A Bride for Kolovsky Read Free

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.
    â€˜I’d like to apologise for before—I didn’t get any sleep last night, you see…’
    â€˜Are you fit to work?’ Zakahr did not care for excuses, and he cut right in. ‘Yes or no?’
    â€˜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 total lack of professionalism, despite her possibly being the worst Assistant PA in memory, for a little while at least he needed her. Begrudgingly. Extremely begrudgingly. Aleksi had given him a password—one that supposedly accessed all areas—but he had to get in to the system first!
    â€˜What is the password?’ Zakahr asked. ‘For the computer?’
    â€˜H-o-K.’ Lavinia said, and when that didn’t work for him she elaborated. ‘The o is lower case.’
    He shot her a look. ‘I want to address everyone together this morning,’ Zakahr said. ‘Then I want you to arrange fifteen-minute blocks for everyone from cleaner to top designer. After lunch I want the first one at my desk—you co-ordinate it. I want their history file in front of me…’
    â€˜You can’t.’ She watched his lips purse a touch—presumably can’t was a word rarely said to Zakahr—but he really couldn’t. ‘We have dignitaries arriving. King Abdullah’s daughter—she’s coming for a fitting.’
    â€˜And?’ Zakahr shrugged.
    â€˜Once a month or so we have an esteemed bridal guest—a Kolovsky always greets her at the airport and brings her back here…’
    â€˜Here?’ Zakahr frowned—because surely they would head straight for a hotel?
    â€˜Here,’ Lavinia confirmed. ‘Because this is the moment she’s been dreaming of.’ He was far