The Baby Question. Caroline Anderson

Laurie Taylor. She had views and opinions, and she wasn’t frightened to express them. They argued, they tore holes in each other’s arguments, and in the end they agreed to differ.

      For a moment, then, her confidence had seemed to falter, as if by disagreeing with him she thought she’d blown the interview, but then he’d smiled and held out his hand.

      ‘Welcome to the team—if you’ll come?’

      ‘You mean you want me, after all that?’ she’d said, surprise in her voice and her eyes, and he’d smiled back.

      Oh, yes, he thought, I want you. Do I want you!

      ‘You’re too good to pass up,’ he said. ‘I like the way you think.’

      ‘But you don’t agree with me.’

      He smiled again. ‘But I can argue with you, and you don’t take offence. That’s very useful—helps me maintain a wider perspective. I think we need a new post. I’ll have an assistant—it’s probably about time. How much do you want?’

      She laughed softly. ‘How much do you think I’m worth?’

      He thought of a figure and doubled it, and she blinked.

      ‘Is that a yes?’

      ‘Absolutely.’ She gulped and nodded, and he just hoped she was worth it.

      She was. By the end of the first week he wondered how he’d coped without her. By the end of the first month, their relationship had become more personal. Their wrangling over business issues had taken on the quality of a challenge—almost a game—and the stakes were rising.

      One day, after a particularly long-running argument proved her right and him wrong, she crowed with delight and danced round the office, and he was suddenly, shockingly aroused.

      ‘OK,’ he said, retreating behind his desk for the sake of modesty. ‘I’ll concede—’

      ‘Concede? You’re mad! I’ve won—’

      ‘I’ll concede,’ he repeated with a slow smile, ‘on condition you have dinner with me. A sort of forfeit.’

      She cocked her head on one side, hands on hips, sassy and luscious. ‘I thought you paid the forfeit if you lost.’

      ‘You do,’ he said, thinking quickly. ‘I lost. I have to pay.’

      Her head tilted the other way. ‘I’ll want a good dinner—not just any old place.’

      He gave a rueful laugh. ‘I never doubted it for a moment,’ he murmured. ‘So—are we on?’

      She pretended to think for a moment, one luminous pink fingertip pressed against her pursed lips, then she sparkled and laughed. ‘We’re on,’ she said, and perched on the edge of the desk unconsciously revealing a great length of thigh. ‘So—where are we going?’

      ‘Don’t know yet. Dress up.’

      ‘Long? Short?’

      ‘Long,’ he said, knowing he wouldn’t get through the evening if he had to look at her legs, but his clever ruse didn’t work, because her gown was slit to the thigh and her sparkly, slinky tights were nearly the death of him.

      ‘Just do me one favour,’ he said as the waiter left them contemplating the menu. ‘Let’s not talk about work. I really, really don’t want to fight.’

      She grinned. ‘OK. We’ll talk about you. How did you get to know Charlie?’ she asked, and so he told her about his childhood at boarding school, and then asked her about her childhood and was rewarded by tales of scrapes and close shaves, all the naughty little things that children did, but recounted with such mischief in her eyes at the memory that he just knew it was all still bubbling up inside her.