‘Let’s hope this isn’t a flash in the pan,’ Holly told the staffer on her way home that evening, when even he had said well done. She could hardly believe it when the king of the sceptics cracked a smile and winked back at her.
Ruiz had arranged a supper date with a woman who always made him laugh. He sat through it glancing at his watch, wondering what Holly was doing at the penthouse. She didn’t have many friends in London yet, and with the trouble she’d mentioned at work—the predicted early demise of the agony-aunt column—he guessed she must be feeling low. He made some polite mumble in response to the woman sitting opposite him at the high-end restaurant, but they both knew his thoughts were elsewhere.
‘Excuse me, Ruiz.’
He refocused as the woman across the supper table from him touched his hand. ‘Forgive me,’ he responded. ‘It’s been one of those days.’
‘I can see that,’ his blonde companion murmured in a suggestive purr.
‘Do you mind if we cut this short?’ Even the tone of her voice set his teeth on edge, and they both knew the answer to his question. Players in the field could read each other like well-thumbed books and he was tired of playing the field, or whatever this type of civilised prelude to sex was called. ‘Please accept my apologies,’ he said, abruptly standing. ‘I realise I’ve been lousy company tonight.’
His companion didn’t argue.
Two weeks had passed since her first article for the column, and these days she was rising before dawn to start work on her ideas. There didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day now her ‘Living with a Playboy’ feature had been officially declared a success, but at least that made it easier to live with Ruiz. Keeping busy gave Holly less time to regret that she wasn’t a five foot six blonde with more up front than behind, and meant she could channel her energies into the column. Since that night when Ruiz had come back and looked at Holly long and hard as if he were trying to work out what particular brand of sugar and spice she was made of, he had kept away. There had been no more cosy chats. And, of course, that suited her.
No, it didn’t. She had spent most of last night wondering where he had spent the night. Plus, her thoughts on Ruiz’s lady friends were not all worthy of the girl she used to be. She had become an evil shrew and felt an uncontrollable urge to share this with her readers, who were growing in number by the day. It turned out that even so-called nice girls could discover a very different side to their natures when there was a gorgeous man involved …
Glancing at the stack of newspapers piled neatly by the side of the desk she had improvised in the penthouse, Holly knew she must put Ruiz out of her mind for ten seconds, finish her work, and then study the Classified ad section and circle some rooms to let. She couldn’t go on like this. She had to find somewhere to live where she could stand on her own two feet. Frowning as she bent her head over the keyboard again, she completed the advice section for the agony-aunt column and then turned to her next piece for ‘Living with a Playboy’.
I would have stayed in the background as I had intended had it not been for a very expensive pair of designer shoes …
Don’t believe anyone who tells you women are on the same side when there are shoes and a playboy at stake. In this situation it’s a case of survival of the fittest—and I have discovered that I need to have a serious rethink if I’m going to survive.
Honestly, I don’t have a clue. How was I supposed to know that the high-heeled shoes I found dumped in the hallway when I got home from work would lead to a pair of sexy hold-ups artfully draped over the handle of the living room door? Or that the woman reclining on the sofa in a bright pink Basque and a rather scary translucent thong was expecting our mutual friend to walk in rather than me?
How was I supposed to know she had a key?
I don’t know who was more surprised—me, or the blonde. Anyway, I apologised, and, on my way out of the room, managed to tumble over her shoes and snap the heel off. Needless to say, all hell broke loose. Quickly realising that neither my vocabulary nor my stumpy, bitten nails were up to a cat fight I took myself off to the bathroom and locked the door, where I proceeded to sing tunelessly with my hands over my ears until I heard our mutual friend arrive. When I removed my hands from my ears it was to hear him promise to do something about the mad woman in the flat and replace the shoes she had destroyed. Traitor, I thought.
