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twenty-five

RUBY’S FIRST THOUGHT when London gestured to a seat in his office was This is more like it. Because as professional as the rest of the place looked, as average and ordinary and normal, Rupert London’s office was exactly what she’d been expecting. And something about this seemed to help her regain her balance.

As she sank into one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs in front of his desk, Simon sliding into the other, Ruby let her eyes wander. It was a huge room, roughly the size of the whole first floor of the farmhouse, and sparsely decorated. As opposed to the whiteness of the rest of the office, which had about it a sort of polished gleam of productivity, everything here was covered in dark wood and burgundy wallpaper, the carpet an even deeper brown.