minutes early. Most office jobs started at nine!
Not that Zakahr Belenki had thanked her for her effort!
Lavinia poked her tongue out at his closed door.
He was more arrogant than his brothers combined—and that was saying something. She knew who he was! Knew, despite his name, that he was actually a Kolovsky—that he was Nina and Ivan’s secret son.
Not that he could find out that she knew.
Happy with her face, Lavinia opened up her computer, ran her eyes over the schedule for the day. Even if she and Kate, the old PA and now Aleksi’s bride, had clashed at times, how she wished she were here to sort this out.
Lavinia wore the title of Assistant PA, but was aware she had been hired more as an attractive accessory—a bright and breezy attractive accessory—which was an essential role within Kolovsky. Now, though, the team Ivan had built had, since his death, been slowly dismantled, and that combined with the astonishing news that Zakahr hadn’t brought his impressive team left Lavinia with a heavy weight of responsibility.
She shouldn’t care, of course.
Lavinia was well aware that some of the minor directors would be only too happy to have their own PAs loaned out to Zakahr—who in this building didn’t want a direct route to the mysterious new boss?
Lavinia.
She didn’t want it, but she had it.
And, like it or not, till Zakahr understood its complicated workings, the smooth running of Kolovsky fell to Lavinia.
She was quite sure people would say she was being grandiose—as if the House of Kolovsky needed Lavinia to survive! Lavinia knew in her heart that it didn’t—but some things mattered, they really mattered, and without her inner knowledge certain things that mattered simply wouldn’t get done.
Lavinia rested her head on the desk and closed her eyes.
In a minute she would lift it.
In a minute she would force a dazzling smile, would inject some lightness into her face and make them both coffee. Hopefully she and Zakahr could start over again.
She just needed a minute …
‘Lavinia!’
This time she jumped!
As Zakahr had intended! Given that he had buzzed her, given that he had called her twice, given that she was asleep at her desk!
She jerked awake at the sound of his voice behind her, felt his brimming anger as strongly as the heavy scent of his cologne, and was tempted just to get her bag and head for home rather than follow his instruction.
‘Could you and your hangover please join me in my office?’
CHAPTER TWO
LAVINIA was beyond embarrassed.
She sat at her desk, scalding in her own skin for a full minute, before she could even think of going back out there.
Her first day with her new boss and he’d found her not daydreaming, not dozing, but fast asleep at her desk. Lavinia was used to bouncing back, and she normally did so with a bright smile, but she didn’t even try to summon one as she headed for the gallows.
‘I’m sorry, Zak…’ She walked into his office where he sat, but her voice trailed off when he gestured her to sit and she realised he was on the phone, talking in Russian. Whatever he was saying, Lavinia was quite sure that it wasn’t complimentary
His voice was rich and low. He did not shout—there was no need to. There was a ring of confidence and strong assertion behind each word, and she was quite sure this was a man who rarely had to repeat himself.
He was incredibly good-looking, but that was pretty much the norm around here—he was no better than his brothers.
Actually, he was, Lavinia conceded.
As if God had made him perfect and then, happy with the formula, had kept on going. There was a salient beauty to him—one that demanded closer inspection—and, just as she would examine the shots of a new Kolovsky model, Lavinia briefly scanned his features. There was rare perfect symmetry to his bone structure, and his high cheekbones and straight Roman nose were a photographer’s dream, or nightmare. For not for a second could Lavinia imagine him posing for the camera. There was nothing compliant about those grey eyes, no give in his demeanour. Normally she could sum a person up easily, but she was struggling to do so with Zakahr—especially now he had caught her looking.
His eyes held hers as he hung up the phone, and Lavinia felt a warmth spread over her cheeks as he refused to drop his gaze. Rarely—very rarely—it was Lavinia who looked away first, Lavinia who broke a silence that appeared to be only uncomfortable to her.
‘I’d like to apologise for before—I didn’t get any sleep last night, you see…’
‘Are you fit to work?’ Zakahr did not care for excuses, and he cut right in. ‘Yes or no?’
‘Yes.’ Lavinia bristled as he refused her attempt to explain.
He stood, leaving her sitting, and went to make the coffee—it was the only way he would ensure it got done. Zakahr was in fact the one battling a hangover. Aleksi’s wedding had been hell. He had done the right thing by the man who had tried to do the same for him, but as soon as he’d been able to Zakahr had got out of there and away from the woman he loathed.
He had done everything he could during the service not to look at Nina, the woman who was by biology only his mother, to just ignore her—not to care. Since finding out he was her son Nina had been admitted to a plush psychiatric hospital.
Karma, Zakahr thought darkly.
There was a saying he had learnt as a child—as the call, so the echo. How good he should feel that it was Nina institutionalised now, and that it was he running his parents’ empire. It should have been a feeling to savour—only yesterday had found him sitting in an anonymous taxi, staring at the hospital, trying to brace himself to go in.
There was so much to say, so much she deserved to hear in a long-awaited confrontation—except, hearing how ill she was, at the final hurdle Zakahr had balked with rare charity, unable to add to her pain.
He had ordered a taxi to the casino, consoled himself that if he chose, soon there would be no House of Kolovsky, soon he could walk away with the name erased and pretend it had never existed—as his parents had done to him. Zakahr had tried to lose himself in noise and stunning women, yet despite his intentions nothing had appealed, and he had spent the night back at the hotel, dousing the bitter churn of emotion in his stomach with hundred-year-old brandy.
And now he was making his assistant coffee!
Seething, he handed her a cup. She tasted it and then screwed up her face and moaned about too much sugar.
He should, Zakahr realised, fire her on the spot.
Just tell her to get out.
Except despite her
