Why Resist a Rebel? (12 page)

He didn’t have a chance to respond, or to even begin to figure out what he’d done wrong, when she began to stride towards the house.

He caught up with her well before they reached the door, where a smartly dressed man—but still obviously a security guard—widened his eyes as he recognised him.

He opened the door for them without a word, and inside, in a redecorated but still familiar foyer, a small crowd of guests mingled.

Ruby looked at him curiously, and he knew what she was thinking. The guests were all older than them, by a good twenty or thirty years.

But then the enthusiastic chatter stilled, and one by one people turned to face him, replacing their cacophony with whispered speculation.

Then, from amongst it all, out stepped a women with silver-blonde hair styled in the sleekest of bobs, and an elegant dress that flattered a figure still fit and trim at—as of today—sixty.

Her eyes, so similar to his, were wide, and coated in a sheen he didn’t want to think about too much.

As dignified as always, she approached them politely. Although her smile went well beyond that—it was broad. Thrilled.

Dev felt his own mouth form into a smile in response—not as wide, not as open, yet he still had the sense he’d been holding his breath for hours.

He reached for Ruby, wrapping his hand around hers in an instinctive movement.

‘Ruby, this is Ros,’ he said, ‘my—’

‘Mother,’ she finished.

Ruby didn’t look at him, she simply smoothly accepted the hand that his mum offered, and wished his mother a happy birthday.

‘I’m Ruby,’ she added, ‘a colleague of Dev’s.’

His mother glanced to their joined hands, then back to Dev, questions dancing in her eyes.

But no, he wasn’t about to explain.

A long moment passed, and Dev realised he’d made a mistake. He should’ve hugged his mum, or something...but he’d felt frozen. Out of practice.

Then it was too late, and his mum said something that was terribly polite, and trilled her lovely, cultured laugh, and disappeared back into the crowd. A crowd now full of disapproving expressions, all aimed in his direction.

Yes, he knew who he was—the son who’d blown off his father’s funeral.

This is a mistake.

He still held Ruby’s hand, and he would’ve tugged her outside, straight back to their car, if more guests hadn’t filled the space behind them. Instead, he pulled her into one of the front rooms—‘the library’, his mum called it, with its walls of multicoloured books and oriental carpets.

Or at least he thought he’d drawn Ruby into the room—belatedly he realised it was more Ruby doing the directing. Inside, she dropped his hand, and pushed the door shut behind them, hard enough that it verged towards a slam.

‘This is your
mother’s
birthday party, Dev?’ she said. Then on a slightly higher pitch, ‘You invited me to your
mother’s
birthday party?’

He nodded, because there was nothing else he could do.

Her hands were back on her hips again, and she took a long, deep breath. ‘Okay. So, do you want to hurry up about telling me
what on earth
is going on?’

Ruby was doing her absolute best to hold herself together. What she wanted to do—desperately—was throw something in Dev’s direction. Something hard, preferably.

What the hell was he playing at? Just who did he think he was?

A floor lamp glowed in the corner, and flames flickered in the fireplace, throwing soft light across the room and making the dark leather of the button-backed chesterfield lounge suite shine.

Into that shininess, Dev sank, stretching his legs out long before him. He tilted his head backwards, resting it along the back of the sofa, and stared upwards, as if the delicate ceiling rose suddenly required his full attention.

‘We can go in a minute,’ he said, just before she was about to speak again.

The low words—quiet and so unexpected—had her swallowing the outburst she’d had ready.

All of a sudden the fight went out of her—and all she could remember was the reason she’d agreed to come here in the first place:
I really don’t want to go on my own.

‘Go?’

He looked at her. ‘Yeah. There’s a restaurant I like, at Darling Harbour. I won’t have any trouble getting us in.’

Ruby had been standing near the door, but now she crossed the room, perching on the edge of the single chesterfield armchair directly across from Dev, her booted feet only inches from his distressed leather loafers.

‘Why would you want to leave your mother’s birthday party? I bet it’s a milestone, too, given all these people.’

‘Her sixtieth.’

Ruby nodded. ‘So why leave?’ she repeated.

