‘How, precisely, would a single mother and her entourage living in your home help you, Aleksi?’
‘It would show responsibility. It would prove to the board…’ He hesitated. ‘I thought about what you said—maybe I do need a change of attitude to win the board over. Let them see that I am settling down, that I am serious about the business of Kolovsky.’
‘Settling down?’ she repeated flatly.
‘We could say you were my fiancée. Just for a couple of months—just till I get the board’s vote.’
‘No.’
It was a definite answer, but one Aleksi refused to accept.
‘No.’ She said it again, even shot out an incredulous laugh at his ridiculous thought process.
‘Think about it.’ He drained his mug and walked over to her, shrinking the kitchen and making her feel impossibly claustrophobic as he stood before her, then leant forward a touch to place his mug on the bench behind him. She could smell him, smell the danger of him, and in that moment Kate knew he was deadly serious—had worked with him long enough to know that Aleksi didn’t make idle offers.
To know that Aleksi always got his way.
The Last Kolovsky Playboy
by
Carol Marinelli
www.millsandboon.co.uk
About the Author
CAROL MARINELLI recently filled in a form where she was asked for her job title and was thrilled, after all these years, to be able to put down her answer as ‘writer’. Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation, and after chewing her pen for a moment Carol put down the truth: ‘writing’. The third question asked—‘What are your hobbies?’ Well, not wanting to look obsessed or, worse still, boring, she crossed the fingers on her free hand and answered ‘swimming and tennis’. But, given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, and the closest she’s got to a tennis racket in the last couple of years is watching the Australian Open, I’m sure you can guess the real answer!
Carol also writes for Mills & Boon® Medical™ Romance!
Prologue
SHE couldn’t go back in there.
Or rather she couldn’t go back in there like this.
Kate’s heart was hammering, her face burning in a blush, and her hands were shaking as she frothed the coffee for her boss, Levander Kolovsky, and his younger half brother, Aleksi.
Never, never, had she reacted so violently to someone.
And, at thirty-six weeks pregnant, she certainly hadn’t been expecting to today!
Aleksi Kolovsky was over from London for a working visit to the Australian head office and she had thought she’d known what to expect. After all, he had an identical twin brother, whom Kate had met, so she basically knew what he looked like and she’d heard all about his reputation with women.
It wasn’t his good-looks she had reacted to, though—the House of Kolovsky head office was swarming with beauties. Kate had been petrified when the temp agency had sent her there, and she was quite sure Levander had only kept her on because she was brilliant at her job and because she was temporary. A permanent PA to a Kolovsky needed to be more than brilliant at her job; she needed to be stunning, and Kate was nowhere near that.
No, it was something other than Aleksi’s looks that had caused this reaction.
Something else that had made her heart trip as she’d walked into Levander’s office—something else that had caused her body to flood with heat as the rogue bad brother had looked up from the papers he’d been skimming through and given her a wide-eyed look.
‘Should you really be here?’ His voice was deep and low, with just a hint of accent, and those grey eyes with their black depths skimmed over her pregnant stomach and then back to her face.
He had a point! She was massive with child, rather than possessing a nice little bump like some of the Kolovsky maternity models, whose only indication of pregnancy was a lovely round abdomen and an extra size to their AA bra cup. No, pregnancy for Kate Taylor meant that her whole body was swollen from her breasts to her ankles. She was so obviously, uncomfortably, heavily pregnant that Aleksi was right—she really shouldn’t be here.
‘I’m sorry?’ Kate had surprised herself with her own response. Normally she would have given him a brief, polite smile. After four months of working for the Kolovsky fashion house she was more than used to making polite small talk with the rich and famous, more than used to melting into the background, but for some reason the real Kate had answered. For some reason she hadn’t been able to help but sustain a tiny tease.
‘You look as if you’re due any moment,’ Aleksi persisted.
‘Due for what?’ Kate frowned, and she watched those impassive features flutter in brief panic, watched that haughty, confident expression suddenly falter as for one appalling moment Aleksi Kolovsky thought he had made the worst social gaffe—that she wasn’t in fact pregnant at all!
‘Due for a raise.’ Levander gave a rare laugh as he watched his brother squirm. ‘You’ve certainly earned it. Not many people can make my brother blush.’
‘She is pregnant though?’ Kate had heard Aleksi ask as she’d slipped out to make the coffee.
‘What do you think?’ Levander’s smile lingered after Kate had left, enjoying his brother’s rare moment of discomfort. ‘Sadly, yes.’
‘Sadly?’
‘I’m trying to ignore the fact that she could give birth at any moment. This place was in chaos till Kate started, and now she’s sorted everything out. I actually know where I’m supposed to be for the next few weeks, and she’s great with even the most difficult client.’
‘She’ll be back…’
‘Nope.’ Levander shook his head. ‘She’s just a temp. She only wanted a few weeks’ work. She broke up with her boyfriend and moved to Melbourne. She’s just trying to get ahead, and has no intention of coming back once the baby arrives.’
