The Baby Verdict

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Oh, good grief.’ He closed his knife and fork and signalled for another bottle of wine.

  Had they consumed one already? She had barely noticed what she had been drinking, and, looking down, she realised that she had done justice to her plate of food, also without noticing.

  ‘And just to clear the air,’ he informed her, ‘I don’t walk around treating women like second-rate citizens.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t.’

  ‘That’s right, so you can wipe that supercilious expression off your face.’

  ‘Look, there’s really no need...’

  ‘Rachel, just for the record, started off as a bit of fun, but I discovered that she wasn’t as content as I thought just to have a good time. Pretty soon, she...she...’

  ‘Wanted more?’ Jessica said helpfully.

  ‘Oh, you’re aware of the phenomenon, are you?’

  ‘Not personally.’

  ‘Well...’ he shrugged and adopted a hangdog expression ‘...what can a man do?’

  The blue eyes scoured her face with boyish bewilderment.

  ‘Oh, please!’ Jessica told him awkwardly, recognising that this was the essence of true charm. Bruno Carr, arrogant and self-confident that he was, would never veer into the arena of cruelty, because he genuinely liked women. His natural instincts were to persuade, even when seduction played no part in a hidden agenda. The ability to flirt was as inherent with him as the ability to breathe. He did it without thinking, which was why he was so adept at it

  ‘Women.’ He raised both shoulders expressively. ‘Sometimes I don’t think I understand them at all.’

  ‘Really. Now I wonder why I find that so hard to believe.’

  ‘Rachel started talking about the importance of families, of having children, the benefits of settling down.’

  ‘Poor, misguided girl,’ Jessica said without a trace of sympathy in her voice for him. ‘And what a dreadful predicament for you, I’m sure. One minute, you have a willing, vivacious partner, the next minute she’s gazing into jeweller shops and dropping hints about permanence.’

  ‘I’m not the marrying sort,’ he said. ‘Some men are and some men aren’t.’

  ‘You mean it’s all in the genes?’

  ‘Whereas all women are. Eventually.’

  ‘Ah. I see.’ She nodded slowly. In a strange, masochistic way, and even though she still resented his high-handed behaviour and was appalled by his train of thought, she found that she was enjoying this conversation. She must be mad.

  ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘you come across as being the archetypal career woman, but, if you were to be brutally honest with yourself, wouldn’t you agree that when you see the odd pram being pushed you get a certain pang?’

  ‘What kind of pang?’

  ‘A pang of longing. Something to do with a biological clock, I gather.’ He poured another glass of wine for them both.

  ‘Well, not that I’ve ever recognised, but I suppose if your theory’s true then I must subconsciously have that pang lurking in there somewhere.’ How come the conversation was suddenly featuring her in the starring role? Her mind was feeling a little unreliable from the wine.

  ‘And you don’t?’

  Jessica shook her head and frowned. ‘I thought we were talking about you,’ she said, thinking furiously.

  ‘We were, but then somehow we’ve ended up talking about you. I think it’s important to have some insight into the people who work with me.’

  ‘You mean you enjoy prying into their lives?’

  He grinned, and then laughed, and she gave him a wry smile in return.

  This was beginning to feel just a little too dangerous for her liking, although she had no idea why. They were simply, at least for the moment, getting along. She got along with lots of people. Most of the human race, in fact. So why did this make her feel uneasy? When he raised the bottle to her glass, she shook her head and covered it with the palm of her hand.

  ‘I’ve drunk enough already,’ she told him honestly. ‘Any more and I’ll be fit for nothing in the morning. I don’t have much of a head for alcohol.’

  ‘Lack of practice?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You mean you don’t spend the occasional night seeing the dawn rise with a glass of champagne in your hand?’

  ‘Not routinely, no,’ she said. Her hand slipped from round the rim of the glass to the stern, and she curled her fingers lightly around it, not meeting his eye.

  Did he do that sort of thing on a regular basis? The blonde bombshell looked like the sort of woman who appreciated overblown gestures along those lines, and presumably she was merely an indication of the type of female he went out with.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, looking at him, ‘I thought people only did that sort of thing in third-rate movies.’

  His mouth twitched, but at least he didn’t burst into laughter. She had a sneaking suspicion that if he had her remark would somehow have backfired in her face, making her appear dull and unadventurous.

  ‘I take it you don’t approve...?’

  ‘Does it matter what I think or not? Oh, I forgot, you like to have insight into your employees. Well, as a matter of fact, I neither approve nor disapprove. I just think that it’s not my style.’

  ‘And what is your style?’

  His voice was a low murmur and his eyes on her were suddenly intense. She felt her skin break out in a faint film of perspiration. It was the wine, of course. Between them, they had managed to drink the better part of two bottles, and that simply was not something she was accustomed to doing. One glass, yes. But virtually a bottle? She was surprised that all she saw on his face was a look of curious interest. She should rightfully be seeing three faces, all blurry, and all with different expressions.

  ‘Work!’ she told him, plucking the word from out of the blue.

  ‘Work,’ he repeated obligingly. ‘I take it that my limited time on getting insight has been exhausted?’