But the promise of shoes made me think that here was a man I might be able to do business with … until I considered this more deeply and realised that a playboy would never do it for me, because I want to buy my own shoes and I’m pretty sure one pair wouldn’t be enough …
Closing the computer, Holly sat back before turning to her next task. Lifting the newspapers onto the table, she sorted and stacked them, and then started methodically trawling through the ads. She had a reassuring number of opportunities circled when she heard the front door open and a familiar stride coming her way. Her heart began to thump. It was very early in the day to have any sort of confrontation, let alone be thrown out on the street with some bimbo cheering Ruiz on. It was with enormous relief that she realised he was alone. Opening her laptop again, she pretended to be working when he came into the room.
‘Good morning, Holly.’
‘Morning,’ she said offhandedly. But she rather spoiled the effect by looking up to find Ruiz dressed immaculately in a sharp dark suit, with a crisp white shirt, and a pearl-grey tie. He looked amazing.
‘I just got in from Paris,’ he explained, dumping an exquisitely wrapped box of tiny rainbow-tinted macaroons on the table in front of her.
‘What have I done to deserve this honour?’ she enquired in the same cool tone, while hectic images of hysterical girlfriends re-enacting the ‘off with her head’ scene between the Red Queen and Alice leapt unbidden into her head. Did the Red Queen wear a translucent pink thong, perchance? ‘What?’ she said as Ruiz shrugged off his jacket, loosened his tie, freed a couple of buttons at the neck of his shirt, and stretched out on the sofa swinging a distinctive carrier bag from a well-known Parisian boutique above his head.
‘What size feet have you got?’ he asked.
‘Isn’t that a rather personal question?’ There were some things a lady never divulged. Though, to be fair, the shoes she had trashed belonging to Miss Pink Basque had been the same size Holly wore.
‘Well, if you don’t want them.’
‘If I knew what you were talking about …’
‘Why don’t you come over here and find out?’ Ruiz suggested. ‘If the shoes are the wrong size you can always take them back to the store and change them.’
‘In Paris?’
‘No need to sound so snippy,’ he said, sitting up to bait her with a stare. ‘Not jealous, are we?’ And just like that the dark, dangerous eyes were laughing again.
But after the bimbo affair Holly refused to be won over quite so easily. ‘I’m not at all jealous of you,’ she said crisply. ‘I’ve seen your friends.’
‘You’ve seen a passing acquaintance,’ Ruiz assured her, ‘who has now passed.’
‘Away? How unfortunate.’
‘Into history, I was about to say. Don’t be sarcastic, Holly,’ Ruiz warned, pretending to be stern. ‘It doesn’t suit you.’
She turned back to the keyboard, hurting inside. Even a mistress who had passed into history was a mistress too far. ‘I suppose I can use the story for the column,’ she muttered.
‘If you don’t want the shoes …’
Holly stiffened. ‘Are you saying you bought the shoes for me?’
‘I bought the blonde shoes—’
‘What a gentleman you are,’ Holly interrupted acidly. ‘How thoughtful of you.’
‘Holly,’ Ruiz droned good-humouredly, ‘I bought the shoes to replace the ones you broke, but the blonde decided she’d prefer a cheque for a somewhat larger amount, so I took the shoes back to the store—’
‘Do I need to hear this?’
‘I just want to make it clear
that I’m not giving you anyone’s leftovers. I bought them for you. Don’t you want to see them?’
‘For me?’ she said suspiciously, hating the way her voice was trembling. ‘You bought shoes … for me?’ She turned to find Ruiz looking less confident than usual, or maybe she was delusional, which was entirely possible. In the end curiosity got the better of her. There was nothing wrong with taking a look. She could only hope Ruiz’s taste in shoes was an improvement on his taste in women. She could fake it for the column, but she was pretty sure she couldn’t fake anything for Ruiz, though he stood a serious risk of having the shoes land heavily on his head if this was another of his jokes!
‘Before we came to the mutual decision that cash was king the blonde chose some trashy, sparkly things, like the ones you stomped on,’ Ruiz explained, handing the box over. ‘I thought they looked better in pieces, frankly, and so I chose these. What do you think?’
