“Would you ever have told me?

“Or would you have allowed my child to be born into this world,” Franco continued quietly, “without ever knowing the identity of its father?”

Ruth felt her mouth go dry. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“The right thing? Surely, as a vicar’s daughter, you must know that the last thing you were doing was the right thing!”

“All right, then, the best thing. For…everyone…”

Relax and enjoy our fabulous series about couples whose passion results in pregnancies…sometimes unexpected! Of course, the birth of a baby is always a joyful event, and we can guarantee that our characters will become besotted moms and dads—but what happened in those nine months before?

Share the surprises, emotions, drama and suspense as our parents-to-be come to terms with the prospect of bringing a new life into the world. All will discover that the business of making babies brings with it the most special love of all….

Our next arrival will be

Her Secret Pregnancy

by

Sharon Kendrick

Harlequin Presents #2198

The Baby Scandal
Cathy Williams

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

RUTH heard the sound of footsteps striding up the staircase towards the offices and froze with a bundle of files in one hand. The wooden flooring, which was the final word in glamour, unfortunately had an annoying tendency to carry sound, and now, with the place completely deserted except for her, the amplified noise travelled with nerve-shattering precision straight to her wildly beating heart.

This was London.

She had laughed off all her parents’ anxious concerns about the need to be careful in The Big Bad City, but now every word came flooding back to her with nightmarish clarity.

Muggers. Perverts. Rapists.

She cleared her throat and wondered whether she should gather up some courage and confront whoever had sneaked into the empty two-storey Victorian house, which had been tastefully converted one year ago to accommodate a staff of fifteen.

Courage, however, was not her forte, so she timidly stood her ground and prayed that the bloodthirsty, drug-driven maniac would see that there was nothing to steal and leave the way he had come.

The footsteps, which seemed to know precisely where they wanted to go, materialised into a dark shadow visible behind the closed glass door of the office. The corridor light had been switched off and, although it was summer, autumn was just around the corner, and at a little after seven-thirty night was already drawing in.

Now, she thought frantically, would be a very appropriate time to faint.

She didn’t. Just the opposite. The soles of her feet appeared to have become glued to the floor, so that not only could she not collapse into a convenient heap to the ground, she couldn’t even move.

The shadow pushed open the glass door and strode in with the typical aggressive confidence of someone with foul intent on his mind.

Some of her paralysed facial muscles came to life and she stuck her chin out bravely and said, in a high-pitched voice, ‘May I help you?’

The man approaching her, now that she could see him clearly in the fluorescent light, was tall and powerfully built. He had his jacket slung over one shoulder and his free hand was rammed into the pocket of his trousers.

He didn’t look like a crazed junkie, she thought desperately. On the other hand, he didn’t look like a hapless tourist who had wandered accidentally into the wrong building, thinking it was a shop, perched as it was in one of the most exclusive shopping areas in London, between an expensive hat shop and an even more over-priced jeweller’s.

In fact, there was nothing remotely hapless-looking about this man at all. His short hair was black, the eyes staring at her were piercingly blue and every angle of his face and body suggested a sort of hard aggression that she found overwhelming.

‘Where is everyone?’ he demanded, affording her a brief glance and then proceeding to stroll around the office with proprietorial insolence.

Ruth followed his movements helplessly with her eyes.

‘Perhaps you could tell me who you are?’

‘Perhaps you could tell me who you are?’ he said, pausing in his inspection of the assortment of desks and computer terminals to glance over his shoulder.

‘I work here,’ she answered, gathering up her failing courage and deciding that, since this man obviously didn’t, then she had every right to be as curt with him as she wanted.

Unfortunately curt, like courage, was not in her repertoire. She was gentle to the point of blushingly gauche, and that was one of the reasons why she had moved to London. So that some of its brash self-confidence might somehow rub off on her by a mysterious process of osmosis.

‘Name?’

‘R-Ruth Jacobs,’ Ruth stammered, forgetting that he had no business asking her anything at all, since he was a trespasser on the premises.

‘Mmm. Doesn’t ring any bells.’ He had stopped inspecting the office now and was inspecting her instead, perched on the edge of one of the desks. ‘You’re not one of my editors. I have a list of them and your name isn’t on it.’

Ruth was no longer terrified now. She was downright confused, and it showed in the transparent play of emotions on her smooth, pale face.

‘Who are you?’ she finally asked, lowering her eyes, because something about his blatant masculinity was a little too overpowering for her liking. ‘I don’t believe I caught your name.’

‘Probably because I didn’t give it,’ he answered drily. ‘Ruth Jacobs, Ruth Jacobs…’ He tilted his head to one side and proceeded to stare at her with leisurely thoroughness. ‘Yes, you could do…very well indeed…’

‘Look…I’m in the process of locking up for the day…perhaps you could make an appointment to see Miss Hawes in the morning…?’ It finally occurred to her that she must look very odd in this immobile position, with her hand semi-raised and holding a stack of files in a death-like grip. She unglued her feet from the ten-inch square they had occupied since the man entered the room, and darted across to Alison’s desk for her appointment book.

‘What’s your job here?’

Ruth stopped what she was doing and took a deep breath. ‘I refuse to answer any more questions until you tell me who you are,’ she said in a bold rush. She could feel the colour redden her cheeks and, not for the first time, cursed her inability to dredge up even the remotest appearance of savoir faire. At the age of twenty-two, she should surely have left behind all this ridiculous blushing.

‘I’m Franco Leoni.’ He allowed a few seconds for his name to be absorbed, and when she continued to stare at him in bewilderment, he added, with a hint of impatience, ‘I own this place, Miss Jacobs.’

“Oh,’ Ruth said dubiously.

‘Doesn’t Alison tell you anything? Bloody awful man-management. How long have you been here? Are you a temp? Why the hell is she allowing a temp the responsibility of locking up? This is damned ridiculous.’

The rising irritation in his voice snapped her out of her zombie-like incomprehension.

‘I’m not a temp, Mr Leoni,’ she said shortly. ‘I’ve been here virtually since it was taken over, eleven months ago.’

‘Then you should know who I am. Where’s Alison?’

‘She left about an hour ago,’ Ruth admitted reluctantly. She was frantically trying to recognise his name, and failing. She knew that the magazine, which had been a small, money-losing venture, had been taken over by some conglomerate or other, but the precise names of the people involved eluded her.

‘Left for where? Get her on the line for me.’

‘It’s Friday, Mr Leoni. Miss Hawes won’t be at home. I believe she was going out with…with…with her mother to the theatre.’

The small white lie was enough to bring another telling wash of colour to her face, and she stared resolutely at the bank of windows behind him. By nature she was scrupulously honest, but the convoluted workings of her brain had jumped ahead to some obscure idea that this man, whether he owned the place or not, might not be too impressed if he knew that her boss was on a dinner date with another man.

