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The Billionaire's Virgin Temptation
Michelle Conder
An untouched Cinderella… Until his irresistible seduction! For Ruby Clarkson, a lavish masquerade ball is the perfect opportunity to forget her shy innocence and become someone else for the night. She’s stunned when billionaire Sam Ventura sweeps her from the dancefloor into an anonymous seduction that’s red-hot magic! But when Ruby realises her incognito hero is her new boss, and they’re stranded together for a weekend, Sam’s forbidden touch could be powerful enough to unravel Ruby forever…


An untouched Cinderella...
Until his irresistible seduction!
For Ruby Clarkson, a lavish masquerade ball is the perfect opportunity to forget her shy innocence and become someone else for the night. She’s stunned when billionaire Sam Ventura sweeps her from the dance floor into an anonymous seduction that’s red-hot magic! But when Ruby realizes her incognito hero is her new boss, and they’re stranded together for a weekend, Sam’s forbidden touch could be powerful enough to unravel Ruby forever...
Sparks will fly in this sinful tale of seduction...
With two university degrees and a variety of false career starts under her belt, MICHELLE CONDER decided to satisfy her lifelong desire to write and finally found her dream job. She currently lives in Melbourne, Australia, with one super-indulgent husband, three self-indulgent but exquisite children, a menagerie of over-indulged pets, and the intention of doing some form of exercise daily. She loves to hear from her readers at michelleconder.com (http://www.michelleconder.com).
Also by Michelle Conder (#u6d7914ba-2196-564c-8e79-2510fb8ba978)
Girl Behind the Scandalous Reputation
His Last Chance at Redemption
Living the Charade
Duty at What Cost?
The Most Expensive Lie of All
Prince Nadir’s Secret Heir
Hidden in the Sheikh’s Harem
Defying the Billionaire’s Command
The Italian’s Virgin Acquisition
Bound to Her Desert Captor
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
The Billionaire’s Virgin Temptation
Michelle Conder


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08765-0
THE BILLIONAIRE’S VIRGIN TEMPTATION
© 2019 Michelle Conder
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Hilary and Marnie, writing partners in crime.
Thanks for the late nights out talking shop,
eating divine food and drinking great wine.
Chin Chin is calling again!
Love always, M.C.
Contents
Cover (#u3941f021-f8ce-5d9e-95f8-5a11d7e23c1c)
Back Cover Text (#u1892e6f2-5273-55ff-b1a6-2e33ce4587f4)
About the Author (#u2747e810-9738-58e2-ac77-cb42644c04f4)
Booklist (#ue4bb3fb5-babf-595b-bf88-227c016e44fd)
Title Page (#u3a7af19a-5cd4-5d8c-826b-98ac5d860167)
Copyright (#u7c8c877b-8c6b-504f-a865-9218a9dda617)
Dedication (#ub7ac687d-fe10-5059-b3e6-14893c155bba)
PROLOGUE (#u416e6d29-26ea-54a3-b518-e5540886e16b)
CHAPTER ONE (#u1124ee85-c36d-5b25-ae65-a85df5965317)
CHAPTER TWO (#u581de21d-dbb5-5d0f-b9d6-1f5bbbf54396)
CHAPTER THREE (#u014635d4-68bc-573a-923b-c063cb2f886f)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

PROLOGUE (#u6d7914ba-2196-564c-8e79-2510fb8ba978)
SAM FELT UNACCOUNTABLY agitated as he boarded his jet bound for Sydney. It was later than he would have liked and he was impatient to get underway.
‘Will you be requiring dinner service during the flight, Mr Ventura?’
Sam folded his powerful frame into one of the leather tub chairs and tossed his mobile phone onto the table beside him before addressing his co-pilot. ‘No, thanks, Daniel. Just a Scotch.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
The flight from LA to Sydney would take about fourteen hours, give or take, during which Sam planned to catch up on work and sleep before he had to hit the ground running the following day. Not an uncommon occurrence for him.
Delivering his Scotch, the co-pilot headed back to the cockpit to prepare for take-off, leaving Sam to nurse his crystal tumbler and uncharacteristic edginess. As a general rule he wasn’t the kind of person to second-guess himself once a decision had been made, but the question had crossed his mind more than once as to whether relocating to Sydney was the best thing to do right now.
He had a good life in LA. He surfed regularly, had a thriving legal practice that spanned two continents, lived on a great property on Malibu Beach and had any number of beautiful women he could call upon when he was in the mood for company—all drawn to the combination of power, money and good looks he’d been told he had in abundance.
Not that any of that mattered to his family, who were over the moon that he was returning home. After two years living in the City of Angels they were of the belief that he should settle back in his hometown and were more than happy with his decision to merge his highly successful legal practice with a large Australian enterprise.
The idea had been presented to him by his old university pal, Drew Kent, during a late-night dinner. Drew’s father was retiring and Drew didn’t want to take on the running of their law firm by himself. He was all about work-life balance ever since he’d married, and Sam, who had been in the market for a new challenge, had readily agreed to the idea.
He stared out at the night-dark sky as the plane banked hard to the right. Marriage had a way of changing a man’s perspective on life. He’d seen it happen with colleagues at work and even his own brother, who had fallen in love and then, twelve months ago, got married. Valentino had gone from confirmed bachelor to happily married man with a baby faster than Sam’s Maserati could hit a hundred clicks. Since then Tino had been unfailingly devoted to his lovely wife and son.
Was that what had set off the restlessness inside of him? The fact that Valentino was married and happy about it? Not that Sam begrudged Tino his happiness; quite the contrary. He loved seeing his older brother so fulfilled, and maybe one day he’d even take the plunge into matrimony himself. One day in the distant future when he met a woman who wasn’t either completely obsessed with her own career, or the potential lifestyle his could provide for her.
Of its own accord his mind travelled back to the night, two years ago, when Valentino had met Miller, his now wife. Sam and Tino had been catching up in a Sydney bar when a stunning blonde in come-take-me stilettos had approached them. Ruby Clarkson had introduced herself and explained how Miller needed a date for an up-and-coming business event. Tino had jumped at the chance to help her best friend, leaving Sam and the blonde woman at a loose end. Since they both worked for the same law firm, but had never met, they’d spent the night talking shop and trading war stories until the bar had closed and kicked them out. Not wanting the night to end, Sam had offered to walk Ruby home and that was when the trouble had started.
His blood heated predictably at the memory of what had happened outside her apartment building. Or what had nearly happened outside her apartment building. Despite being incredibly attracted to her, he’d meant only to bid her goodnight, tell her it had been nice to meet her and good luck with her current case, but somehow she’d ended up in his arms and as soon as his lips had touched hers he’d been lost. She’d lit a flame in him that had only been doused when a neighbour had come out on to her balcony calling for her errant cat.
Later his brother would tell him that he had looked as if he’d been hit over the head with a golf club when he’d first caught sight of Ruby at the bar, and Tino had been right. From the moment Sam’s dark eyes had collided with her wide-spaced intelligent green ones he’d completely lost his train of thought.
