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It seemed so, and it was a blow since I’d wasted some real daydream energy on him.
I wasn’t there for romance, so I headed out to the bus stop, nursing my bruised ego.
Chapter 6 - Lev
It was a good thing I spent years putting in grueling workouts in the gym and learned discipline, because it was taking all my willpower to keep ignoring Jenna in the office. The first time I saw her, her eyes lit up when she recognized me, and it was like a punch to the gut. All my senses yearned toward her, but the kid Vera had put in charge of showing her the ropes was thankfully standing in front of her and reminded me I needed to stay cool.
For now.
But things were going to have to be fast-tracked because I didn’t know how much longer I could keep pretending I didn’t notice her when she was all I could see. I’d even been shirking my Bratva duties that were supposed to be front and center, to spend more time in the office and be close to her.
From my secretive observations and Vera’s reports, Jenna was a hard worker, determined to do her best, and always kept a cheerful attitude. It was clear how passionate she was, sitting in on meetings when she didn’t have to, if her schedule allowed it. She only wanted to learn and soak up the experience. She’d exceeded my expectations in the position I created for her.
In fact, she was driving me crazy. She shined as bright as a ray of sun even in the most humdrum of circumstances. I couldn’t get her off my mind, and was going back and forth on whether I was going to speed up my plan. I had the perfect excuse, but was it better to wait a bit longer? My father called from Moscow, distracting me from such an important decision.
Since he trusted Aleks and me completely to run the operations over here in America, I braced myself for a long, gossipy phone call. It was about the time in Russia when he’d besettling down with his shot of vodka, that my mother had been trying to get him to give up at his doctor’s orders.
“Hello, Papa,” I said in Russian. “Are you calling to gloat about not losing at Durak?”
He grumbled about having a poor showing at the last gathering of his friends to play their favorite card game, and wasn’t able to make up for it that week since one of his friends canceled at the last minute.
“His daughter went into labor early, and they spent all day and night at the hospital. But now he’s got his seventh grandchild. A very robust baby boy.”
I wished I had some vodka in my office if it was going to be this kind of conversation. “That’s great for them,” I said pointedly. “You’ll have grandchild number two soon enough.”
He made a phlegmy sound, a cross between a grumble and a snort. “At my age and with as many children as I have, I should be in the double digits with them by now. Some of my friends have great-grandchildren. It’s embarrassing, Lev.”
“I’d have thought at your age you’d be less influenced by peer pressure,” I told him.
“Don’t be disrespectful,” he snapped, and I duly apologized. “I don’t understand why you’re dragging your feet,” he continued over me. He didn’t want apologies; he wanted action. “And that goes for your other brothers, too. No more messing around.”
I didn’t bother to ask why he wasn’t on our sister Mila’s ass, because he would have really let me have it, and because she was so much younger than us. Like Aleks having a baby, while his first daughter was already grown, my parents had Mila as their happy little surprise.
“Do you hear me, Lev?” he demanded when I stayed silent too long. “Stop dragging your feet.”
“I hear you,” I said, ending the call without actually agreeing to anything.
Before Aleks got remarried to Katie and had a baby on the way, he had taken the brunt of these kinds of calls. Now, it seemed like they were going to fall onto my shoulders. Fantastic.
Papa’s lecture put me in such a foul mood I snapped at the next person who tapped on my door. More like growled, since I didn’t want to deal with anything and was considering calling it a day. The tap happened again, a bit stronger this time. Before I could shout, it cracked open, and none other than Jenna stuck her head around it.
My bad mood dissipated instantly. Jenna was better than a triple espresso with the fresh energy she gave me. Her tremulous smile widened a bit when I called her further into my office. I was finally going to get to see her up close instead of spending the last week stalking her around corners. To what did I owe such a treat?
“Yes?” I said sternly, somehow managing to keep up the facade.
“Sorry,” she said, and I held up my hand to stop her.
“Don’t apologize, just tell me what you need.”
She swallowed hard, and it took everything in me not to jump up and offer her a seat. Instead, I waved at the chair across from my desk, and she perched on the edge of it.
“Since it’s the end of my first week, I was supposed to give a report, but Vera’s not in her office today.”
“Let’s hear it, then,” I told her.
She pulled a sheet of paper out of the folder she carried and started listing off the things she’d done that week, what she’d learned, what she thought she’d excelled at, and what she could improve on. It was so damn adorable I didn’t know how I stayed upright in my chair. Or how I didn’t reach across it and pull her close to me, finally claiming those lush pink lips I’d been staring at during her entire presentation.
“And most of all, I want to thank you for this opportunity,” she finished, her cheeks growing redder the longer I looked at her.
