The Baby Verdict. CATHY WILLIAMS
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then he’ll call a staff meeting some time tomorrow.’
‘I see.’
‘The reason I made a point of coming out here to tell you all this yourself—’
‘When you almost certainly would have had better things to do,’ Jessica muttered to herself,
‘Sorry? I missed that.’ He leaned forward slightly, and she flashed him a brilliant smile.
‘Nothing important. Just thinking aloud.’
‘This sudden development comes at a rather inconvenient time.’
‘Inconvenient for whom?’ she asked.
‘I’ll ignore that question,’ Bruno told her, narrowing his eyes. ‘It borders on impertinence.’
Which it did. She felt colour steal into her cheeks. Had she forgotten that this man was her boss? Had she forgotten that she should toe the line and not risk her career for the sake of emotion?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said honestly. ‘I suppose I’m just shocked and worried about Robert. It’s been sprung on me out of the blue.’
What a limp lettuce of an excuse, she thought. She could feel his shrewd eyes on her, assessing, and she waited for him to inform her that sarcasm was not something he would tolerate. Sarcasm, she suspected, was not something he had probably ever had to deal with.
He chose to disregard what she had said, though.
‘Two days ago,’ he said instead, ‘I received this.’ He withdrew a letter from his jacket pocket and shoved it across the desk to her, then he sat back and watched while she opened it and read the contents several times over.
Bruno Carr was being sued. Personally. A component for a car, manufactured by one of his plants, had resulted in a near-fatal car crash.
‘This,’ he explained softly, ‘is why I thought it important to come and see you myself.’
Jessica looked up briefly before re-reading the official letter. ‘To see if you considered me capable of dealing with this...’
‘That’s right. And you’re not what I expected.’
‘Is that why you expressed concern about my age, Mr Carr?’ She carefully placed the sheet of paper on the desk in front of her and sat back, with her fingers linked on her lap.
A legal issue was something she could deal with. The personal confrontation with Bruno Carr had brought out feelings in her she hadn’t even known existed, at least not for a very long time. But this. She took her time considering him.
‘You think that because I’m relatively young I’m incapable of doing a good job.’
‘You lack experience,’ he said flatly. ‘You are also a woman.’
‘Perhaps I could address those concerns of yours one at a time?’ When she smiled, her jaw ached because of the effort, and her fingers were itching to hurl something very heavy at him. Precisely what century was this man living in?
‘Firstly, age has nothing to do with competence. I can’t deny that I haven’t got three decades’ worth of experience behind me, but then I can assure you that I am more than capable of dealing with this lawsuit.’ The only way to deal with Bruno Carr, she decided, was not to be cowed by him. He would smell out any hint of uncertainty from her with the unerring precision of a shark smelling blood, and he would promptly take his lawsuit somewhere else. Careerwise, it would be death for her.
‘Of course, I shall need immediate and unrestricted access to any information, technical or otherwise, that I consider necessary...’
He nodded fractionally, and continued to look at her, waiting for her to say her piece, upon which he would deliver his verdict.
‘Fine. Now, secondly, yes, I am a woman.’ Camouflaged as it was by her genderless working garb. In a man’s world, frilly dresses were off limits—not that she had ever been one for frilly dresses anyway. A suit told the world precisely what she wanted it to know, which was that she was to be taken seriously. Even outside the working environment, she steered clear of frocks and short skirts, preferring jeans and clothes that were tailored and smart rather than provocative. It was only when she stripped at night that she saw the reflection of her own body in the mirror—tall, slender, but with full breasts and long legs. A good figure, she knew. It was as well to conceal it.
‘However,’ she continued, ‘women comprise a high percentage of the working arena these days, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’m sure if you cast your eyes around you’ll discover that there are quite a few spread throughout your various companies.’
‘Ah, but none of them is poised to defend my name in a lawsuit, are they?’ he pointed out smoothly.
‘And why do you think that a man might be more competent at the job than a woman?’ she asked, changing tactic. She fixed him a cool, implacable stare, one of her specialities when it came to withering any member of the opposite sex who might be overstepping her boundaries. He stared back at her, unperturbed.
‘Because women are prone to outbursts of hysteria when the going gets too tough, and I, frankly, don’t think that that will do at all in this instance.’
Oh, good grief, Jessica thought to herself. Was she really hearing this?
‘Outbursts of hysteria?’ she asked politely, with her head tilted to one side. ‘When the going gets tough?’ She laughed dryly. ‘Possibly with the women you tend to associate with, but I can assure you that there’s a whole army of them out there who don’t react in any such way when faced with a challenge.’ She paused, and added for good measure, ‘And by challenge I don’t mean colour co-ordinating our clothes or debating what shade of nail polish we should wear on our next date.’
He looked away and she caught something that looked remarkably like a stifled smile, although she couldn’t be sure, because when he once again looked at her his face was serious.
‘Robert has every confidence in your ability,’ he told her. ‘And that’s counted heavily in your favour. If it were up to me, I would say that a young, inexperienced woman would not come high on the list of people I would choose to handle this.’
I’m going to have to work fairly closely with this man if I get this job, Jessica thought grimly. I’m going to have to quell the urge to strangle him.
‘Well,’ she informed him with a cool little smile and a slight shrug, ‘there’s nothing more I can say to convince you that I’d do a good job. If you don’t feel one hundred per cent confident of my abilities, then, of course, you must look elsewhere.’
The interview, as far as she was concerned, was finished, but she was deeply reluctant to stand up, just in case he ordered her to sit back down again.
He saved her the decision by standing up himself and moving around the desk towards her.
For a second she felt a recurrence of that vague, unspecified alarm that had wrong-footed her previously, then it subsided and she rose to her feet In her heels, she reached just to the level of his mouth, and she averted her eyes hurriedly because, almost unconsciously, her mind registered that it was a disconcertingly sensual mouth.
‘I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt, Miss Stearn,’ he said, reaching out to shake her hand.
‘And I’m flattered,’ she replied, withdrawing her hand almost immediately, ‘especially since I realise that it goes against your better judgement. I’ll do a good job.’
‘Oh, I hope so,’ he drawled, looking down at her, ‘for both our sakes.’
‘Quite.’ She abandoned all attempts at smiling. Why bother? If he could be brutally frank with her, then she would be as brutally frank back, within reasonable limits.
‘And I feel I should warn you that I’m intolerant of incompetence, especially when my reputation