The Baby Scandal(7)

"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 apologize 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  civilized  county 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 capitalizing 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 bb  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 ate 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."