the only reason. In her experience men wanted more from a woman than they were prepared to give and she had yet to meet a man who challenged that theory.
Even Sam Ventura.
Especially Sam Ventura—even if he now was her best friend’s brother-in-law.
And why did his name leap into her head every time the conversation turned to men and marriage? He was the very last man she should be thinking about in that way. Two years ago he’d charmed her and kissed her senseless before making a trite promise to call and then failing to follow through on it.
Not that she should have been surprised. She’d been taken in by his good looks and intelligent conversation, but neither of those things was a precursor to nice manners and true decency. At least not where he was concerned!
Lord, but it still made her blush to recall how she had invited him up to her apartment for coffee.
Coffee!
She might as well have just said bed and been done with it.
His failure to call and the subsequent photo she’d seen of him with his arm around another woman the following day at a polo match had solidified for her that men weren’t worth the effort. The worst thing for Ruby was that she had let Sam in that night. She’d let down her guard with him in a way she never had before, and worse, she’d thought they’d shared a connection. A connection that had transcended the physical.
Fool that she was.
She’d found out via a visiting LA attorney that Sam had a reputation for being a charming rogue who made Casanova look like a good bet. Something she wholeheartedly believed after how easily he had nearly seduced her that night. He’d made her feel like a besotted thirteen-year-old in the throes of her first crush, carrying her phone around for a whole week, waiting for a phone call he’d never intended to make.
Her extreme reaction to him was something that had scared her witless because she had always imagined herself immune to the romantic vagaries that governed her mother’s life. She supposed she had Sam to thank for showing her otherwise. Showing her that if she wasn’t careful she could be just as susceptible to a pretty face and buff body as the next woman.
Not that she would thank him. She didn’t want to have anything to do with him again. He was too big and too male and definitely too full of himself to be of interest to her. Something she hoped she’d made crystal clear by ignoring him at Tino and Miller’s wedding last year.
‘I don’t think every man is an EC,’ she denied to Molly now, using their shorthand for Emotional Coward. ‘But I do wonder how we’re even sisters. You’re like Snow White, talking to all the animals and skipping through the flowery fields, and I’m—’
‘The Wicked Queen,’ Molly filled in. ‘Only you’re not afraid of ageing, you’re afraid of commitment.’
‘I am not afraid of commitment.’
Molly’s eyebrow rose above her white mask as if to say I’m not getting into that argument again. But it wasn’t true.
‘I’m cautious,’ Ruby countered. ‘I don’t feel the need to leap into something before I’ve had a chance to study it from all angles.’
‘You’re not supposed to study love,’ Molly laughed. ‘You feel it. You experience it. You live it.’
Ruby shuddered. ‘You might. I don’t.’ And what would Molly say, she wondered, if she knew Ruby hadn’t even gone all the way with a man yet? That she was still a virgin like an old maid from the Victorian era!
Suddenly a loud honking sound drew her attention. Molly giggled as an irate swan cut a swathe through the glittering crowd and started pecking at the golden tassels hanging from an unsuspecting woman’s gown. The woman reeled back and would have slipped if the man standing beside her hadn’t put his hands out and swiftly caught her.
Ruby felt the breath back up in her lungs as she took in the man’s height and the breadth of his shoulders, the angle of his leonine head and dark hair styled in loose layers that could only have come from an upmarket salon.
‘Oh, my,’ Molly murmured. ‘Would you get a load of that?’
Ruby watched as the man wearing a masculine bronze mask competently corralled the indignant bird outside and returned to check if the woman was okay.
‘He’s gorgeous,’ her sister added on a sigh.
‘You can’t possibly know that,’ Ruby scoffed. ‘He’s wearing a mask that covers half his face.’
‘He carries himself like a man who doesn’t need to be handsome but is. Look at those shoulders—’
‘Padding.’
‘And the way his thighs fill out his dark suit trousers. No padding there, I’m guessing.’
Despite Ruby’s protestations, Molly was right—the man exuded power and confidence and his square-cut jaw, smooth olive complexion and sensual mouth conveyed that he was likely very good-looking behind the bronzed mask. He was also very familiar...
It’s not him, she assured herself, her eyes taking in the way his lips twisted into a half-cynical, half-sexy grin as the grateful woman gripped his arm and whispered something into his ear.
It couldn’t be him. Sam Ventura lived in LA and, even if he was visiting Sydney, what would he be doing at a fancy-dress ball thrown by theatre people?
Well, he wouldn’t be here, she reasoned. It was her imagination running overtime. Again. ‘Men like that only want one thing from a woman,’ she told Molly with lofty finality.
‘I know.’ Molly sighed. ‘Do you think he would want it from me?’
‘Molly!’
Ruby was saved from reminding her sister that she’d just ended a relationship with one feckless boyfriend and hardly needed another when one of Molly’s friends approached her. Perturbed by how very much the dark-haired man reminded her of Sam Ventura, Ruby offered to go to the bar, where they were serving on-demand cocktails.
‘Cosmopolitan,’ Molly requested.
‘Same,’ her friend added.
Leaving them to their excited chatter, Ruby headed for the gilt-edged bar that looked as if it was a permanent fixture but was most likely shipped in from Italy especially for the night.
She sighed as she joined the queue at the bar. Molly truly believed that love awaited her around every corner, while Ruby was of the view that danger awaited her. She wasn’t looking for romance and happy-ever-after. Her independence had been too hard-won to hand over to some man who would want her to compromise everything she had and then most likely walk away without a backward glance anyway. A man like her father. And like Sam Ventura.
No, that wasn’t fair. She might not like Sam very much but she didn’t know him well enough to tar him with her father’s particular brush. Still, why give a man who had heartbreaker written all over his too handsome face the chance to prove that he was? And why was he still on her mind? she wondered grouchily.
Love turned thinking women into veritable psych-ward patients, she knew that. Just look at how she had been after only kissing the man that one foolhardy night. He’d pulled her into his arms and she’d nearly lost her dignity and her panties in one fell swoop! Not that she’d been in love with him, but she’d certainly been in lust with him and that had been more than enough to keep her up late some nights.
‘Sorry, darling,’ a male voice crooned too close to her ear as she was jostled from behind. Ruby glanced over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of four colourful characters wearing Zorro-style masks with their eyes on her cleavage.
Very original, she thought, turning away and steadfastly ignoring them as she waited for the woman in front of her to collect her drinks order. If there was one