And they did. For the next few hours, he forced polite smiles, shook hands, and waxed lyrical about everything from garden parties to the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival.
People who'd shunned him years earlier and who'd avoided him at theSeabornlaunch put on their game face and pretended to like him.
All for the sake of the stoic woman by his side.
Ruby didn't leave him for a second, holding his hand through every introduction. She didn't allow a lull in conversation. She charmed her way around intrusive questions, distracting people with her natural vivacity. She deflected potentially disastrous comments with a sunny smile and quick wit that made people laugh rather than bristle.
She slayed the crowd.
And him.
The sex they had in the villa before coming downstairs had been designed to distract and might have taken the edge off his perpetual hunger for her, but watching her smile, savouring theway she squeezed his hand or slid an arm around his waist as if it was the most natural thing in the world, made him believe in the fairytale too.
As they waltzed to an old ballad, her tantalising body pressed close, he almost forgot why they'd married in the first place.
"You're still awfully tense," she murmured, resting her hand against his chest, directly over his impermeable heart.
"Wouldn't you be, surrounded by piranhas waiting for you to falter?"
"Not really." She patted his chest and he could've sworn his heart squirmed beneath her touch. "I don't buy into all this phoney nonsense. Never have."
"That's because you've grown up surrounded by it and they accept you for who you are."
She didn't break step as he waltzed her around the floor, easing back to look him in the eye.
"Maybe if you lightened up, people wouldn't be so intimidated by you?"
What did she mean by that? Melbourne's elite avoided him for one reason and one reason only: his shoddy pedigree. They treated him like shit, like they expected him to steal their millions same as Denver had.
"I've schmoozed tonight."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, with a glint of menace, and the hint of a glower." Her fingertip traced a line across his forehead. "Right here."
"Too bad. What they see is what they get."
He turned his head slightly to the left, bringing the base of her wrist in tantalising contact with his lips. Her breath hitched as he kissed the tender skin there, his tongue tracing slow circles against her pulse. It had been her undoing that morning they'd woken in the same bed at the B&B and he wished they could leave this shindig and return to their villa upstairs.
"Hey, you two, get a room."
Otto Smit, a long-term Seaborn family friend and Sapphire's occasional date for social engagements according to Ruby, sidled up to them. Jax had met him earlier and, while the guy seemed nice enough, he knew he had been sizing him up all evening.
Ruby waved him away. "Buzz off, squirt."
Otto feigned outrage. "Squirt? I'm taller than you, pipsqueak."
"Maybe I'm not talking about height—"
Jax stifled a chuckle as Otto puffed up in fake outrage before turning to him.
"Hope you don't mind, I'm cutting in for a dance with your beautiful bride."
Jax's hold on Ruby tightened. For no sane reason, he didn't want to let her go even for a second, but he had no choice without appearing churlish. He released her.
"Don't worry, I've trodden on Otto's toes too many times to count in the past. He won't last longer than two minutes dancing with me." She smiled at Jax and his chest constricted.
"Take your time," he said, his jealousy-tinged-with-possessiveness irritating him more than the sight of Otto's hand resting in the small of Ruby's back.
Maybe keeping up this pretence had got to him? Maybe faking interest in these phoneys had exhausted him? Or maybe, just maybe, he’d been foolish enough to buy into his own PR: that this marriage had the potential to become real and Ruby meant more to him than a means to an end?
