LITMIR.BIZ

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and extended his hand for hers and brought it to his lips as she alighted from the limo with most everything in place, including her headband.

      ‘Merry Christmas, Ruby.’

      ‘You too,’ she murmured, and took her hand back and headed quickly for the door before she turned around and held out her hand for him to join her. Only when she was safely inside the foyer and heading for the lifts did she look back and smile at what she saw.

      Damon, leaning against the car with his hands in his pockets as he watched her retreat, and secrets or not she knew more of him now and she had not met with disappointment.

      He didn’t want true intimacy from her, and a wise woman accepted the things she could not change.

      A wise woman took the gift of passion and pleasure that he had given her and cherished them for what they were.

      Best Christmas present ever.

      Damon West had as much self-awareness as the next man. He knew what he was good at, and seduction was one of those things. He knew what derailed him, and commitments of the personal kind headed that list. He’d set foot on the hackers’ path at the tender age of twelve when he’d hacked into his school’s academic database. At seventeen—with five more schools under his belt—he’d blitzed his exams, hacked the filter the department of education used to expose students of interest, and MIT had come knocking. He’d hacked into their system too and they’d sent him back a six-page mathematical proof of his predictability and offered him an education.

      That education, and the one that had followed, had given him travel, a reason for being, and all the excitement he could handle and then some. All they’d asked from him in return was absolute discretion and a willingness to go anywhere, any time.

      At twenty, he thought he’d found heaven.

      At twenty-five he knew he had.

      He would be thirty-three in January and as he headed back to his father’s apartment with the scent of Ruby Maguire on his skin and the image of her naked and open for him dominating his mind, Damon West took the time to mourn the loss of the ordinary lifestyle he’d so willingly given up.

CHAPTER FIVE

      CHRISTMAS Day started late for Ruby. Nowhere to be, no reason to get up. The two gifts beneath her tiny tree were ones she’d put there herself. A book on humanitarian imperialism—that one was supposedly from the cat. The other was a bottle of her favourite perfume. A light and woodsy scent to lift the spirits and brighten the day.

      A Merry Christmas phone call came in from her mother before Ruby had found her way out of her sleepwear. A mother who sounded happy and content and who urged Ruby to come and stay a while in the New Year. A mother who asked if the courier had arrived yet, and sighed her exasperation when Ruby said not.

      Ruby promised to ring back when they had.

      A sashimi breakfast feast for a contented little cat followed. Freshly brewed coffee for Ruby and a butter croissant with fig and honey jam got her positively cheerful. The gourmet food hamper and the ridiculous peacock-feathered hair comb from her mother made her smile. Shoulders back, Ruby, she could hear her mother saying. Chin up, there’s my pretty girl.

      It had been very important to her mother that Ruby be a pretty girl.

      Her father had been the one to encourage her to use her brains.

      Ruby’s mother had wanted to share custody of their only child once divorce had been imminent but, for reasons known only to him, Harry Maguire had been having none of that.

      In the end Ruby’s mother had taken the settlement money and run, leaving her daughter behind with the promise that she was always just a phone call away.

      Better than nothing.

      Better than a laughing, smiling father who’d disappeared one day without a word but plenty of money to be going on with.

      Ruby had bought him a set of pewter chess pieces for Christmas this year—how stupid was that? The gaily wrapped parcel was burning a hole through the shelf in her bedroom closet and the child in her remained hopeful that her father would contact her today. The child in her would doubtless wait all day for her charming, laughing father to arrive. Foolish Ruby.

      Only a silly, hopeful child would put on a pretty azure sun frock and blow-dry her hair and pin it back with a peacock-feathered comb and make sure she had her father’s favourite Scotch on hand and his favourite food in the fridge, and then sit on the lounge reading her book while she waited for Godot to arrive.

      Part of her knew he wouldn’t come.

      But another part waited and waited some more.

      The day loomed empty ahead of her, with nothing to do except wonder whether Poppy and Lena had liked their gifts and whether Damon liked his.

      She’d shopped again on his father’s behalf seeing as he’d taken to wearing the clothes they’d bought the other day. A lightweight travel bag that would be useless to anyone with more than a single change of clothes, and in one compartment she’d added a couple of pairs of the plainest no-name underwear she could find, and in the main compartment she’d placed a Panama hat. Everything the modern happy wanderer would ever need.

      It was Lena who phoned through to thank Ruby for her gift-buying efforts, but it was Damon who got hold of the phone after that.

      ‘Merry Christmas, Ruby.’ Damon’s voice came through smoothly polite. ‘Your touch is everywhere here today—and we wanted to thank you for it.’

      ‘Have the caterers been in?’

      ‘In and gone, with a week’s worth of leftovers in the fridge,’ said Damon. ‘Which is no reflection whatsoever on the quality of the food. The food was fantastic.’

      ‘And your sisters liked the clothes?’

      ‘They did. Now Lena’s heading to her room for a nap, my father’s heading to the study to disguise his nap as a work effort, Poppy’s just started watching It’s A Wonderful Life and I’m about to head out for a while.’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Anywhere. Why? You looking for something to do?’

      ‘What, and miss out on It’s A Wonderful Life?’

      ‘How many times have you seen it before?

      Trust me, you know how it goes. Downtrodden man reflects on his life, realises how many people depend on him and decides not to top himself. The End. And then you cry.’

      ‘Still not sure we’re living in the same universe, my friend,’ said the woman who’d just started a fiercely competitive chess game with a half-grown cat. ‘What sort of counter offer do you have in mind?’

      ‘A walk. Just to get some air. Doesn’t necessarily have to be fresh.’

      ‘Good thing too, this being the city,’ she murmured. ‘Chater Garden’s not that far from you. There’s greenery, topiary, a water feature or two … Ignore the concrete.’

      ‘Sounds like I need a guide.’

      ‘You really don’t,’ she said, smiling.

      ‘But what if I want a guide?’

      ‘Tell you what,’ she said, feeling generous. ‘What say I meet you at Chater Garden in half an hour? I’ll be the one wearing the peacock feather in her hair.’

      ‘One of these days I’ll ask you why,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll be the one in the Panama hat.’

      Damon didn’t know what had possessed him to seek out Ruby Maguire again today. Last night had been enough, more than enough to let him know that he should leave this one alone. Not for him a woman who could strip him bare. Never for him a woman who could

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