The Tycoon's Shock Heir

He nodded, indicating the little lounge area where four leather armchairs were grouped around a coffee table. He lowered himself down, comfortable, confident and totally composed, while she perched carefully, straight-backed, knees locked, smile fixed.

‘OK. Basics first. You’re a dancer with this ballet company, but you’ve “volunteered” to take on this PR role just for tonight.’

‘Something like that,’ she said, ignoring the air quotes he made with his hands.

‘So what’s Ruby’s story? Why you?’ he said, narrowing his eyes and steepling his fingers.

‘You want to know about me? There’s not much to tell. I’ve been with the BB since I was eleven,’ she said, realising that she was now being interviewed for a job she didn’t even want. ‘I’m not dancing tonight, so I think I was the obvious choice.’

‘The BB is the British Ballet?’

She smiled at his stupid question.

‘Yes. The company’s fifty years old. I’ve been in the school, the corps, then a soloist and hopefully one day a principal. So I know everything there is to know.’

‘What about the other side of things? There will be political points being scored here tonight. You know everything there is to know about that too, I take it?’

As she stared at him she suddenly remembered the notes. Had she brought them? Pages and pages of silly handwritten notes about all the other stuff she was meant to tell him. She’d been writing them out in the kitchen, she’d numbered them, she’d stacked them... And then what had she done with them?

‘You’re prepared, right? One thing you should know about me is I’m not a big fan of winging it.’

Neither am I, she wanted to answer back. Which was why she had spent so long making notes about things she didn’t find remotely interesting. But being rude to the sponsor was not an option—not with all that revenue riding on it. Her own scholarship had been funded through the generosity of patrons like Coral Rossini, the Company Director had been quick to remind her.

‘I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. Mrs Rossini was confident I was right for the job.’

‘Yes. I’m sure she was,’ he said, in a tone that buzzed in her subconscious like an annoying fly.

But where were the notes? In her bag? Or could she have stuffed them in her pockets? Left them on the Tube?

He tipped his head back, scrutinised her with a raised brow, looking down the length of his annoyingly handsome nose, and she wondered if he could read her mind.

‘How long have you known my mother, incidentally? She seems to have taken quite a shine to you.’

‘She has?’

She’d definitely had the notes just before she got in the car...

‘Yes. And you wouldn’t be the first person to want to be friends with my incredibly kind, incredibly generous mother.’

What was he talking about? Did he think that she wanted to be his mother’s friend? Did he think she actually wanted to be here, doing this?

‘I’m not here to make friends with anyone. I’m here because I was told to be.’

And then she stopped, suddenly aware of the dark look that had begun to spread across his face. She’d gone too far.

‘You were told to be?’ he asked as his brows rose quizzically above those sharp sherry-coloured eyes.

‘Someone had to do it.’

He sat back now, framed in the cream leather seat, elbows resting on the arms of the chair and fingers steepled in front of his chest. They were shaded with fine dark hair, and above the pinstriped cuff of his shirt the metallic gleam of a luxury watch twinkled and shone.

She kept her eyes there, concentrating on the strong bones of his wrists, refusing to look into his face as the jet powered on through the sky.

‘And you drew the short straw?’ he said, lifting his water.

She caught sight of the solid chunks of burnished silver cufflinks. She’d never even known anyone who wore cufflinks before, barely knew anyone who bothered to wear a shirt and tie, and she wondered for a moment how he got them off at night.

‘You’d rather be anywhere other than here?’

His voice curled out softly, quietly, just above the thrum of the engines, and with the unmistakable tone of mockery. Was he teasing her? She flashed a glance up. He was. The tiniest of smiles lurked at the corner of his mouth. Did that mean he didn’t think she was trying to stick her claws into his mother?

Maybe.

She shifted in the chair, used her core muscles to keep from slipping further down into the bucket seat. He sat completely still, and with all that body sitting across from her it was impossible to concentrate.

‘I’d rather be performing,’ she said. ‘Nothing matters more to me than that.’

‘That I understand,’ he said quietly. His face fell for a moment as some other world held him captive. He opened and flexed his hand, turned it around and she saw knuckles distended, broken. ‘I understand that very well.’

She looked down at her own hands, bunched up on her lap in the scarlet satin, and waited for him to speak. He didn’t. He crossed his leg and her gaze travelled there. And all the way along it. All the way along hard, strong muscle. She knew firm muscle when she saw it, and he was even better built than a dancer—bulkier, stronger, undeniably masculine. She could make out powerful thighs under all that navy silk gabardine, and the full force of the shoulders stretched out under his shirt. He could lift her above his head, and spin her around, lay her down and then...

He laid his hands on the armrests and she glanced up, startled out of her daydream.

‘Sorry. I—Let’s get back on track.’ She cleared her throat. OK, time to remember her notes. ‘The performance tonight. You want me to give you the details now?’

‘Please do.’ He nodded.

She frowned. She could repeat every dance step, but that wasn’t what he needed to know. Details. Names. Dates. All in the notes, in a pile, on her kitchen table—which was at least five hundred miles away.

‘Two Loves is based on a poem.’

‘A poem...? Anything more specific than that?’

Yes, there were specifics. Loads of specifics. She’d written them down, memorised them, but fishing them out of her brain now was a different thing. As if she needed any more reminding that the one single thing she could do in life was dance. She was completely hopeless at almost everything else.

‘It’s...really old,’ she said, grasping for any single fact.

His eyebrow was still raised. ‘How old? Last month? Last year? Last century?’

‘Ancient old,’ she said, an image of the poet that the choreographer had shown them coming to mind. ‘Like two thousand years. And Persian,’ she said happily. ‘It’s all coming back. He’s a Persian poet called Rumi, famous for his love poems.’

‘Ah yes. Rumi. “Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along...” And all that rubbish.’

‘Yes, well. Some of that—“rubbish”—has made this ballet tonight,’ she said, pleased that she’d remembered something, even if he sounded less than impressed.

‘OK. Though, since its unlikely I’m going to be shaking hands with the poet Rumi tonight, do you have any facts about anyone alive? There’s normally a whole list of people I need to thank.’

‘Yes,’ she said, staring into his unimpressed face. ‘That’s all in my notes.’