The Last Kolovsky Playboy (5 page)

‘Oh!’ Aleksi suddenly looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry. I forget these things…’

‘I don’t believe you!’ She didn’t. ‘You think I’ve got PMT?’ Her mouth was agape, because that was
so
Aleksi! ‘How about I’m suffering from YND!’

‘YND?’ Aleksi frowned.

‘You Nearly Died!’ It tumbled out of her—and he just didn’t get it. Didn’t get how hellish this past week had been, these past
months,
Kate clarified to herself, and realised she had never fathomed all that she was holding in. There was Georgie, up at night with bad dreams, Nina being poisonous at work, money problems, Aleksi hurt and on top of all that—or rather buried beneath all that—the hell of his accident, the sheer fright that had come, which had still not been processed, when she had been informed by Iosef that Aleksi had had an accident and might not make it through the night.

There was a fabulous coffee area on the second floor but she couldn’t face that, so they headed out of the golden doors and across the street, and she sat in a coffee shop as he fed her napkins and she snivelled into them.

‘I thought you were going to die!’ Kate wailed. ‘We were told you
could
well die.’

‘But I didn’t,’ came his logical reply.

‘And now here you are—back, as if nothing has happened…’

‘Kate.’ Aleksi shook his head, moved to correct her, then halted himself. He certainly wasn’t going to reveal to her, or to anyone, just how much
had
changed. How he struggled with so many things that sometimes he
wondered if he
should
be back at work. Because he was running a massive empire, yet without thinking really hard he couldn’t even remember how many sugars he had in his own coffee. ‘I’m fine…’

‘I know you are!’ She was being unreasonable, illogical. She wished she had fled to the loos to weep, instead of sitting in this public place with him. ‘It was just…’

‘Just what?’

‘Seeing you like that,’ she settled for. ‘You were still so badly hurt when you went to rehab, and now…’ She struggled to describe just how confusing it all was. ‘Now you’re back. As if nothing happened. All this stuff with your mother, Krasavitsa, the arguments, Belenki…’ She screwed her eyes closed, took a deep breath, and tried to articulate what she was thinking. ‘Everyone’s straight back to business, but I’m just taking a little while longer than everyone else to forget just how bad things were. You nearly
died!’

There had been no downtime, Aleksi acknowledged. No reflection, really.

Yes, he had lain in that hospital bed, but his brain had been too messed with trauma for contemplation, and in the Caribbean his mind had been too blurred with painkillers to allow anything other than for him to aim at one fixed goal: to get well, to return, to be as good as—no, better than—before.

But now, sitting in a café, perhaps for the first time he saw what he had almost lost—saw too the emotion that had been so lacking in his recovery, in his life.

‘Thank you.’ So rarely he said it, it felt strange to his lips. ‘For all your kind thoughts and help. I hadn’t realised how hard all this was on you. But I’m back now and I’m well.’

She nodded—felt a bit stupid, in fact.

‘Now…’ Aleksi stood. ‘I have to show the world just how well I am.’

‘Meaning?’

‘The old Aleksi is back.’

‘Shouldn’t you…?’

He was about to stand to go, but when she frowned, Aleksi remained seated.

‘Shouldn’t I what?’

‘Calm things down, perhaps?’ It was far from her place to tell him how to live his life, but given the circumstances Kate took the plunge. ‘Just till the board make their decision.’

‘I think it might take a bit more than a few early nights to convince them I’ve changed. No.’ Now he stood up. ‘I’m not going to change just to appease them.’

‘Will you think about it?’

‘I just did,’ Aleksi said, and gave her
that
smile that always made her stomach curl.

Although she returned it, her heart sank as they headed back and up to his office, because the moment they stepped back into the building all tenderness was gone and he was back to his usual cold, businesslike self—though he did remember to check if she was okay to stay when the clock nudged past five.

‘It’s no problem,’ Kate said. ‘My sister’s picking her up from after-school care.’

‘She lives in the country?’

Kate nodded, her throat just a touch dry, a dull blush spreading on her cheeks, but she hid it well, busying herself on the computer and trying, desperately trying, to keep her voice light. ‘Yes, Georgie’s staying there this weekend.’

