She walked up the narrow corridor to an unassuming door that required a swipe card to open. As luck would have it, Emily had such a card, slipped from her father’s wallet...
The door opened into a large, open-plan office. It appeared empty and for that she expelled another breath of relief.
Holding her chin aloft and forcing her back straight, she walked through the central hub of the floor, gently swaying her empty black briefcase.
The place really was deserted. Excellent; she’d beaten the executive secretaries in.
It surprised her to find Mr Virshilas’s office unlocked. Given how security-conscious the man was, she’d assumed it would be rigged with explosives in case an intruder made it through the security measures.
Maybe he wasn’t as paranoid as she’d been told.
All the same, she paused after she’d opened it an inch, put her ear to the door and tapped on it. If the fates were conspiring against her and one of the cleaners was in there emptying his rubbish bin, she would apologise and say she was lost. She hadn’t come this far to wimp out on a ‘maybe’.
Her knock elicited no response.
She pushed the door open another inch, then another. Heart racing, she entered the office, softly closing the door behind her.
She was in.
Time being of the essence, she scanned her surroundings quickly whilst reaching into the back pocket of her skirt and pulling out a state-of-the-art memory stick.
According to her source, Pascha Virshilas kept a laptop in all his worldwide offices. If her source continued to be correct, the laptop sitting on his desk was a centralised hub containing every file created by every department of every holding owned by Virshilas LG. This laptop contained the means of clearing her father’s name.
Looking around, Emily could see that Pascha kept the neatest office in history. Not a single item looked to be out of place, not a single speck of dust or tiny crumb to be found. Even the intricate pencil drawings on the wall seemed to have been placed with military precision. All that lay on the highly polished ebony desk beneath the large window was the laptop and what looked to be a document file.
Flipping the laptop open, she pressed the button to switch it on. To her surprise, it fired up immediately.
Her eyebrows drew together. Had he forgotten to turn it off after his last use? From everything she knew about the man, this seemed out of character.
All the same, she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. For once it seemed the stars were aligning in her favour. The laptop being turned on had saved her an estimated two minutes’ worth of hacking time.
Sticking the memory stick in the side portal, she pressed a few keys and the process began. Now all she had to do was wait.
If her hacking-whizz of a friend’s estimates were correct, all the data contained within the laptop should be copied within six minutes.
The blue document file beside the laptop was a good inch thick. Emily opened the cover. The top sheet of paper had Private & Confidential stamped on it in angry red.
Pulling the thick sheathes of paper out of the file, she turned the top sheet over and began to read...
‘Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my office?’
Emily froze. Literally. Her mind went blank, her brain filling with a cold mist. The sheets of paper held between her fingers fell back into place while her immobile hands hovered inches above the file.
Her gaze still resting on the papers before her, she forced her chin up to meet the stony glare of Pascha Virshilas.
Cold grey eyes narrowed. ‘You,’ he hissed, his chiselled features contorting.
She didn’t know what was the greatest shock—that he’d caught her in the act, or that he recognised her. The one time she’d met him she’d looked completely different, so different she would have been hard pressed to recognise herself in the mirror.
With great effort, she forced her features to remain neutral. Now was not the moment to reveal her utter loathing of the man; she had to stay calm.
She’d met him six weeks ago at an event, optimistically billed as a party, thrown to celebrate the acquisition of Bamber Cosmetics by Virshilas LG and to allow the employees to meet their new boss. Emily had only attended as a favour to her father who, since her mother’s recent death, became crippled with nerves at social events. Being a senior executive, his presence had been a requirement.
When she’d been forced to shake Pascha’s hand, his only response had been a slight flicker of disdain before he’d looked through her and moved on to the next person. If he’d bothered to wait and talk to her, she could have apologised for her inappropriate attire and explained that she’d rushed over from work without having time to change. She’d been busy at a fashion show and it was mandatory for the designers of the house she worked for to dress the part.