The Baby Scandal
Cathy Williams
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 traveled 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, materialized 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 comer, 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 paralyzed 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 jeweler's.
In fact, there was nothing remotely hapless-looking about this man at all. His short hair was blocking 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 haplessly 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 nrb 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 dryly.
"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 color 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 ridicules."
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 recognize 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 color 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.