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thought as she watched him pace first in one direction and then another, always marking out straight lines with precise angles. The top button of his shirt was undone and his tie was nowhere to be seen.
    It was odd. All day so far, he’d just seemed like a force of nature—albeit in a pristine suit—and now that just the tiniest part of that armour had been discarded she was suddenly confronted by the fact he was a man. And a rather attractive one at that.
    His dark hair was short but not severe, and now she knew he had Italian blood in him, she could see it in the set of his eyes and his long, straight nose. The mouth, however, was totally British, tightly drawn in, jaw tense as he grimaced at some unwelcome news and hung up on the caller without saying goodbye. He brought the phone down from his ear and stared at it so hard that Ruby thought it might burst into flames.
    That was when he looked up and spotted her sitting where she’d been for the last ten minutes, and it took him by total surprise. She allowed her lips to curve into the barest of smiles and held his gaze. For some reason she liked the fact her presence sometimes ruffled him.
    He shoved his phone back in his pocket. ‘Is there anything you need?’
    His tone wasn’t harsh, just practical.
    ‘I was wondering what to do about food.’ Her stomach growled again, just to underline the fact. She refused to blush.
    He had only just stopped frowning at his phone call, and now his features crumpled back into the same expression, as if he’d forgotten hunger was an option for him, and he was taking time to remember what the sensation was like. Eventually, he indicated a menu on the sideboard. ‘Have what you want sent up.’
    Ruby nodded. She’d been hoping he’d say that. ‘Do you want anything while I’m ordering?’
    ‘No...’ His gaze drifted towards the array of papers on the desk and he was drawn magnetically to it. He picked up a sheet and started reading a page of dense text.
    Ruby wasn’t quite sure if he’d finished saying everything he’d been going to say, but she guessed he’d forgotten he’d actually started talking, so she went and fetched the menu. When she ordered her club sandwich she did it discreetly, so as not to disturb him, and just before she put the phone down she quietly ordered another. He hadn’t touched the food on the plane, and she hadn’t seen him eat anything all afternoon. He had to get hungry some time, didn’t he?
    If he did, he showed no sign of it. His eyes stayed on his papers while his fingers rapped out email after email on his laptop. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, slightly fascinated. He was so focused, so intense. He seemed to have an innate sense of confidence in his own ability to do what needed to be done.
    To be honest, she was a little jealous.
    She’d tried a number of jobs since dropping out of university but none of them had stuck. She wanted what Max had. A purpose. No, a calling. A sense of who she was in this world and what she was supposed to be doing while she was here.
    A knock on the door a few minutes later heralded the arrival of her dinner. She opened the door and tipped the room-service guy, then wheeled the little trolley closer to the sofa.
    What she needed to do right now was stuff her face with her sandwich, before her stomach climbed up her throat and came to get it. That was the problem, maybe. She could always see the step that was right in front of her, the immediate details—like taking the job this afternoon—but when it came to the ‘big picture’ of her life it was always fuzzy and a bit out of focus.
    She poured a glass of red wine from a bottle she’d ordered to go along with the food and took it, and the other sandwich, over to her boss. He didn’t look up, so she cleared a little space at the corner of papers and put the plate down. The wine, however, was more tricky. The last thing she wanted to do was put it where he’d knock it over.