Sebastian nodded. ‘Right. The thing is, Zack spent five years in jail. From the age of eighteen to twenty-three.’
Ruby could not have been more shocked. Zack might look a bad boy but she instinctively knew that he wasn’t, not deep down. ‘How on earth did that happen? I mean, what did he do?’
‘He killed a man.’
‘What?’
‘It was an accident,’ he insisted.
‘Look, I believe you. What happened exactly?’
‘Zack went up to the Cross to celebrate his eighteenth birthday. There was this guy who was drunk and abusing his girlfriend outside a club. He was calling her names, slapping her around. When Zack stepped in and asked him to stop, the guy started swinging punches. Zack fought back. The guy fell and hit his head. He died a week later.’
‘But it was self-defence, and an accident,’ Ruby argued, appalled. ‘There had to have been witnesses. What about the girlfriend?’
‘She turned on him, said it was all his fault. It also didn’t help that he couldn’t afford a good lawyer. Still, what does it matter now? It’s too late to change anything. Zack was convicted of manslaughter. He got ten years, paroled in five.’
Ruby’s heart went out to eighteen-year-old Zack. ‘The poor boy.’
‘You’re absolutely right. He was just a boy at the time. He changed his name after he got out. Changed his appearance, too, by growing his hair. He’d had a buzz cut in jail. His mother helped him, shortly before she died.’
‘He told me his mother died when he was young,’ Ruby said, thinking back to the night they’d chatted together outside. He’d hinted at having a secret, but she would never have guessed this. ‘How did she die?’
‘She was hit by a cement truck as she crossed the road. It happened not long after he was released from jail.’
‘How awful.’
‘Yes, his mother was all he had. She’d been a single mum; his dad took off years before.’
‘That’s so sad.’
‘Yes, it is. She’s the one who also suggested Zack try out for modelling after he got out of jail and no one would give him a job. He took her advice, but not until after she died. Anyway, that led to him auditioning for acting jobs, and the rest, as they say, is history.’
‘It’s due to his mother, then, that he became a success.’
‘Absolutely. She would have been so proud of him.’
‘Maybe she still is,’ Ruby said. ‘Maybe she’s looking down on him from heaven. Maybe she kept him safe last night.’
‘That’s a nice thought.’
Ruby didn’t like to add that she often thought of her mother looking down on her from heaven. It was a comfort when she felt lonely. Though not so much when she was doing things she shouldn’t be doing, like sleeping with her boss. And stupidly falling in love with him.
Her sigh was weary.
Sebastian sighed as well. ‘At least now you can understand why Zack didn’t defend himself last night.’
‘He was afraid of somehow going back to jail again. That’s so sad.’
‘Yes, it is. But it’s not a good way to live your life, being afraid,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It’s stultifying.’
His remark startled her. Then made her think. Was he still talking about Zack being afraid? Or himself?
‘We all try to protect ourselves from hurt,’ she said, well aware she’d spurned the opposite sex for years for that very reason. ‘It’s only natural.’
‘Yes, but fear can get out of control. And when it does, it’s self-destructive. Zack could have died tonight.’
‘But he didn’t.’
‘No, because he was damned lucky.’
‘I suppose so,’ she said, not sure where this conversation was heading.
But it didn’t head anywhere because Sebastian abruptly started the car and reversed out of the space. ‘We’ll talk some more when we get home,’ he said brusquely. ‘After I’ve had something to eat. I’m famished. I can’t think when I’m starving.’
And that was that. Silence descended and Ruby was left up in the air.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SEBASTIAN HAD LIED. He could think all right. In fact, that was all he did the whole way home. Think.
Zack’s near brush with death had been a shock, but it had also woken Sebastian up to the way he was living his own life. In fear. Since Jennifer’s death, he’d been afraid of falling in love again, afraid of giving away his heart and having it broken, either by death or divorce or some kind of disaster. He’d managed to survive so far by becoming a workaholic but, really, it was a nothing life. And a lonely life.
Ruby was right to call him pathetic, because he was. Any normal man would have been thrilled to have such a woman as Ruby come into his life. But what had he done? Run a mile to begin with, until he couldn’t resist her any longer. And then what? He’d tried to control things by coming up with that ridiculous proposition.
She would surely pack up and leave today if he didn’t stop her. So yes, he had to stop her.
Maybe not tell her he loved her. That would be a step too far at this stage. But he had to show her that he cared. And he had to offer her something better than a strictly sexual arrangement.
‘I hope you’re not expecting me to cook you breakfast before I leave?’ she said tartly when he stopped the car outside the garage and waited for the door to rise.
‘No,’ he replied carefully.
‘Good. Okay. When do you want me out by?’
He turned to her, his eyes determined. ‘I don’t want you to leave at all.’
Her own eyes widened. ‘You don’t?’
‘No, I want you to stay.’
‘But last night, you said...you said...’
‘That was last night. Things have changed since then. Could we talk, Ruby? Really talk?’
He had rarely seen her so flummoxed. ‘I... I guess so.’
‘Good.’
In the end, she did cook him some breakfast. Nothing complicated—just French toast and coffee. They ate it outside on the terrace, Sebastian doing his best not to look as nervous as he was. He wasn’t confident she would say yes to what he intended to propose. Ruby was strong-minded, not likely to be flattered or manipulated into what he wanted. She could very well tell him to get stuffed and still leave. It wasn’t as though she were in love with him. She’d made it quite clear that she wasn’t. Finally, when the toast was gone, he bit the bullet and spoke up.