Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  The Taylors were actually talking as she entered—OK, not sitting around gossiping like old friends exactly, but there was a conversation taking place and even though Mark looked like he’d been crying, he looked a whole lot less tense than he had.

  ‘Dr Kolovsky asked me to give you this.’ Annie handed Mr Taylor the card. ‘He’s sorry not to pass it on himself, but he had to go.’

  ‘That’s quite all right. I’m aware he stayed behind to help us. I’ve told him how grateful we are to him for his directness and no-nonsense approach, but if you can pass our thanks on to him again when you see him, that would be appreciated.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Look at me!’ George called from the mini-theatre as she walked past, washing his hands at the sink and making her laugh. ‘Iosef’s actually gone home and left me Mark to suture.’

  ‘See!’ Annie said. ‘He does trust you after all.’

  ‘Nice try at boosting my ego.’ George grinned as he put in the boot. ‘But I think a certain ex-supermodel might have had some small part in his haste to get out of here tonight.’

  Strange, Annie reflected later as she lay in the bath, barely making a ripple, her body quite still and her mind curiously quiet. For someone who insisted on straight talking, who seemed utterly unabashed by confrontation, for someone who could so easily discuss other people’s issues, he certainly wasn’t good at talking about himself.

  Quickly Annie heaved herself out of the bath. Her mind was starting to race now, the image of the blue screen of his phone flashing before her eyes, that name branded on her brain, but, pulling out the plug, wrapping herself in a towel, Annie refused to go there.

  Iosef had told her she had nothing to worry about with Candy. He’d told her that things would be difficult for the next few weeks with his father so ill.

  She made herself a cup of soup, climbed into bed with a really good book, set her alarm and determinedly tried not to think about it.

  For about ten seconds!

  Why didn’t they ever go out!’

  Why did it have to be like some sort of covert operation just to have a private conversation at work?

  Draining her cup, Annie turned back to her book and made it to the end of page two.

  Just because Candy had rung him this evening, it didn’t mean he was dashing off to see her. And he’d hardly been dashing off—his shift should have ended two hours before he’d left.

  Turning off the light, she gave up.

  Gave up trying to convince herself she knew the answers and gave up asking herself questions.

  It was just so much easier to believe him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘DO YOU think anyone at work knows?’ Melanie asked, sitting at Annie’s laden dressing-table and dragging ceramic hair straighteners through her hair.

  ‘Knows what?’ Annie said nervously.

  ‘About me and George, of course.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Annie lied, buzzing her latest contraption along her shins and biting on her lip as yet another guaranteed pain-free hair removal system failed to deliver. ‘Though you two don’t exactly try to keep it quiet!’

  ‘Why would we?’ Melanie blinked at Annie in the mirror. ‘I mean, we’re not exactly broadcasting the fact that we’re a couple, but there’s no crime against it. Why on earth would we keep it quiet?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Annie shrugged. ‘I guess if you break up, things could get awkward.’

  ‘Oh, please!’ Melanie rolled her eyes. ‘As if there aren’t half a million exes working side by side at the hospital. I’m sure we could manage to remain civil if we ever broke up!’

  ‘I guess,’ Annie said casually, but Melanie’s words were biting. Why did Iosef insist on keeping thing things so secret? Why couldn’t she be sitting on the bed, gossiping to Melanie about the man who made her heart flip? ‘But some people just like to keep their work and personal lives separate, I suppose.’ Only Melanie wasn’t listening. Bored with doing her hair, now she was trying on lipstick as she rattled on about the fabulous George!

  ‘He’s so impulsive. We were at the shops the other day, just to grab some supplies, and next thing I know we’re in a travel agent’s. He wants to go to Queensland for a long weekend! I’m going to ask Cheryl if I can swap my days off.’

  ‘Sounds great!’

  ‘I know.’ Melanie giggled. ‘You know, he’s fantastic—I mean, I know he’s not spectacular to look at …’

  ‘He’s lovely!’ Annie wailed.