Alison, tall, vivacious, red-haired and thoroughly irreverent, was the sort of woman who spent her life rotating men and enjoying every minute of it. The last thing Ruth felt equipped to handle at seven-thirty on a Friday evening was a rotated boyfriend. And this man looked just the sort to appeal to her boss. Tall, striking, oozing sexuality. The sort of man who would appeal to most women, she conceded grudgingly, if you liked that sort of obvious look.

And if you were the type who didn’t view basic good manners as an essential part of someone’s personality.

‘Then I suppose you’ll just have to believe me when I tell you that I’m her boss, won’t you?’ He smiled slowly, watching her face as though amused by everything he could read there. ‘And, believe it or not, I’m very glad that I bumped into you.’ A speculative look had entered his eyes which she didn’t much care for.

‘I really need to be getting home…’

‘Parents might be worried?’

‘I don’t live with my parents, actually,’ Ruth informed him coldly. After nearly a year and a quarter, the novelty of having her own place, small and nondescript though it might be, was still a source of pleasure for her. She had been the last of her friends to fly the family nest and she had only done so because part of herself knew that she needed to.

She adored her parents, and loved the vicarage where she had lived since she was a child, but some obscure part of her had realised over the years that she had to spread her wings and sample what else the big world had to offer, or else buckle down to the realisation that her life would remain neatly parcelled up in the small village where she had grown up, surrounded by her cosy circle of friends all of whose ambitions had been to get married and have big families and never mind what else there was out there.

‘No?’ He didn’t sound as though he believed that, and she glared at him.

‘No. I’m twenty-two years old and I live in a flat in Hampstead. Now, do you want to make an appointment to see Miss Hawes in the morning or not?’

‘You keep forgetting that I own this company. I’ll see her in the morning, all right, but there’s no need for me to make an appointment.’

Arrogant. That had been the word she’d been searching for to describe this man. She folded her arms and stared at him.

‘Fine. Now perhaps you could see yourself to the door…?’

‘Have you eaten?’

‘What?’

‘I said…’

‘I heard what you said, Mr Leoni. I just wondered what you meant by it.’

‘It means that I’m asking you to have dinner with me, Miss Jacobs.’

‘I beg your pardon? I’m afraid…I couldn’t possibly…I don’t usually…’

‘Accept dinner invitations from strangers?’

Yes, of course he had known what she had been thinking. She didn’t have the knack of dissembling.

‘That’s right,’ Ruth informed him, bristling. ‘I know that must seem a little unusual to you, but I…’ Where was she going with this one? A long monologue on her sheltered life? An explanation on being a vicar’s daughter? Hadn’t she come to London in the hope of gaining a bit of sophistication?

‘I don’t bite, Miss Jacobs.’ He pushed himself away from the edge of the desk and she looked at him guardedly. If he was trying to make her believe that he was as harmless as the day was long, then he was living on another planet. Innocent and naïve she might be, but born yesterday she was not.

‘You’re my employee. Call it maintaining good relations with someone who works for me. Besides…’ The assessing look was back on his face, sending little tingles of apprehension racing down her spine. ‘I’d like to find out a bit more about you. Find out what you do in the company… And in case you still don’t believe who I am…’ He sighed and withdrew his wallet from his pocket, flicked it open and produced a letter to Alison, with his name flamboyantly emblazoned in black at the bottom, and his impressive title typed underneath.

Ruth scanned the letter briefly, noting in passing that it implied, with no attempts to beat around the bush, that the magazine had not accumulated enough sales and that it was time to get to the drawing board and sort it out. Presumably the very reason he had made an appearance at the ridiculous hour of seven-thirty on a Friday evening.

‘There now,’ he said, without the slightest trace of remorse that he had allowed her to wallow in nightmarish possibilities when he could have eliminated all that by simply identifying himself from the beginning. ‘Believe me?’

‘Thank you. Yes.’

‘What do you do here?’

‘Nothing very important,’ Ruth said hastily, just in case he got it into his head that he could quiz her on the details of running a magazine. ‘I’m an odd-job man…woman…person…I do a bit of typing, take calls, fetch and carry…that’s all…’

‘Tell me all about it over dinner.’ His hand brushed hers as he retrieved his letter and rammed it back into his pocket, and she could feel something inside her shrinking away from him. She had never met anyone quite like him before. Her boyfriends, all three of them, had been from her town, and they had been nice boys, the sort who were quite happy to trundle through life with modest aspirations and no great appetite for taking life by its head and felling it.

Franco Leoni looked the sort who relished challenges of that sort, thrived on them.

‘Now, why don’t we lock up here and find ourselves something to eat?’ He was now so close to her that the hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. Up close, he was even more disconcerting than he was with a bit of distance between them. Underneath the well-tailored clothes, every inch of his body spoke of well-toned, highly muscled power, and the impression was completed by his swarthy olive colouring, at odds with the strikingly light eyes.

She cautiously edged away and snatched her jacket from the hook on the wall and slipped it on.

‘Good girl.’ He opened the door for her and then watched as she nervously locked it behind her and shoved the jangling keyring into her bag.

‘My car’s just outside,’ he said, as they walked down the staircase, ‘and please, try not to wear that fraught expression on your face. It makes me feel like a sick old man who takes advantage of innocent young girls.’ There was lazy amusement in his voice when he said this, and she didn’t have to cast her eyes in his direction to know that he was laughing at her.

His car was a silver Jaguar. He opened the door for her, waited till she had shuffled inside, then strode to the driver’s seat. As soon as the door was shut, he turned to her and said, ‘Now, what do you fancy eating?’

‘Anything!’ Ruth said quickly. The darkness of the car made his presence even more stifling, and she cursed herself for having been railroaded into accepting his invitation. Yes, so he might well be the owner of the company she worked for, but that didn’t mean that he was trustworthy where the opposite sex was concerned.

She wryly recognised the outdated prudery of her logic and smiled weakly to herself. As an only child, and a girl on top of it, she had been cherished and protected by her parents from day one.

‘A girl without pretensions,’ he murmured to himself, starting the engine, ‘very refreshing. Don’t care what you eat. Do you like Italian?’

‘Fine. Yes.’

She could feel her heart pounding like a steam engine inside her as the car pulled smoothly away from the curb.

‘So, where do you fit into the scheme of things at Issues?’

‘If you own the magazine, how is it that you’ve never made an appearance there?’ Ruth blurted out curiously. She was pressed against the car door and was looking at him warily with her wide grey eyes.

‘The magazine is a very, very minor company of mine.’ He glanced in her direction. ‘Have I mentioned to you that I don’t bite? I’m not infectious either, so there’s no need to fall out of the car in your desperation to put a few more inches between us.’ He looked back to the road and Ruth shuffled herself into a more normal position. ‘I bought it because I thought it could be turned around and because I viewed it as a sort of hobby.’