He made no comment. She wasn’t even sure if he’d heard her—didn’t even know if he’d factored it in.

Kate had.

Going over and over and over the nights he’d come to her place, the only common denominator was that Georgie hadn’t been home.

Had she been, Kate might not have let him in.

So she had the figures ready for the meeting with Belenki, and afterwards, when he came out with a face like thunder, she informed him she had arranged the best table at the casino for him and his date to dine that night. Then finally, after a very long day, she picked up her bag as Aleksi left for his very public night out.

He was dressed in a dinner suit.

Freshly washed, his hair was slicked back, gorgeous yet slightly unkempt, and Kate frowned.

‘Did you keep your appointment?’

‘Sorry?’

She glanced down at his hands, at nails that were spotless but just not as polished as usual. Every other Friday without fail Aleksi headed over to the trendiest of trendy salons, sat and drank green tea as his thick black hair was washed and trimmed, his nails buffed, his designer stubble made just a little bit more so. She had rung them during the week to say the appointments would now resume, and had told Aleksi the same.

Except his five o’clock shadow was a natural one and his hair was still just a touch too long.

‘The salon—’ Kate started, but Aleksi just screwed up his nose.

‘Tell them they are to come to me now—I’m tired of going there.’

‘Sure.’ She made a quick note in her diary and said
goodnight—it wasn’t an unusual request. Aleksi often changed his mind, and it was her job to sort it out when he did. ‘Have a good night, then,’ she said to him.

‘You too,’ Aleksi said. ‘Any plans?’

‘A bath and then bed,’ Kate admitted, and then she smiled. ‘Or I might just hit the clubs!’

‘Oh, that’s right,’ Aleksi said. ‘You don’t have Georgie tonight.’

‘No.’ She was standing by the lifts, and had to turn her face to concentrate on the lift buttons rather than let him see her blush. ‘I’ll see you on Monday.’

‘Sure.’

She would, Aleksi told himself.

She would see him on Monday, and not a moment before.

He watched her leave, watched her yawn as she pressed the lift button and could, for a dangerous moment, imagine her slipping out of those shoes, peeling off that suit, sinking into a bath, relishing the end of the week, the end of the day.

For Aleksi the night had just started.

He was tired, but he blocked that thought.

He was in pain, but he refused to take another pill. It had been twenty-four hours without them and it was getting harder by the minute, but he would not take another—they messed with his head.

He headed for the lift and stared for a full three seconds. He didn’t want Ground he wanted Reception. He had made the same mistake so many times this week.

Not that anyone could have guessed.

Not even Kate.

He raked back his hair with his hands, and as he stepped into the lift he closed his eyes and tried and tried
again in vain to picture the location of the hair salon. His eyes snapped open as the lift doors did the same.

‘Goodnight, Mr Kolovsky.’

He nodded to the receptionist. Actually responded to the doorman tonight. Made the steps with apparent ease and then slid into the back of his waiting car.

Tonight he would prove to the world he was back.

Put paid to all the rumours.

He kissed his date thoroughly. They’d been out a few times before the accident and she was delighted, she said, pressing herself into him as they sped to the casino, that he was back.

‘It’s good to be back,’ Aleksi said, and then he kissed her again—but only because it was easier than talking. It was far easier to kiss her than to tell her that he couldn’t remember her name.

T
HERE
was no thrill.

Aleksi put a million on black and just stared as the wheel went round.

Win, lose.

There was just no thrill any more.

He didn’t need the money, and he didn’t need Kolovsky.

Wasn’t sure if he wanted either.

He won.

He could hear the cheers, turned to what was surely the most beautiful woman on this planet and accepted the kiss on his lips, but he still couldn’t remember her name. He kissed her back, could taste her champagne on his sober tongue, and for a moment he pulled her in, wanted her smell, her breasts, her body to do something to cure the numbness.

Yet he couldn’t even accept the toast that was raised to him, let alone raise one himself.

He was back!

His suite awaited.

Paradise awaited.

Oblivion, even.

He was fifty million richer and he couldn’t even
become aroused by the beautiful woman he held in his arms.

Ah, but he knew his body. Like his Midas touch, it had never once failed him—and it didn’t now.