He stood up abruptly, and shoved both hands into his pockets. ‘It was a dumb idea to come. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

‘How was it a dumb idea to come to your own mother’s birthday party?’

Dev’s gaze was trained on the fire, and he stood perfectly still.

‘It just was. Is.’

Now he looked at her, but in the uneven light she couldn’t read a thing. ‘I’m confused,’ she said.

He shook his head dismissively. ‘You don’t need to understand. Let’s go.’

His fingers wrapped around the door handle, but before he had a chance to twist it open Ruby was on her feet.

‘I don’t need to understand?’ she asked, far from politely, stepping closer so they were almost toe to toe. ‘You’re telling me I’m supposed to just accept that you whisked me across the state
and
deliberately concealed our exact destination—and ask no questions?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That would be ideal.’

Dev rubbed his forehead, not looking at her. In the flickering shadows, the darkness beneath his eyes was suddenly even more pronounced.

Without thinking, Ruby reached out, running a finger whisper-soft along the top edge of his cheekbone.

At her touch, his hand dropped to his side, but otherwise he didn’t move a muscle.

‘Does tonight have something to do with
this?
’ she asked, her fingertips tracing across to the smudges of black beneath his eyes.

For long moments, their gazes met, his momentarily open and revealing above her exploratory touch.

That his unspoken answer was
Yes,
was obvious—but there was more. A lot more.

His eyes revealed a depth of emotion she’d only seen before in glimpses. But now, right this second, he’d set it all free—for her to see.

But what was she seeing? Sadness, she knew. She recognised.

And loss. Guilt?

But then it was all gone, gone as quickly as he gently but firmly took her wrist and pushed it away.

‘Let’s go,’ he said. Again, he reached for the door.

Ruby touched him again, covering his much larger hand partially with hers.

‘I think we should stay.’

He was staring at their hands. Ruby could feel the tension beneath her palm, the rigid shape of his knuckles.

‘Why?’

‘Because you want to stay.’

He looked up, his eyebrows raised. ‘And how, exactly, do you know that?’

She had no idea. But she did.

She shrugged, deciding it best to say nothing at all. She stepped away, lifting her hand away from his, conscious that she really had no idea what was going on here. That she was the last person in the world who should be advising anyone on their own family issues.

Dev was right, really—there was no reason she needed to understand any of this. Not why Dev brought her here, not why he wanted to leave—and certainly not why Dev’s beautiful mother would look at her son with such a mix of instantaneous joy and pain.

She shouldn’t
want
to understand. There was no point.

She was no one to him.
A friend,
he’d said, for the evening. That wasn’t even true, and yet still she’d felt a stupid, stupid kick to her guts when he’d said those words.

Work colleague
was the accurate term. The only term to describe them.

She stepped away, suddenly terribly uncomfortable. As she knew all that, believed all that—and yet all she could think about was Dev, and those dark eyes, and that sorrow behind them.

‘I think we should stay.’

Ruby’s head jerked up at the deep, firmly spoken words. As she watched, Dev opened the door, holding it open for her.

He looked relaxed and utterly unbothered. As if he’d always been the one who’d wanted to stay the whole time, in fact.

He motioned towards the door. ‘Ready?’

Ruby just nodded in response, and then he followed her out into the hallway.

The party spread from the three-storey home’s expansive entertaining areas through concertinaed bi-fold doors to the garden. Tall stainless-steel patio heaters dotted the grass, and fairy lights wound their way through the ornamental hedges and carefully pruned gardenias. The thirty-metre high Ironbarks and Turpentines of the adjacent Sheldon Forest—imposing even at night—formed a towering backdrop to the evening.

It was—clearly—yet another fabulous party hosted by Ros Cooper.

For about the twentieth time in the two minutes since he’d walked out of the library, Dev changed his mind.

He’d been right. He should go.

‘Devlin!’

Dev bit back a groan, but turned to face that familiar voice.

‘Jared!’ he said, as forced and false as his eldest brother.

He blinked as his gaze took him in. How long had it been? Two years? Five?

Jared had softened just a little around the middle, and his temples sported new sprinklings of grey. But his expression—anger mixed with frustration mixed with judgmental dismissal—that was remarkably unchanged.