  Jessica looked at her watch and realised that they had been at the restaurant far longer than she had imagined.

  ‘I must be getting back!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Before the carriage turns into a pumpkin?’ he asked with dry amusement.

  ‘I don’t have a carriage,’ she answered, choosing to ignore any possible innuendo. ‘In fact, I shall have to take a taxi back to my place. I only hope I can find one.’

  ‘Why don’t you walk back with me to the office, and I can give you a lift home?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’ A lift home? She thought not. Whether it was the drink or not, the night seemed to have taken her onto unfamiliar ground. She had no desire to prolong the experience. Unfamiliar ground was territory she felt should be better left unexplored. She bad never been able to control her background. She had watched in helpless silence as her parents had waged their unremitting cold war and as soon as she had been able to she had left, first to university, then to London. She had learned to exercise control over her life and that had always suited her.

  Bruno Carr, however, was not a man who slotted easily into any sort of category she could handle.

  As she reached for her briefcase and her bag she realised that the conversation between them had had all the elements of a free fall. How had that happened?

  She could feel his eyes on her, and she refused to look at him, at least until she had managed to get some of her thoughts in order.

  ‘It’ll be a damned sight more convenient if I give you a lift home,’ he said.

  ‘No, thank you. Honestly.’ Why was she in such a panic at the suggestion? It made sense. ‘Perhaps I ought to telephone for a taxi.’ She looked around her, searching for inspiration.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, signing his credit-card slip, tearing off his copy, and then standing up. ‘Before you collapse in distress at the thought of getting into a car with me.’

  She heard the amusement in his voice with a sinking heart. What must he think of her? Another hysterical woman
, overreacting at something utterly insignificant. Hardly professional behaviour, was it?

  She took a few deep breaths to steady herself.

  ‘I must appear quite ridiculous,’ she said in a calmer voice, rooting around for something sensible to say, ‘but I had no idea that the evening would be this late, and...’ Inspiration! ‘I completely forgot that my mum was supposed to call tonight...’

  ‘Ah. Important call, was it?’

  ‘My sister-in-law was due to have her baby today...’ Or around now, anyway. ‘Mum lives in Australia with my brother and his wife,’ she explained. True enough. Three weeks after her father had died, her mum, faced with sudden freedom, had taken flight to the most distant shores possible and was having a wonderful time out there. ‘She’ll be terribly disappointed that I wasn’t at home. Anyway, the sooner I get back the better, so if you don’t mind I’ll just jump in a taxi and tell him to go as quickly as he can...’ She knew that she was beginning to ramble, so she stopped talking and smiled brightly at him. What a pathetic excuse.

  ‘Of course. At times like these, every second counts.’ He ushered her out of the restaurant, and as luck would have it hailed a cab within seconds.

  ‘There now,’ he said, opening the door for her and peering in as she settled in the back. ‘Feel better?’

  She felt a complete fool, but she smiled and nodded and tried to inject an expression of relief on her face.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘My office. Eight-thirty.’ He stood back slightly with his hand on the door. ‘Make sure you bring your brain with you. You’ve got important work ahead of you. Can’t have your head addled with thoughts of babies.’ With which he slammed the door behind him, and Jessica ground her teeth together in sheer frustration and watched as he strode off along the pavement in the direction of his building.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘I SHALL have to look at a drawing of the part in question. Is there any chance at all that it could have been made slightly askew? Grooves in the wrong place? Too many grooves? Too few? Anything at all that might have caused that car to malfunction?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  Jessica sighed and looked across the table to where Bruno was sitting, his chair pushed back, his legs loosely crossed, with a stack of papers on his lap.

  The boardroom was enormous, but he had insisted from the start that it was the only place that could guarantee his uninterrupted time. She still felt dwarfed by its vastness, however, and their voices had that hollow quality peculiar to when people spoke in cavernous surroundings.

  ‘You’ll be asked that in the witness box,’ she said calmly, ‘and I don’t think that the answer you just gave me is going to do.’ They had been working closely together for three weeks and this was not the first time that she had had to remind him that his answers would have to be laboriously intricate, leaving nothing to the imagination. He had a tendency to bypass all those tedious details, which he assumed everyone should know without having to be told.

  ‘Why not?’

  Jessica sighed again, this time a little louder. It was late, her eyes were stinging and she was in no mood to launch into a debate on the whys and wherefores of what could and couldn’t be said on the stand. He tapped his fountain pen idly on the stack of papers and continued to look at her through narrowed eyes.

  She was certain that he knew precisely how to make her feel uncomfortable. He knew that she was fine just so long as they stuck to their brief, but an errant gesture or a look that hovered just a fraction too long was enough to make her feel hot and bothered. She never showed it, but he could sense her change in mood and was not averse to preying on it for a bit of fun.

  ‘You’re being difficult,’ she said at last. ‘It’s late. Perhaps we should wrap it up for the day.’ She stood up and he followed her with his eyes, leaning back and clasping his hands together at the back of his head.

  She had thought, initially, that she would become immune to his overwhelming personality and those dark, striking good looks, but she hadn’t. In the middle of a question, or as he swivelled to one side when he spoke on the telephone, or even at the end of a long day, when he stretched so that his taut, muscular body flexed beneath the well-tailored suit, she could feel her eyes travel the length of his body, she could feel her mouth become suddenly dry.

