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
