The Last Kolovsky Playboy. Carol Marinelli

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      ‘And?’

      ‘They went to Russia last week; they met him—their new son…’

      Aleksi closed his eyes; he had feared this day would come sooner than was convenient. Levander had run the House of Kolovsky head branch in Australia. He had been sensible, and on their father’s death a couple of years ago he had got out. Now he worked in London, taking over Aleksi’s old role, while Aleksi had taken over the running of Kolovsky—effectively a swap. Levander had only returned to Australia while Aleksi recuperated.

      ‘I’ve heard Nina talking; she is going to run it…’

      ‘Run what?’

      ‘House of Kolovsky.’ Kate gulped. ‘She has these ideas…’

      ‘Levander would never—’ Aleksi started, but then again Levander now would. Since he had met Millie, since they had had Sashar, his priorities had shifted. Money had never been Levander’s god. Raised in Detsky Dom, an orphanage in Russia, he had no real allegiance to the Kolovskys—Nina wasn’t his mother, and with Ivan dead Aleksi knew that Levander’s priorities were with his own family now—his new family, one that wanted to save a child from the hell Levander had endured.

      ‘She has told Levander not to tell you,’ Kate explained. ‘That no one is to disturb you with this—that you need this time to heal.’

      ‘The board will not pass it.’

      ‘Nina has new plans, ideas that will generate a lot of money…’

      She had stopped stammering now. Despite her shyness at times, Kate was an articulate, intelligent woman, which was why he had bent over backwards to get her on staff. She was different from all the others. Her only interest at work was work—which she did very capably, so she could earn the money to single-handedly raise her daughter.

      ‘She will convince the board, and she has ideas that they like.’

      ‘Ideas?’ Aleksi snorted.

      ‘She makes them sound attractive,’ Kate said. ‘I sat in on a meeting last week. She put forward a proposal from Zakahr Belenki…’

      Despite the warmth of the room Aleksi felt his blood chill. ‘What sort of proposal?’

      ‘One that will benefit both Kolovsky and Belenki’s charity,’ Kate said. ‘They are talking of a new range—bridal dresses in the Krasavitsa outlets with a percentage of profit…’

      Aleksi didn’t hear much more. He was aware of his racing heart, as if he were pounding his battered body through the ocean this very minute, except he was lying perfectly still on the bed. The Krasavitsa offshoot of the Kolovsky business was his baby—his idea, his domain. But it wasn’t just that Nina was considering tampering with his baby that had Aleksi’s heart hammering like this.

      What was the problem with Belenki?

      His mind, though Aleksi had denied it both to his family and to the doctors, was damaged.

      Thoughts, images, and memories were a mere stretch from his grasp. He could remember the charity ball just before his accident—Belenki had flown in from Europe and had been the guest speaker, that much he remembered. And he remembered the fear he had felt at the time too. Iosef had had harsh words with him—for his poor behaviour at the ball, for talking through the speeches, which, yes, he had. Zakahr Belenki had been talking about his life in Detsky Dom, how he had chosen to live instead on the streets, about what he had done to survive there.

      It had been easier to have another drink that night than to hear Zakahr’s message. Levander had never really spoken of his years there, and part of Aleksi didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to hear how his half-brother had suffered so.

      ‘Has Belenki been back to Australia?’

      ‘No,’ Kate said. ‘But he has been talking daily with Nina. They are coming up with new ideas all the time.’

      Why, Aleksi begged himself, did that name strike fear inside him?

      He tried to pull up the man’s image—yet, like so much else in his mind, it was a blur…as if it had been pixilated…like the many other shadowy areas in his mind that he must allow no one else to know about.

      ‘Nina will run the House of Kolovsky into the ground—she cannot run it,’ he declared.

      ‘Who else is there?’

      ‘Me,’ Aleksi ground out. ‘I will be back at my desk on Monday.’

      ‘Aleksi!’ Kate’s voice was exasperated. ‘I didn’t ring for that; I just rang because you made me promise to keep you informed. It’s way too soon for you to return. Look…’

      She lowered her voice and he could just picture her leaning forward, picture her finger toying with a curl of her hair as she tried to come up with a solution, and despite the direness of the situation the image made him smile. The sound of her voice soothed him, and it moved him too, in the way it sometimes did—never more so than now.

      ‘I can ring you every day…’

      He stared down at the sudden, unexpected passionate reaction of his body and did not answer.

      ‘Can you hear me, Aleksi?’

      ‘Go on.’

      ‘I can ring you all the time…tell you things…and then you can tell me what to do.’

      He wanted to close his eyes. He wanted her to tell him things. Hell, how he wanted at this moment to tell her exactly what to do. He didn’t want to think about the House of Kolovsky and his family, didn’t want to face what he was trying to forget. How much nicer would it be to just lie here and let her tell him things that he wanted to hear?

      ‘Kate…’ His voice was ragged. He wanted her on a plane this minute—he wanted her here, wanted her now—but instead he forced himself to sit upright, to ignore the fire in his groin and concentrate on what was necessary. ‘I’ll be back on Monday. Don’t tell anyone, don’t act any different. Just go along with whatever Nina says.’

      It wasn’t her place to argue, and she didn’t.

      ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to organize—?’

      ‘I’ll sort everything out from this end,’ Aleksi interrupted. ‘Kate…?’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘Nothing.’ He clicked off the phone and tried to keep his mind on necessary business. Turned on his laptop and raced through figures. He knew only too well that the House of Kolovsky was on a collision course and that he was the only one who could stop it.

      He just couldn’t quite remember why.

      And for the first time in ages he didn’t try to. The figures he was analysing blurred in front of his eyes, so instead he clicked on company photographs—a who’s who of the House of Kolovsky.

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