‘A sort of hobby?’ Ruth asked incredulously. ‘You bought a magazine as a hobby?’ The thought of such extravagance was almost beyond comprehension. ‘What sort of life do you lead? I always thought that hobbies involved doing things like playing tennis, or squash or bird-watching…or collecting model railways…Your hobby is buying small companies just for the fun of it?”

‘There’s no need to sound quite so shocked,’ he said irritably, frowning as he stared ahead and manoeuvred the honeycomb of narrow streets.

‘Well, I am shocked,’ Ruth informed him, forgetting to be intimidated.

‘Why?’

‘Because, Mr Leoni…’

‘You can call me Franco. I’ve never been a great believer in surnames.’

‘Because,’ she continued, skipping over his interruption, ‘it seems obscene to have so much money that you can buy a company just for the heck of it!’

‘My little gesture,’ he pointed out evenly, although a dark flush had spread across his neck, ‘happens to have created jobs, and in accordance with the package I’ve agreed with all my employees, including yourself, you all stand to gain if the company succeeds.’

Ruth didn’t say anything, and eventually, he said abruptly, ‘Well? What have you got to say to that?’

‘I…nothing…’

He clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘I…nothing…’ he mimicked. ‘What does that mean? Does it mean that you have an opinion on the subject? You had one a minute ago…’

‘It means that you’re my employer, Mr Leoni…

‘Franco!’

‘Yes, well…’

‘Say it!’ he said grimly.

‘Say what?’

‘My name!’

‘It means that you’re my employer, Franco…’ She went hot as she said that, and hurriedly moved on. ‘And discretion is the better part of valour.’ That was one of her father’s favourite sayings. He spent so much time listening to his parishioners that he had always lectured to her on the importance of hearing without judging, and taking the wise course rather than the impulsive, thoughtless one.

‘Hang discretion!’

Ruth looked at him curiously. Was he getting hot under the collar? He hadn’t struck her as the sort of man who ever got hot under the collar.

‘Okay,’ she said soothingly, ‘I take your point that you’ve created jobs, and if it succeeds then we all succeed. It just seems to me that buying a company as a bit of fun is the sort of thing…’ She took a deep breath here and then said in a rush, ‘That someone does because they have too much money and might be…bored…’

‘Bored?’ he spluttered furiously, swerving the car into a space by the pavement as though only suddenly remembering the purpose of the trip in the first place had been to get them to a restaurant, which he appeared to have overshot. He killed the engine and turned his full attention on her.

Ruth reverted to her original position against the car door. Her shoulder-length vanilla-blonde hair brushed the sides of her face and her mouth was parted in anticipation of some horrendous verbal attack, full frontal, no holds barred. He certainly looked in the mood for it.

He inhaled deeply, raked his fingers through his hair and then shook his head in wonderment. ‘How long is it since I met you?’ He glanced at his watch while Ruth helplessly wondered where this was going. ‘Forty-five minutes? Forty-five minutes and you’ve managed to prod me in more wrong places than most people can accomplish in a lifetime.’

‘I’m—I’m sorry…’ Ruth stammered.

‘Quite an achievement,’ he carried on, ignoring her mumbled apology.

‘I don’t consider it much of an achievement to antagonise someone,’ she said, aghast at his logic.

‘Which is probably why you’re so good at it.’ He had regained his temporarily misplaced composure and clicked open his door. ‘I’m looking forward to dinner,’ he said, before he slid out of the driver’s seat. ‘This is the first time I’ve walked down a road and not known where it was leading.’

What road? Ruth thought, as she stepped out of the car onto the pavement. What was he talking about? She hoped that he didn’t expect her to be some kind of cabaret for him, because she had no intentions of fulfilling his expectations, employer or not.

The Italian restaurant was small and crowded and smelled richly of garlic and herbs and good food. It was also familiar to the man at her side, because he was greeted warmly by the door and launched into fluent Italian, leaving her a chance to look around her while her mind churned with questions about him.

‘You speak fluent Italian,’ she said politely, as they were shown to their table. ‘Have you lived in England long?’

They sat down and he stared at her thoughtfully. ‘You look much younger than twenty-two. Where are you from?’

Ruth had spent her life being told that she looked much younger than she was. She supposed that by the time she hit fifty she would be glad for the compliment, but right now, sitting opposite a man who bristled with worldly-wise sophistication, it didn’t strike her as much of a compliment.

‘A very small town in Shropshire,’ she said, staring at the menu which had been handed to her. ‘You wouldn’t have heard of it.’

‘Try me.’

So she did, and when he admitted that he had never heard of the place she gave her shy, soft laugh and said, ‘Told you so.’

‘So you came here to London…for excitement?’

She shrugged. ‘I fancied a change of scenery,’ she said vaguely, not wanting to admit that the search for a bit of excitement had contributed more than a little to her reasons for leaving.

‘And what were you doing before you moved here?’ He hadn’t bothered to look at the menu, and when the waiter came to take their orders, she realised that he already knew what he wanted. Halibut, grilled. Her choice of chicken in a wine and cream sauce seemed immoderate in comparison, but a lack of appetite was not something she had ever suffered from, despite her slight build. She had eaten her way through twenty-two years of her mother’s wonderful home cooking, including puddings that ignored advice on cholesterol levels, and had never put on any excess weight.

‘Secretarial work,’ she answered. ‘Plus I helped Mum and Dad a lot at home. Doing typing for Dad, going to see his parishioners…’

‘Your father’s a…priest?’ He couldn’t have sounded more shocked if she had said that her father manufactured opium for a living.

‘A vicar,’ she said defensively. ‘And a brilliant one at that.’

He smiled, a long, warm smile that transformed his face, removed all the aggression, and sent little shivers scurrying up and down her spine like spiders.

‘You’re a vicar’s daughter.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Your parents must have had a fit when you told them that you wanted to move to London.’

He was watching her as though she was the most fascinating human being on the face of the earth, and the undiluted attention addled her brain and brought more waves of pink colour to her cheeks.

‘They were very supportive, as a matter of fact.’

‘But worried sick.’

‘A little worried,’ Ruth admitted, nervously playing with the cutlery next to her plate and then sticking her hands resolutely on her lap when she realised that fiddling was not classed as great restaurant etiquette.

‘So…’ The speculative look was back in his eyes as he relaxed in the chair and looked at her. ‘Let me get this straight… You worked as a secretary after you left school, lived at home with your parents and then moved to London where you…did what until you started working at the magazine?’