  Now, she dealt with her own treacherous and aggravating response to him by doing her utmost to avoid eye contact.

  ‘Being difficult? Explain what you mean by being difficult .’

  Jessica didn’t answer. She walked across the room removed her jacket and coat from the hanger and then walked back to her pile of papers. Without looking at him, she began sifting through them, pausing to read snatches of reports, then she stuffed the lot into her briefcase and snapped it shut.

  ‘I’m tired too,’ she said, meeting his stare reluctantly. ‘It’s been a long week.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘Friday is the worst day to work late. Don’t you agree?’ He had slung his jacket over the back of the leather chair, and he stuck it on, tugging his tie off and shoving it into his pocket. Then he undid the top button of his shirt.

  Jessica followed all of this with a mortifying sense of compulsion, then she blinked and dragged her eyes away.

  The end of the case couldn’t come a day too soon as far as she was concerned. Working alongside Bruno Carr was stretching her nerves to breaking-point, and she couldn’t quite work out why.

  ‘Fridays are meant for relaxing. Winding down before the business of the weekend.’

  She shrugged and made no comment.

  ‘I’ll see you on Monday,’ she said, facing him.

  ‘I’ll get the lift down with you.’

  They walked together to the lift and as the doors shut he turned to her and said, ‘Big plans for tonight?’

  ‘Not big, no. And you?’ His eyes were boring into her but she refused to look at him.

  ‘Small plans, then?’

  She clicked her tongue with impatience. There had been no more prying into her personal life, not since that unsettling meal out three weeks previously, but for some reason he was in the mood to stir and she was handy.

  ‘I shall put my feet up and relax.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you did last Friday?’ he mused thoughtfully, and she clenched her fists tightly around the handle of her briefcase.

  ‘Is it?’ she asked innocently, refusing to become bait for his sense of humour. ‘I forget. I’m surprised you remember, actually.’

  ‘Oh, I remember everything. It’s one of my talents.’

  ‘Along with your modesty.’

  He laughed under his breath. ‘I hope we aren’t working you too hard...’ His voice was speculative, paternal and didn’t fool her for an instant. ‘I wouldn’t want to be accused of coming between you and your love life.’

  The doors pinged open, and Jessica breathed a sigh of relief. Bruno was tenacious. When he got hold of something, he was like a dog with a bone, which was fine when it came to work, but when he started directing it at her private life she had an instinctive urge to dive and take cover.

  ‘I’ll make sure not to accuse you of any such thing, in that case,’ she answered politely. They walked out of the building and into dark, driving rain.

  ‘Have a good weekend’ He strolled off in the direction of the company’s underground car park, and five minutes later she saw him sweep away, his car sending up a fine spray.

  Jessica held her briefcase awkwardly over her head, ventured to the side of the kerb and waited for a vacant cab which, after fifteen minutes, was beginning to resemble a hunt for the proverbial needle in the haystack.

  She should have walked to the underground, but her feet ached, and now it seemed pointless.

  She was on the point of returning to the office and calling a taxi when a low-slung, sleek car slowed down and finally stopped in front of her. The window purred down and Bruno contemplated her wet, shivering form with
a grin.

  ‘Friday nights can be a bit difficult, especially wet Friday nights. Care for a lift?’

  There was no possible excuse she could come up with this time. She could hardly tell him that she was having a grand time right where she was, huddled under her briefcase in a futile attempt not to become absolutely soaked to the skin.

  He clicked open the passenger door and she hurried round to the side, cursing fate, the weather and her idiocy in not walking to the underground, whatever the pathetic state of her aching feet.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, slamming the door behind her. ‘Filthy night. I’m afraid I’m dripping all over your seat.’ She was feeling more bedraggled by the minute.

  ‘I’m sure the car will recover from the shock of it,’ he said gravely. ‘Where to?’

  She gave him her address, and leaned back, closing her eyes.

  ‘What were you doing back at the office anyway?’ she asked, easing her feet out of her shoes but not kicking them off completely.

  ‘Oh, just some work I had to collect.’

  ‘But...’ She turned to look at his profile. ‘Did you get what you returned for?’

  ‘No. I saw your wet, forlorn shape and decided to do my good deed for the week instead.’

  ‘How considerate.’ As fast as the windscreen wipers cleared the screen, it became blurred with more running water.

  ‘That’s the sort of person that I am.’

  He seemed, she thought, in a remarkably good mood considering he had found himself having to drive miles out of his way to deliver her to her house.

  ‘I hope,’ she said suddenly, ‘I’m not ruining your plans for the evening.’

  ‘Not at all. Don’t give that another thought I’d planned on spending the night in, actually.’ He paused. ‘Painting my nails and washing my hair.’

  In the darkness, Jessica grinned. She had never known a man who could switch from aggressive to funny with such ease. In fact, she had never known a man whose personality was so complex. He could be ruthless, single-minded, persistent, utterly exasperating and madly, unbearably sarcastic. He could also be charming, witty and disconcertingly easygoing. Perhaps he had a split personality.