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She’d usually toy with a guy like him, have her fun then move on. He so wasn’t her type.
But with Sapphie convalescing on enforced leave, she’d assumed more duties than she could handle. Creating the pieces she loved had been surpassed by spokeswoman and modelling tonight, with more to come. Much more.
Even now, several months since her sis had almost collapsed and she’d learned the truth, she wished the last year had been different.
She wished Mum and Sapphie had trusted her.
Dealing with grief over losing their mum had been tough and she’d admired Sapphire assuming CEO duties of Seaborn’s as well as being the face of the company. After all, it was what Saph had been groomed to do since she could walk.
She’d never envied her sister the responsibility, preferring to indulge her creative side, happy to be the scatty, carefree Seaborn.
Thanks to Sapphie’s bombshell before she had an enforced recuperation, Ruby now had more responsibility than she could possibly want or imagine.
And it made her mad as hell it’d taken her sister’s near breakdown for her to discover the truth.
Throw in Seaborn’s ever-decreasing profit margins as chain stores flourished under a worsening economy, and Maroney Mine doing its best to drive them out of business, and the last few months had sucked.
But she had twelve weeks while Sapphie recuperated to turn Seaborn’s around, twelve weeks to prove to her sister and the rest of the corporate world she wasn’t the flighty airhead they thought, and kick some business butt.
As Ruby moved through the crowd, accepting air-kisses and congratulations for her latest creations, her gaze drifted towards the surly stranger too many times for her liking.
Worse, whenever it did, he was staring straight at her.
Determined to shake the feeling they were inexplicably linked by a force of attraction bigger than the both of them, she flitted from one group to another, laughing at nothing, smiling at anything.
All too soon the event ended and she sagged on a stool in relief. Until her cousin Opal tapped her on the shoulder and shoved a manifesto under her nose.
‘How many pieces did we sell?’
Her heart sank as Opal frowned and shook her head. ‘Not enough.’
‘Damn.’ She snatched the listing and scanned it, the lack of gold foil sale stickers making her stomach gripe with angst.
Seaborn’s was seriously floundering and nothing, even their biggest launch and her best pieces yet, could save it.
Opal squeezed her arm. ‘It’ll be okay.’
Unexpected tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away, not trusting herself to speak until she did. ‘It’ll have to be.’
For Sapphie’s sake, for her sake, for the sake of a family business she had no intention of losing.
Unbeknown to her until recently, Sapphie had made a promise to their mum on her death bed last year when Mathilda Seaborn, the matriarch of Seaborn’s for the last fifteen years, had been pumped full of morphine but completely lucid.
The pancreatic cancer might have ravaged her body but it hadn’t touched her astute business brain; her mum had made Sapphire promise to do whatever it took to make her legacy survive. For them. For their children.
Considering Ruby couldn’t sustain a long-term relationship any longer than Sapphie, nor did she want to, kids were a long way off.
Irrelevant now, with her sister under strict doctor’s orders after collapsing from stress and exhaustion because she’d shouldered a burden they both should’ve shared.
It had been a double shock, learning of Seaborn’s grim financials, and the fact she’d been inadvertently responsible for Sapphie’s collapse.
And she had been, no matter which way she looked at it. She’d always been the indulged Seaborn, the one allowed to follow her dreams and travel and kick back with Sapphie happily shadowing Mum, learning everything she could.
While Sapphie had studied hard to obtain straight As, she’d coasted, lucky to pull her usual Cs up to an occasional B.
While Sapphie had done a master’s in Economics as a foregone conclusion, she’d breezed through an Arts major, not really caring whether she finished or not because she’d already started creating signature pieces for Seaborn’s.
While Sapphie had no social life due to Seaborn’s commitments, she’d danced and partied her way around Melbourne with a hip crowd as laid-back as her.
Little wonder Mum hadn’t trusted her with Seaborn’s viability.
Time to prove her mum and Sapphie wrong.
She might’ve been too self-absorbed in her carefree, creative life before. Now she had a chance to set things right by taking Seaborn’s out of the red and firmly into the black.
Opal nudged her. ‘By the way, we’ve got a hanger-on.’
Ruby glanced over her shoulder in time to see Security hassling Happy Face. The fact he’d waited around made her pulse skitter and she clamped down the urge to grin in triumph despite the dastardly news Opal had just delivered.
Men were so predictable. A little light-hearted flirtation and they thought you’d handed them your heart on a plate.
‘I’ll take care of this.’
Opal frowned as Happy Face glowered at their security guard, towering over him by a foot. ‘Sure?’
‘Yeah, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.’ Opal’s frown eased at her cliché as she hugged her. ‘Thanks for your help, hun, couldn’t have done it tonight without you.’
‘I’ll have to add hostess with the mostest to my geologist credentials.’
Ruby bumped her with her hip. ‘You bet. Now off you go, head home and I’ll take care of our recalcitrant guest.’
Casting one last doubtful glance in Happy Face’s direction, Opal headed out the back.
Ruby squared her shoulders to do battle. The necklace still made her neck itch, her feet ached from wearing stilettos rather than the ballet flats she preferred and the satin sliding over her hips set off some strange static reaction that zapped her at inopportune moments.
Like now, as she strode towards Happy Face, intent on kicking some surly butt.
‘What seems to be the problem here, Fritz?’