  ‘I know he is,’ Melanie countered, ‘but …’ She gave a shrug. ‘I can be me with him. Imagine being that Candy.’

  ‘Candy?’ Annie tried to sound casual, grateful she could concentrate on the diversion of her legs and didn’t have to meet her friend’s eyes.

  ‘Iosef’s girlfriend,’ Melanie carried on. ‘Imagine trying to hold onto that!’

  ‘I don’t think they’re together any more,’ Annie attempted. ‘I mean, I haven’t seen her around lately.’

  ‘She’s probably at a health farm.’ Melanie giggled again. ‘Or having a few hundred units of line fillers and Botox squeezed into her face so she can stay gorgeous for him!’

  ‘I don’t think Iosef’s like that.’ The temptation to talk about him was too much, the need for insight, even if it was misguided, too much to pass up. ‘He’s nothing like the rest of them. He’s worked in Russia for the last few years and did a lot of voluntary work, too—with troubled kids. I really don’t think he’s that superficial—he just doesn’t seem into all that, if you ask me. I’m sure he wouldn’t give two hoots what a woman looked like!’

  ‘Please!’ Melanie was really laughing now. ‘You know that’s utter bilge. Oh, we can all say the PC things, that looks don’t matter, etc., but I defy any woman to date a guy like Iosef Kolovsky and not be intimidated by all the supermodels that have come and gone. I mean, he’s beautiful to look at and everything, but give me George any day. Who needs that sort of pressure?’ Seeing Annie’s agonised expression, her voice trailed off. ‘Hey, are you OK, Annie? Did I say something wrong?’

  ‘No, it’s just this stupid shaving thing.’ Annie forced a smile but struggled to hold it. ‘It really hurts.’

  ‘You get used to it apparently.’ Melanie shrugged, picking up her bag and dousing herself with Annie’s scent before dashing off to spend the rest of the night with George. ‘Why don’t you just wait a couple of weeks and get them waxed?’

  Because she didn’t have a couple of weeks—at any time Iosef could appear. And often did.

  He kept the most peculiar hours, almost constantly on call, not just for work but with his father’s death approaching, his mother, Nina, was constantly ringing, questioning Ivan’s treatments, his medications, and Annie understood if sometimes it wasn’t till after midnight that he appeared or on occasion had to go soon after getting there.

  Melanie was right, Annie thought darkly as her phone bleeped loudly in her bag. When Iosef was coming round she would dash to the bathroom to brush her teeth then back to the bedroom to squirt on perfume. As much as she was loath to admit it—never, not once, had he made a negative comment on her appearance—the pressure was on. Over and over he told her she looked fantastic, felt fantastic, smelt fantastic, tasted fantastic—but Annie was finding that a pressure in itself!

  What happened if he called round and she wasn’t looking, feeling, smelling and tasting fantastic? Her pink, flannelette, cheeky-monkey pyjamas had been dumped in favour of a flimsy sarong, every pair of granny knickers she owned had been replaced by an overdraft-funded selection of lacy bras and panties, her skin was permanently defuzzed and moisturized, and that was before she squeezed in nails, hair and, oh, yes, thanks to some freaky, obsessive compulsive perfect housewife show she’d watched, her bed was now decked out in starched white linen, which meant constant trips to the laundry.

  ‘Hey!’ He gave a tired smile as he stood in her doorway. ‘Sorry it’s so late. I got caught up.’

  ‘No proble
m. Melanie was just here.’ She moved to let him in. ‘How’s your dad?’

  ‘Don’t ask!’ He didn’t say it nastily, more wearily, sitting on the sofa and running a tired hand over his face. ‘I’ve had one of those nights—you know.’

  Only she didn’t know because he didn’t tell her, and she didn’t push because he looked awful—beautiful but awful all at the same time. His exquisite features, more chiselled somehow, dark smudges under his eyes, as if he’d suddenly lost weight or just got over flu or something. Annie could actually feel the great weariness that emanated from him. He gave a tight smile as his phone started trilling and with a small eye roll he answered it.

