The Last Kolovsky Playboy (4 page)

‘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 fled 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.

‘You’re to go in.’ Lavinia sat scowling when Kate returned, clearly annoyed at having been asked to leave the meeting.

Stepping into the room, had she not known, Kate would never have guessed the two people in there were mother and son. The air sizzled with hatred, and the tension was palpable. Aleksi was on the telephone, speaking in Arabic—just one of his impressive skills—but when he replaced the receiver he wasted no time getting straight to the point.

‘Nina has agreed to delay a formal proposal to the board for a fortnight, but she will then propose her takeover of the company, with the board to vote in two months.’

Kate couldn’t look at him as he spoke, so her eyes flicked to Nina instead—not a muscle flickered in her Botoxed face.

‘My mother says the board is concerned by my behaviour, and that she is worried about my health and the pressure.’ He dragged out each syllable, his lips curling in distaste, but still Nina sat impassive. ‘I want Kolovsky and Krasavitsa to be treated as two separate entities in the vote. In return, Nina wants the full trajectory reports for Krasavitsa, along with past figures…’

Krasavitsa
meant
beautiful woman,
and was a clothing and accessories range aimed at the younger market. The garments and jewels were still extravagant and expensive, still eagerly sought, but not, as was Kolovsky, exclusive.

The idea and its inception had been Aleksi’s. In fact it had been his first major project when he had taken over the helm. The launch had gone well. Krasavitsa was the toast of Paris—and every young, beautiful, rich girl, according to their figures, surely by now had at least one piece in their wardrobe, or in their underwear drawer.

And when that beautiful young woman matured into full womanhood, as Aleksi had said at numerous board meetings, she would crave Kolovsky.

It had been Aleksi’s pet, and he had nurtured it from the very start—but, it would seem, not satisfied just with Kolovsky, Nina wanted Krasavitsa too.

‘Nina has all the figures,’ Kate said, and then swallowed as Nina snorted.

‘The
real
figures,’ Nina said. ‘Not the doctored version. I want the real figures.’

‘It might take a while.’ Aleksi’s voice was tart. ‘There are other things I need to sort out before I go through figures. The call I just took was from Sheikh Amallah’s private secretary…’

Kate watched as only then did Nina show a hint of nervousness, her tongue bobbing out to moisten her lower lip.

‘It would take thousands of the cheap, rubbish wedding dresses you have in mind to match the price of his daughter’s Kolovsky gown.’ Even though he wasn’t shouting, it was clear Aleksi was livid. ‘Yet you couldn’t even be bothered to meet her at the airport!’

‘I had Lavinia go!’ Nina said defensively.

‘Lavinia!’ Aleksi gave a black laugh, then whistled through his teeth. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? You really don’t understand.’ He looked over to Kate. ‘Arrange dinner, and then tell them Nina is looking forward to it.’

‘I’m not going to dinner tonight!’ Nina spoke as if he’d gone completely mad. ‘You go,’ she said. ‘You speak their language.’

‘I hardly think the Sheikh will want his virgin daughter going out for dinner with me!’ Now
he
shouted. Now he
really
shouted! ‘For now,
I’m
in charge, and don’t forget it. For now, at least, we do things
my
way.’

‘Well, I want those figures by next Monday.’ Nina glowered at Aleksi. ‘Only then will I make my decision.’

‘You can fight me on Kolovsky,’ Aleksi said. ‘But I will never concede Krasavitsa. That was
my
idea.’

‘Krasavitsa would be
nothing
without
my
husband’s name…’

And that, Kate realised as she watched a muscle leap in Aleksi’s cheek, was what appeared to hurt the most.
A blistering row with his mother didn’t dent him, but the insinuation that without Kolovsky he was nothing was the thing that truly galled him.

‘You have
no
idea what you are doing.’ Aleksi stared at his mother. ‘Follow your plans and the Kolovsky name will be worth nothing in a few years.’

‘These are tough times Aleksi,’ Nina stood to leave. ‘We have to do what it takes to survive.’

He just sat there when she had left.

‘Is Kolovsky in trouble?’ Kate couldn’t help but ask.

