His criticism had stung, and under normal circumstances—if she hadn’t needed this job so badly—it would have had her questioning whether he was the kind of person she wanted to work with. She might need this job, but she certainly wasn’t going to allow his comment to go undefended.
Straightening her shoulders, she told him spiritedly, ‘I may have chosen Russian for personal reasons, but my decision to learn Mandarin—which was not one of my parents’ languages—demonstrates that I was looking towards the future of business. My parents passed down to me an ability to learn languages, but I made the decision to study Mandarin based on my awareness of the growing importance of China in the world market.’
She was daring to challenge him? That wasn’t something Vasilii was used to at all. Not from anyone and especially not from women, who were normally all too eager to court and flatter him.
‘You attended the same school as my half-sister. As far as I am aware Mandarin was not on the syllabus there.’
He knew she had been at school with Alena? A mental image of herself trying to find out from her aunt when Vasilii was likely to come to the school to collect his sister and then positioning herself at the window that would give her the best view of his ar rival flooded her body’s defence system with guilty self-consciousness. He couldn’t possibly know about that—just as he couldn’t know how often she had mentally rehearsed walking oh, so casually past his stationary car as he waited for Alena, only to have always lacked the courage actually to do so. She was being ridiculous, Laura warned herself. Of course he would know that she had been at school with Alena, just as he would know that her aunt had been the matron there, because—naturally, as her prospective employer—he would have checked up on her.
‘No. Mandarin wasn’t on the syllabus,’ she agreed.
One dark eyebrow lifted in a manner that Laura felt was coldly censorious.
‘Private lessons must have been an added expense for your aunt.’
He really did not like her. Laura could tell.
‘I paid for them myself,’ she informed him, her voice every bit as cold as his had been. ‘Some of the private pupils stabled their horses locally, and I worked at the stables mucking out. They got an extra hour in bed every morning and I earned the money to pay for my Mandarin lessons. Oh, and before you ask me, I saved up and bought an old bicycle so that I could cycle to the stables.’
Against his will Vasilii had a mental image of a much younger version of Laura Westcotte—ponytailed, fresh-faced and determined—setting off on her bicycle every morning, no matter what the weather, in order to do the chores that girls from better off families were too indulged by their parents to want to do, before returning to the school to begin a day’s education. His own father had always insisted that he work for his spending money as a boy, and even Alena, protected though she had been, had had her own special chores to do.
Vasilii pulled himself up. He wasn’t used to thinking about other people with his emotions, never mind mentally linking their situation to his own. Quite how and why it had happened he had no idea, but he did know that it must and would not happen again.
‘I would like you to read these notes aloud to me, translating them into Mandarin as you do so,’ he told Laura, firmly dismissing the unwanted image of her as a teenager from inside his head.
Very quickly Laura scanned the first paragraph of the technical data she had been handed. As an employee of a business specialising in handling translations of and negotiations for highly complex business operations she had become very much at home with the kind of thing Vasilii had asked her to do, so there was no reason whatsoever for her hand and then her whole body to tremble slightly, or for the colour to come and go in her face—apart, that was, from the fact that Vasilii’s hand had brushed her own as he handed her the piece of paper. That was ridiculous. Vasilii’s touch couldn’t possibly have made her feel like that.
She took a deep breath and started to translate the information on the printed page.
She was good, Vasilii was forced to accept as he followed Laura’s translation. His own PA would have taken longer, despite his experience.
‘And now if you would translate it into Russian?’
Laura nodded her head.
Again she was word-perfect. Not that Vasilii would have expected or accepted anything else.
‘So, we have established that your translation skills are … adequate, but if you know anything about China you will know that there is far more to successful business negotiations with the Chinese than merely having a good grasp of Mandarin.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Laura agreed. ‘Even if they speak another language the heads of Chinese industries and high-ranking Chinese officials often use a retinue of interpreters and PAs because that adds to their status. It is part and parcel of the Chinese way of doing business. Since I know that you speak both Russian and Mandarin yourself, I assumed that it was in part because of the issue of respect that you have decided to negotiate through someone else yourself.’
‘That is correct,’ Vasilii replied, and then looked at her, his eyes slightly hooded and his grey gaze unreadable.
Instinctively Laura knew that his silent assessment of her was both critical and meant to unnerve her.
It would have been so much better, so much easier for her, if she didn’t have that silly teenage crush lodged dangerously in her emotions. Its mere presence was enough to weaken her self-confidence.
When the silence instigated by Vasilii stretched to a length that was beginning to feel uncomfortable he delivered the blow that came from a direction she had not been prepared for. ‘You resigned from your previous employment, I understand—without having secured another post first. Why? It is rather a risk in today’s financial climate.’
CHAPTER TWO
LAURA felt her heart still in fearful recognition.
He couldn’t know. It just wasn’t possible. Summoning all her courage, she told him, ‘I decided to take a sabbatical,’ keeping her tone light and her head held high.
‘Really?’
The cynical look he was giving her warned Laura that he didn’t believe her. But worse was to come when he continued.
‘I understand that you are buying your current property with a mortgage, and that in addition to that financial commitment you also help to pay the fees for your aunt’s sheltered accommodation?’
‘Yes,’ Laura was obliged to confirm. ‘My aunt brought me up after the death of my parents. She’s not been well recently, and only receives a small pension, so naturally I want to do what I can to help her.’
‘You seem very eager to draw a picture of yourself as someone who takes her duties and responsibilities seriously, yet your attitude towards job security, which I would have thought in the circumstances would be extremely important to you, suggests the opposite. In fact I’d go so far as to say that I find it hard to believe that someone with your financial commitments would even think of taking time out for a sabbatical. And I have to say that I find it even harder to believe when I know that you made that decision within a month of being offered a promotion for which you had been personally selected by your mentor—a mentor with whom you have worked for many years.’
Laura’s heart had started to beat with heavy, hammer-like blows of acute dread.
There was nothing he wanted to do more than tell Laura that he had another far more suitable, far more acceptable applicant to fill the vacancy as his PA, Vasilii acknowledged as he watched her, but he couldn’t. Her translations had been faultless and skilled, and