Beautiful Secret

She pursed her lips slightly and I felt my skin flush warm. Christ. She was so beautiful.

“One answer,” she started with a small smile, “is that I learned about Maggie Sheffield’s work when I was a sophomore and we toured the Stately building. I grew kind of obsessed with getting to study under her before she retired. When I asked Emil about her, he also shared some of the history of your old department.” Shrugging, she said, “I heard a few stories about Petersen.”

I tilted my head, wondering which ones still floated around.

“He threw a bottle at a student?” she asked.

Ah. The one story that would never die. “He did, but it wasn’t me. The worst I ever got from him was a verbal berating . . . or ten.”

Ruby nodded, looking relieved.

She’d said one answer was this. “And the other answer?” I asked.

She looked out the window for a few breaths before saying, “I joined R-C and found out you’d studied at Oxford, and wondered if you’d been in Maggie’s program. You hadn’t but . . . I learned a bit about you anyway.”

There seemed to be an extra layer to what she was saying, and I thought for a beat I understood the look of fond familiarity she’d given me only a moment before. But then she turned back, wearing a sweetly devious grin. “You’d be amazed how much you can pick up just by paying attention.”

“Enlighten me.”

Sitting up in her seat, she said, “You came over from your position at the London Underground to start up an urban planning division. You went to Cambridge for undergraduate, Oxford for graduate school, and were the youngest executive in the history of the Tube.” Ruby gave me a shy smile. “You nearly moved to New York to work for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority but turned the job down to come to R-C.”

Lifting a brow, I murmured, “Impressive. What else do you know?”

She looked away, blushing further. “You grew up in Leeds. You were a star on the Cambridge football club while you were there.”

Had she looked any of this up last night? Or had she known all of this about me before this trip? And which answer did I want to hear? I suspected I knew which would make this small thrill in my stomach grow more intense. “What else?”

Hesitating, she said, “You own a Ford Fiesta, which I find endlessly amusing given that you probably make more money than the queen and are known to be a staunch public transportation advocate, so you never use it. An aside? I have no idea how you would even fit in a Ford Fiesta. Also, you’re recently divorced.”

My jaw grew tight as any amusement regarding her research endeavors was quickly extinguished. “One would think that detail wouldn’t be discussed at work, nor available by easy online search.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruby said, wincing, and I watched as she shrank a little more into her seat. “I forget not everyone was raised by two psychologists. We aren’t all open books.”

“I’m tempted to ask how you knew about my divorce, but I suppose the office chatter . . .”

“I think it was all wrapping up when I started so people were talking . . .” She straightened and looked at me with wide, apologetic eyes. “It’s not an ongoing topic, I promise.”

I could only imagine my dark mood at the time Ruby had joined the firm. By that point I was so put off by Portia’s dramatics I’d have happily resided inside a pint. I decided to change the subject. “Do you have siblings, or was it you alone with the shrinks?”

“One brother,” she said and then took a sip of her juice. “What about you?”

“What—you’re telling me you don’t already know?”

She laughed, but still looked a bit embarrassed. “If I took the time to find that out . . . that might have veered into stalker territory.”

With a little wink, I murmured, “Might have.”

She watched me expectantly and as the plane began to accelerate, I noted the way her hands gripped the armrests. She was shaking.

Waffling on to distract her seemed like a rather good idea. “I have nine siblings, actually,” I told her.

She leaned in, jaw dropping. “Nine?”

I’d become so accustomed to this reaction that I barely blinked anymore. “Seven sisters and two brothers, with me the second youngest.”

Her brow creased as she thought about this some more. “My house was so quiet and calm. I . . . I can’t even imagine your childhood.”

Laughing, I said, “Trust me, it’s true. You can’t.”

“Eight older siblings,” she said to herself. “I bet at times that felt like having eight parents.”