Kate had struggled through part-time jobs, watching the unfolding saga of the Kolovskys in all the magazines, and when Ivan had died and Levander had renounced the Kolovsky throne the news that Aleksi was moving back to Australia had had Kate on tenterhooks—until finally, finally, long after his return, he had called and offered her a job she couldn’t refuse.
And such was the nature of the job she had been unable to refuse, despite thorough prior negotiation that she could only work school hours, sometimes Georgie could be found in the early hours of a Sunday morning sitting by Kate’s desk at work, with a takeaway breakfast in her lap, as Kate gritted her teeth and worked on the latest crisis that had erupted.
‘I like Aleksi!’
‘Well, you would,’ Kate said drily. ‘He’s always nice to you.’ Even when he was at his meanest, even when Kate had somehow managed to erase six months of figures and had tearfully been trying to retrieve them as he hovered like a black cloud over her shoulder one very early morning, still he’d managed a smile and an eye-roll for Georgie.
‘Mummy will find them, Georgie,’ he had assured the little girl.
‘Mummy damn well can’t,’ Kate had growled.
‘Yes, Kate,’ Aleksi had said, ‘you can. And,’ he had added, winking to his latest fan, ‘don’t swear in front of your daughter.’
‘Does Aleksi have a girlfriend?’ Georgie probed, and Kate hesitated.
Aleksi cast new meaning on the term ‘playing the field’, and Georgie was way too young for that. Still, she didn’t want her daughter getting too many ideas on her mother’s behalf.
‘Aleksi’s very popular with the ladies,’ Kate settled for, and then tried to hurry things along. ‘Come on, eat up—you’ve got school.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
‘You’ll enjoy it when you’re there,’ Kate said assuredly. But, seeing Georgie’s eyes fill up with tears, she had trouble wearing that brave smile.
‘They don’t like me, Mum.’
‘Do you want me to have another word with Miss Nugent?’
Kate had had many words with the teacher. Georgie was gifted—incredibly clever. She could read, she could write, but she was also funny and naughty and almost five years old. And Miss Nugent had more pressing problems than a child who could read and write.
‘Then they’ll be more mean to me.’ Her voice wobbled and tore straight through Kate’s heart. ‘Why don’t they like me?’
There was no simple answer. Georgie had had a miserable year at kindergarten and now school was proving no better. Though her daughter ached to join in with the other children at playtime, the other little girls didn’t include her, because in the classroom she didn’t fit in. She could read and write already; she could tell the time. Bored, she annoyed the other students, and the teachers too with her incessant questions, and there had been a few incidents recently where Georgie—Kate’s sweet, happy little Georgie—had been labeled as ‘difficult’.
Shamefully, it was almost a relief to Kate that Georgie didn’t want her to speak to Miss Nugent!
Bruce the dog got most of Georgie’s egg and toast, and as they drove to school it took all Kate’s effort to keep wearing that smile as she walked a reluctant Georgie across the playground and into her classroom.
‘Come on now, Georgie!’ Miss Nugent said firmly as Georgie lingered by the pegs—though at least today she didn’t cry. ‘Say goodbye—Mum has to go to work.’
‘Bye, Mum,’ Georgie duly said, and it almost broke Kate’s heart.
All the little girls were in groups, chatting and laughing, whereas Georgie sat alone, looking through her reader, her pencil case in front of her. How Kate wished Georgie could just join in and play. How Kate wished her daughter could, for once, fit in.
As she drove to work, not for the first time she reconsidered Aleksi’s offer—if she worked full-time for him, he had told her, then he would pay for Georgie’s education. Kate had already found the most wonderful school—a school with a gifted children’s programme—one that understood the problems along with the rewards of having a child that was exceptionally bright. But, more importantly, Kate had known the moment she had stepped into the class during the tour that Georgie would instantly fit in.
There, Georgie would be just a regular child.
Hitting a solid wall of traffic on the freeway, she shook her head and turned on the radio. Georgie needed a mum more than Aleksi needed a full-time, permanently on call PA, and Aleksi’s moods changed like the wind—Kate couldn’t let Georgie glimpse a future that might so easily be taken away if Aleksi Kolovsky suddenly changed his mind about paying for her education.