It had been the same at Miller and Tino’s wedding just last year. He’d taken one look at Ruby in her dusky pink bridesmaid gown with the tantalising thigh-high split and decided to hell with it, he’d finish what they’d started the night they’d met and be done with it. That was until her date, some urbane banker-type, had stepped up beside her and ruined that particular fantasy.
Sam had downed a glass of champagne he hadn’t wanted and told himself to forget it. Told himself that it was for the best. Ruby was his new sister-in-law’s best friend and nothing good would come of them having a brief affair and things becoming potentially awkward later on down the track. Instead he’d forced himself to become interested in a gorgeous Sydney socialite and he’d been about to leave with her when Ruby had come rushing back into the reception room.
A small smile played at the edges of his lips. She’d been in such a flap she hadn’t seen him at first and Sam hadn’t stepped out of her path, choosing instead to let her run headlong into the circle of his arms as if he were just as startled by the contact as she was.
She’d stared up at him, a beguiling combination of sophistication and innocence, her gorgeous body pressed against his like Velcro on felt, her breathing laboured, and the memory of the night he’d nearly devoured her shining brightly in her lovely green eyes. For a split second his overly active imagination had caused him to believe that she’d come rushing back to find him. To tell him that she’d ditched her date and wanted to leave with him. Wanted to take him back to her place for the ‘coffee’ he’d stupidly passed up on the night they’d first met.
Then his oldest brother, Dante, had walked into the empty room and completely obliterated the moment.
‘Sam, we’re leav—Uh...sorry, junior, am I interrupting something?’ he’d said smoothly.
Considering Sam had been a breath away from finding out if Ruby still tasted as delicious as he remembered, of course his brother had been interrupting, and the big idiot had known it!
Ruby’s eyes had gone from glazed to mortified in the space of a heartbeat and she’d pushed out of his arms just as her date had arrived to find out what had delayed her.
Extreme sexual attraction, Sam had wanted to tell the other man.
Ruby had mumbled something about her jacket, quickly grabbed it from the back of her chair and hadn’t looked back as she’d walked away. She’d been cool to him the whole day, he remembered now, and he often wondered why that was.
He also wondered what it was about her that made his libido override his iron-clad self-control where she was concerned, but he knew he’d work it out one day. And, given their shared profession, and personal connections, it would probably be soon.
His heart pounded slow and heavy inside his chest just at the thought of seeing her again. He’d deliberately not asked Valentino about her over the past couple of years. Why give his loved-up brother any indication that he had a thing for the beautiful lawyer? He’d only make more out of it than there was and the last thing Sam wanted was to raise Miller’s awareness of how attractive he found her best friend.
But their paths would surely cross and he was curious as to how he would feel about her when it happened. Who knew, perhaps the incendiary attraction that sent his system into overdrive whenever she was in the room would have finally worn off? He’d lost interest in plenty of other women before. Surely Ruby wouldn’t be any different in the end.
He swirled the Scotch in his glass. Did Ruby still remember the night they’d met? Did she still think about it? And did she still work for Clayton Smythe or had she moved on to new pastures? He’d left the firm himself shortly after that night to start his own practice in LA and had ruthlessly suppressed all interest in her, so he had no idea what she was up to now. Some sixth sense warned him that, for all her bold confidence, Ruby was a soft touch deep down and therefore not to be trifled with. Not that he planned to trifle with her on any level. It would be pointless in the end and Sam had stopped chasing pointless passions after watching his world-famous father chase his motor-racing dreams to the exclusion of all else.
Theirs had never been a close relationship, his father dying in a tragic racing accident before Sam had been able to gain his attention or his approval—though God knew he’d wasted enough time trying to win both. He still remembered the time he’d trailed his father around the racetrack on his ninth birthday. It had been a disaster waiting to happen. He’d sat there all day, waiting to spend time with his father, only to have his old man drive off at the end of the day without him. As usual his father had been so preoccupied with work he’d completely forgotten Sam was even there. Fortunately one of the office girls had eventually noticed him sitting on a sofa, swinging his legs, and called his father on the phone. Sam had then been stuck in a taxi and delivered home alone.
His mother had been furious with his father but Sam had brushed it off. That had been the last time his father had kicked his pride to the kerb, Sam had made sure of it. Not that it mattered now. He’d learned a valuable lesson that day and he’d never hung himself out to dry like that again. Never made anything so important that he couldn’t walk away from it at the end of the day.
‘A good thing,’ he muttered into the ensuing silence, pulling out his phone and switching his mind from the past, where it didn’t belong, to the present, where it did.
He was due to arrive in Sydney around noon and head straight into meetings with his new business partner before changing into some fancy-dress costume for a party he’d promised to attend.
A few months back he’d won a huge copyright case for Gregor Herzog and his wife—Australia’s darling couple of the theatre world—when someone had tried to pass the couple’s costume designs off as their own. Over the course of the case the Herzogs had become firm friends and they had invited him to their annual masquerade ball—a huge charity extravaganza that just happened to coincide with Gregor’s fiftieth birthday celebration this year.
‘Please come, Sam, my good friend. It would be an honour to raise a toast to you on my birthday.’
Sam already regretted his somewhat rash agreement to attend but a promise was a promise and Sam’s word was his law.
Fortunately, he rarely suffered jet lag, but still, he hoped that Gregor and Marion wouldn’t mind if he only made a fly-in and fly-out appearance. What with family obligations to fulfil the rest of the weekend, and a new company to take control of on Monday morning, he didn’t have a lot of time for frivolities like masquerade balls. Or thinking about gorgeous blondes with long legs, he mused, that strange, restless feeling returning as Ruby Clarkson once again jumped into his head.
He shook her image loose, unfolded his large frame from the chair and fetched his laptop from where his co-pilot had stowed it prior to take-off. The fact that the woman could turn him on from twelve thousand miles away should be mildly disconcerting—and it was! It made him realise that at some point he was going to have to figure out how to get the troublesome blonde out of his head. Something he hoped to put off for as long as possible.

CHAPTER ONE (#u6d7914ba-2196-564c-8e79-2510fb8ba978)
THE THEME ON the gold-leaf invitation for Sydney’s most renowned masquerade ball this year had been ‘daring, romantic, seductive...’
Tick, tick and tick, Ruby thought, stifling a yawn and giving a smile she hoped conveyed Having a great time and not I wish I was sipping this glass of Riesling at home on my sofa in front of the latest instalment of Law & Order.
And wearing comfy pyjamas, Ruby mused longingly as she took in the packed ornate ballroom.
A lavish ball was the last place she wanted to be after a gruelling eighty-hour working week that had gone from bad to worse and still required more hours to be put in, but she was here in support of her sister, so leaving wasn’t an option just yet.
And she supposed it was an interesting interlude from her everyday life sitting in her poky little law office, fighting the good fight. When else would she get the chance to join the who’s who of the theatre world in a multimillion-dollar Point Piper mansion with unrivalled harbour views beyond the infinity pool?