‘It will be.’ Aleksi shook his head in wonder. ‘We are doing well—but she strikes fear where there is none.’ He rested his elbows on his desk and pressed his fingers to his temples. ‘Belenki has suggested these off-the-peg bridal gowns and the bedding range. It is supposed to be a one-off—just for a year—with ten percent of the profits going to both our charities: his outreach work in Russia and the orphanages my mother sponsors.’ He looked up to her. ‘What do you think, Kate?’

He’d never asked her opinion on work before, but before she could reply he did so for her.

‘It sounds like a good idea,’ he said, and reluctantly she nodded. ‘But I know it will be the beginning of the end for Kolovsky. Belenki surely also knows that; exclusivity is why Kolovsky has survived this long. I don’t like him…’ He halted, then frowned when Kate agreed.

‘You said you didn’t trust him.’

Aleksi’s eyes shot to hers. ‘When?’

‘The night before the accident…’ Her face was on fire. ‘When you came to my home.’ But clearly he was uncomfortable with the memory, because he snapped back into business mode.

‘Get the figures ready for me,’ Aleksi said. ‘The real figures. But don’t give them to Nina until I’ve gone through them.’

‘She’ll know if you change them.’

‘She couldn’t read STUPID if it was written in ten-foot letters on the wall,’ Aleksi said. ‘Just get them ready for me.’ As she turned to go, he called her back. ‘You’re in or you’re out.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Kate turned around.

‘You’re on my side, or you pack your bags and go now.’

She frowned at him. ‘You know I’m on your side.’

‘Good.’ Aleksi said, but he didn’t let it drop there. ‘If you choose to stay, and I get even a hint that you’re looking for work elsewhere, not only will I fire you on the spot, don’t even
think
to put me down as a reference—you won’t like what I say.’

‘Don’t threaten me, Aleksi. I do have rights!’ Her blush wasn’t just an angry one, it was embarrassment too, because, given the conversation they’d just had, she’d already decided her night would be spent online, firing off her résumé. But he had no idea what she was going through right now—no idea just how dire her finances were at this moment.

‘Exercise your rights.’ Aleksi shrugged. ‘Just know I don’t play nice.’

‘I don’t get your skewed logic, Aleksi.’ Kate was more than angry now. ‘All you had to do was
ask
that I stay, but instead you go straight for the jugular each time!’

‘I find it more effective.’ He looked over to where she stood. ‘So you weren’t considering leaving?’

‘Not really.’ Kate swallowed. ‘But if Nina does win…’ She closed her eyes. ‘Not that she will—but if she does…’ Hell, maybe she wouldn’t get an award for
dogged devotion to her boss, but it came down to one simple fact. ‘I’ve got a daughter to support.’

‘Then back a winner.’ Aleksi said. ‘Are you in or out?’

God, he gave her no room, no space to think. But that was Aleksi—he hurled his orders and demanded rapid response.

‘I’m in.’

‘Good,’ Aleksi responded. ‘But if I find out—’

‘Aleksi,’ Kate broke in, ‘I’ve said that I’m in, that I’m not going to look for anything else. You’re just going to have to trust me.’

His black smile didn’t even turn the edges of his mouth. ‘Why would I?’

She just loathed him at times.

Back at her desk, she loathed him so much she was tempted to have a little surf and find a job—just to prove him right!

Just to prove her word wasn’t enough.

Just to convince him that his eternally suspicious mind was again merited.

And then he walked past, his leg dragging just slightly, and she watched as Lavinia gave him an intimate smile and tried to engage him in conversation that would be fed back to Nina.

His own mother was trying to destroy him.

Why would he trust anyone?

Why would he even contemplate trusting her?

All Kate knew was that he could.

R
IMINIC
I
VAN
K
OLOVSKY
.

Aleksi put the name into an internet search engine and got nothing.

He didn’t really know where to start, and then he glanced over to his mother, who was going through the messages on her phone, and toyed with flicking the name on an e-mail to her, just to watch her reaction—except Lavinia was buzzing like an annoying fly around him, asking for a password so she could get some figures that were needed for tonight.