Kate wouldn’t be so beholden to him.
‘It’s good to see you, sir.’
Normally Aleksi would have at least nodded a greeting to the doorman, but not this morning. As his driver had opened the car door he had remembered the steps that led up to the golden revolving doors of the impressive city building that was the hub of the House of Kolovsky.
He had not yet mastered steps—but he would this morning.
It had taken an hour to knot his tie—that once effortless, simple task had been an exercise in frustration this Monday morning—but no one would have guessed from looking at him. Immaculate, he walked from the car to the entrance, negotiating the steps as if it had not been four months of hell since he’d last done it. But the ease of his movements belied the supreme effort and concentration Aleksi was inwardly exerting.
‘Aleksi?’ Kate heard the whisper race through the building. ‘What do you mean he’s here?’
She could sense the panic, the urgency, but she pretended not to notice. Instead she sat at her desk, coolly typing away, glad—so glad—for the extra layer of foundation she had put on this morning, and wondering if it would stand up to Nina’s scrutiny.
Aleksi’s area was always a flurry of activity. He had his own vast office, but around that was an open-plan area which he often frequented—Kate worked there, as did Lavinia, the assistant PA. Kate could feel several sets of eyes on her as Aleksi’s mother approached.
‘Did you know about this?’ Nina demanded as she stopped beside Kate’s desk.
‘Know what?’ Kate frowned.
‘Aleksi is on his way up!’ Nina hissed, her eyes narrowing. ‘If I find out you had anything to do with this, you can kiss your perky little job goodbye,’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Kate swallowed and tried to feign genuine shock at the news. ‘Aleksi isn’t supposed to back for months yet.’
Just his presence in the building set off a panic.
There was a stampede for the restrooms as everyone dashed to fix their face. Accountants, who had been resting on their laurels, seemingly safe in the knowledge that the astute Aleksi’s return was ages away, suddenly flooded Kate’s e-mail inbox and phone voicemail with demands for reports, figures, meetings.
Though outwardly unruffled, inside Kate was a bundle of nerves, her heart hammering beneath her new jacket and blouse, her lips dry beneath the glossy new lipstick, her hands shaking slightly as she tapped out a response to one of the senior buyers. Even as her head told her to stay calm, her body struggled with the knowledge that, after the longest time, in just a few seconds, finally she would see him again.
She sensed him, smelt him, tasted him almost, before she faced him.
His formidable, unmistakable presence filled the entire room and her eyes jerked up as he approached—and she remembered.
Remembered the shock value of his presence—how the energy shifted whenever he was close.
It wasn’t precisely that she had forgotten. She’d merely refused to let herself remember.
‘What are you doing here, Aleksi?’ Kate didn’t have to feign the surprise in her voice; the sight of him ensured that it came naturally. A couple of months ago there had been a single photo of him captured by a paparazzo that had been sold for nearly half a million dollars. It had showed a chiselled and pale Aleksi recuperat
ing in the West Indies, his wasted leg supported on pillows, and that was the Aleksi Kate had been expecting—a paler version of his old self.
Instead he stood, toned, taut and tanned and radiating health, his rare beauty amplified.
‘It’s good to have you back, Aleksi,’ Lavinia purred. ‘You’ve been missed.’
He just nodded and headed to his office, calling over his shoulder for a coffee. Then, as Lavinia jumped up, he specified his order. ‘Kate.’
‘Poor you!’ Lavinia’s cooing baby voice faded as Kate made his brew. ‘If Nina finds out you had anything to do with him coming back she’ll make your life hell.’
‘I didn’t,’ Kate said. ‘Anyway, Aleksi’s head of Kolovsky, not Nina.’
‘This week.’ Lavinia smirked. ‘Don’t you realise times are changing? Aleksi’s days are numbered.’
Which was the reason Kate had summoned him back.
When the youngest male Kolovsky, the head of the empire, had spectacularly crashed his car and come close to losing his life, the population of Australia had held its breath as Aleksi had lain unconscious—although rumors of brain damage and amputation had been quickly squashed. Still, the spin doctors had had other things to deal with at the same time. The news that Levander Kolovsky had been raised in an orphanage in Russia while his father had lived in luxury with his wife had slipped out.
