Fucking hell, we were right back at Randhurst. Had nothing changed? How could she think I’d fuck anyone else, and prostitutes, at that? My body tensed with a surge of anger, but I maintained a grip on my emotions.
One of us had to right now.
I summoned the strictest tone I possessed, the one I only used with her behind closed doors. “You’re going to let me explain.”
The statement implied guilt, when the only thing I was guilty of was trying to protect my sister. Ruby’s face went ash-white, and I could see the exact moment I lost her to her temper. Her eyes burned with the fire of a million suns.
Time decelerated.
I sensed it, yet was surprised when she lashed out, her hand slapping me hard across my face. The assistant gasped loudly. My cheek stung, but it burned hotter with embarrassment and how unjustified her action was. For a sliver of a moment, I saw nothing but red.
She was shaking violently, and tears spilled from her eyes, but she didn’t seem to be aware.
“In private, now.” I was so pissed at her, it was difficult to think. Her scene had just thrown me into deep shit. I slipped a hand under her elbow to guide her toward a conference room, or the kitchen, or the bathroom . . . anywhere out of my father’s view.
I pulled her stumbling along, even as she tried to break free with a defiant jerk of her arm, and I pushed the door open into the first empty space I could find. Lights blinked to life in the tiny filing room, and she whirled to face me when I released her.
The door had barely shut before she spat it out. “I just left a meeting with Tariq Crawford.”
Fuuuuck.
“Are you trying to get us fired?” I growled under my breath. “Do you want to be disbarred?” Because whatever Crawford had told her was subject to attorney-client privileges. “You know better than this.”
Chaos teemed in Ruby’s beautiful eyes. She was so lost in her hurt, she wasn’t thinking at all. When we got through this, we’d have to work on her anger issues, but right now I had to find a way to defuse the situation.
“I have a good reason for going to the club, trust me,” I said.
“S-S-So you admit you were there.”
Her stutter tore a hole in my heart. “Yes. I need you to calm down so I can explain.”
“Forget it, I don’t want to hear—”
Asking her to calm down always had the opposite effect, so I had no choice but to match her intensity. “Shut up, Ruby.” Anger had pulled my muscles taut. “Goddamn it, you’re going to listen to me.”
She froze, so I pushed on.
“The guy I bought those restraints and other stuff, he agreed to meet Joseph and me at the blindfold club today.”
Her eyes narrowed down to slits.
“I didn’t go there to fuck someone else. I went there to buy things to use while I was fucking you.”
My explanation had no impact on the shield of her temper. “Tariq said you knew both owners of the place. You’d been there before.”
“Yes. You and I know one of the owners . . . intimately.”
Her face went blank with shock, and perhaps a little horror. “Joseph? He owns a whorehouse?”
I grimaced at the word. “No, he doesn’t own the brothel anymore. He sold it to someone else when he fell in love with Noemi.”
“Oh, good lord, Noemi.” Ruby was probably thinking if the story broke that her fiancé was selling sex at some high-end club, it’d ruin the heiress. But her concern for our new friends slipped away and was replaced with her earlier suspicion. “And the other owner?”
“I met Joseph, and the other owner, through Payton. She used to . . .” Fucking hell. “She used to work there a few years ago.”
This statement got through to her, judging by her jolt of surprise. She could see clearly it wasn’t a lie, and her anger flagged. “Oh.”
As her anger faded, mine grew. “This is not the time or place to discuss it. We’ll have to do it later.” My cheek still stung from where she’d slapped me. “You embarrassed both of us by coming here.”