Everywhere Ruby looked there was a dazzling display of elaborately costumed guests milling about and talking in a profusion of excitement and colour. It was like stepping back in time with women in wigs and masks and men with feather-plumed hats drinking impossibly elegant flutes of champagne that sparkled like liquid gold beneath the light of a thousand chandeliers. Frescoes of cherubs and deer stared down from the ceiling and the iconic gunmetal-grey Sydney Harbour Bridge glowed through the open French doors, reminding everyone that they were in fact in Sydney and not visiting some Venetian mansion on the banks of the Grand Canal during Carnevale.
Ruby surreptitiously adjusted the neckline of her fitted gown, which kept slipping to reveal a little too much cleavage for her liking. She was supposed to be Marie Antoinette but her mirror had deemed that she looked more like Little Bo Peep on steroids, making her thankful she was well-hidden behind an elaborate black lace mask.
‘You know I really appreciate you coming along with me tonight, don’t you?’ Molly murmured.
Thanks to live music from the twenty-piece band where a well-known pop star was belting out her latest hit, Ruby had to lean in close to catch her sister’s words.
‘I’m enjoying myself,’ she fibbed, not wanting Molly to feel guilty about roping her into accompanying her. Molly was on a personal quest to waylay some in-demand director and convince him that she really needed to star in his next award-winning Hollywood epic. Molly had paid her dues at drama school and appeared in small-to-medium theatre productions and TV shows, and Ruby would do anything to help make her sister’s dreams come true.
‘No, you’re not,’ Molly said, shrugging good-naturedly. ‘But I appreciate the lie. I’m also under strict instructions to make sure you have fun and relax for once.’
‘Let me guess.’ Ruby gave her sister that look, knowing full well where her instructions had come from. ‘Mum told you to find me a nice man I can fall in love with so I can produce lots of grandbabies.’ Nothing new there. ‘Which is so not going to happen, and, for the record, I take serious umbrage at the insinuation that I don’t normally relax and have fun because I do. All the time!’
‘Oh, did I only insinuate that last bit?’ Molly feigned a shocked expression. ‘I meant to say it outright.’
‘Ha-ha.’ Ruby narrowed her eyes menacingly. ‘I know how to relax.’ She had a yoga class booked the following morning, didn’t she? ‘And how to have fun.’
‘You work,’ Molly corrected. ‘But that’s okay. Tonight I will ply you with drinks and ensure that you meet some tall, dark and handsome man to while the evening away with.’
Ruby grimaced. As any self-respecting lawyer knew, weekend work was par for the course. Particularly with the big cases, and Ruby had just embarked on one of the biggest of her career, so men were not a priority for her right now. If they ever had been.
‘You can’t tell if a man is handsome or not while he’s wearing a mask,’ Ruby pointed out, ‘and you already know that I don’t hold to Mum’s mantra that a woman isn’t complete without a man on her arm.’
‘Mum is old-school,’ Molly agreed. ‘You can’t hold that against her.’
‘I don’t hold it against her. I’m just not intending to follow in her footsteps.’
‘By not dating at all?’
‘I date,’ Ruby defended, tucking a recalcitrant strand of her blonde hair back under her poufy white wig. ‘When I have the time.’
Molly gave her a good-natured eye-roll. ‘The last time you went on a date, dinosaurs roamed the earth.’
Ruby laughed at the visual. ‘I’m not a romantic like you and Mum. I don’t see “the one” in every man who looks my way.’
‘That’s because you never give any guy a decent chance. You find something wrong with all of them and quickly move on. But seriously, Rubes, just because Dad left Mum for another woman it doesn’t mean every man will do the same to us.’
Ruby couldn’t deny that their father’s desertion had left her somewhat jaded when it came to romance, but that wasn’t the only reason. In her experience men wanted more from a woman than they were prepared to give and she had yet to meet a man who challenged that theory.
Even Sam Ventura.
Especially Sam Ventura—even if he now was her best friend’s brother-in-law.
And why did his name leap into her head every time the conversation turned to men and marriage? He was the very last man she should be thinking about in that way. Two years ago he’d charmed her and kissed her senseless before making a trite promise to call and then failing to follow through on it.
Not that she should have been surprised. She’d been taken in by his good looks and intelligent conversation, but neither of those things was a precursor to nice manners and true decency. At least not where he was concerned!
Lord, but it still made her blush to recall how she had invited him up to her apartment for coffee.
Coffee!
She might as well have just said bed and been done with it.
His failure to call and the subsequent photo she’d seen of him with his arm around another woman the following day at a polo match had solidified for her that men weren’t worth the effort. The worst thing for Ruby was that she had let Sam in that night. She’d let down her guard with him in a way she never had before, and worse, she’d thought they’d shared a connection. A connection that had transcended the physical.
Fool that she was.
She’d found out via a visiting LA attorney that Sam had a reputation for being a charming rogue who made Casanova look like a good bet. Something she wholeheartedly believed after how easily he had nearly seduced her that night. He’d made her feel like a besotted thirteen-year-old in the throes of her first crush, carrying her phone around for a whole week, waiting for a phone call he’d never intended to make.
Her extreme reaction to him was something that had scared her witless because she had always imagined herself immune to the romantic vagaries that governed her mother’s life. She supposed she had Sam to thank for showing her otherwise. Showing her that if she wasn’t careful she could be just as susceptible to a pretty face and buff body as the next woman.
Not that she would thank him. She didn’t want to have anything to do with him again. He was too big and too male and definitely too full of himself to be of interest to her. Something she hoped she’d made crystal clear by ignoring him at Tino and Miller’s wedding last year.
‘I don’t think every man is an EC,’ she denied to Molly now, using their shorthand for Emotional Coward. ‘But I do wonder how we’re even sisters. You’re like Snow White, talking to all the animals and skipping through the flowery fields, and I’m—’
‘The Wicked Queen,’ Molly filled in. ‘Only you’re not afraid of ageing, you’re afraid of commitment.’
‘I am not afraid of commitment.’
Molly’s eyebrow rose above her white mask as if to say I’m not getting into that argument again. But it wasn’t true.
‘I’m cautious,’ Ruby countered. ‘I don’t feel the need to leap into something before I’ve had a chance to study it from all angles.’
‘You’re not supposed to study love,’ Molly laughed. ‘You feel it. You experience it. You live it.’
Ruby shuddered. ‘You might. I don’t.’ And what would Molly say, she wondered, if she knew Ruby hadn’t even gone all the way with a man yet? That she was still a virgin like an old maid from the Victorian era!
Suddenly a loud honking sound drew her attention. Molly giggled as an irate swan cut a swathe through the glittering crowd and started pecking at the golden tassels hanging from an unsuspecting woman’s gown. The woman reeled back and would have slipped if the man standing beside her hadn’t put his hands out and swiftly caught her.
Ruby felt the breath back up in her lungs as she took in the man’s height and the breadth of his shoulders, the angle of his leonine head and dark hair styled in loose layers that could only have come from an upmarket salon.
‘Oh, my,’ Molly murmured. ‘Would you get a load of that?’
Ruby watched as the man wearing a masculine bronze mask competently corralled the indignant bird outside and returned to check if the woman was okay.
‘He’s gorgeous,’ her sister added on a sigh.
‘You can’t possibly know that,’ Ruby scoffed. ‘He’s wearing a mask that covers half his face.’