The House of Kolovsky had faced its most telling time, and yet somehow it had risen above it—Nina, a tragic figure leaving the hospital after seeing Aleksi, had somehow procured sympathy. Her almost obscene fortune and the rash of scandals had been countered by her recent philanthropic work in Russia. Her daughter’s wedding, followed by the news that Levander was about to adopt a Russian orphan, and now her involvement with the European magnate Zakahr Belenki, who ran outreach programmes on the streets of Russia, all boded well for Nina. Suddenly the tide of bad opinion had turned, and Kolovsky could do no wrong.
‘Tell the press that the House of Kolovsky is riding high.’ Nina had said at a recent decisive board meeting. ‘At the moment we can do no wrong.’
‘And Aleksi?’ the press officer had asked. ‘We should give an indication as to his health—assure the shareholders his return is imminent.’
But instead of moving to communicate Aleksi’s chances of full recuperation, Nina had chosen the ‘no comment’ route. Sitting in on the meeting, Kate had been stunned to hear his own mother’s words.
‘Without Aleksi at the helm,’ Nina had clarified, ‘Kolovsky can do no wrong.’
Two hours later, Kate had made the call to her boss.
‘It’s Nina you want to keep sweet! Not Aleksi!’ Lavinia broke into Kate’s thoughts, and suddenly she’d had enough.
‘Actually, it’s you I feel sorry for, Lavinia,’ Kate shot back. ‘We all know what you have to do to keep in with the boss—I can’t imagine the taste of Nina after Aleksi!’
‘You’re shaking,’ Aleksi noted as the coffee cup rattled to a halt on his desk.
‘Don’t give yourself the credit!’ Kate blew her fringe skywards. More than anything she hated confrontation, yet it was all around, and she simply couldn’t avoid it any longer. ‘I just had words with Lavinia.’
‘Not long ones, I hope,’ Aleksi said. ‘They’d be wasted on her.’
‘Oh, they were pretty basic.’
For once, there was no witty retort from Aleksi. The walk had depleted him. His leg was throbbing, the muscles in spasm, but he did not let on. Instead he took a sip of his brew and finally—after weeks of hospital slop and maids in the West Indies attempting to get it right—finally it was. He liked his coffee strong and sweet, and was tired of explaining that that didn’t mean adding just a little milk. Aleksi liked a lot of everything. He took another sip and leant back in his chair, returning her smile when she spoke next.
‘The place is in panic!’ Kate gave a little giggle. ‘I had a frantic call from Reception to alert me you were on your way up, and then the place just exploded! I even saw Nina running for the first time.’
‘Running to delete all the files she is so busy corrupting,’ he said cynically.
‘She wants Kolovsky to do well.’ Kate frowned.
‘Money is her only god.’ Aleksi shrugged. ‘Three more months and there would have been no more House of Kolovsky ,’ he sneered. ‘Or not one to be proud of.’
‘Things aren’t that bad,’ Kate answered dutifully, but she struggled to voice the necessary enthusiasm. On paper everything was fine—fantastic, in fact—but since Levander had returned to the UK and Nina had taken over things were fast unravelling. ‘I should never have called you.’
‘I’m glad that you did. I’ve been on the phone with Marketing—“Every woman deserves a little piece of Kolovsky!”’ Aleksi scorned. ‘That is my mother’s latest suggestion. Apart from tampering with the bridal gowns and Krasavitsa, she is considering a line of bedlinen for a supermarket chain.’
‘An exclusive chain,’ Kate attempted, but Aleksi just cursed in Russian.
‘Chush’ sobach’ya!’ He glanced down at the coffee and found she was setting out an array of pills beside it. ‘I don’t need them.’
‘I’ve looked at your regime,’ Kate said. ‘You are to take them four-hourly.’
‘That was my regime when lying on a beach—here, I need to think.’
‘You can’t just stop taking them,’ Kate insisted. She had known this was coming. Even in hospital he had resisted every pill, had stretched the time out between them to the max, refusing sedation at night. Always he was rigid, alert—even when sleeping.
