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.
Ivan, his deceased father; Nina, his mother; Levander, his half-brother, whom his parents had conveniently forgotten about and left in an orphanage in Russia when they fled to Australia; Iosef, his twin, and his sister Annika. Then Aleksi clicked on his own image, saw his scowling, haughty face before hurriedly moving on. Finally, for the first time in weeks he allowed himself the respite of her face.
Kate Taylor.
Smiling, her face round and shiny, dark hair curling under the heat of the photographer’s lights, nervous at having her photo taken—though it was just a head-and-shoulders corporate shot.
He must be losing his mind.
Imagine that bulk on his healing thigh, he told himself, trying to calm his excited body. He tried in vain to reel in his imagination—except he just grew harder at the thought of Kate on top of him…
He had the most beautiful women on tap—warm, eager flesh on the other side of his bedroom door—yet all he could think of was that in a week he would again see Kate.
‘Aleksi?’ The nurse knocked, her voice low, the door opening just a fraction. ‘Is there anything at all you need?’
‘Not to be disturbed,’ he growled, and as the door reluctantly closed he turned off the computer and lay in the darkness, willing sleep to invade. Then he gave in.
Once, he decided.
Just this once he would allow himself to go there—to think about Kate and imagine himself with her. Or rather, Aleksi corrected as his hand slid around his heated length, just one last time.
Just one time more.
Chapter Two
‘YOU look pretty!’ Georgie said as Kate sliced off the top of her boiled egg.
‘Thank you,’ Kate replied with a half-smile. After all, Georgie was her number one fan, and it was a compliment that was regularly given.
‘Really pretty.’ Georgie frowned. ‘You’re wearing lots of lipstick.’
‘Am I?’ Kate said vaguely.
‘Is that new?’ Her knowing little eyes roamed over Kate’s new suit.
‘I’ve had it for ages.’ Kate shrugged, adding two sweeteners to her cup of tea and wishing, wishing, wishing she’d kept to her diet. She’d consoled herself that it would be another two months at least before he came back, and now, thanks to the lousy Nina, Aleksi would be back in the office today!
‘Is Aleksi coming back today?’ Her daughter’s shrewd eyes narrowed.
‘I’m not sure…’ Kate was at a loss as to what to say, stunned at the mini-witch she had created. She half expected her to wrinkle up her nose and cast a spell—but then Georgie liked Aleksi.
No, Georgie adored Aleksi.
Kate had thought that day at the hospital would be the last time she would see him—had almost managed to put him to the far recesses of her mind, where he would have stayed had the occasional card not arrived from him.
The occasional hotel postcard, from far-flung places around the globe, in less than legible writing.
The odd, completely child-unfriendly toys for Georgie—like a set of Russian dolls when she was eighteen months old, and a jewellery box with a little ballerina. Oh, they’d been few and far between over the years, but, given Aleksi’s communication was only slightly more erratic than Georgie’s father’s, they had lit up the little girl’s day when occasionally they came.
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