  ‘Hi, Levander.’ That was the one in England, Annie registered, which meant he wouldn’t be talking long. But clearly a little thing like the cost of an international call to a mobile phone didn’t matter a hoot to the Kolovskys. Clearly, because forty minutes later, having left Iosef to it long ago, she was lying on top of the bed, staring up at the ceiling, listening without a clue as to what was being said as he spoke to his brother in Russian from the lounge.

  Just what had he come here for? He didn’t want to talk to her. She wasn’t allowed to ask what was going on. Was it really just sex that he wanted from her?

  ‘Sorry I took so long …’He sat on the edge of the bed and took her reluctant hand, playing with her fingers as she still stared at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know whether to tell him to come now for my father, or if it’s too soon …’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Finally she looked at him. ‘If he comes now, maybe he can have a bit of quality time with your dad before …’ She gave a tiny little swallow, forced herself to go on and willed him not to push her out. ‘I mean, your dad can meet his grandson and get to hold him.’ She might just as well have been speaking in Urdu or Japanese because he closed his eyes at her efforts, making it very clear that either she didn’t get it, or he simply didn’t understand, and as he lay on the bed beside her, buried his head in her neck, for the first time she wanted to reject him—didn’t want to sleep with someone who on every other level was pulling away from her.

  But again she’d misread him.

  ‘I wish this was over …’ He groaned out the words, pulled her in tightly as he gave her a shocking glimpse of what was going on in his head. ‘Don’t give up on me yet, Annie.’

  He was asleep before he’d even finished talking, a deep sleep where he held her fiercely all night, an exhausted sleep where there was no energy to even undress, and if it was the least sexual they’d ever been, somehow it was the most intimate.

  But that was scary for Annie, too.

  Scary, because she didn’t want to give up on them either, didn’t want to ask the questions that would inevitably end it, didn’t want to face the truth.

  But on a deeper level she knew she had to.

  ‘What are you going to do with your day off?’

  His body, naked now, was pressed behind her, warm hands holding her, sleepy voices enjoying that delicious time fifteen minutes after the alarm clock had gone off.

  ‘I’ll think of something.’ Annie yawned, hoping she sounded mysterious, choosing not to tell him that she was getting yet another spray tan, a pedicure and her hair blow-dried straight again—because if the tan faded, then so to might they.

  She knew it was shallow—loathed the effort she put in to keep him—but the first night they’d made love she’d been as groomed as she’d ever been. Rolling over, she stared at him, didn’t say a word, just stared at the most beautiful man who had just made spectacular, lazy morning love to her, and told herself it was worth it.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘That you’re beautiful …’ It was the most honest she’d ever been with him.

  ‘Same.’

  As he climbed out of bed she already missed him. That hint of an accent, the sheer joy of being with him just spun her out. Lying in his arms, she felt she belonged, but the second he left she knew she didn’t. He was so much more than some diamond in the rough she’d discovered—it was like finding a Fabergé egg in the cupboard under the sink, each stroke of her finger revealing something too precious to keep—something that she knew didn’t really belong to her. Devotion was dangerous, blurred the rules and botched all boundaries.

  Made excuses when there should be none.

  ‘Here …’ He brought her coffee and the paper as she lay there fitfully thinking, and it was easier to sit up and take a sip of her drink and read the paper than deal with all that was on her mind. ‘I don’t think I can come over tonight, but tomorrow.’

  ‘I want to see that.’ Flicking from her horoscope to the movie guide, Annie tapped at an advertisement. ‘It sounds really good.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’ Iosef asked, giving the completely wrong reaction. ‘I’m not coming tonight and I can remember Melanie saying something about wanting to see it.’

  She didn’t want to go to the movies with Melanie—well, she did, but not this movie. Growing more unsettled by the second, she flicked through the paper as he dressed, gazing unseeingly at the words until her eye was caught not by a headline but by a photo, Iosef and his family walking out of a plush restaurant, her stomach knotting as she saw his hand firmly linked in Candy’s.

  House of Turmoil.