‘I found somewhere to live… Actually, Mum and Dad came with me a month before I left home and made sure that I had somewhere to go…I think they imagined me walking the streets of London and sleeping rough on park benches…’ She smiled again, the same slow smile that transformed the features of her pretty but not extraordinary face into a quite striking glimpse of ethereal beauty.

‘I got work temping at an office in Marble Arch and after a few months, when I was hunting around for something more permanent…’ she shrugged and reflected on her stroke of luck ‘…I happened to be in the agency when Alison, Miss Hawes, arrived to register a job for a dogsbody, and I was given the job on the spot.’

‘So you run errands,’ he murmured to himself. ‘And you’re satisfied with that line of work?’

‘Well, I do enjoy working for the magazine,’ Ruth said thoughtfully, ‘and hopefully I might be given some more responsibility when my appraisal comes up…the pay’s very good, though…’

‘I know. I’ve handled enough businesses to know that motivation and loyalty are heavily tied in to working conditions, and good pay makes for a good employee, generally speaking.’

Their food arrived and they both sat back to allow the large circular plates to be put in front of them.

‘How many businesses do you own?’ Ruth asked faintly.

‘Sufficient to allow me very little free time, hence my non-appearance at the magazine. I spend most of my time out of the country, overseeing my divisions in North America and the Far East, although I have been to see how Alison was getting on a couple of times. You weren’t there. I would have remembered you.’

Ruth, more relaxed now that she had something aside from him to concentrate on—namely the brimming plate of divine food in front of her—lowered her eyes and said to her forkful of chicken and vegetables, ‘No, you wouldn’t. I’m not one of life’s memorable women.’ Her parents had always told her that she was beautiful, but then all parents said stuff like that. She only had to look in the mirror to know that she simply wasn’t flamboyant enough ever to cross the line between being reasonably pretty and downright sexy. She couldn’t be sexy if she tried.

He didn’t say anything.

Unusually for him, he was finding it hard to keep his eyes away from the woman sitting opposite him, her soft face downturned as she tucked into her food without inhibition.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had been in the company of a woman who still had the capacity to blush. They could laugh, they could flirt, and they were adept at revealing enough of their bodies to incite interest, but when it came to the hesitant air of innocence that this woman in front of him possessed, they none of them could have captured it if they tried.

And it was this dreamy, uncertain shyness that had aroused him almost from the minute he had clapped eyes on her. He broke off to eat a mouthful of food, but his eyes slid back to her face of their own volition.

He had a ridiculous urge to impress her. To say something or do something that would make her look at him with the hot interest he had become accustomed to in members of the opposite sex. He watched the way her blonde straight hair slipped across her face as she ate and the way she tucked it casually behind her ears. She looked about bloody sixteen! He must be going mad!

‘You never told me,’ she said, interrupting his thoughts, which were veering off wildly into the arena of sexual foreplay. ‘Are you from Italy?’ She blushed and smiled. ‘Silly question. Of course you are with a name like yours. How long have you lived in London?’

‘Most of my life. My mother was Irish, my father was Italian.’ What, he wondered, would it feel like to reach out and touch that peach-smooth face? The thought fascinated him. He realised that he wasn’t eating and shovelled some mouthfuls in while his mind wandered away again. What would her body look like? It was difficult to tell underneath her demure calf-length skirt and neat white blouse. He toyed with the fantasy of divesting her of both, very, very, very slowly, and he could feel himself stiffening at the thought of it.

This was ludicrous! He was responding like a teenager who had never touched a woman in his life before!

‘How exotic!’ she responded, and it occurred to him that, however damned exotic she might find his ancestry, it wasn’t quite enough to distract her from the business of eating. In fact, he thought with a twitch of resentment, she seemed a lot more interested in the food than she did in him.

‘There’s no need to show polite interest,’ he said abruptly, and her grey eyes registered dismay at his reaction.

‘I am interested,’ she protested, unnerved by the sudden brusqueness in his voice. She was boring him. Of course she was. How could a gauche woman like herself ever hope to capture the interest of a man like him, all glamour and fast-lane living. ‘The food’s wonderful, isn’t it?’ she volunteered tentatively, feeling her way towards a topic that might smooth the undercurrent that seemed to have inexplicably developed.

‘I can see that you’ve enjoyed it,’ he said wryly.

Ruth gave a sheepish smile. ‘I have a very unladylike appetite, I’m afraid.’ She had managed to eat every mouthful, and if she had been in the company of anyone else would have happily bolted down some dessert as well. Instead, she closed her knife and fork, declined pudding and accepted coffee.

‘I guess you read what was in that letter I sent to your boss,’ he said casually, eyeing her over the rim of his cup. He had pushed himself away from the table so that he could sit at an angle, crossing his long legs.

‘Not really,’ Ruth answered. ‘I mean I scanned it…’

‘But still managed to get a pretty good idea of what I was trying to say.’

‘I don’t think that Alison would approve of my discussing something that was meant for her eyes only,’ Ruth eventually told him.

‘I shouldn’t trouble your head with such concerns,’ he dismissed. ‘I intend to have a little talk to the entire staff. Sales have picked up since we took over, but not enough. I’ve read what the three journalists have written over the months…have you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Ruth said enthusiastically.

‘And…? What’s your verdict?’

She couldn’t quite understand why her opinion should be of any concern, considering her lowly status in the company, but there was an interested glint in his eyes, so she sighed and said slowly, ‘I think it’s all been good. But I suppose there’s a little element of having lost the way. I mean,’ she said hurriedly, ‘their articles are so varied that there’s a bit of doubt as to what sector of the market the magazine is supposed to appeal to. Not,’ she felt compelled to add, ‘that I’m in any position to criticise.’

‘Why not?’ he asked bluntly, leaning forward so that his elbow was resting on the table and his eyes bored into her like skewers.

‘Because I’m not an editor.’

‘But you care about the company enough to want to see it improve?’

‘Of course I do!’ When she had joined it had been a fledgling firm, and was even now, and consequently, loyalty was abundantly given by everyone who worked in it.

‘Enough to do your little bit?’ he asked, leaning forward yet further.

‘Naturally I do my best… I can’t write, if that’s what you mean…but I help out…’ She looked at him, bewildered.

‘Good! Just what I wanted to hear.’ He signalled for the bill but kept his eyes on her face. ‘Because I have a proposition to put to you…’

‘What?’ There was enough of a predatory expression on his face to give her a clue that whatever he had in mind was not going to be to her liking.

‘I’ll discuss it with Alison first, but, yes…it’s time for a few changes, and you could be right where it matters…’

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN she arrived at work the following Monday morning, it was to find Alison in her office, door shut, which was a rare phenomenon, and, even rarer still, an atmosphere of hushed efficiency amongst the staff who had managed to pole up for work at a quarter to eight—an hour before their due starting time on a Monday, this was always limited to a handful, which increased as the week progressed.

