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 valor." That was one of her father's favorite 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 antagonize 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 color to her cheeks.
"They were very supportive, os 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..." fire 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 yow 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 stoke 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."