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, and 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.’
‘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 apologise 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 civilised country 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
