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 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