That was all Levander said before their attention turned back to work, and Kate needn’t have worried about Aleksi noticing her blush or shaking hands. The two men were immersed in some project when she returned with the coffee a few moments later. Aleksi’s head was down, black fringe flopping forward as he skimmed through a document. He didn’t even murmur thanks.
Still, for the next two weeks he came every day, and generally stopped by her desk and said hello—asked how she was getting on as they waited for Levander to return from his morning run. Sometimes he told her a little about London, where he lived, heading up the UK branch of Kolovsky, and sometimes, rarely for Aleksi, he asked a little about herself. Maybe it was because she’d never see him again, maybe because she was so bone-weary and so lonely, but Kate was honest in her replies.
She was honest, all right, Aleksi discovered.
About how petrified she was at the prospect of being a single mum, how her family were miles away, how she dreaded the hospital…
Then, on his last morning before he headed back for the UK, when there was an important meeting with Levander, his father, Ivan, and his mother, Nina, and the prospect of three hours in his parents’ company was causing black rivers of bile to churn in his stomach, he found the one thing he was actually looking forward to as he stepped out of the lift was Kate’s kind smile and the endless stream of coffee she’d bring to the meeting.
Instead, five feet ten inches of whippet-like flesh, a mask of make-up and a head that looked too big for its body smiled from behind the desk.
‘Good morning, Mr Kolovsky, everyone’s waiting for you. Can I bring you in a coffee?’
‘Where’s Kate?’ Aleksi asked as the lollipop head blinked.
‘Oh?’ She frowned. ‘You mean the temp…She had her baby last night.’
‘What did she have?’
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The lollipop shrugged, and Aleksi wondered if her clavicles might snap.
‘I’m not sure. Actually, thanks for reminding me. I’ll ring the hospital and find out. Levander said to arrange a gift.’
It was the longest meeting. Coffee, and then morning coffee, and then lunch at the desk—it wasn’t often the three Kolovsky sons and their parents were together. Aleksi’s identical twin, Iosef, had taken a day off from the hospital where he was a doctor, and they had all sat in silence as Ivan told them about his illness, his sketchy prognosis, and the necessity that no one must know.
‘People get sick,’ Iosef had stated. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘Kolovskys cannot be seen as weak.’
And they spoke about figures and projections, and a new line that was due for release, and the fact that Aleksi would appear at all the European fashion shows while Ivan underwent his treatment. Levander would cover Australasia.
Iosef, by then, had long since left.
Despite the gloomy subject matter, it was a meeting devoid of emotion and the coffee tasted absolutely awful.
‘Shto skazeenar v ehtoy komnarteh asstoyotsar v ehtoy komnarteh.’ His mother’s eyes met his as Aleksi stood to leave for London. No Have a nice trip from her, just a cold warning that what was said in this room was to stay in the room. The trickles of bile turned into one deep dark lake and Aleksi felt sick—felt as if he were a child again, back in his bedroom with his parents standing over him, warning him not to speak of his pain, not to reveal anything, not to weep.
Kolovskys were not weak.
Levander said goodbye to him as if he were going out to the shops rather than heading to the other side of the world.
As Aleksi headed out through the plush foyer he saw a vast basket, filled with flowers, champagne and a thick, blush-pink silk Kolovsky blanket, waiting for the courier to collect it.
Kate must have had a girl.
Rarely did Aleksi question his motives, rarely did he stop for insight, and he didn’t now, as he went through the gold revolving doors to the waiting car that would speed him to the airport. He went around again, stepped back into the foyer, and with a few short words at the bemused receptionist, picked up the basket. When he was seated in the back of the luxury car, he read out the address to his driver.
‘I can take it in for you, sir,’ his driver said as they arrived at the large, sprawling concrete jungle of a hospital.
But somehow he wanted something he could not define.
His father was dying and he was so numb he couldn’t feel.
He didn’t understand why he was standing at a desk asking for directions to Kate’s room, didn’t really stop to pause as he took the lift, was only aware that the place smelt nothing like the private wings he occasionally graced. And, yes, he was just a touch nervous as to her reaction, what her visitors might say, if he’d be intruding, but he wanted to say goodbye to her.
For Kate, the last twenty-four hours had been hell.
Twelve hours of fruitless labour, followed by an emergency Caesarean. Her daughter lay pink and pretty in her crib beside her, but Kate was the loneliest she had ever been in her life.
Her parents would be in to visit tonight, but after her phone conversation with Craig she held out little hope that he would appear.
No, the pain of labour and surgery was nothing compared to the shame and loneliness she felt at visiting time.
She could see the curious, sympathetic stares from the other three mothers and their visitors at her unadorned bed, devoid of balloons, flowers and cards.
She was just alone and embarrassed to be seen alone.
Unwanted.
She’d asked the nurse to pull the curtains, but she’d misunderstood and had pulled them right back—exposing the bed, exposing her shame.
And then there he was.
He read her in an instant.
Read the other mothers too, saw the dart of incredulity in their eyes as he smiled over to her, as they realised that he was there to see her. Could he be…? Surely not! But then again…
‘I am so sorry, darling!’