She walked across to Janet Peters, one of the editors, opened her mouth to ask what was going on and, before she could get the question out, was greeted with a series of facial movements and twitches that left her a little confused.

‘Are you feeling all right, Jan?’ Ruth asked, concerned, and in reply Janet crooked her finger for Ruth to lean forward,

‘Guess who’s in with Alison…’ she hissed. ‘Hence the unnatural deathly quiet in this place…’

‘Franco Leoni, owner of Issues?’ Ruth hazarded, and then grinned when Janet fell backwards in her chair and stared at her with profound consternation.

‘How did you know?’

‘I knew…because…I am possessed of strange mystic forces that leave me with the uncanny ability to see into the other realm.’ She giggled and played with the blunt edge of one of her plaits, a sensible hairstyle that kept her hair away from her face though unfortunately made her look no older than twelve.

‘Be serious!’ Janet said sternly, by which time they had been joined by three others and the atmosphere was drifting inexorably back into cheerful, noisy confusion.

‘How did you know?’ Jack Brady asked, sitting on the desk and giving her a frank and open stare. Jack Brady, who looked only slightly older than twelve himself, with his freckles and thick fair hair, specialised in frank and open stares which fooled no one but the uninitiated.

‘He came here on Friday night, just as I was about to leave. Scared me to death as a matter of fact.’

‘Was that,’ Jack asked, frowning and tilting his head to one side, ‘before or after he asked you to lie prone on the desk so that he could have his wicked way with you?’

‘Before,’ Ruth said with a serious face. ‘I felt fine afterwards.’

‘Ruth Jacobs!’ Jack said, shocked. ‘You’re not supposed to say naughty things like that! Especially looking the way you do, all fetching, sexy innocence with those two blonde pigtails and big, tempting eyes…’ He playfully pulled the ends of both the plaits with his hands, so that she was more or less compelled to incline her body towards his, and it was while they were in this awkward stance, both of them laughing, that Alison’s door opened and there was a general flurry of scattered bodies as Franco stood and watched what was going on.

Ruth and Jack were the last to detach themselves from the situation.

‘An office hard at work,’ Franco said, pushing himself away from the doorframe and strolling towards them with the friendly expression of a barracuda on the prowl for food. ‘Such a reassuring thing to see—especially when I have just finished having a meeting with your boss to work out why the magazine isn’t doing as well as it should.’

He was dressed in a silver-grey suit, which he managed to transform into something elegant rather than functional, and a pale blue and white shirt with a dark blue tie. Very conservative, very traditional yet, on him, shockingly attractive.

Jack, who had been reduced to a state of tongue-tied embarrassment, launched himself into a comprehensive stream of apologies, which Franco, not bothering to look at him at all, waved aside.

He somehow managed to turn his broad back on the assembled eight members of staff now busily working at their desks, heads down, eyes focused, so that he could devote every scrap of uninvited attention to Ruth, who was the last one left still standing and with nowhere to conceal herself.

‘So,’ he said softly, which just succeeded in making his exclusion of the rest of the office from their conversation all the more complete, ‘does flirting list among your dogsbody jobs?’

‘I wasn’t…flirting!’ Ruth protested in a low, heated voice. ‘Jack was just…’

‘Playing with your hair…’

She tried to slide her eyes around him to see whether their tête-à-tête was being observed, but decided that she would rather not know.

‘That’s r-right…’ she stammered absent-mindedly, as her eyes flitted over the downturned heads and rapt faces staring at computer screens.

He clicked his tongue impatiently, ‘Would you mind looking at me when I’m talking to you?’ he snapped, sharply enough for her to literally jump to attention.

‘Of course!’ She nearly saluted, and then had to stifle a giggle at the thought of what his expression would be like if she dared do any such thing.

‘Do you recall our little conversation on Friday?’

‘Which bit?’ Ruth asked cautiously. Her smoky grey eyes wandered away as she tried to recall what they had spoken about. She knew that if she put her mind to it she would have no trouble at all, although the overwhelming impression that remained with her of that night, like a thorn driven deep into her side, was the unwelcome feeling of being bludgeoned into the ground by something much like a steamroller.

‘Could I have your attention?’ he asked in a grim, irritable voice, and she shot him a nervous smile in response.

Did he realise that he had just raised his voice one or two decibels, and that in the small office all those downcast eyes were quietly boring a hole in the back of his neck, and that all those subdued voices would be eagerly anticipating his departure so that they could lay into her with a thousand and one questions?

Having never been the focus of gossip, the thought of it now was enough to bring Ruth out in a cold sweat.

She could hardly tell him to lower his tone, though, so she compensated by reducing the level of hers so much that he had to bend down to hear what she was saying.

‘I am paying attention, to every word you’re saying,’ she whispered furtively, feeling like a dodgy character in a third-rate movie.

‘I’ve spoken to Alison about my little proposition…’

‘What little proposition?’

‘Do you have any concentration span at all?’ he snapped.

He glared down at her. Most of the women he knew—had ever known, for that matter—achieved a near perfect complexion through generous, skilful application of make-up. This girl, staring up at him, her teeth anxiously worrying her lip, had the most perfect complexion he had ever clapped eyes on, without the aid of any make-up at all. God, he could feel his mind beginning to drift, again, and he glared even more ferociously at her, further maddened by the glaringly obvious fact that although she was hearing every belligerent word he was saying she wasn’t seeing him at all.

Who was that boy who had been playing with her hair? Was there something going on there?

He fought to impose a bit of self-control and managed a stiff, artificial smile which appeared to alarm the object of his attentions even more than his aggression had done a minute before.

‘Maybe we could continue this conversation in Alison’s office. A bit more private.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Ruth breathed a sigh of relief. She had just managed to accidentally catch Jack’s eye and had quickly looked away when he had grinned and winked at her.

‘After you,’ he said, stepping aside so that she could precede him.

Ruth, in her usual uninspiring attire of neat powder-blue skirt and long-sleeves blouse, was acutely conscious of his eyes behind her, following her movements. She was also conscious of Jack shooting her telling, questioning looks from where he was seated at an angle away from his desk, and with a sidelong glance she smiled at him and flashed him the smallest of waves. A conspiratorial wave that combined bewilderment at Franco Leoni’s inexplicable shepherding of her into Alison’s office and dread at what it indicated.

‘Mind if I have a word with Ruth alone?’ Franco asked, as soon as they were in the office, and Alison obligingly exited at speed, either relieved to be out of his presence or else frantic to obey his every command.

‘Take a seat.’ He indicated the black chair in front of the desk and Ruth sat down, only to find that he had remained standing, so that to look at him she had to crane her neck.

He strolled across to the bay window which opened onto the busy view of a London street in full swing, and, after idly staring out for a few seconds, he turned to face her, relaxing against the windowsill, arms folded.