‘He carries himself like a man who doesn’t need to be handsome but is. Look at those shoulders—’
‘Padding.’
‘And the way his thighs fill out his dark suit trousers. No padding there, I’m guessing.’
Despite Ruby’s protestations, Molly was right—the man exuded power and confidence and his square-cut jaw, smooth olive complexion and sensual mouth conveyed that he was likely very good-looking behind the bronzed mask. He was also very familiar...
It’s not him, she assured herself, her eyes taking in the way his lips twisted into a half-cynical, half-sexy grin as the grateful woman gripped his arm and whispered something into his ear.
It couldn’t be him. Sam Ventura lived in LA and, even if he was visiting Sydney, what would he be doing at a fancy-dress ball thrown by theatre people?
Well, he wouldn’t be here, she reasoned. It was her imagination running overtime. Again. ‘Men like that only want one thing from a woman,’ she told Molly with lofty finality.
‘I know.’ Molly sighed. ‘Do you think he would want it from me?’
‘Molly!’
Ruby was saved from reminding her sister that she’d just ended a relationship with one feckless boyfriend and hardly needed another when one of Molly’s friends approached her. Perturbed by how very much the dark-haired man reminded her of Sam Ventura, Ruby offered to go to the bar, where they were serving on-demand cocktails.
‘Cosmopolitan,’ Molly requested.
‘Same,’ her friend added.
Leaving them to their excited chatter, Ruby headed for the gilt-edged bar that looked as if it was a permanent fixture but was most likely shipped in from Italy especially for the night.
She sighed as she joined the queue at the bar. Molly truly believed that love awaited her around every corner, while Ruby was of the view that danger awaited her. She wasn’t looking for romance and happy-ever-after. Her independence had been too hard-won to hand over to some man who would want her to compromise everything she had and then most likely walk away without a backward glance anyway. A man like her father. And like Sam Ventura.
No, that wasn’t fair. She might not like Sam very much but she didn’t know him well enough to tar him with her father’s particular brush. Still, why give a man who had heartbreaker written all over his too handsome face the chance to prove that he was? And why was he still on her mind? she wondered grouchily.
Love turned thinking women into veritable psych-ward patients, she knew that. Just look at how she had been after only kissing the man that one foolhardy night. He’d pulled her into his arms and she’d nearly lost her dignity and her panties in one fell swoop! Not that she’d been in love with him, but she’d certainly been in lust with him and that had been more than enough to keep her up late some nights.
‘Sorry, darling,’ a male voice crooned too close to her ear as she was jostled from behind. Ruby glanced over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of four colourful characters wearing Zorro-style masks with their eyes on her cleavage.
Very original, she thought, turning away and steadfastly ignoring them as she waited for the woman in front of her to collect her drinks order. If there was one valuable lesson Ruby had learned from watching her mother all these years, it was not to let her emotions do the thinking for her. Only fools rushed in and when they did they were often sorry with the results.
‘So I said, listen, doll-face.’ The guy who had jostled her spoke behind her with an over-the-top drawl. ‘You want it, you know where to find it. On your knees.’
His companions guffawed as if they were smug private school boys at a secret frat party instead of a posh event. Ruby rolled her eyes. Boys masquerading as men, she thought, half listening as they traded stories about their sexual exploits that were clearly too far-fetched to be believed.
‘Wait till you hear this one,’ one of them said in a low voice. ‘The other night Michael picked up this girl and get this—’ the wag paused for effect ‘—he says he kissed her and didn’t even realise it was his ex until she slapped his face and told him they’d broken up six months earlier. Apparently she’d changed her hairstyle and got implants.’
‘God, I wish I had his life,’ a nasally voice whined. ‘He’s an animal.’
Before she could give them a snarky look another voice interceded, a deep, velvet-coated voice she’d listened to all evening one long-ago night.
‘He’s an idiot,’ he said. ‘No man forgets a woman he’s kissed. At least he doesn’t if he has any integrity.’
Ruby’s heartbeat doubled and her skin turned pasty beneath her heavy make-up. It couldn’t be him. It just couldn’t!
‘What can I get you, ma’am?’
Startled by the question, Ruby stared blankly at the bartender.
‘To drink,’ he offered, gesturing to the vast array of colourful bottles on the marble shelf behind him.
‘Sorry.’ Ruby cleared her throat and forced herself to relax. ‘I’ll have...’ She frowned, trying to remember what Molly and her friend had asked for. ‘I’ll have two Cosmopolitans and a white wine.’
‘Riesling? Chardonnay? Chab—?’
‘Whatever’s strongest,’ Ruby cut in. And make it fast, please. Her palms were sweaty and she clasped them together, willing herself not to turn around to check who owned that all too sexy voice.
Fortunately she didn’t hear it again and when the bartender finally returned with her order she threw him a relieved smile and grabbed her drinks.
Keeping her head down, she turned and would have run smack into the side of one of the men if a masculine hand hadn’t shot out in front of her. Liquid sloshed over the side of one of the glasses and her eyes flew upwards to meet concerned brown ones.
Bedroom brown eyes with thick, dark lashes.
Her pulse raced erratically. It was the man in the bronzed mask. The tall one with the impossibly wide shoulders and long legs. The one who had saved the woman from being eaten by the swan. The one with the chocolate-brown hair brushed back in mussed waves just like Sam’s, and the impossibly kissable mouth perfectly positioned in a smoothly chiselled jaw. Also, just like Sam’s.
A shaft of liquid heat detonated low in her pelvis, sending plumes of sensation outwards just as it had done in that trendy pub two years ago. Just as it had done at Miller’s wedding one year ago.
It’s not him, she assured herself. It’s not him. It’s not—
‘Sorry about that.’ A hint of a lazy smile played at the edges of his mouth. ‘My fool acquaintance wasn’t watching where he was going.’
Ruby froze, her IQ falling by a hundred points. The man who—please, God—couldn’t be Sam Ventura cocked his head with bemused candour at her stultifying silence, his gaze falling to her lips before drifting lower and stopping on the drinks she was gripping precariously in front of her. ‘You need a hand carrying those?’ His dark gaze returned to hers. ‘I’d be more than happy to assist.’
Mentally berating her stunned-mullet act, Ruby kicked her brain into gear and clamped her lips together. This was not Sam Ventura. He was just a very good-looking, powerfully built replica who seemed very much like Sam Ventura.
‘Thanks, but no, thanks,’ she bit out in a low tone. ‘Believe it or not, I don’t need a man to make my life perfect.’
And why on earth had she said that?
Grimly aware that she had silenced them all, she turned her back on the little group and willed her jelly legs to hold her upright as she hurried back to Molly.
* * *
Well, well, well, if he hadn’t just been put in his place by the very beautiful, and very cool Ruby Clarkson, Sam mused, watching as she disappeared into the crowd as if the hounds of hell were after her. Because, as surprising as it was to run into her so soon, it was her; there wasn’t a shred of doubt in his mind.
A fiery spark of heat ignited inside him as he noted the graceful, swan-like neck and hourglass figure in the lavender gown. Obviously she hadn’t recognised him and that was a little...disappointing?
