The Baby Scandal(6)

"That's okay," she said with a  half-smile, lowering her eyes and then  belatedly realizing 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  laboring 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 uniting  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  traveled 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 dryly. "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, ild 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."