‘Kate will sort it out,’ Aleksi uttered, without looking over from the computer, saying the same words he spoke perhaps a hundred times a day.

It was Friday afternoon, but there was no end-of-week buoyancy filling the building. Aleksi had been back for a week now, and had made it exceptionally clear that, whatever Nina or the board might think, for now he was certainly in charge.

There had been several sackings—anyone who had dared question him had been none too politely shown the door—and everyone was walking on eggshells around him.

Everyone, that was, but Kate. She had long since learnt that Aleksi smelt fear like a shark smelt blood, and she refused to bend to his will.

Refused to be beholden to him.

It was the only way she knew how to survive.

‘I really need to get things prepared for your conference call with Belenki,’ Lavinia insisted. ‘The meeting won’t be till six p.m. our time, and Kate leaves at five…’

There was more than a slight edge to her voice, and Kate looked up, saw the dart of worry in Lavinia’s eyes, and knew for certain then that Lavinia was gathering information for Nina.

‘She
has
to pick up Georgie.’

‘Actually, I don’t tonight,’ Kate said sweetly. ‘So there’s no problem, Lavinia. I’ll sort out the meeting.’

Aleksi chose not to notice the toxic current, but carried on with his work. He didn’t look over, and neither did Kate look up as Lavinia huffed out.

‘You look tired,’ he commented.

Which dashed the forty minutes that she’d spent that morning in front of the mirror!

‘I haven’t been getting much sleep.’

‘Look…’ Aleksi was a smudge uncomfortable. ‘What I said on Monday—’

‘Has nothing to do with it,’ Kate interrupted. ‘I’ve been up at night with Georgie.’

‘How is she?’ Aleksi asked.

‘She’s just having a few problems settling in at school.’ Kate tried to sound matter-of-fact. ‘But she’s doing well.’

‘Still too well?’ Aleksi asked, and Kate managed a smile at the fact that he had remembered her plight from before the accident. ‘You were going to speak with the school?’

‘I did,’ Kate said. ‘They’ve tried to be accommodating. They’re going to see how she goes and then assess her. They might put her up a year…’

‘She’s not even five yet.’

‘But she’s so bright.’

‘She should still be mixing with five-year-olds—laughing and playing with them—not sitting with the six and seven-year-olds who think she’s a baby and whose work she can already do!’

Aleksi got it.

He was the one person who truly got it.

‘Did you look at the school I suggested?’

‘Yes,’ Kate said. ‘But I wish I hadn’t.’

‘The offer is still there. You can work full-time—I have told you that I will fund Georgie’s education if you are able to make more of a commitment.’ He must have read her worried frown. ‘With or without the House of Kolovsky, Kate, I’ll more than survive. I’ll always need a full-time PA.’

‘The size of the commitment you require, Aleksi, is one I can only give my daughter.’ She hated him sometimes—hated the carrot he dangled in front of her because she so badly wanted it. She
wanted
that education for Georgie, but what she didn’t want was a nanny for when Kate inevitably had to traipse around the world following Aleksi, when she worked till midnight, or had to leave mid-race at the school athletics carnival because some VIP had arrived and couldn’t negotiate the walk from Arrivals to the awaiting limo without her…

Aleksi Kolovsky’s full-time PA could not be the mother she wanted to be to her little girl.

‘She’ll be fine where she is,’ Kate said, without any hope of believing herself.

‘Please!’ Aleksi snorted. ‘She’ll be cleverer than her teachers soon!’ He said it with a conviction that came from experience. ‘Bored and restless and getting into trouble.’

‘I’m saving for a good secondary school.’

She would be. Aleksi knew that. He admired her for it, and for her decision not to work full-time for him too—but it also annoyed him. He wanted her full time, wanted her quiet efficiency. It galled him that the one PA he could work with refused to commit to him.

Aleksi always,
always
got what he wanted. ‘She needs her peers. She needs children her own age to play with.’

‘
You
didn’t have that,’ Kate said, because Aleksi had been home-schooled. ‘And you seem to have done all right. Iosef too!’

