the only reason she could see for this one-to-one chat was to given him a chance of shooting down everything she said in flames. Maybe her soft nature was just too much of a temptation for a man like him. He simply couldn’t resist walking over her.
However soft she was, Ruth had no intention of being walked over. When pushed, there was a stubborn streak in her that made her dig her heels in and refuse to budge.
‘Sorry,’ he said, with a shadow of a smile. The apology, so unexpected, was enough to pull her down a peg or two, and she responded helplessly to the sincerity in his voice.
‘That’s okay,’ she said with a half-smile, lowering her eyes and then belatedly realising 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 labouring 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 writing 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 travelled 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 drily, ‘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