Did shoe heaven cover it? The leather was the softest she had ever felt, the heel was the highest, the colour was a beautiful pale dove grey. And the sole was scarlet. ‘I think …’ They’re divine, Holly thought, feeling a quiver of excitement at the prospect of wearing them. She could never have afforded shoes like these … ‘I think you should return them to the shop,’ she said, remembering the advice she had given one of her readers in capital letters on this very subject: ‘Never Accept Expensive Gifts From Men. Why? Because it puts you in their debt.’ And the piece hadn’t even gone to press yet, sensible Holly reminded drooling Holly sternly. ‘As they haven’t been worn I think you could get a full refund,’ she said, placing the shoe back in its box.
‘What’s wrong with them?’ Ruiz demanded, removing his crossed feet from the table and sitting up straight.
‘I never accept gifts like this from men.’
‘Well, that’s a habit you should change right away,’ Ruiz observed dryly. ‘I suppose it also means I can’t take you out to supper tonight—though if you feel badly about it, I can always let you pay …’
Ruiz was asking her out?
No. Ruiz was asking her to take him out, which gave Holly a problem. If this had been a straightforward invitation to supper she could refuse, but seeing as she was taking up half a penthouse that was rightfully his, the least she could do was stand Ruiz a meal …
‘Perhaps if we go out I’ll get a chance to talk to you about paying a fair rent to live here,’ Holly murmured thoughtfully. To date, both Ruiz and Lucia had refused to take any money from her, while Holly’s house-hunting efforts had swung disastrously between scratching sounds behind the skirting boards to smelly drains, and even, on one memorable viewing, an infestation of ants. ‘Rent?’ she prompted, seeing now that there was something very worrying in Ruiz’s eyes.
‘What a great idea,’ he agreed mildly. ‘Trust you to come up with something.’
The day improved when Holly arrived at ROCK! to find she had been given her own office with two assistants to help her, which she had to take as a sign that the agony-aunt column was on the up. ‘But let’s not get carried away,’ she cautioned the two girls sent to help her. ‘This is still early days, and—’
‘You’ve worked a miracle so we can all keep our jobs?’ Pixie suggested.
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ Holly argued red-faced.
‘You have to carry on living with the playboy now … poor you,’ Freya said, exchanging a wry look with Pixie. ‘Not that we’re jealous, or anything.’
What would Ruiz have to say about that? Holly wondered, feeling the buzz inside her ramp up a gear at the thought that she had to go out to supper tonight with him.
‘Anyway, we’re just glad to be here,’ Freya added warmly as she plonked a thriving pot plant, her personalised mug, a budget-sized box of tissues and a generous supply of chocolate for them all to share on the desk.
‘You’re right,’ Holly agreed, telling herself not to be so selfish and join in the celebration. She had to stop wishing and longing, and pretending she could steer her life to a happy-ever-after-ending in which a confident Holly Valiant won the hand of a prince instead of a frog. She could do what she liked through the column, but not that. The ‘Living with a Playboy’ feature was a fiction to boost reader numbers, which it had done, and that had to be enough for her. Except it wasn’t, Holly admitted silently as she exchanged spirited high fives with the other girls.
But hang on a minute, Holly thought as the celebration subsided. Wasn’t this expansion of the column and securing of their jobs the moment she’d been working towards? And wasn’t it essential to immerse herself in that work if she was going to forget being anxious about supper with Signor Sexy tonight? Her gaze fired as the other girls looked to her expectantly. ‘Chocolate?’ she said.
‘Tick!’ the girls chorused.
‘Bottle of fizz to celebrate?’ She was less sure of this one and was already planning to slip out and buy something.
‘Tick!’ Pixie said triumphantly, producing a bottle from behind her back.
‘I think we have everything we need,’ Holly confirmed. ‘Let’s kick this column into shape!’
And let me have something I can control to think about, she prayed fervently, instead of a whole lot of man that I can’t.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Mirror, mirror on the wall—’ Will someone cover the damn mirror!
Tonight’s the night. I am taking the playboy out to supper and I can’t decide what to wear. I realise that taking him out reverses the natural order of things—but then I am not the playboy’s natural order, if you take my meaning. I am more of a meagre side dish—the type of thing you order to try, and more often than not leave untouched. Me? Lacking in confidence? What makes you think that?