His voice had a confident ring as he strode across the drab four-bed ward, and he looked completely out of place, still in a suit, his tie pulled loose. He came over to the bed, deposited the glorious Kolovsky basket on her bedside table and looked down to where she lay.
Her face was swollen, her eyes bloodshot from the effort of pushing. Aleksi had thought women lost weight when they gave birth, but Kate seemed to have doubled in size. Her dark wavy hair was black with grease and sweat, but she gave him a half-smile and Aleksi was glad that he had come.
‘Can you ever forgive me for not being there?’ He said it loud enough for the others to hear.
‘Stop it.’ She almost giggled, but it hurt too much to laugh. ‘They think you’re the father.’
‘Well, given that’s never going to be true…’ he lowered his voice and, so as not to hurt her, very gently lowered himself on the bed ‘…it might be fun to pretend.’ He looked at her poor bloodshot eyes. ‘Was it awful?’
‘Hell.’
‘Why all the drips?’
‘I had to have surgery.’ She watched him wince.
‘When do you go home?’
‘In a couple of days.’ Kate shivered at the prospect. She couldn’t even lift her baby; the thought of being completely responsible for her was overwhelming.
‘That’s way too soon!’ Aleksi was appalled. ‘I think my cousin had a Caesarean and she was in for at least a week…’ He thought back to the plush private ward, the baby he had glimpsed from behind the glass wall of the nursery. He glanced into the crib, about to make a cursory polite comment, and then he actually smiled, because struggling to focus back at him was surely the cutest baby in the world. Completely bald, she had big, dark blue eyes and her mother’s full pink lips.
‘She’s gorgeous.’ He wasn’t being polite; he was being honest.
‘Because she’s a Caesarean, apparently,’ Kate said. ‘I think her eyes will be brown by the time I get her home.’ And then she asked him, ‘Aleksi, what on earth are you doing here?’
‘I’m on my way to the airport.’ When she didn’t look convinced he gave a shrug. ‘Five hours in my parents’ company and maybe I needed something different.’ He stared back to the baby. ‘She’s awake.’
‘Do you want to hold her?’
‘God, no!’ Aleksi said, and then he changed his mind, because maybe he did need something different. ‘Won’t I disturb her?’
‘She’s awake,’ Kate pointed out.
‘I thought they were supposed to cry.’ He knew nothing about babies, had no intention of finding out about babies, and yet he was curious to hold her—and so he did.
Big hands went into the clear bassinette and lifted the soft bundle. Kate’s immediate instinct was to remind him to support her head, yet she bit on her lip and silenced the warning, because he already had, and for a stupid blind moment she wished the impossible.
Wished, from the tender way he held her baby, that somehow her baby was his too.
‘My dad’s sick,’ he told her. It was top secret information, and he knew she could sell those words for tens of thousands, yet at that moment he was past caring. He held new life in his hands and he smelt an unfamiliar sweet fragrance. He ran a finger over a cheek he could only liken to a new kitten’s paw—before it was let outside to a world that would roughen and harden it.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No one’s allowed to know,’ Aleksi said, still looking down at the baby. ‘What’s she called?’
‘Georgina,’ Kate said.
‘Georgie.’ Aleksi smiled at his new friend.
‘Georgina!’ Kate corrected.
‘I wonder if I was this cute.’ Aleksi frowned. ‘Imagine two of them.’
Kate rolled her eyes. Two identical Kolovskys in a crib—they’d have had the maternity ward at a standstill!
‘I can’t imagine you
cute,’ she said instead.
‘Oh, I was!’ Aleksi grinned. ‘Iosef was the serious one.’ He put Georgina down and his grin turned to a very nice, slightly pensive smile. ‘You’re going to be wonderful as a mother.’
‘How?’ And whether it was hormones, exhaustion or just plain old fear, tears shot from her eyes as her bravery crumbled. ‘I want it to be wonderful for her, but how will I manage it?’
‘It will be,’ Aleksi said assuredly. ‘My parents had everything and they managed to completely mess us all up. You, on the other hand…’ he stared into her soft brown eyes and didn’t see the bloodshot whites, just tears and concern and a certain stoicism there, laced with kindness too ‘…are going to get it so right.’ And then it was over. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Thank you.’
She braced herself for him to stand, tightened up her non-existent abdominal muscles as he went to stand, anticipating pain but getting something else. His arms came around her, that gorgeous face moved in and she smelt him—smelt Kolovsky cologne and something else, something male and unique that made her blush just as it had on that first day, just as she knew it always would.
‘Let’s leave your audience with no room for doubt.’
And then he kissed her.
Terribly, terribly tenderly—she was, after all, just twelve hours post-op—but there was this taste and this passion and this heaven that she found on his lips…this gorgeous, delicious escape that was delivered with his mouth and then the cool danger of his tongue. And to the nay-sayers on the ward he proved this wasn’t a duty call.
‘I have to get this flight.’
He should have been on the stage, Kate thought, because there was regret in his eyes and voice as he walked out of the ward. She lay back on the pillow, eyes closed, but basking in the glow of the curious looks from the other mothers and their oh, so plain partners.
The Last Kolovsky Playboy Page 1