‘I hated every moment.’ He looked over to her. ‘By the time I was fourteen there was nothing my tutor could teach me. By the time I was sixteen…Well, at that point there was a little more. While Iosef studied to be a doctor, I worked with my teacher one-to-one on…we’ll call it lessons in human biology…’

Her cheeks were flaming. Sometimes she didn’t know if he said things to get a reaction from her—to shock her, to embarrass her.

‘She was a very good teacher!’ Aleksi said, and then smirked. ‘But, again, by seventeen already I knew more than her. At seventeen and a half I was showing her how things could better be done…’

Cheeks still flaming, Kate stood up. Aleksi laughed. ‘Have I embarrassed you, Kate?’

‘Not at all,’ Kate said coolly, ‘I’d love to stay and reminisce about your depraved childhood, but I’ve got the Princess arriving and I need to escort her to her fitting and make sure everything is in order.’

‘Given she’s already met her, surely Lavinia can do it?’

‘But I’ll do it better,’ Kate said firmly.

‘Really?’

And then their eyes locked and her blush wouldn’t fade and her lungs were hot with breath that tasted of fire and she felt as if they’d just crossed a line.

It hadn’t been anything other than a point she often made—Lavinia
was
rubbish with the dignitaries. She didn’t get the nuances, especially with Arabian visitors. It would be far, far easier for Kate to greet their esteemed guests—see the father to the elevator and then walk with the mother of the bride and the Princess herself to the hallowed fitting rooms, which only the most pampered bride ever glimpsed.

A Kolovsky bridal gown was worth a fortune, and not a small one either.

The PAs of the newly rich and famous often had to put up with tantrums and tears when their spoiled brides-to-be finally understood that the price of a personally designed and fitted Kolovsky gown worked out to cost more than their luxurious wedding and honeymoon combined.

Both Ivan and Levander had refused to include a bridal range in Kolovsky’s ready-to-wear lines. Even Aleksi, with the opening of Krasavitsa, would not put bridalwear in it.

If the bride wore Kolovsky she was someone—but not if Nina had her way.

Only they weren’t talking about bridal gowns now.

‘I’m quite sure,’ Aleksi said, his dark eyes searing into hers, ‘that you’d be wonderful.’

It was Kate who looked away first.

Never had they flirted.

Not once at work had there been an exchange.

She blushed often—but only at his debauchery.

Not once had there been…

She couldn’t even really work out what had happened as she walked away from him to greet the bride-to-be. And she might just as well have sent Lavinia, because with her mind still on Aleksi it was almost impossible to concentrate on the Princess as Security opened up and they walked into the bridal area.

It was a jewel of a place that few witnessed.

Every House of Kolovsky boutique was a work of art in itself—but this was not a boutique; this was Kolovsky Bridal and it was hallowed ground indeed.

There were no walls or ceiling as such. As they walked towards the centre there were simply endless stretches of the most divine silks—the palest of blush-pinks, and every shade of cream—handmade silk that the skin ached to feel. It was like being pulled into a silken womb with each step. The huge antique mirrors were not just for aesthetics. Already the team were watching the soon-to-be bride—her posture, her figure, her gait—their brilliant minds already working on the ultimate creation for this woman, whose beauty, hidden or otherwise, was as of this moment the only thing on their minds.

There was no second store, no chain, no Kolovsky designers jetting overseas to take measurements.

Kolovsky did not chase anyone—to wear their art, you had to be present.

Of course their client would stay in Melbourne for a few days—being pampered, going through designs, being measured, seeing portrayed images of the creation on the screen—and finally there would be a follow-up visit to the bride. Then, only then, did Kolovsky come to them.

A team was dispatched a week prior to the date with the creation to wherever the wedding was to be—not just style consultants for the dress, but hair and make-up artists, an entire team to ensure that the bride who wore Kolovsky was the most beautiful.

‘This…’ The Princess spoke only broken English as they passed lavish display cabinets which held tiaras and shoes and jewels. Those weren’t what she noticed, however. The Princess did what every woman who entered this chamber did. She walked or rather was hypnotically drawn to the divine dress in the centre. ‘This one. I choose this one.’

