The Last Kolovsky Playboy Read Free Page B

new son…’
    Aleksi closed his eyes; he had feared this day would come sooner than was convenient. Levander had run the House of Kolovsky head branch in Australia. He had been sensible, and on their father’s death a couple of years ago he had got out. Now he worked in London, taking overAleksi’s old role, while Aleksi had taken over the running of Kolovsky—effectively a swap. Levander had only returned to Australia while Aleksi recuperated.
    ‘I’ve heard Nina talking; she is going to run it…’
    ‘Run what?’
    ‘House of Kolovsky.’ Kate gulped. ‘She has these ideas…’
    ‘Levander would never—’ Aleksi started, but then again Levander now would. Since he had met Millie, since they had had Sashar, his priorities had shifted. Money had never been Levander’s god. Raised in Detsky Dom, an orphanage in Russia, he had no real allegiance to the Kolovskys—Nina wasn’t his mother, and with Ivan dead Aleksi knew that Levander’s priorities were with his own family now—his new family, one that wanted to save a child from the hell Levander had endured.
    ‘She has told Levander not to tell you,’ Kate explained. ‘That no one is to disturb you with this—that you need this time to heal.’
    ‘The board will not pass it.’
    ‘Nina has new plans, ideas that will generate a lot of money…’
    She had stopped stammering now. Despite her shyness at times, Kate was an articulate, intelligent woman, which was why he had bent over backwards to get her on staff. She was different from all the others. Her only interest at work was work —which she did very capably, so she could earn the money to single-handedly raise her daughter.
    ‘She will convince the board, and she has ideas that they like.’
    ‘Ideas?’ Aleksi snorted.
    ‘She makes them sound attractive,’ Kate said. ‘I sat in on a meeting last week. She put forward a proposal from Zakahr Belenki…’
    Despite the warmth of the room Aleksi felt his blood chill. ‘What sort of proposal?’
    ‘One that will benefit both Kolovsky and Belenki’s charity,’ Kate said. ‘They are talking of a new range—bridal dresses in the Krasavitsa outlets with a percentage of profit…’
    Aleksi didn’t hear much more. He was aware of his racing heart, as if he were pounding his battered body through the ocean this very minute, except he was lying perfectly still on the bed. The Krasavitsa offshoot of the Kolovsky business was his baby—his idea, his domain. But it wasn’t just that Nina was considering tampering with his baby that had Aleksi’s heart hammering like this.
    What was the problem with Belenki?
    His mind, though Aleksi had denied it both to his family and to the doctors, was damaged.
    Thoughts, images, and memories were a mere stretch from his grasp. He could remember the charity ball just before his accident—Belenki had flown in from Europe and had been the guest speaker, that much he remembered. And he remembered the fear he had felt at the time too. Iosef had had harsh words with him—for his poor behaviour at the ball, for talking through the speeches, which, yes, he had. Zakahr Belenki had been talking about his life in Detsky Dom, how he had chosen to live instead on the streets, about what he had done to survive there.
    It had been easier to have another drink that night than to hear Zakahr’s message. Levander had neverreally spoken of his years there, and part of Aleksi didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to hear how his half-brother had suffered so.
    ‘Has Belenki been back to Australia?’
    ‘No,’ Kate said. ‘But he has been talking daily with Nina. They are coming up with new ideas all the time.’
    Why, Aleksi begged himself, did that name strike fear inside him?
    He tried to pull up the man’s image—yet, like so much else in his mind, it was a blur…as if it had been pixilated…like the many other shadowy areas in his mind that he must allow no one else to know about.
    ‘Nina will run the House of