hell,’ said Lena and stared at him in dismay. ‘Damon, I’m so sorry—’
But Damon was already halfway out of the door.
He found her directing the wait staff with the precision of a conquering general. He stood back and watched, and let her do her thing and manoeuvre guests and charm her father. She hadn’t fled, she had a job to do, and it suited Damon to stand and watch her do it while he planned how best to deal with a situation he’d never encountered before.
He went back to his room, with a bleak-eyed glare for Lena, who passed him in the hallway, where he filled his backpack with the things he would need and then returned to the main room and simply walked up to her in the kitchen, took her hand and headed for the door and to hell with what people thought. His father would get over it. His father’s business friends and associates could think what they liked, and as for Ruby …
If she objected to his high-handedness she made no mention of it as she collected her work satchel from the cloak cupboard and strode through the apartment door he’d opened for her, with her hand still firmly ensconced in his.
Perhaps she was as glad to see the back end of the party as he was. Perhaps she had something to say. Time would tell, because she sure as hell wasn’t saying anything now.
Such a fascinating face—the one she presented to him as they stepped into the lift and turned around to face the closing doors. Not classically beautiful—no Grace Kelly here—but those eyes could drown a man and her lips were the work of a master. A lovely, lively face, and if a man preferred it to classical perfection, well, that was his preference.
If a man wanted to walk blindfold off a cliff and entrust her with his darkest secrets, well … that was his business too.
They rode the lift in silence, all the way down to the car park and only when they were heading for her car did she finally choose to speak.
‘So … I don’t know much about hacking but I do know that the term hacker can have multiple meanings,’ she began quietly. Careful words from a lawyer’s mind. Ruby Maguire was thinking things through. ‘What kind of hacker are you? Or perhaps the more appropriate question would be, to what end do you hack?’
‘You cross-examining me, Ruby?’
‘You planning on answering the question, Damon?’
Impasse.
‘Because, please correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounded to me as if you hack to acquire information. Like your brother’s whereabouts, for example.’
‘That one’s more of an unofficial side project detour … thing. Tiny. Really.’
‘Right,’ she drawled cuttingly. ‘So the rest of your work relates to the official collection of restricted information. How very reassuring.’
‘Shades of grey, Ruby,’ he murmured and Ruby shot him a filthy glare.
‘So you’re a spy. An information thief, all jacked in, new millennium style.’ And when he said nothing, ‘God, Damon. Have you any idea how many ethical buttons this pushes for me? There are other ways of getting information. Legal ways.’
‘Like, for example, you asking the FBI to share whatever information they have on your father? How’s that working out for you,
Ruby?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Second oldest profession, or so they say. It’s not as if I’m breaking new ground here. Just newer ways of doing it. I work towards maintaining peaceful power balances between nations. How is that wrong?’
Ruby’s steps had quickened, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Damon walked too, silence clearly the best option for now. How the hell had he got into this mess?
Headbands were the devil’s work, he decided grimly. The next time he saw one he’d know to run.
‘I knew you had secrets,’ she said and fumbled through her satchel for her car keys. ‘I chose to spend time with you anyway. But this … I’ve got to hand it to you, Damon. Even for me this is a whole new level of secrets and lies. I knew I should have stayed away from you,’ she muttered. ‘Why the hell didn’t I?’
He had no answer for her there. ‘You can’t tell anyone, Ruby.’
‘Yes, I gathered that,’ she said, and raised a shaking hand to her head. ‘Who else knows?’
‘My immediate family. My handler. Now you. Six people in ten years.’ It wasn’t a bad effort. He didn’t think it too bad a record.
‘God.’ She looked worried and so she should be. ‘I won’t tell anyone, Damon. You have my word.’
‘And in an ideal world, your word would be enough,’ he said quietly, but this wasn’t an ideal world. He needed to secure her silence and her loyalty. Bind her to him now, with whatever he had in hand.
‘What if I said I could help you find your father?’
‘What?’
‘That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes, but …’ “
She didn’t, or couldn’t, finish her sentence. Typical lawyer. Always a But.
‘I’m offering to contract out to you,’ he continued. ‘In return for your silence. You get news of your father. I acquire a hold on you I currently don’t have. Everyone wins.’
‘That’s blackmail.’
‘It’s necessary,’ he cut back hard. ‘And at the end of the day you get to walk away, I get the peace of mind I need to let you walk away and the people I work for get to remain none the wiser as to what you know. That’s worth something, Ruby. More than you know.’
‘Well, aren’t you chivalrous,’ she murmured, and favoured him with a tight-lipped smile.
‘I try.’
This discussion wasn’t exactly going according to plan, decided Damon grimly. But then, nothing involving Ruby ever did.
‘I’m trying to protect you,’ he said curtly, and maybe Ruby heard the frustration in him for she eyed him uncertainly before looking to the car-park walls for answers, only there were none to be had there. He’d already looked.
‘Or I could let my superiors know I’ve broken cover with you and let them deal with the fallout. They won’t harm you, they’ll recruit you. Like it or not, you won’t have a choice. That’s the value they place on the work I do for them, Ruby. The cost of maintaining my cover. And the reason I never wanted you to know any of this in the first place.’
‘I knew you were trouble,’ she said again. ‘I knew.’
Again, Damon said nothing. It wasn’t as if she were telling him anything new.
‘How would you do it?’ she said after a time. ‘My father could be anywhere. How would you set about finding him? Where would you even start?’
‘I’d