‘I won’t be telling you anything that the rest of your colleagues will not hear for themselves very shortly, but the gist of my chat with Alison concerns what we briefly discussed last Friday evening. The magazine seems to have found itself in something of a rut. As you rightly pointed out, neither one thing nor another.’

Ruth felt a sudden warm glow at the unexpected compliment.

‘We have three talented reporters with good, solid styles of writing, but their subject matter is too disparate. Sport, fashion, natural disasters. Are you following me?’

‘Of course I’m following you. I’m not a complete idiot, you know!’ She felt a sudden flash of anger at his patronising attitude. Why had he called her in on her own to give this little speech? He hadn’t made it clear, unless it was to sack her, but she couldn’t really see why he would do that. Her contribution had nothing to do with the actual running of the magazine. She was a gofer, and a pretty good one at that, with lots of enthusiasm.

No, the only reason she could see for this one-to-one chat was to given him a chance of shooting down everything she said in flames. Maybe her soft nature was just too much of a temptation for a man like him. He simply couldn’t resist walking over her.

However soft she was, Ruth had no intention of being walked over. When pushed, there was a stubborn streak in her that made her dig her heels in and refuse to budge.

‘Sorry,’ he said, with a shadow of a smile. The apology, so unexpected, was enough to pull her down a peg or two, and she responded helplessly to the sincerity in his voice.

‘That’s okay,’ she said with a half-smile, lowering her eyes and then belatedly realising that all this timidity was no way to deal with this man. She looked at him fully and he stared back at her in silence for a few seconds.

‘I don’t suppose you were familiar with the magazine before we took it over?’

Ruth shook her head.

He went to the desk, but instead of sedately sitting on the chair he perched on the surface of the desk, so that he was still staring down at her—though from a lesser height, and infinitely closer.

‘It failed because there simply wasn’t enough money to pay any half-respectable reporter, and as a result, the articles were shallow and superficial. But, as far as I am concerned, the essence of the magazine was good. It dealt solely with topical problems. Drugs in the schoolyard, corruption in local politics, that sort of thing.’

‘Oh. Yes,’ Ruth said faintly, wondering what this had to do with her.

‘I think we need to drag it back to that formula, but handle it better than our predecessors.’

‘What does Alison think of your idea?’ Ruth asked, leaning forward to rest the palms of her hands on her knees and staring up at him.

The pigtails were a mistake. She had not expected to be confronted with Franco Leoni first thing in the morning or else she would have tried for a more sophisticated look. She could tell from the way that he looked at her that he was finding it difficult not to click his tongue impatiently at the image she presented.

‘Oh, she agrees entirely,’ he said. ‘In fact, she’s probably out there explaining all of this to your colleagues…’ he looked at her for a fraction longer than necessary ‘…and friends,’ he ended on a soft note, which made Ruth frown.

‘Well, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but why have you taken me to one side to explain all this when I could have been out there hearing it along with everyone else?’

‘Because…’ He inclined his head to one side and, worryingly, appeared to give the question quite a bit of thought. ‘Because there’s a further little matter I wanted to discuss with you…’

‘What?’ She inadvertently stiffened at the tone in his voice.

‘I think you could be a great deal of help in getting this magazine back on the straight and narrow.’

‘Me…?’ Ruth squeaked. She almost burst out laughing at that, and managed to contain the urge in the nick of time.

If he thought that she was, mysteriously, a wonderful and gifted reporter labouring under the disguise of a dogsbody, then he was way off target. The most she had ever written were essays at school, and she’d occasionally helped her dad to write the odd sermon for Sunday’s congregation.

Hard-hitting articles on topical issues were quite outside her realm of capability.

‘Yes, you. And there’s no need to sound so shocked. Don’t you have any faith in your abilities?’

‘I couldn’t write to save my life!’

‘Why not? Have you ever tried?’ There was curiosity etched on his dark, handsome face as he leant a little closer towards her while she continued to stare at him with frank disbelief.

‘Of course I have,’ Ruth said firmly, ‘at school. I managed to get my A level in English, but I certainly wouldn’t want to put it to the test by writing an article. And I fancy,’ she said with a slow smile, ‘that not very many readers would thank me for the effort either.’

‘So you never considered university?’

Ruth eyed him warily, wondering what this had to do with anything.

Franco, leaning towards her, felt his eyes stray to the blunt edges of her plaits, and he wondered what she would do if he took them and tugged at them, the way the boy in the office had. She certainly wouldn’t respond with laughter. Apprehension, more like it. The thought generated another surge of hot antagonism towards the young lad who was clearly on familiar enough terms with her to touch her hair, play with it.

Were they sleeping together?

He would find out. He would make it his business to find out. In fact, he would make it his business to find out everything he possibly could about this girl sitting in front of him, if only to sate his gnawing curiosity.

He felt another urge to make her notice him, and scowled at such an adolescent response.

‘No,’ she laughed. ‘I’m no brainbox. My only virtues are that I’m enthusiastic and I’m prepared to work hard.’

‘Really?’ he drawled. ‘Admirable virtues, I must say.’ His blue eyes lingered on her face, which turned crimson in response as the ambiguity of his observation sank in. ‘You blush easily. Is that because I make you feel uncomfortable?’ He was staring at her so fixedly that Ruth disengaged her eyes from his face. A fatal mistake, because as they travelled the length of his body, they came to his hands, resting casually over his thighs. Just a couple of inches higher and she could discern, beneath the fine silk of his trousers, the faint but unmistakable bulge of his manhood. The sight of it made her feel a little faint.

‘No,’ she denied quickly, staring back into his blue eyes. ‘I blush with everyone…no discrimination there, I’m afraid…I’m just hopeless when it comes to that kind of thing. Anyway, you never said what you wanted to talk to me about…’

‘Oh, didn’t I?’

‘No,’ she said drily, ‘you didn’t.’

He flashed her a smile. ‘Perhaps that’s because I’ve been beating about the bush trying to think of how best I can put my suggestion to you. And, before you ask, it has nothing to do with writing articles for the magazine.’

‘Then what?’

‘Like I said to you, I think we need to get back to hard-hitting articles, the sort of stories that people are interested in and can identify with.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his finger, then stood up and began pacing through the room, as though his brain needed the physical movement to work clearly. ‘And I intend to lead by example.’

‘Oh?’ Ruth felt like someone who had accidentally strayed into a maze and was in the process of getting more and more lost.

‘I intend to tackle the first article myself—get a feel for what’s out there and what our best vantage point is when it comes to reporting it…’

‘I thought you were a businessman,’ Ruth said, aware that she must have missed something vital but not too sure what it could be.

