The Baby Scandal. Cathy WilliamsЧитать онлайн книгу.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      RUTH heard the sound of footsteps striding up the staircase towards the offices and froze with a bundle of files in one hand. The wooden flooring, which was the final word in glamour, unfortunately had an annoying tendency to carry sound, and now, with the place completely deserted except for her, the amplified noise travelled with nerve-shattering precision straight to her wildly beating heart.

      This was London.

      She had laughed off all her parents’ anxious concerns about the need to be careful in The Big Bad City, but now every word came flooding back to her with nightmarish clarity.

      Muggers. Perverts. Rapists.

      She cleared her throat and wondered whether she should gather up some courage and confront whoever had sneaked into the empty two-storey Victorian house, which had been tastefully converted one year ago to accommodate a staff of fifteen.

      Courage, however, was not her forte, so she timidly stood her ground and prayed that the bloodthirsty, drug-driven maniac would see that there was nothing to steal and leave the way he had come.

      The footsteps, which seemed to know precisely where they wanted to go, materialised into a dark shadow visible behind the closed glass door of the office. The corridor light had been switched off and, although it was summer, autumn was just around the corner, and at a little after seven-thirty night was already drawing in.

      Now, she thought frantically, would be a very appropriate time to faint.

      She didn’t. Just the opposite. The soles of her feet appeared to have become glued to the floor, so that not only could she not collapse into a convenient heap to the ground, she couldn’t even move.

      The shadow pushed open the glass door and strode in with the typical aggressive confidence of someone with foul intent on his mind.

      Some of her paralysed facial muscles came to life and she stuck her chin out bravely and said, in a high-pitched voice, ‘May I help you?’

      The man approaching her, now that she could see him clearly in the fluorescent light, was tall and powerfully built. He had his jacket slung over one shoulder and his free hand was rammed into the pocket of his trousers.

      He didn’t look like a crazed junkie, she thought desperately. On the other hand, he didn’t look like a hapless tourist who had wandered accidentally into the wrong building, thinking it was a shop, perched as it was in one of the most exclusive shopping areas in London, between an expensive hat shop and an even more over-priced jeweller’s.

      In fact, there was nothing remotely hapless-looking about this man at all. His short hair was black, the eyes staring at her were piercingly blue and every angle of his face and body suggested a sort of hard aggression that she found overwhelming.

      ‘Where is everyone?’ he demanded, affording her a brief glance and then proceeding to stroll around the office with proprietorial insolence.

      Ruth followed his movements helplessly with her eyes.

      ‘Perhaps you could tell me who you are?’

      ‘Perhaps you could tell me who you are?’ he said, pausing in his inspection of the assortment of desks and computer terminals to glance over his shoulder.

      ‘I work here,’ she answered, gathering up her failing courage and deciding that, since this man obviously didn’t, then she had every right to be as curt with him as she wanted.

      Unfortunately curt, like courage, was not in her repertoire. She was gentle to the point of blushingly gauche, and that was one of the reasons why she had moved to London. So that some of its brash self-confidence might somehow rub off on her by a mysterious process of osmosis.

      ‘Name?’

      ‘R-Ruth Jacobs,’ Ruth stammered, forgetting that he had no business asking her anything at all, since he was a trespasser on the premises.

      ‘Mmm. Doesn’t ring any bells.’ He had stopped inspecting the office now and was inspecting her instead, perched on the edge of one of the desks. ‘You’re not one of my editors. I have a list of them and your name isn’t on it.’

      Ruth was no longer terrified now. She was downright confused, and it showed in the transparent play of emotions on her smooth, pale face.

      ‘Who are you?’ she finally asked, lowering her eyes, because something about his blatant masculinity was a little too overpowering for her liking. ‘I don’t believe I caught your name.’

      ‘Probably because I didn’t give it,’ he answered drily. ‘Ruth Jacobs, Ruth Jacobs…’ He tilted his head to one side and proceeded to stare at her with leisurely thoroughness. ‘Yes, you could do…very well indeed…’

      ‘Look…I’m in the process of locking up for the day…perhaps you could make an appointment to see Miss Hawes in the morning…?’ It finally occurred to her that she must look very odd in this immobile position, with her hand semi-raised and holding a stack of files in a death-like grip. She unglued her feet from the ten-inch square they had occupied since the man entered the room, and darted across to Alison’s desk for her appointment book.

      ‘What’s your job here?’

      Ruth stopped what she was doing and took a deep breath. ‘I refuse to answer any more questions until you tell me who you are,’ she said in a bold rush. She could feel the colour redden her cheeks and, not for the first time, cursed her inability to dredge up even the remotest appearance of savoir faire. At the age of twenty-two, she should surely have left behind all this ridiculous blushing.

      ‘I’m Franco Leoni.’ He allowed