Their long-term security guard’s stern expression softened as he turned towards her. They’d always had a bond since he’d slipped her gum drops, her favourite treat all through childhood, when her mum wasn’t looking.
She’d loved coming here as a kid, had loved the glitter and the sparkle and the hush. No way would she lose it.
Fritz gestured towards Happy Face, who glared at her as if his impending eviction were all her fault. ‘This gentleman won’t leave.’
Fritz’s audibly icy gentleman indicated he thought the guy anything but.
Considering her feet ached, her skin still prickled beneath the necklace and she couldn’t wait to slip out of the clingy satin, it was time to revoke her earlier invitation. She didn’t have time to waste flirting with some guy she’d never see again. She had more important things to do, such as come up with another scheme to raise much-needed funds to keep Seaborn’s afloat.
Ready to give the stranger his marching orders, she made the mistake of locking gazes with him again.
Daring sparked sable flecks, taunting her to see if she’d carry through with her earlier challenge.
Damn him. How could he know she’d never backed down from a challenge?
Youngest to brave the Mad Mouse roller coaster at Luna Park, youngest to surf Bells Beach in her family, youngest creator Seaborn’s had ever had.
She rose to any challenge and she wasn’t going to let this mysterious man get one up on her.
‘It’s fine, Fritz, I invited him to stay for a coffee.’
Fritz’s bushy brows joined in the middle but he didn’t dare question her judgement. He’d never do that, his loyalty to Seaborn’s unwavering.
‘Do you want me to lock up?’
She nodded. ‘Please. I’ll take our guest upstairs so close up the showroom and head home.’
If Fritz thought it unusual she was taking a stranger to her apartment, he didn’t show it, his expression carefully blank. ‘’Night, Miss Ruby.’
‘Thanks, Fritz.’
She waited until Fritz had walked far enough away not to overhear before she swivelled back.
Her plan to renege on her offer of a coffee fizzled when the guy’s lips curved into a devastating smile that snatched her breath. She’d suffered the same oxygen deprivation when she’d glimpsed a pink diamond for the first time and she surreptitiously rubbed under her ribs and over her diaphragm, willing the air to fill her lungs so she wouldn’t feel so wonky.
‘Coffee sounds good.’
How could one smile make her feel so uncertain, so hesitant, so thrilled?
She hated feeling this off balance. Which was why she liked her men arty and laid-back, not glowering and dangerous.
‘Actually, it’s been a long night—’
‘Running scared?’ He ducked his head to murmur in the vicinity of her ear and she could’ve sworn she swayed.
If his warm breath fanning her cheek weren’t bad enough, his citrus scent would’ve completed the job of knocking her off kilter.
He smelled delicious, crisp and sexy and devourable.
Folding her arms to hide the telltale signs of her body’s reaction to him, she rolled her eyes.
‘Fine, one coffee then you’re out of here.’
He touched her arm, the barest graze sending a sizzle of heat shooting through her like a jolt of electricity. ‘Not so brave now, huh?’
Bravery had nothing to do with it. Self-preservation did. This instantaneous spark between them was too powerful, too potent, too potentially troublesome.
She didn’t need complications in her life, not now when saving Seaborn’s was her priority.
And a delicious-smelling, beyond-gorgeous, bad boy was one giant complication waiting to happen.
‘I flirt with everyone—you shouldn’t take it personally.’
‘Is that right?’ He took a step forward, bringing him tantalisingly close.
He didn’t touch her. He didn’t need to, her pebbling skin a dead giveaway of how his proximity affected her. ‘Better learn to control that habit because some guys may get the wrong idea.’
She shouldn’t bait him, she really shouldn’t but she couldn’t resist. There was something about him, something untouchable, that made her want to ruffle his assured poise. ‘What idea’s that?’
‘That you’re offering more than you’re willing to give.’
His innuendo rippled over her like submerging in the warmest, most decadent bubble bath and she clamped down on the urge to see exactly how willing she could be.
She tilted her head up. ‘I’m offering coffee. Take it or leave it.’
He hesitated and disappointment doused her ever-growing attraction to a guy she barely knew. There went the little fantasy of fending off his lusty advances.
He searched her face, looking for something, and it made her uncomfortable to the point of squirming.
On the verge of retracting her offer, he slowly lifted his arm and gestured towards the back of the showroom.
‘Lead the way.’
CHAPTER TWO
JAX had lucked out.
His reasons for attending tonight had been twofold: show the Melbourne snobs he’d returned, ready to infiltrate their closed ranks, and plant the takeover seed in Sapphire Seaborn’s mind.
Sadly, the Seaborn spokeswoman hadn’t been in attendance but he had the next best thing: her sister.
Glancing at Ruby, matching him stride for stride as they headed towards the rear of the showroom, he amended his earlier assessment.
Maybe he hadn’t lucked out after all.
The younger Seaborn was a firecracker. All mouth and defiance.
Not his type at all but for a few decadent hours he’d like her to be.
He didn’t intend on getting physical, not with so much at stake. He had big plans for a proposed takeover but for a moment, with the down-lights making her hair shimmer like spun gold and her breasts straining against satin with every step she took, he wished he didn’t have so much to lose.
‘You’ve never been to Seaborn’s before.’
It was a statement, not a question and he admired her bluntness.
‘No. Why? Because you would’ve remembered me?’
Her lips quirked at his teasing. ‘I remember all our customers.’