All right. I admit it. Every item of clothing I possess is on the bed, or on the floor. Carrier bags and sales tickets are scattered around like confetti, because, as it turns out, my wardrobe is full of nothing to wear. And, as I am constantly reminded by the playboy’s long-legged basque-wearing friends, sex sells. Not exactly my area of expertise. Consequently, I have decided that my next article for you will be a helpful piece on the subject of staying out of debt. At least that’s where my credit card provider told me I should be concentrating my thoughts.
I must admit the real crisis of confidence came when I tried to decide what to underpin my modest outfit with tonight. As I don’t possess a single basque, or hold-up stocking, should I chance a shocking-pink thong?
As my underwear is unlikely to receive an airing, that hardly matters, does it?
And the playboy? He’s acting as cool and as sexy as ever. Accompanying me to supper is nothing more than a workaday chore for him in order to keep in his sister’s good books. So at least I should be safe. And I should be glad about that—right?
TYPING up her column was a displacement activity Holly had hoped would take her mind off the fact that she would soon be sitting across a table from Ruiz—speaking to him, staring into his eyes—all the time pretending they were nothing more than friends. Her shopping had been more erratic than usual with her frantic purchases more suitable for a royal wedding than a casual supper in a local bistro and she was fast losing confidence in her ability to pull this off.
Closing the lid on her laptop, Holly glanced at the shoe box the unscrupulous Ruiz had left temptingly outside her door. It was on her bed now. She had been forced to bring it into the bedroom in case someone fell over it. But of course she couldn’t wear the shoes unless Ruiz allowed her to pay for them. And as that would take a whole month’s salary …
The dress she had finally chosen to wear was a sale-rail spectacular—A-line, with a flirty skirt and a high scooped neck. It wasn’t black, which was about the best that could be said for it, but at least it was the same soft blue as her favourite shirt. With her hair neatly brushed, lip gloss present and correct, and just a suggestion of smudgy grey eye shadow to complement the flick of black mascara, she was ready. And nervous.
What did she have
to be nervous about? Eating supper was a harmless activity.
Sharing food could be very sexy.
Fish and chips?
Mating rituals like eating supper together and how to avoid them was another good headline for her column, Holly concluded as she shifted anxiously from foot to foot in the hallway, waiting for Ruiz. But seeing as there was no escape from tonight, fish was out—ditto anything like spinach that might get stuck in her teeth. Thankfully, she had identified a healthy-food café where they could nibble on crudités and drink sparkling elder-flower water. Perfect. She would keep a clear head and as the café was brilliantly lit with sensible, hard-backed chairs Ruiz wouldn’t want to stay for long—
And when they came home?
She’d plead tiredness and go to bed. Alone.
Just when she’d almost given up on him, Ruiz stormed back into the apartment like an avenging angel in a cloud of cold air and warm smiles with Bouncer panting vigorously at his heels. ‘Ready?’ he demanded.
‘Ready,’ Holly confirmed.
‘Where are you taking me?’ he said as he bent down to remove Bouncer’s leash.
‘I thought the little café down the road—’
‘The one where we met?’ Ruiz sounded upbeat as his lips pressed down with approval of her choice. ‘Hang on while I fill Bouncer’s water bowl—’
‘No … No, that one’s shut,’ she called out.
Ruiz sauntered back into the hall. ‘Tell me you’re not taking me to that place where they serve lentil soup, and you have to sit round a communal table on hemp sacks?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ she said. ‘They do have private booths.’
‘Where you can sit on even bigger hemp sacks? No, thank you.’
‘So where do you want to go?’ she said irritably.
‘You’re letting me choose?’ Ruiz’s mouth curved in a grin.
Why couldn’t she learn to keep her big mouth shut? She would never be able to afford Ruiz’s preferred style of restaurant. ‘I’m sure I can find somewhere else you would like,’ she told him firmly.
The Shameless Life of Ruiz Acosta Page 6
