobe at 5:00 p.m. with almost two hours to go until pick-up gave some indication of her state of apprehension. The restaurant encouraged formal evening wear. Suits for the gentlemen, couture for the ladies. What would Poppy and Lena be wearing? Not colours, if Damon could be believed, and in this he probably could.
‘What’ll I wear, C?’ she asked the little tortoiseshell beast who hovered in the doorway behind her, hedging his bets as to whether he would come into the room or stay out. ‘Little black dress?’ She pulled two from her cupboard, one strapless and fitted, the other one more modest but still fitted. Not really one for hiding her curves, Ruby.
Curves were assets and assets worked best when seen.
‘Too bleak for a Christmas dinner? I agree. What about the purple? Gorgeous cut, not too daring and there’s a matching headband. Damon’s going to love that. It’ll give him something external to focus on, as opposed to worming his way inside my head and digging around. Excellent idea.’
Showering and dressing for dinner didn’t take Ruby long. Six o’clock arrived, bringing with it yet another bundle of nerves for her to carry to the dinner table. Six-fifteen arrived and Ruby’s patience with waiting and stewing, and stewing and waiting, ran out.
She rang Russell and told him she had a few errands to see to and that she would meet them at the restaurant at seven, no need for anyone to pick her up. Russell agreed and Ruby breathed a sigh of relief because arriving separately gave her mobility and options when it came to ending the evening on her terms.
‘Win for Ruby,’ she told the little cat when she got off the phone. ‘Russell must have been distracted.’
At exactly 7:00 p.m., Ruby walked into the restaurant to find the Wests taking possession of narrow flutes of champagne in the pre-dinner area. They made a pretty picture, all of them together, although the family resemblance was not that strong. Damon had black hair and so did Lena. Poppy’s hair was a honey-blonde colour, and Russell’s had salted to grey.
Poppy had cornflower-blue eyes and a touch of fairy in her, thought Ruby fancifully. Lena’s eye colour tended more towards greyscale than blue and conjured up a touch of the devil. Different souls altogether, these two, but their smiles had a similar shape to them, and their voices—as they greeted Ruby politely—had a velvet musical quality to them that delighted the ear.
Lena wore slimline black trousers and a cream-coloured camisole that served only to emphasise her pallor and her fragility. Poppy fared better in a midnight-blue and silver A-line dress and a pretty pair of strappy silver sandals. Heaven only knew what they thought of Ruby’s choice of apparel for the evening, but she could probably hazard a guess. Too theatrical, way too bright …
Wonder what else they didn’t have in common?
And then Ruby turned to Damon and shouldered the impact of him dressed in crisp evening wear with as much panache as she could. A wry smile for him alone, and a promise to herself not to make this evening any more difficult than it already was. Be polite. Don’t get personal. Keep her fascination for this man to herself. ‘Damon.’
‘Ruby.’ How would he play this, for they hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms? Cool and distant? Politely dismissive? What? All he had to do was give her a clue and she would follow his lead. ‘Nice headband.’
Was he … teasing her?
‘Thank you.’ This one had a chiffon butterfly perched above her left ear. ‘Not too plain?’
‘Not at all.’ A twitch of his lips. ‘It’s very festive.’
‘Well, I try.’ A swift glance down at his elegant charcoal tie, white shirt and charcoal suit, followed by the arch of her eyebrow told him exactly what she thought of his attempts at brightening up a person’s day.
Damon’s smile widened and Ruby felt herself relax, just a little. She turned back to Lena to find the other woman getting rid of a grin but leaning rather heavily on her cane. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you all waiting,’ she said. ‘I hear the dining experience here is superb. Shall we take the champagne in and be seated?’
That took time, and ordering the meals took more. Conversation flowed around food likes and dislikes, and how long Ruby had been living in Hong Kong, and what she liked best about the expat lifestyle. From there it moved on to people’s favourite places around the globe, a conversation even Poppy joined in, albeit shyly.
Social lubrication—Ruby was good at it, she’d been tutored by the best. But she’d been tutored in leading a conversation, not letting it ebb and flow at will. Get so-and-so to talk about this, her father would say, and sometimes he’d simply been training her and sometimes he’d been after information. Not a skill she wanted to employ at this table.
Don’t lead. It was her second motto for the evening, right up there behind don’t drool on Damon.
She managed to avoid both for quite some time. Right up until Russell mentioned that she’d soon be leaving his employ and Damon speared her with a glittering sapphire gaze.
‘Why?’ he wanted to know curtly, all pretence of social distance shattered.
‘I want to get back to practising some kind of law,’ Ruby offered carefully. Nothing to do with Damon, or what had transpired between them; she needed him to know that. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. And then a remark someone made to me recently about my particular skill set cemented the notion that maybe I shouldn’t have given up on a law career quite so quickly. You know how it is.’ She smiled a quick smile. ‘Sometimes it takes a stranger with a fresh eye to point out the obvious.’
‘Will you stay in Hong Kong?’ Another Damon question.
‘There’s no pressing need to stay here, no,’ murmured Ruby. An answer Damon would probably find hypocritical given her fully voiced views on his inability to settle in any one place. ‘I might try Geneva.’
‘Are you interested in humanitarian law?’ asked Poppy tentatively.
‘Maybe. It’s worth exploring as an option, at any rate. I’d need to retrain. Not that that’s a problem.’
Ruby glanced at Damon and found him staring at her as if perplexed, and then his gaze cut to her choice of hair accessory as if that perplexed him even more. ‘It’s just a headband, Damon. A festive touch for a festive occasion. It doesn’t define me.’
‘I noticed that,’ he countered