Two years ago he’d kissed her and felt as if he were standing on a tight wire being swung from side to side without a safety net to catch him. One year ago he’d wanted to repeat the experience and could have sworn she did too, and now she passed him by as if he was what? Nobody special? An irritant, even?
Ignoring the four bozos he hadn’t liked in high school and liked even less now, Sam grabbed his beer and headed into the party as the men behind him laughed uproariously at another lewd story that was as likely to be true as Sam suggesting that his father had put him first as a boy. Pure fantasy.
Shoving that thought back where it belonged, he took a pull of his beer.
Had Ruby really not recognised him?
The thought was like a burr in his side as he caught sight of lavender silk from across the room.
Not her, he realised as the woman lowered her hand-held mask to speak to her companion. His heartbeat steadied and he frowned as he realised that it had sped up in the first place. He wasn’t here to hit on anyone. He certainly wasn’t here to hit on Miller’s off-limits friend. Yet he couldn’t deny that his senses were instantly charged at having seen Ruby again so unexpectedly. Which had answered one of his earlier questions—no, the attraction he felt for her hadn’t lessened. Not even a little.
But what about for her?
He stood and watched the lively partygoers for a moment, wondering if he should prop up the bar for a bit, or head to a quieter corner until enough time had passed that he could leave. Or maybe he should hunt Ruby Clarkson down and wait for her to recognise him.
And what then? a little voice taunted. Surely you’re not thinking of finishing that thing you started two years ago?
Sam tilted the bottle of beer to his lips and took another long, fortifying pull.
Was he thinking that?
He couldn’t deny that the idea still held some appeal. More than some appeal, if he was being honest. Ruby Clarkson was a beautiful woman. What man wouldn’t want a long-legged, curvaceous honey-blonde woman spread out beneath him, naked and wanting in his bed, those glorious green eyes glazed over with desire, her lips plump and wet from his kisses, her creamy thighs parted for his possession?
Sam’s body hardened at the images rampaging through his head and softly cursed his wayward libido. No doubt she’d be great in bed. Great in his bed.
And there was that niggly note of ownership that had given him such pause two years ago. The caveman element that only she drew out of him. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like how effortlessly she drew him to her, or how often he thought about her. He certainly didn’t like how possessive he felt about her. Would one night with her in his bed solve that? Would one night rid him of the powerful pull she seemed to have over him or would it only make it worse?
Sam’s brooding gaze noticed a hint of lavender drift through the crowd towards the dance floor. Well, there was really only one way to test that theory, wasn’t there? Not that he intended to take her to his bed tonight. He wasn’t that desperate. But he could have a little fun with her, couldn’t he? A little innocent fun just until she recognised him. A smile curved the edges of his lips as he set off towards the dance floor. How long would it take her? One minute? Two?
Suddenly the evening looked a whole lot more interesting than it had half an hour ago.

CHAPTER TWO (#u6d7914ba-2196-564c-8e79-2510fb8ba978)
‘I DON’T SEE anyone who looks like a pirate,’ Ruby said as she stood on tiptoe to see over the packed dance floor. ‘Are you sure that director is even here?’
‘Katy said he was.’ Molly’s lips tightened determinedly. ‘I have to find him. I’m psyched up to approach him, and who knows when I’ll get another chance like this? It’s not as if I can get a ticket to these kinds of events just by clicking my fingers.’
Ruby gave her sister a faint smile and tried not to look over her shoulder again for the man in the bronzed mask. She’d felt his eyes on her as she’d all but run from the bar, and she’d been so sure he’d follow her she’d been on tenterhooks ever since.
‘I think that’s him,’ Molly whispered, low-level excitement running through her voice.
Ruby’s stomach lurched. Then she realised that Molly hadn’t meant Sam Ventura’s doppelganger and told herself to stop fretting and breathe. It wasn’t Sam. Sam was in LA.
She glanced at the man Molly was so set on meeting and did a double take. The director-slash-pirate was big, blonde and fierce-looking. ‘Are you sure that’s him?’
‘Almost certain. Let’s dance so I can get closer.’
‘You dance, I’ll hold the drinks,’ Ruby said, taking Molly’s half empty cocktail glass and nodding towards the dance floor. The sooner Molly introduced herself to the famous director and begged for an audition for a part in his next movie, the sooner they could leave. ‘Time to walk the gangplank, my lovely.’
Molly surreptitiously smoothed a palm down the side of her gown. ‘I thought you said this was a hare-brained idea?’
It was a hare-brained idea but seeing her confident, madcap sister suddenly nervous, Ruby softened. ‘It’s a great idea. He’s going to love you. Just remember: no public sex.’
Molly smiled at that. ‘Of course not. Sex can come after I’ve won an Oscar for starring in his film and if we fall madly in love with each other.’ She straightened her shoulders and set her jaw determinedly. ‘You sure you won’t dance with me?’
‘In this dress?’ Ruby glanced down at her enhanced cleavage. ‘Not a chance.’
Molly scowled. ‘You’re no fun.’
‘I know. I work really hard at it.’
Laughing, Molly blew out a nervous breath and headed into the fray. Ruby sometimes envied her little sister her ability to put herself ‘out there’ like that. Ruby could do it for her clients but when it came to pursuing something for herself...well, she wasn’t that brave, and knowing that was one of her greatest strengths.
Sipping her drink while she held Molly’s, she savoured the crisp lightness of the wine, almost forgetting about the man in the bronzed mask until she glanced up and found him prowling towards her, a sexy grin on his face.
Instantly her breath backed up in her lungs and her pulse took off like a rocket. As if he sensed her response, a heated gleam entered his eyes, darkening them from chocolate to mink. ‘When you ordered those drinks I didn’t realise you intended to drink them all by yourself,’ he said, his intimate tone and soft laugh inviting her to play along with his charming joke.
A shiver snaked down Ruby’s spine at the sound of that deep, velvety chuckle. Oh, this guy was smooth. Dangerously smooth. He was also most definitely Sam Ventura. What was the point in trying to deny it any longer?
‘Another lame pick-up line,’ she said with cool derision. ‘How very original of you.’
Instead of taking her comment as the put-down it was meant to be, Sam seemed highly amused by it. ‘I didn’t realise I’d delivered a first one.’ His eyes glowed from behind his mask as he grinned down at her. ‘Now, if I told you that you had the kind of smile that could stop a man at fifty paces...that would be a lame pick-up line.’ His smile widened. ‘It would also be true.’
Ruby blinked up at him, feeling a distinct height disadvantage without her usual four-inch heels on her feet, her gown not long enough to accommodate them. His tone implied that he thought she was a stranger, but how was that possible? She had recognised him straight away—would recognise him blindfolded in a dark room just by the prickling awareness he set off inside her.
She didn’t know whether to be insulted or glad that he hadn’t recognised her in turn. Maybe both. It only seemed to confirm that the mutual connection she had believed was special between them the night they met hadn’t been special or mutual at all.
Something inside her chest plummeted just a little more. Her pride, no doubt, because what woman’s pride wouldn’t be dented when a man who had kissed her as if he couldn’t get enough of her now had no clue as to who she was just because of a silly costume?
