Penny Jordan - The Power of Vasilii

S HE really should not be doing this. She really shouldnt.

It was a jobthat was all. A job she needed now, thanks to what had happened, and needed badly.

A job working closely with Vasilii Demidov. Very closely. As his temporary PA, in fact. Mid-stride, Laura Westcotte stopped walking along Londons Sloane Street.

Oh, for heavens sake.

She wasnt fourteen any more, and in the grip of a massive crush on the very grown-up and breathtakingly, spine-shiveringly, far too excitingly male older half-brother of one of the new intake of day pupils at the school where her aunt was the matron and shed been a pupil by virtue of her aunts post, was she?

No, she wasnt.

Nor was she still the same silly girl who had secretly and eagerly searched the internet for every scrap of information she could find about Vasilii Demidov, committing to memory every single piece of information shed managed to find about him. Thank goodness the big social networking sites hadnt existed then, for her to make a total public fool of herself with, Laura thought wryly. Snatching that photograph of him to daydream over in private had been bad enough.

Shed taken it when he had come to the school to collect his half-sister one Friday afternoon. Her hands had been trembling as shed watched him walk from his car to where his half-sister had been waiting for him, the muscles of his male body moving so powerfully beneath their covering of denim jeans and a black tee shirt that the sight of him had made her go hot with longing. It was a wonder that the resultant photograph hadnt been so blurred as to be unrecognisable. She had hidden the print in her most sacred of special places: the secret drawer of the jewellery box that had originally belonged to her mother, and which had always somehow held an echo of her mothers special scent. She still had that jewellery box.

And the photograph?

Now she was being ridiculous. If she did then it was simply because shed never thought to throw it away. No other reason.

She had been such a very young and idealistic fourteen-year-old that worshipping from afar had come as naturally as breathing.

She had woven such ridiculous fantasies about the two of them meetingthe kind of fantasies that only an over-romantic, lonely girl with her hormones burgeoning into reckless life could weave. In her imagination she had even allowed herself to believe that because they had both lost their mothers there was a special bond between them.

All that and she had never even come face to face with him properly, never mind spoken with him. She had, though, dreamed endless daydreams about him, torn between an aching longing for him to notice her and the thrill of fear she had felt at the thought of that happening, and how she would cope with that level of sensual excitement.

So what? That had been then. This was now. She had just mentally said his name several times without her heartbeat going into fifth gear and then overdrive, hadnt she? No, she wasnt fourteen any more, Laura assured herself. But she still couldnt stop herself from glancing into the window of the expensive designer shop she was hurrying past on her way to her interview, as though she needed to reassure herself that the reflection she could see there was that of an assured twenty-four-year-old woman, and not a fourteen-year-old girl. A woman, moreover, whose brunette hair swung sleekly and under control to her shoulders, and whose blue-green eyes in her heart-shaped, Celtic pale-skinned face, like her soft full lips, were discreetly made-upas befitted a careerwoman about to undergo an interview for a job upon which her immediate financial security depended.

So why the need to check? Surely she didnt really fear that somewhere within her that lonely, overly idealistic and romantic girl she had once been still existed, and that by some dangerous alchemy Vasilii Demidov could resurrect that girl and her crush on him just by the mere fact of them breathing the same air?

Instead of thinking about the past she should be focusing on her own present, Laura reminded herself. To mangle that famous Oscar Wilde quote, to be rejected and dismissed for one job for which she was well qualified might be overlooked as merely unfortunate, but to be rejected for a second would be a bad mark against her that would lie on her career history for a long time to come.

She was under no illusions, of course. She knew exactly why she hadnt been given the verbally promised promotion in her previous job. The reasons had, after all, been made more than clear to her by the companys new CEO.

The pain and humiliation of what she had undergone momentarily drove the colour from her face.

Oh, yes, she needed this joba top-of-the-tree job working for Vasilii Demidov, as his PA, on a six-month contract that carried a salary that had made her catch her breath. It was nearly twice as much per month as she had been earning, plus it would open doors for her and enhance her CVnot to mention distance her from the present calamity to her career.

The fact that she had recently been on the internet once again, researching Vasilii Demidov, meant nothing other than thatlike any candidate for a new jobshe wanted to arm herself with as much knowledge about the business for which she hoped to be working as she could. And, in the case of Vasilii Demidovs business, Vasilii himself