‘I have lots of strings to my bow,’ he murmured, waiting for her to ask for clarification and then disproportionately irked when she simply nodded and informed him that diving in the deep end and doing some reporting himself sounded a very good idea to her.

‘Was that your intention when you bought the magazine?’ she asked, and he frowned his incomprehension at her question. ‘I mean,’ she elaborated slowly, ‘to get involved in the reporting side of things. Must make quite a change from working in an office…’

‘I don’t work in an office!’ he growled. ‘I run companies.’

‘I know. But from the inside of an office.’

‘Yes, admittedly, I have a desk, and all the usual accoutrements of my trade, but…’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.’

He muttered something inaudible under his breath and wondered how on earth he could have such chokingly erotic fantasies about someone whose eyes barely rested on him long enough to establish that he was a man. Never mind an immensely rich and powerful one.

‘I just wondered,’ she ploughed on, ‘whether your decision to get involved has to do with your boredom at the office…’

This time the indecipherable noise was somewhat louder and more alarming.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ruth said a little desperately, wondering how she had managed to put both feet in it with such apparent ease. ‘I forgot. You don’t work at an office. Well, you more or less own the office, and you’re not bored. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said what I did. I must be tired. It’s been an awfully tiring weekend.’

‘Has it? Doing what, Ruth?’ he asked slyly. ‘Are you and that boy out there involved? Because I tell you from now that I don’t encourage office romances. The first thing to suffer is usually the work.’

‘What?’ Ruth asked, appalled at his sweeping assumptions. How had they swerved off onto this topic anyway? She thought that they had been discussing his idea to do a spot of reporting. Now here they were on the subject of her personal life, and her non-existent love-life at that.

‘I asked you whether—’

‘I heard you! No! Of course not! Jack and I are friends! I wouldn’t dream of… No…’

Franco tried not to smile with satisfaction. He couldn’t have explained why, but from the minute he had come upon the two of them in the office, clearly at ease with one another, he had been determined to find out what was going on. The surprise on her face at the thought of being romantically involved with the boy was enough to persuade him of the honesty of her reply.

In some part of him he could feel that this was getting out of hand. Mild interest was fine, but she was getting under his skin, making him want more of her… He shifted his position and abruptly sat down, because his body was responding to her with its now familiar obstinate refusal to obey the commands of his head.

‘Good, because for what I have in mind romantic involvement is not such a good idea.’ He glanced up at her and asked casually, ‘You’re not involved with anyone, are you? I mean, no lovers on the scene?’ He knew that he was shamelessly exploiting his situation, taking advantage of his position to prise answers out of her that he wanted to know and she, quite possibly, did not want to reveal, but he blithely squashed any guilt.

‘No!’ Her face was flushed and she fought down her instinctive embarrassment at his forthrightness to say, somewhat belatedly, ‘And you have no right to ask me questions like that. What I do in my private life is…’

‘I know, I know…’ he said, ready to apologise now that he had heard what he needed to know. ‘And I’m deeply sorry at having to intrude into your privacy, but my proposition… I want you to work alongside me on a certain project I have in mind.’

Ruth thought that she must have misheard what he had said, but, when no further clarification was forthcoming, she said, with a regretful smile, ‘I thought I’d made it perfectly clear. I’m hopeless at writing. I don’t think I’d be any good at all.’

‘You won’t be asked to write anything. I intend to commence a new series of insights into twenty-first-century life in this so called civilised country of ours by running a selection of interviews with young girls who find themselves lured into teenage prostitution.’

At what point, Ruth wondered, was she supposed to roar with laughter at this outrageous idea of his? Or at least outrageous if he intended to include her in it.

Hadn’t she told him that she was a vicar’s daughter?

She could no more work on such a project than she could strip off all her clothes and streak through a football ground.

‘No, I’m very sorry, but I can’t…’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m afraid I’m totally unsuitable for any such assignment,’ she amended, smiling. ‘Not the right kind of girl at all…’

‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’

Wasn’t he listening to a word she was saying?

‘What do you think the right kind of girl is?’ he asked, walking towards her and then stopping directly in front of her, so that now she had to virtually bend her neck backwards to see his face.

‘B-Bold, brassy,’ Ruth stammered. ‘Self-confident. Perhaps you should ask Jan to do it…’

‘That’s not the sort of girl I have in mind for this at all,’ he said, brutally bulldozing her input without qualm. Then he leaned forward and propped himself up against her chair, gripping either side so that she found herself suffocatingly trapped by him. ‘In fact,’ he continued softly, his face close enough now so that she could feel his warm breath against her cheek and see the dark flecks streaking the blue irises of his eyes, ‘the minute I laid eyes on you I knew that you were the woman I wanted…’ He paused, relishing her discomfort. ‘For the job.’

At last he stood back, massaging the back of his neck with one hand before taking a more orthodox position on the chair behind the desk.

‘My parents…’ she protested weakly.

‘Would, I’m sure, like to see you spread your wings. It is why you came to London, isn’t it? Wasn’t that what you told me?’

Ruth glared at him, resenting the fact that he had homed in on a passing remark and was now capitalising on it to justify what he wanted her to do.

‘You’re a big girl now, Ruth,’ he pressed on mercilessly. ‘Time for you to stop running to Mummy and Daddy whenever you need to make a decision. Time for you to face the big, bad world out there and stop trying to hide away from it.’

‘I am not trying to hide from anything.’ Ruth dug her heels in stubbornly. ‘I am just being realistic. My background hasn’t prepared me for dealing with a job of that nature…’

‘So what do you intend to do with your life? Has it ever occurred to you that the most interesting challenges in life are also often the most threatening?’

He was conscious that what he was trying to do was toe a very delicate line. On the one hand he wanted to coerce her into accepting his offer, into working with him. Partly because he genuinely thought that she would be well suited to what he had in mind; partly because the temptation of being close to her was virtually irresistible. On the other hand he was aware that if he pushed too hard she would set her soft mouth in that mute, obstinate line, avert her eyes and simply not budge an inch.

‘I’m not going to ask you to do anything dangerous, Ruth,’ he said in a gentler voice, resisting the urge to steamroller her into doing what he wanted, even though he knew full well that, underneath the shy exterior, this woman was probably immune to being steamrollered. ‘I just know that we’ll be dealing with young girls, asking them questions of a personal nature. They would respond to you far more quickly than they ever would to someone brash and self-assertive. You’re gentle and calm enough to draw confidences out of the kind of girls we’ll be dealing with, and—who knows?—you might even sway one or two of them to reconsider the road they’ve chosen.’

Ruth went pink. She couldn’t help it. She could feel her soft nature being played on by a master musician, but then he was right. She couldn’t run away from everything that had a ring of adventure or risk about it.