Dismayed to have her worst fears confirmed, Ruby deliberately disguised her voice with a smoky edge. Let him try and pick her up, she thought with rising irritation. Let him try and use all his sophisticated charm on her and have her turn him down this time.She’d like nothing better than to see him dig a hole for himself and then reveal her identity at the last minute. It was no less than he deserved for not calling her when he’d promised that he would. And, yes, she knew she needed to get over that but she really hated when a man said one thing and did another. She’d experienced the disappointment of being let down by her father too often as a young girl to put up with it in her adult life.
‘Great outfit by the way. I’m thinking you’re—’
‘Don’t say Little Bo Peep,’ she warned menacingly.
Sam laughed softly. ‘If you were Little Bo Peep you’d have a staff. And sheep. Which might not work with those ducks earlier.’
‘Swans.’
‘Ducks, swans...feathered fowl who belong in a pond, not at a masquerade party.’ His dark eyes glittered with lazy male appreciation as he gazed at her. ‘Not without a mask at least.’
Ruby’s lips twitched and she quickly sipped the last of her wine. She was not going to find him charming this time around. She was not going to feel breathless with awareness, or tingly with anticipation. She was not going to remember the gentle way he had tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear before he’d said goodnight to her two years ago. Or the way he had looked at her as if she amazed him. It had made him impossible to forget. Impossible to get over. And thinking like that was just asking for trouble.
‘So no nursery-rhyme jokes and no lame pick-up lines,’ he agreed. ‘Want to dance instead?’
‘I don’t dance with strangers,’ she mumbled, glancing furtively towards the dance floor in the hope that Molly was ready to go home. Of course, Molly was nowhere to be seen.
‘Stranger?’ He cocked his head. ‘That’s easy enough to remedy—’
‘No!’ Her eyes widened on his. She wasn’t ready to reveal who she was to him. She didn’t want to have an awkward conversation about the past. It wasn’t as if they were friends. They weren’t, and they never would be. Better if he just left her alone and was none the wiser as to who he was trying to hit on. ‘No names.’
‘No names?’ He gave her a curious look.
‘Half the fun of wearing a mask is being anonymous. Don’t you agree?’
‘This is my first masked ball. I’m new to the etiquette.’
‘Then allow me to educate you.’ Her voice dropped further to a husky purr. ‘Names aren’t necessary.’
‘Is that right?’ The lights dimmed around them as the music turned soft and sensual. Ruby’s heart thumped against her ribcage. She really needed to get away from him and the way he made her feel.
‘So if you don’t want to dance and you don’t want to trade names—’ his gaze drifted to her lips like a feather-light caress ‘—what do you want to do?’
Kiss you, she thought, her body already responding to his lingering look. I want to kiss you and never stop.
‘One dance.’ He gave her a slow smile as if he knew the appalling direction in which her mind had just taken her. ‘I’m harmless, I promise.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow, I promise.’
The last thing Ruby wanted was to find herself in Sam’s arms again but he was so smooth he’d divested her of the two glasses she’d been clutching like a lifeline and had her there before she had time to blink.
Which only made her angry. What was it about this man that eroded her natural born caution? She didn’t want this and she certainly didn’t want him. Only, she knew she was lying to herself. There was something about Sam Ventura that got to her every single time and try as she might she couldn’t seem to do anything about it.
She risked a glance up into his eyes to find him watching her closely. Did she feel familiar in his arms? She was shorter without her heels on but...
Oh, get over yourself, Ruby Jane. He doesn’t know who you are so forget it. Have a laugh.
But she couldn’t have a laugh, not with his heat surrounding her and setting her pulse racing, not with his face so close to hers she could see the beginnings of his beard coming in, and not with his scent, spicy and masculine with a hint of sandalwood, short-circuiting her brain.
All she could do was remember the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips, slightly rough, his lips warm and firm against her own. It was like being sent back in time. She wanted to feel those lips again. She wanted to feel the power of his need again, his hunger for her. She’d never felt like that in a man’s arms before and it was nothing short of addictive.
No man forgets a woman he’s kissed before. At least he doesn’t if he has any integrity.
Did he remember kissing her? Would it come back to him if she was to reach up and kiss him now?
Inwardly shocked to realise where her thoughts were leading her, Ruby jerked back. Kissing Sam Ventura was the last thing she should be thinking of doing. This man was dangerous to her equilibrium. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name.
‘You okay, angel?’ He drew her closer as she stumbled, bending to murmur in her ear. Ruby’s breath caught as his warm breath skittered across the sensitive skin of her neck. That name—he’d called her angel two years ago as well...
Shaking off the unwanted memory, she firmed her resolve against his effect on her.
‘No, I’m not okay,’ she said, making her first sane decision of the night and stepping out of his arms to push blindly through the throng of oblivious partygoers as she rushed from the room.
A stone terrace loomed in front of her, showcasing a captivating view of the harbour beyond, and Ruby headed for it, swiftly moving some distance down a narrow terraced walkway lined with fairy lights that wound around the side of the house.
‘Wait.’
Unaware that Sam had followed her, but not surprised, she stopped, the throb of the music just a low beat now they were outside.
‘What happened back there?’ His concerned gaze caught hers, his eyes scanning her face. He was so close to her she could feel the heat and energy from his body permeating her own.
Panic was what had happened back there. Jumbled senses and racing pulses was what had happened. Need and want...
‘Listen,’ he began, reaching for his mask. ‘I think it’s time we—’
‘No!’ Ruby startled him into silence when she grabbed for his arm and prevented him from unhooking his mask. She couldn’t think of anything worse than him unmasking himself now because he’d expect her to do the same. Which would put her in the position of explaining why she had acted the way she had. It would mean she would have to explain how she’d felt so overwhelmed by the heat of his body, his touch on her waist, his breath against her skin, that she’d run. Explain how in that moment she had wanted more of it. More of him.
‘Hey...’ he murmured softly, accurately reading her inner distress, his fingers gentle as he touched her chin. ‘Look at me.’
She did, the low light of the garden casting shadows across his strong jaw and carved lips, his dark hair falling forward over his mask.
He was so beautiful. So masculine. The bronze of the mask giving him an otherworldly appearance that only added to his appeal.
Ruby’s breathing altered, becoming choppy as they stared at each other. She tried to shake her head to clear her senses but his fingers prevented her from breaking eye contact with him. She irrationally felt light-headed, drunk on the clean, intoxicating scent of musk and man. Then his other hand sought the nape of her neck and she didn’t know if he leaned down further or she stretched upwards but suddenly his lips were on hers, warm and firm and utterly compelling.
Wide-eyed, she met his stunned gaze and then she couldn’t help herself: she lowered her eyelids and opened her mouth. She heard a deep groan rumble out of his chest as he felt her submit to the inevitable and he slanted his lips more fully across hers to deepen the kiss. It burned through her like liquid fire, drugging her, consuming her, triggering an avalanche of need deep inside she was powerless to resist.