‘This is not to be reproduced,’ Kate explained. ‘This is the Kolovsky dress, designed for a Kolovsky or a soon-to-be Kolovsky bride.’

‘I want,’ the princess said, and her mother nodded—because there was nothing on God’s earth that this family could not afford…except what was not for sale.

‘Your dress will be designed with only you in mind,’ Kate explained. ‘This dress was designed for someone else.’

The design team took over then, coming out to greet the bride and her mother, pulling her into the very centre, and as the Princess went Kate watched as she gave one last lingering look at the gown on display.

There could never be anything more beautiful.

Georgie never wrapped herself in sheets or put a towel on her head as a make-believe veil—but Kate had done. She had adored dressing up as a child and, watching a royal wedding on the television, had wanted, wished,
hoped
that one day she would be as beautiful as the bride who walked blushing up the aisle towards her prince. Her mother had said that she had a good
imagination—which she had—but even if her imagination could somehow transform her from tubby and serious to petite and pleasing, her secret, wildest dreams could never have conjured up this dress…

Kolovsky silk, so rumour had it, was like an opal—it changed with the mood of the woman whose skin it clung to. Each time Kate saw the dress it seemed slightly different—golden, silver, white, even transparent. Sewn into the bodice were tiny jewels, and there were more hidden in the hem, just as Ivan and Nina had hidden their treasures when they fled Russia for the haven of Australia.

This dress should have been passed, like a revered christening gown, down through the brothers’ brides and then to Annika, Ivan and Nina’s daughter.

But instead in turn each had shunned it.

Millie, Levander’s wife, had come the closest to being married in it, but on her wedding day she had taken off the gown, left it like a puddle on the floor, and fled—only to marry Levander hours later in a jeans-clad ceremony.

Second son Iosef’s wedding had taken place in the weeks after Ivan’s death, and he and his wife, Annie, had felt it improper to have a lavish celebration while everyone was grieving, so the bride had worn off-the-peg lilac.

His sister Annika’s wedding had taken place at Aleksi’s bedside, after the accident.

Only Aleksi remained—so presumably the dress would stay where it was: locked behind glass.

‘Daydreaming?’ Aleksi made her jump as he walked up behind her.

‘No,’ Kate lied. ‘What are you doing down here?’

‘Just making sure everything’s in place for our esteemed guest.’

‘It’s all going smoothly—she’s in with the design team. They’re looking forward to dining with Nina again tonight. Oh, and I rang your sister. Annika’s agreed to go along too this time—I thought it better that we make an extra effort, given that we might have offended.’

‘You’ve got more of an idea than Nina. Imagine her at the helm! We’ll have name badges and cash registers…’

‘And charge extra for a carrier bag!’ Kate joined in the joke and then stared back to the dress, a question on the tip of her tongue. But she swallowed it.

‘What,’ Aleksi demanded, ‘is your question?’

‘Is there any point asking?’

‘Probably not,’ he said, and then relented. ‘Try.’

‘Why did Millie run away from her wedding?’

‘You know I’m not going to answer that.’ He saw her eyes narrow. ‘The House of Kolovsky is a house of secrets.’

‘And of course
your
secrets are far better than anyone else’s.’ She was annoyed.

The past weeks had been hell—toying with whether or not to ring Aleksi, risking her job by doing so, because if Aleksi had been unable to return and her indiscretion had been outed Nina would have dismissed her in a heartbeat. And yet Aleksi strolled in, asked her about her daughter, about her problems, her life, and gave her nothing of his.

‘You’re a snob, Aleksi, even with your family shame.’

‘But our secrets
are
so much better than yours,’ Aleksi teased, as he often did. Except this time, instead of enjoying the banter as she always had in the past, Kate promptly burst into tears. He was a mite taken aback. He had never seen her cry, not once—not even the day he had visited her in the hospital, where she’d lain alone after a long, arduous birth…

‘What is it?’ he demanded.

‘What do you think?’ She was suddenly angry. ‘What the hell do you
think
is wrong?’