  The headline gave a teasing taste of what was to come. Her mind worked ten to the dozen as Iosef chatted unwittingly on while he dressed. Annie silently read about the growing turmoil reported to be within the House of Kolovsky—the obvious declining health of its founder, the public and business world’s growing fascination with who would be named heir and whether or not the hugely successful empire could be sustained without the maverick personality of Ivan Kolovsky. And it would have been fascinating if her heart wasn’t thumping so loudly in her chest, if a picture of the man in her room hadn’t been plastered above the article, holding hands with his girlfriend …

  ‘There’s a piece about your family in here!’ Somehow she kept her voice light, watched as his hands paused for just a second on the way to pick up his wallet from the bedside table.

  ‘There’s always something about my family in the newspaper.’

  ‘It talks about you!’ She watched as he gave a surly shrug. ‘It says that with Levander in the UK and Aleksi back in Australia, he’s the son most likely to take over, especially given Annika is a designer and you—’

  ‘I have no interest in hearing or reading some journalist who has no idea, spouting what he thinks he knows about my family!’ Iosef interrupted.

  ‘There’s a photo here, too.’ Annie forced herself to look at him, her throat tightening as he turned to go, giving the paper a very cursory glance. ‘You’re holding hands with Candy.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So …’ Annie swallowed. ‘What the hell are you doing holding hands with her when—?’

  ‘It’s an old photo,’ Iosef interrupted. ‘They’ve used a library photo. Next week it will be someone I dated in high school. You are going to have to get used to seeing me in the paper, you are going to have to get used to not believing everything you read.’

  His goodbye kiss was so haphazard it barely grazed her cheek and though it couldn’t be classed as a row, couldn’t even be classed as a disagreement, as the front door closed behind him, as she heard his car purr into life and leave, her heart was hammering as if they’d had the most vile of confrontations.

  They had had the most vile of confrontations, Annie realised, running a shaky hand through her hair, suddenly glad he couldn’t make it tonight, suddenly glad that she could put off till tomorrow what should have been done not just today but weeks ago.

  She didn’t believe everything she read, but she knew what she’d seen—and it wasn’t the dart of his eyes that had her convinced he had been lying, hadn’t been the set of his lips as he’d tried to tell her otherwise … The truth was much simpler than that.

  Irrefutable, actually.

  Staring down at the photo, his image b
lurred on the page, only not enough to hide the truth because unless Iosef made a habit of slashing his cheek two inches beneath his right eye with a razor on a regular basis, he was lying.

  Hurling the paper against the wall, Annie swore she’d accept no excuses, swore that the next time they were alone she’d confront him with what she now knew.

  The first morning they’d made love, he’d climbed out of bed and gone to her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘WHAT do you mean, the bed’s not made?’ The phone was hot in his hands as he loudly demanded that any red tape be swiftly cut. ‘No, I’ve already listened to how busy you are on the ward—now it’s your turn to listen to me! In between resuscitating a four-year-old and trying to get this thirty-nine-year-old terminally ill woman out of pain, I have had to sit on this phone, trying to find a single room for her. And when I finally get one, when I finally tell her family that she will soon be in a private bed and more comfortable, you tell me that you are still waiting for the domestic staff to come and make it.’

  Stuffing syringes into a drawer and tearing up alcohol swabs, Annie and Jackie shared a wide-eyed glance as Iosef continued angrily.

  ‘No—you listen! If you do not ring me back in the next five minutes to tell me that you are ready for her, I will bring her up myself and I’ll make the bed!’ He didn’t even hang up, just tossed the phone in the vague direction of the wall as he muttered something in Russian that certainly didn’t sound too complimentary.

  ‘Thirty-nine!’ He finally said to Jackie. ‘Thirty-bloody-nine—and she has to put off dying comfortably to wait on someone to come and make a bed!’

  ‘You know it’s not that straightforward,’ Jackie said. ‘I’ll ring the nursing co-ordinator and try to speed things along.’

  ‘I’ve done that,’ Iosef retorted. ‘And still nothing has been done.’