A faint voice in her head warned her that this was a mistake, that if she played with fire she’d get burned. She heard it and accepted it, but stronger than that was this fierce, unbidden need for this moment to continue, for this pleasure never to end. She didn’t know if it was the intimacy of the night, the mask hiding her identity from him or the fact that she’d denied herself any form of sensual pleasure for so long, but she knew she was as lost to his touch as she had been two years ago. Maybe more so.
His lips moved over hers, sure and confident, her senses so attuned to the feel of him that she felt when he would have pulled back from her.
‘Don’t,’ she murmured softly, her arms around his neck. ‘Please, don’t stop.’
* * *
Sam groaned and complied with Ruby’s request even though logic and instinct told him to—for God’s sake, man—rein it in. It had been like this with her two years ago. Intensely intimate, sinfully erotic. Just the touch of her mouth against his was enough to have him losing his head. Now, holding her like this, feeling her unguarded response to him was sheer, unadulterated torture.
His arms banded around her, urging her closer, the soft, desperate whimpers coming from the back of her throat driving him to move them both further into the shadows cast by a small, cut-away corner of the building.
Her arms tightened around his neck and Sam ran his hands down over the boning of her gown. She arched against him, her breasts rising and falling above the low-cut neckline, threatening to spill out. Breasts he’d longed to see, longed to taste.
Telling himself that he’d stop this lunacy in one more moment, he slid his hand along the slender curve of her arm and shoulder and down to cup her rounded flesh in the palm of his hand.
Her breath caught inside her chest and she arched higher against him. Sam sensed the need in her, felt it in his own blood, and seared an urgent path of heated kisses down the long line of her neck. Her head fell back as a shiver went through her, her body leaning more heavily against his. He braced his arm across her lower back, his feverish eyes taking in the creamy skin of her décolletage, pearl-white in the ribbons of moonlight that breached the overhanging trees.
Heat and fire coursed a dangerous path inside him, burning up all rational thought as sensation overwhelmed him. A vessel blew its horn somewhere out on the harbour, someone laughed gaily as they jumped into the pool. Sam barely heard a thing, the sounds receding beneath the heaviness of his own thundering heartbeat.
Ruby’s lips were soft and yielding beneath his, feeding off his with the same violent hunger that turned him harder than stone. He shifted closer, bringing their bodies into perfect alignment, taking her soft moan deep into his mouth.
‘Damn, you taste good,’ he murmured, his lips moving to the sensitive skin beneath her ear. She writhed in his arms, her greedy hands growing more restless and bold as they ran over his shoulders and into his hair.
His mask was in the way and he was about to wrench it off when she pushed his jacket back and he had to shuck out of it. Then her sharp little nails raked his skin as she tugged his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers. Hunger bit deep and he hauled her upwards, his mouth returning to hers with a primal need.
Sam had been with many women in his thirty-one years, pleasured more than he could remember, and he knew he was a good, giving lover, but this...touching Ruby, hearing her soft cries of pleasure as he discovered what pleased her, was a sensual delight he hadn’t reckoned on. He was completely at the mercy of his senses and he not only wanted to take everything she had to offer but he was also prepared to give her everything in return.
‘More,’ she begged, leaning into him and kneading his back muscles like a hungry kitten might a downy quilt. Sam swore under his breath and gave her what she wanted, urging her back against the vine-clad wall of the house and putting his hands all over her. Moulding her hips and her ribs, the soft swell of her round breasts. Breasts he had to see. Had to touch.
Somewhere in the back of his head an alarm bell was ringing but it was competing with the soft sounds of their mutual need, and really, what was one more minute of madness?
Lifting her so they were at eye level, Sam leaned forward and kissed the rounded swells of her breasts and then forced the top of her gown to give so that one pert nipple popped free.
‘I want to taste you.’ His voice sounded guttural with urgency and he didn’t wait for her response, lowering his head and taking the tight pink bud deep into his mouth. He flicked her aroused flesh with his tongue, relishing the soft keening sounds that told him she was as lost to this madness as he was.
‘Oh, God.’ She arched into his hold, her fingers threaded through his hair. ‘I need you,’ she said on a rushed breath, her fingers fumbling as they moved to his belt buckle.
Knowing he should stop, but unable to, Sam gathered the yards of fabric between them and skimmed his hands along her thighs. A tiny, flimsy scrap of silk was all that separated him from paradise and with one tug it gave, falling to the ground between them.
A low growl radiated up from his chest as his fingers found her soft and wet. He wanted to drop to his knees and taste the sweet honey coating his fingers but she was already rising against him.
‘More, please, I want more.’
He caught her mouth and propped her against the wall. Part of his brain tried to kick in, tried to remind him that he was a civilised man who did not have sex with women outside at important parties, but the hot throb of her body shredded his sanity and made a mockery of his self-control.
All he could think about was replacing his fingers with his throbbing shaft and making her his. Something she obviously wanted just as badly because she was tearing at the zip on his trousers and then he was free and she was open and ready, her thighs cradling his hips intimately against his body.
That first contact of his flesh against hers gave him pause because he didn’t have a condom on him. Cursing himself for his lack of preparation he was about to tell her when her lips cruised down the line of his neck and she bit the tendon between his neck and shoulder.
A shiver went through him, a groan dragged from deep inside as he forgot all about reason and responsibility and gave into a need that was stronger than he was, entering her on one hard, perfect thrust.
She was so tight. So snug... His body tensed as he fought to control his most basic urge to possess her.
‘Relax for me, angel, and this will go easier.’
Sweat beaded his forehead but before he could fully process that there was something untutored to her movements Ruby angled her body upwards and took him deeper, scattering his thoughts.
‘Slowly,’ he urged, holding her hips steady between his hands. ‘That’s it, let me all the way in.’ He groaned as her silken muscles rippled around him, holding him tight. Careful not to crush her, Sam placed a hand against the wall to support them both, his legs shaking as he strove to hold off his own release until he felt hers first.
‘Oh, God.’ She clutched at him, her little nails scoring the nape of his neck. ‘I...I...’ Her body squeezed his, small lake-like ripples pulling him in deeper and harder as her body sought, and found, the ultimate release.
As soon as he felt her peak Sam let go, moving inside her with controlled power as his own climax raced through him like never before.
He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, their bodies joined in the most fundamental way, their lungs heaving. Gradually he became aware of their surroundings: the way his shirt stuck to the damp skin on his back, a cicada making a racket in a nearby bush, the low throb of the music coming from far inside the house.
He lifted his head from where it was buried against Ruby’s sweetly curved neck, his legs so weak he had to fight to hold them both upright. He felt her shift against him and the enormity of what they had just done, of how out of control he had been, hit him hard.
He cursed softly and lowered her to the ground. He didn’t regret many things in his life but taking Ruby with all the finesse of an untried schoolboy just might turn out to be one of them. He wanted nothing more than to wrap her up and take her home so that he could do that all over again. In a bed this time. ‘Are you okay?’ he prompted softly, knowing that he felt as dazed as she looked.
‘Water.’ She blinked up at him, her mask slightly askew from his fingers. He wanted to rip it off, yank off the wig and let all her long, golden hair tumble free. ‘I’m so thirsty,’ she croaked. ‘Do you mind?’