Actually, not remarkable at all. Jared, like his father, wasn’t known for his swift changes of opinion.

It took barely a minute for Jared to introduce himself to Ruby, to make some irrelevant, meaningless, small talk—and then get straight to the point.

‘Mum’s pleased you’re here.’

Dev nodded. ‘You’re not.’

‘No. You’ll just end up upsetting her.’ His brother casually took a long sip of his beer.

‘That’s not the aim.’

Jared shrugged. Over Dev’s shoulder he mouthed
hello!
at someone behind them. He was always so smooth—always so perfect. The perfect son—one of two both equally, differently perfect: at school, at sport, at socialising.

Then along came Dev. Not even close to perfect.

‘You shouldn’t have come,’ he said, as friendly as if they were discussing a footy match. ‘I wish you hadn’t.’ Now he bothered to catch his gaze. ‘But as you’re here, at least try not to ruin tonight for Mum, okay? It’s her first party since...’ Jared swallowed a few times, and the pain of his loss was clear even in the moonlight.

Dev reached out—but he didn’t know what to do. So he let his hand flop back uselessly to his side. Jared was oblivious, his stare becoming hard.

‘Just don’t let her down again.’ Jared pushed the words out between clenched teeth—and then wasted no time waiting for a response.

‘Lovely to meet you,’ he murmured to Ruby, and then Dev found his gaze following his brother’s suit-jacketed shoulders as he walked away, across the limestone paving and back inside the house.

A hand brushed his arm. ‘Dev?’

Ruby was looking up at him, questions in her eyes. ‘You okay?’

He nodded sharply. ‘Do you want a drink?’

She raised her eyebrows, but let him go. When he returned a few minutes later, she’d found a small bench nestled in the garden. A man he didn’t recognise sat beside her, and something he said made her laugh. A beautiful, genuine, honest, Ruby laugh.

‘She’s with me,’ he said, sounding about as caveman as he intended as he came to a stop before them.

The guy looked up and Dev could see the exact millisecond he realised who he was. And that was all it took—the man stood up without a word, and left.

Ruby looked at him disapprovingly as he sat. ‘That was rude—and inaccurate.’

He handed her her champagne. ‘It’s what they all expect of me. And, also, it was technically correct. You did come with me.’

She smiled, just a little. ‘That’s not what you meant.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve got other things to worry about than some guy who doesn’t have the guts to stand his ground.’

She took a sip of her drink, looking out across the garden. ‘Yeah, I’m getting that feeling.’ Another sip. ‘Are you going to tell me about it?’

‘No.’

She shifted on the wooden bench, and recrossed her long legs so they were angled towards him. ‘Then why, exactly, did you bring me here tonight?’

‘I don’t think I know,’ he said, deciding she deserved honesty—even if he couldn’t provide answers.

I really don’t want to go on my own.

That
particular moment of honesty in Ruby’s apartment had definitely been unplanned. Until that moment, even he hadn’t known it was true. He’d told himself that she’d make the night more fun, that she’d be—his favourite word when it came to her, it seemed—a distraction.

Looking at her now, at her eyes that were wide with concern for him,
distraction
didn’t really cut it.

Because Veronica could’ve organised him a distraction, a stunning accessory for his arm who wouldn’t have asked a single question.

But he hadn’t wanted that; he’d wanted Ruby. He’d used that stupid
favour—
something he’d dreamt up in some desperate attempt to gain control of a humiliating situation, a favour he’d never thought he’d use—to get her here.

He’d manipulated her—for the second time.

And once again, he just couldn’t feel bad about it.

He was glad she was here.
Ruby.
Not anyone else.

‘I heard that your father died,’ she said, very softly. ‘Someone mentioned it, on set.’ A pause. ‘I’m really sorry.’

‘We weren’t close,’ he said, dismissive. ‘The opposite, in fact.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated.

‘I didn’t go to the funeral,’ he said, suddenly. Unexpectedly.

‘You couldn’t make it?’ she asked, and he liked that she’d jumped to that conclusion, as erroneous as it was.