I'm Virtually Yours. Jennifer Bohnet
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Need a virtual PA? Then Polly Jones is your girl!
Polly Jones is taken aback when a new client asks her to investigate the Robertson family business in Devon, after all, a ‘virtual assistant’ doesn’t usually leave their home office! But she needs the work — and less proximity to an endless supply of tea and biscuits can only be a good thing right? So she sets off, with energetic puppy Rosie close by her side.
Polly’s new job isn’t quite in her comfort zone… Arriving in the small fishing village where everyone knows everyone’s business, any upsides (all those yummy scones and clotted cream) of course have their downside - she’s completely forgotten to pack her sea legs, and the temptingly handsome Will Robertson is making her job difficult at every turn.
It’s so much easier to keep things strictly professional in the virtual world — but with no e-mail to hide behind Polly must admit that Will’s smile is incredibly, deliciously distracting…
I’m Virtually Yours
Jennifer Bohnet
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2013
Copyright © Jennifer Bohnet 2013
Jennifer Bohnet asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © June 2013 ISBN: 9781472074263
Version date: 2018-06-08
JENNIFER BOHNET
is a West Country girl now living in the wilds of rural Brittany, France. She’s still not sure how she ended up there! The saying ‘Life is what happens while you’re deciding what to do’ is certainly true in her case. She’s always written alongside having various jobs: playgroup leader, bookseller, landlady, restaurateur, farmer’s wife, secretary/p,a. — the list is endless, but does provide a rich vein of inspiration for her stories.
For three years she wrote a newspaper column in The South Hams Group of Newspapers (Devon) where she took a wry look at family life. Since living in France it is her fiction that has taken off with hundreds of short stories and several serials published internationally.
Allergic to housework and gardening, she rarely does either but she does like cooking and entertaining and wandering around vide greniers (the French equivalent of flea markets) looking for a bargain or two. Her children currently live in fear of her turning into an ageing hippy and moving to Totnes.
To find out more about Jennifer visit her website:
or chat to her on Twitter: @jenniewriter
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
To my husband Richard for encouraging me to keep going in the face of rejections.
Daniel Franklyn’s e-mail arrived late Thursday afternoon just as Polly was about to stop work for the day.
“Hi. I need a VA for 7—12 days in the West Country starting Monday. Interested? DF.”
Irritated, Polly looked at the computer screen. Of course she was interested in taking on a new client and more work but didn’t ‘DF’, whoever he was, understand the whole point of a Virtual Assistant was that they didn’t have to be physically present to do the work? She could stay right here in Carmarthen and do the work in her office.
Briskly Polly typed her reply:
“Dear DF, am interested in being your VA but question the necessity of going to the West Country — particularly at such short notice. Have attached my business brochure detailing the services I offer and my charges. Regards, Polly Jones.”
Polly sighed, looking across at the growing pile of bills on her desk. Electricity, rent and car tax were currently top of the pile. She knew without looking, too, that her not very generous redundancy money in the bank was on its last double figure. She could definitely have used the extra money ‘DF’ would have paid this month.
“You wait, Poll,” Marty, her best friend since forever, had said only last night. “Virtual Assistants are just taking off. I reckon you’ve chosen the best time to go it alone. A couple of months from now and you’ll be so busy you’ll be looking to employ someone to help you with all the work.”
Polly hadn’t bothered pointing out that she hadn’t had much choice but to go it alone. When the national travel firm she’d managed a local branch for had made her redundant in a cost cutting cull, she hadn’t fancied working at the local chicken processing factory, the only opportunity the JobCentre appeared to be able to offer her. Instead, she’d taken a deep breath and decided to use the redundancy money to become her own boss.