He could see the indecision in her eyes and pressed on smoothly, effortlessly, tasting victory. ‘Most of our work will be done at night, which is why it’s important that you don’t have a partner. I wouldn’t want to be accused of taking you away from your loved one. You’ll be able to work here normally a couple of days a week, but you might find that as your body adjusts to working by night you just want to sleep during the days. And it won’t be an assignment that lasts for ever. Two weeks at the most, probably less. Just enough time for us to gain an accurate picture of what’s happening to our young people out there and what’s being done by the government to put an end to it.’

‘Why are you so keen to get involved?’ she asked, buying time while she mulled over the possibilities in her head. ‘Any one of your reporters out there would be more than capable of handling the job.’

‘I like to lead from the front.’ He shot her a wry smile. ‘And maybe you’re right about that remark you made to me about being bored.’ He shrugged expressively and tried to look humble. ‘I have all that I could ever need—or want, for that matter. I started out as a reporter myself, you know.’

He linked his fingers behind his head and leaned back into his hands, staring broodingly up at the ceiling. ‘First on a provincial newspaper, ferreting out dirt and scandal, then on a city newspaper as a financial reporter. Good fun and, as it turned out, a useful passport when I decided to branch out and play around with the money markets myself. Since then I’ve made my money and now—who knows?—maybe I fancy getting back to my roots. Or maybe what I’m looking for is a little…’ he leveled his eyes to hers ‘…excitement.’

Ruth, inexperienced, marvelled at how he could invest a single word with so many hidden, tantalising possibilities.

‘Have you told Alison about your idea…for me? I wouldn’t want to rub anyone’s back up the wrong way…’

‘Absolutely,’ he said expansively, bringing the palms of his hands to rest on the desk and adopting a businesslike expression. ‘Alison thinks it’s a fabulous idea, and she’s going to rally the other reporters to start working on similar contentious issues so that we can pull something together for the issue due at the end of next month. When you’ve finished your stint with me, you’ll be pulled into a more responsible position—maybe occasionally working alongside one of the reporters as back-up.’

‘Oh!’ Ruth said breathlessly, a little awed by the suggestion of such a tremendous promotion.

‘Naturally, this unexpected change of job will be reflected in your pay.’ He whipped a sheet of paper from underneath a paperweight on the desk and waved it in the air, talking at the same time. ‘An immediate increase in your salary, to be followed by another increase in three months’ time if you prove yourself up to your additional responsibilities—if, indeed, you want additional responsibility.

‘All you have to do…’ he leant across the desk and rapped his finger imperiously at the bottom of the sheet of paper ‘…is sign here…’ He produced a fountain pen, seemingly from thin air, and handed it to her before she could open her mouth to protest at the sudden speed of things.

Ruth’s eyes scurried over the closely typed page, briefly taking in the description of her new role, containing an undignified gasp at the enormity of her salary increase.

‘At the bottom,’ he said. ‘Your signature. And then everything’s formalised.’

‘I’m still not sure…’ she said on a deep breath, shifting her eyes away from the piece of paper in front of her with its frightening promises of adventure and money and excitement.

‘Of course you are,’ he said gently. ‘Apprehensive, but sure.’

Ruth frowned, uncertain whether she cared for his ten-second summary of her reaction and then irritated because he was right.

He looked at his watch. ‘You’re not putting your life on the line with this assignment,’ he urged her, raking his long fingers through his hair. ‘A week—and if you hate it, believe me, I won’t force you to carry on. But give yourself the chance to see whether this kind of thing appeals to you.’

A few more seconds of hesitation and then she put her name at the bottom of the piece of paper. Okay, so she wasn’t signing her life away, but the minute she pushed the piece of paper across the desk back to him she felt as though she was signing something away, though what she wasn’t too sure.

Or maybe it was just that trace of smugness tugging the corners of his mouth that made her feel just a tad nervous about what she had agreed to. She was very nearly tempted to snatch the piece of paper out of his hands, rip it into a thousand pieces and then hustle back to her desk. But, with a speed that left her wondering whether the man was a mind-reader, he folded the paper in half, stuck it into his open briefcase, which was perched on the side of the desk, and decisively slammed it shut.

‘Now that’s all settled,’ he said, standing up and shrugging on his jacket, ‘just one or two suggestions before we start work on Wednesday.’

‘On Wednesday?’ she squeaked.

‘Why waste valuable time? No point meeting here. Meet me at The Breakfast Bar in Soho. Here’s the address.’ He scribbled it down for her and she took the paper from him. ‘Eight p.m. sharp. I gather it’s where a lot of young girls hang out when they hit London for the first time. It’s cheap, in the centre of things, and has a reputation for being a useful place to meet people.’

‘How on earth did you find all that out?’

‘I’m clever and talented. Hadn’t you noticed?’ he said in a silky voice, addressing, as it turned out, her downturned head. ‘Anyway,’ he continued crisply, ‘just a couple of suggestions.’

That got her attention. She looked up at him with her peach-smooth skin and wide grey eyes, now holding a hint of a question in them.

‘Dress casually. Jeans, trainers, nothing too…formal. If anything, you’ll want to blend in with some of the girls we’ll be meeting…that way they’ll be more relaxed and more expansive about revealing themselves to a couple of reporters…’

‘How do you know they won’t laugh in our faces and walk away?’

‘I think, actually, they’ll either be flattered or relieved that someone’s taking an interest in them.’ He was by the door now, hand on the doorknob. ‘The way we’ll play this is: questions in the night, and the following evening we’ll debrief over dinner before we start again.’ He smiled at her. ‘And don’t be scared. I’ll look after you.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘I DON’T know if I’ll be able to handle this.’

She had rehearsed a long speech about this, had even stood in front of the bathroom mirror and practised, making sure to keep her eyes focused, to try and control the temptation to eat her words, and to appear confident and firm.

Now, sliding into the seat opposite Franco for the first of their so called debriefing meetings, she found that all of her painstakingly contrived self-assurance had vanished through the window. Her words came out in a rush, and from the expression on his face she could see that he thought she was deranged.

To be greeted by someone whose opening remark was, I don’t know if I can handle this, must, she conceded, be a little disconcerting.

‘Would you like a drink?’ was his response, and she looked at him, exasperated.

‘No, I would not like a drink. I would like to say what I have to say.’

‘Go ahead, then.’ He sat back in the chair, left ankle resting on right knee, and proceeded to look at her with an interested, patient expression that made her even more nervous.

They had arranged, the night before, to have their debriefing dinner at a pub in Hampstead, which, at six-thirty, was still virtually empty. A few lost souls were perched on bar stools, drinking in a desultory way, and a few more couples occupied tables, but the crowds would not start piling in until later.

Ruth sat very straight on the chair and pressed her hands into her lap. ‘I’ve thought long and hard about this,’ she began. ‘In fact, I’ve spent most of the day thinking about it…’

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