So many hours she had spent by his bed during his recovery—taking notes, keeping him abreast of what was going on, assuring him she would keep him informed but that surely he should rest. She had watched as sleep continually evaded him. Sometimes, regretfully almost, he had dozed, only to be woken by a light flicking on down the hall, or a siren in the distance.
She had hoped his time away in the Caribbean would mellow him—soften him a little, perhaps. Had hoped that the rest would do him good. Instead he was leaner and if anything meaner, more hungry for action, and, no matter how he denied it, he was savage with pain.
‘Get my mother in here.’
‘I’m here.’ Nina came in. She was well into her fifties, but she looked not a day over forty—as if, as Aleksi had once said to Kate, she had stepped straight out of a wind tunnel. She had lost a lot of weight since Ivan’s death, and was now officially tiny—though her size belied her sudden rise in stature at House of Kolovsky. Dressed in an azure silk suit, her skinny legs encased in sheer black stockings and her feet dressed up in heels, with diamonds dripping from her ears and fingers, her new-found power suited her. She swept into the room, ignoring Kate as she always did. Lavinia came in behind her.
‘It is good to see you back, Aleksi,’ Nina said without sentiment, and Kate could only wonder.
This was her son—her son who had been so very ill, who had clawed his way back from the most terrible accident—and this was how she greeted him.
‘Really?’ Aleksi raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t sound very convincing.’
‘I’m concerned,’ Nina responded. ‘As any mother would be. I think that it’s way too soon.’
‘It’s almost too late,’ Aleksi snapped back. ‘I’ve seen your proposals.’
‘I specifically said you were not to be worried with details!’ She glared over to Kate, who stood there blushing. ‘Leave us!’ she ordered. ‘I will deal with you later. I assume this is your doing.’
‘It was your doing,’ Aleksi corrected. ‘Your grab for cash that terminated my recuperation. You may leave,’ he told Kate, and she did.
It was a relief to get out of there, to be honest.
And oh, so humiliating too. Before the door closed she heard Nina’s bitchy tones. ‘Tell your PA she is supposed to remove the coat hanger before she puts on her skirt.’ Kate heard Lavinia’s mirthless laugh in response to Nina’s cruel comment and fl
ed to the loos, but there was no solace there.
Mirrors lined the walls and she saw herself from every angle.
Even her well-cut grey suit couldn’t hide the curves—curves that wouldn’t matter a jot anywhere else, but at the House of Kolovsky broke every rule. She turned heads wherever she went, and not in a good way. And by the end of the day, no matter how she tamed it, or smothered it in serum or glossed it and straightened it, her hair was a spiral mass of frizzy curls. Her make-up, no matter how she followed advice, no matter how carefully she applied it, had slid off her face by lunchtime, and her figure—well, it simply didn’t work in the fashion industry.
Kate pretended to be washing her hands as an effortless beauty came in and didn’t even pretend she was here for the loo. She just touched up her make-up, hoiked her non-existent breasts a little higher in her bra and played with her hair for a moment before leaving.
She didn’t acknowledge Kate—didn’t glance in her direction.
Kate was nothing—no challenge, no competition. Nothing.
If only she knew, Kate thought, watching in the mirror as the trim little bottom wiggled out on legs that should surely snap.
If only they knew her secret.
That sometimes…Kate stared in the mirror at the glitter in her eyes, a small smile on her lips as she recalled the memories she and Aleksi occasionally made. Sometimes, when Georgie was at her grandparents’, Aleksi would come to her, would leave the glitz and the glamour and arrive on her doorstep in the still of the night.
They never discussed it. He was always gone by the morning. And it wasn’t as if they slept together. In fact in their entire history they’d shared just two kisses—one when Georgie was born; one the night before the accident.
And, yes, a kiss from a Kolovsky meant very little. It was currency to them, easily earned, carelessly spent, but for Kate it was her most treasured memory.
Oh, if only they knew that sometimes, late in the night, Aleksi Kolovsky came to her door, wanting her company.
The Last Kolovsky Playboy Page 3