Sam raked his hair back from his forehead. No, of course he didn’t mind getting her a glass of water, but first he wanted to apologise, tell her he hadn’t meant for things to go that far. At least not outdoors, at a party of all places! He cursed inwardly again. ‘Sure, water.’ The apology could wait. ‘Just...stay put until I get back.’ Hesitating, he glanced down at her, his brows pulling together as he took in her trembling mouth. ‘You’re sure you’re okay?’
She nodded, fussing with her voluminous skirts so that she wouldn’t have to look at him.
Leaving his jacket on the ground Sam strode back the way they had come, blinking as he rounded a corner and his eyes met the brighter lights of the terrace, small clusters of partygoers thankfully ignoring him as he stalked inside.
Quickly fetching a glass of water, he rehearsed a short speech in his head on his way back, trying to come up with some plausible explanation for what had just happened between them, only to find the place he had left her empty.
Worried, he spun around, searching out the shadowy garden for any sign of lavender silk. It took him a full minute to realise that she wasn’t there. Then another to realise that she’d done a runner. Worry gave way to guilt that he’d taken things so far with her, and finally to fury that she wasn’t still waiting where he’d left her.
Did she do this kind of thing all the time? Pick up a man, have unforgettable sex with him and then ditch him when his back was turned? Was that why she had insisted that they keep things anonymous?
Jaw clenched, Sam yanked off his mask and tossed it to the ground. He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that she had used him in such a way, but if she thought he wouldn’t pursue it she couldn’t be more wrong.

CHAPTER THREE (#u6d7914ba-2196-564c-8e79-2510fb8ba978)
‘RUBES, IF YOU don’t hurry up you’ll miss yoga,’ Molly called from outside her bedroom door.
Still in bed, Ruby rolled over and wondered if she could pretend to be asleep. Considering that she hadn’t slept all night, she felt heavy enough to pass it off as real.
‘Ruby?’ Molly opened her door and poked her head inside. ‘Are you ill?’
Yes, she was. She had just told a man she didn’t even like that she needed him the night before. While they’d been having sex. Outside. At a party. The very thing she had warned her younger sister not to do!
Sex?
Was that really all it had been? It felt more like a cataclysmic event that had changed everything for ever from this point on. Certainly it had been the most erotically charged event of her life. In fact, before last night she had never understood how anyone could get so carried away with a man that they didn’t stop when their common sense asserted itself. Unfortunately if her common sense had asserted itself she hadn’t heard it.
It was the way he had looked at her and touched her that was the problem. He made her feel so special and so hot she literally lost her mind in his presence. Not that she was special. How could she be when he hadn’t even known her name?
‘Ruby?’
Or that she’d been a virgin? Although there was a moment of hesitation where she’d wondered if he had guessed at her inexperience. It had been cowardly, but the fear that he would question her about that, coupled with his soft curse of regret afterwards, had been the reason she had run when he’d gone to get her water. Not her finest moment, for sure, but when faced with the alternative of unmasking herself and saying ‘Hi, it’s me, Ruby. Great sex, by the way, thanks for the initiation’ she’d chosen the easier, less confronting option. And didn’t regret it for a second!
The fact that Sam Ventura would never know she had been the one he’d had hot vertical sex with was the one saving grace that made her confident she could face the day.
‘Ruby, you’re scaring me.’
Ruby glanced up to find Molly’s worried brows knitted together. ‘What? Sorry.’ She forced her mind back to the present.
‘You don’t look well. What happened last night?’
‘Nothing. I’m fine.’ Ruby pinned a smile on her face, hoping that one day it would be true. ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll join you for yoga.’
‘You sure you’re up to it?’
No. But it was better than lying around in bed thinking about how stunningly erotic sex with Sam had been and how she was unlikely ever to experience anything like that again.
‘I’m sure.’
Her sister looked unconvinced. ‘I’ve made coffee, so hurry.’
As soon as Molly closed the door Ruby dashed out of bed. She knew from texting her sister last night that she’d met with the director and after some convincing he’d agreed to give her a call to set up an audition. Thankfully, Molly hadn’t cared that Ruby had left the party without her, happy to continue on with the thespian crowd after successfully completing her quest.
And yoga was the best thing that she could do. It helped re-centre her enough to keep her mind off her excruciatingly bad decision on Friday night and stopped her from conjuring up future disasters as a result of her uncharacteristic indiscretion. Future disasters like the fact that she’d had sex for the first time in her life with a man who didn’t even know her name. Like the fact that if Sam had still worked for the same firm as her, and ever found out it was her and told someone, the gossip would be all over chambers before she’d finished swiping her key card in the office lift.
Fortunately he lived in LA, so he was as likely to find out it was her he’d had sex with as she was of flying to the moon.
Small mercies, she conceded as she ducked out of the Monday morning summer rain and into the coffee shop she regularly haunted before work. She’d almost convinced herself that she’d pushed the whole Friday night affair from her mind when a tall, broad-shouldered man entered the coffee shop behind her, shaking the morning drizzle out of his dark hair.
With her heart in her mouth Ruby waited for him to turn towards her and as he did she felt a sense of unreality come over her when she realised it wasn’t Sam.
The man gave her a small smile as she continued to stare, and Ruby made an apologetic face and swung back to the barista fixing her coffee. She felt jumpy all of a sudden and that just wouldn’t do. She wasn’t going to run into Sam in the middle of George Street. If anything she’d call Miller later in the day, find out how long Sam was in town and then avoid him for the duration.
If only the sex hadn’t been quite so good.
Not good. More like amazing, mind-blowing, incredible. Other phrases that came to mind were: over, never to be repeated, and stop thinking about it!
Determined to listen to her saner side, she nodded at the dark-haired man whose attention she still inadvertently had as she strode out of the coffee shop and crossed the road to her office. The sooner she started work and felt normal again, the better.
‘Hey, Ruby.’ Veronica, her upbeat secretary, called out as she held the lift door open. ‘How was the Herzog gig Friday night? Did you meet anyone nice?’
Why was everyone so interested in her love life all of a sudden? ‘The Herzog party was fabulous.’ She knew if she didn’t show the right amount of enthusiasm that Veronica would prod her for more information. ‘How was your weekend?’
‘Took the kids to the zoo and saw the baby panda. So cute. So was there anyone interesting at the party? A celebrity or two?’
‘Not that I noticed. We were in masks, don’t forget, so that made it harder to recognise anyone.’ Thank God. ‘Why are you getting off at the third floor?’ Their office was on the fourth.
‘There’s a meeting in the big conference room. Didn’t you get the memo? Mr Kent Senior is making an announcement. We all received emails about it on Friday night.’
Ruby had come straight from court on Friday night and even though she remembered seeing the internal memo in her inbox she had forgotten to read it as she was rushing to get ready for the party. ‘When is it?’
‘Now,’ Veronica said. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘Of course.’ Ruby stepped out of the lift, mentally reorganising her morning while juggling the file she’d been reading, her leather briefcase, hot coffee and her phone.
‘Want me to hold something for you?’
Ruby shook her head. ‘I’m good. Any idea what the meeting’s about?’
‘Rumour has it that our firm is about to merge with a big-shot outfit from the States.’

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