Her bags were packed, a note left for Sasha explaining that someone else was going to take over her work, her files were all in order… Well, there was nothing left for her to do other than get into her hire car and drive it to the airport.
Still, Veronica couldn’t quite bring herself to go. Irresolutely, she made her way around the house, going slowly upstairs, pausing outside Sasha’s bedroom. She had the house to herself. Mrs. Elliott had left for the day. So, she started walking around just for another look and found herself in front of his room.
Impulsively, she opened the door and went inside. The room was just as she remembered it from that single night she had spent here. Veronica went over to the bed, smoothing a trembling hand over the pillow which had been Sasha’s.
&
She was still in bewilderment, but he was really there, holding her, kissing her, pledging his love to her… After all those years, after all the pain, after all the hurt, finally Veronica was in Sasha’s arms, basking in his love.“I’m here with you and still can’t believe it...” she added, brushing white rose petals off his arms. “It’s... it’s still so... unbelievable. It’s less than an hour since I thought that I’d be driving away from Elsinore… and you, forever. What made you come back? What…?”“You did, sweetheart,” he told her promptly, and then relented when he saw her face. “Mollie talked to me... made me think... see...”“Mollie? But she never said a word when she called me…” Veronic
“What the hell are you doing, Veronica? What kind of sick game are you playing right now? Stop it!” Sasha looked at her angrily as he removed her hands, releasing her fingers from his shirt where she had unconsciously curled them in her attempt to get him to listen to what she wanted to say, to understand that she was no longer a child, that she was now completely and totally a woman... A woman who was totally and completely in love with him and wanted to be his.“Sasha, trust me, I know what I’m doing… And this isn’t a sick game,” Veronica protested, her eyes starting to fill with anguished tears as he thrust her away. “Sasha, I want…”“Oh, I know exactly what you want, Veronica! Believe me, I know it quite well!” Sasha interrupted her savagely. “You want me to have sex with you. But right now, what I feel more like doing&hellip
“You’re kidding, J.J. You didn’t...” Veronica frowned as she studied the synopsis pinned to the front of the file her employer had just handed her. John-James Creed IV (the fourth), J.J for his friends, was the kind of eccentric billionaire who, by rights, only ought to have existed in fairytales… as a particularly genial and indulgent godfather, Veronica thought. She had been introduced to him at a party to which she had been invited by some acquaintances of Henry, her stepbrother. She had only gone to the party because she had been feeling particularly lost and insignificant, having only recently moved to New York. They had got chatting and John-James had begun to tell her about the trials and traumas he had experienced in running the huge wealthy Trust set up by his
Even so, she gave him an ironic look.“I’m just doing what I know the old man would have wanted me to do...” J.J. informed her loftily.“Really? By buying a decaying neoclassical pile in the middle of Derbyshire?” Veronica asked him dryly and started shaking her head. “You’ll love it, Ronnie... I promise you!” he told her winningly and left the room leaving her alone with her thoughts. Veronica was still tempted to run after J.J. and tell him that she was far too busy and that he would have to find someone else to take charge of this particular project, but her pride, the same pride that had kept her going, kept her head held high and her spirit strong through Sasha’s rejection of her and everything that had followed, refused to allow her to do so.&n
Five miles or so before her ultimate destination, Veronica pulled the car she had hired at the airport over to the side of the road and switched off the engine. She did it not because she was unsure of where she was going, not even because she wanted to absorb the beauty of the Derbyshire countryside around her, magnificent though it was as it basked warmly in the mid-afternoon sunshine, devoid of any sign of human occupation apart from her own. No… Unfortunately, the reason Veronica had stopped was that she had been significantly aware for the last few miles, not just of the slight dampness of her hands on the steering wheel but, even more betrayingly, of the increasing turmoil of her thoughts and the nervous butterflies churning her stomach. When she finally met... confronted... Sasha, she wanted t
To her chagrin, Veronica recognized that it wasn’t only Sasha who had moved so much closer and that she was halfway towards the front door now instead of on the perimeter of the portico... When had she moved...? And how? Without knowing what she was doing...? Sasha had always had that kind of effect on her... Had... All that was in the past now, she reminded herself fiercely. And just to ensure that Sasha knew it too, Veronica held out her hand to him and, raising her voice slightly, smiled with cool authority as she greeted him.“Sasha, good! I’m glad you’re here. We can get straight down to work. I’ve studied the plans of the house, but I always find that it makes an enormous difference to actually walk over a property, so...” 
“Mmm... You won’t have seen it as you drove in. It’s on the other side of the estate. I’m living there at the moment and I’ve arranged with Mrs. Elliott, who used to be my cousin’s housekeeper when he lived there, for a room to be prepared for you. J.J. mentioned that you’d probably be working here for a number of months and he and I agreed that in view of Elsinore’s distance from the nearest town, and the fact that he has warned me that you like to keep a very keen eye on the budgets, it makes sense for you to stay at the Rectory rather than waste time and money hunting around for alternative accommodation.” “Wow! Did you now? Still deciding on my behalf…” she whispered this last part more for herself than him. “Yes. Especially since it seems that there could be occasions when you might have to travel abroad to check on work you’ve set in progress at other Trust properties.” Well, what he said made sense
They had covered the ground floor of the house, walked the length of the elegant gallery, with its windows overlooking the parkland and the distant vista of the Derbyshire hills, and were just inspecting the enormous ballroom which opened off it, when Veronica acknowledged inwardly that Sasha might have been right to advise her to wait until after she had rested to inspect the house. Elsinore Hall’s rooms might not possess quite the vastness of the palazzo’s marble-floored rooms, nor the fading grandeur of the Prague palace, but Veronica had already lost count of the number of salons and ante-chambers they had walked through on the lower floor. The gallery felt as though it stretched for miles, and as she studied the dusty wooden floor of the ballroom her heart sank at the thought of inspecting