There it was—that primal response, the Kolovsky legend that never dimmed—and there was her triumphant smile as she finally felt his surge of arousal…

What
was
her name?

‘Excuse me one moment.’

He had been born in Australia but schooled at home, surrounded by his family, his history, and despite his perfectionism still there was just a hint of Russian to his voice.

He walked to the restroom.

The door was held open.

He relieved himself, zipped himself back into his exquisite suit pants and then washed his hands. Then, because it was numb and it felt like plastic, he washed his face as well. He pressed it into a fluffy towel and caught his reflection in the mirror.

Black hair, thick and glossy—check.

Slate-grey eyes, not a hint of blood in their whites—check.

Smooth, unblemished skin—check.

Designer stubble—check.

The chief of Kolovsky.

He loosened his tie, because he could feel his pulse leaping against his collar.

He knew.

What it was, he couldn’t remember—but he knew something important!

More than his brother Levander, who had lived it.

More than his twin, Iosef, who had
dealt
with it.

More than his sister Annika, who had worked through it.

He was cleverer than the lot of them—and being clever was a curse.

He
knew.
He knew so much more than any of them, and though he denied it—though his father had beaten him into silence because the truth would change everything—it was harder and harder to hide from it now.

There was a memory—an image, just a breath, just a realization away—yet no matter how he reached out to it, over and over it slipped from his grasp.

Why
couldn’t he remember?

He pressed his face into the cool mirror, willed clarity to come, and stared into the murky depths of his mind, hoping to God that coming off the pain medication would help clear it somehow. Because Aleksi knew that something had to be done.

He just didn’t know what.

His phone was bleeping in his pocket, summoning him back to his immaculate world. He took a breath and headed out there, and then it bleeped again and he looked at the screen.

Brandy.

Yes, that was her name. The word was suddenly there in front of him as she called him, no doubt wondering where he was, and now he remembered her name and also a ridiculous rhyme.

Whisky makes you frisky; brandy makes you randy.

Well, not tonight.

He turned left instead of right, ended up in the kitchen instead of the high rollers’ bar, ignored the exasperated attempts to turn him around, and then, when his phone beeped again, instead of answering it he rang
his personal driver and told him to ensure that Brandy was taken home or put up in the hotel—whatever it was she required.

‘Any message?’ his driver asked.

‘None,’ Aleksi said, and then clicked off his phone, tossed it into a deep fat fryer and pushed open a door.

He walked down the fire escape stairs, past the skips and dumpsters, out to a side street and into a cab.

‘Where to?’ the driver wanted to know.

Aleksi didn’t answer at first

‘Where to?’ the cab driver asked again.

‘The airport,’ Aleksi said, and as they made their way along the freeway it was all so familiar. He had been here before—he remembered then, the night of the accident, driving as if the devil was chasing him towards the airport, only he couldn’t remember why. Maybe it was because it would have given him time to think, Aleksi decided. Maybe that was what he had craved that night—what he craved right now. Except the freeway was clear, the streetlights shortening, and they were there in less than thirty minutes. ‘Take me back to the city.’

The cab driver started to argue, but stopped as a wad of notes silenced his protest.

‘Just drive.’

So they did.

One a.m. Two a.m. They drove around.

‘Left,’ Aleksi said as once again the city lights receded. ‘Take the exit here,’ he commanded as they swerved into suburbia. ‘Right at the roundabout. And right again.’

Then he saw Kate’s house, nondescript in the darkness. The little streak of grass needed a cut, her car needed a wash, and a ‘For Sale’ sign was posted outside.

‘Stop here.’

Money talked, so the taxi driver didn’t—just stopped there, for five, ten, fifteen minutes, as Aleksi waited for normal services to resume, for this madness to abate, to tap the driver on the shoulder and tell him to take him back.

He had said never again.

He had sworn to himself he’d never come here again.

Hated himself for leading her on—because nothing could ever come of it.

Three times he had ended up here—and loathed himself for it.

Tomorrow, when the sun rose, he would surely regret it again.

Don’t make the same mistake again, he begged himself.

But…

‘Go.’ He stepped out of the cab.

‘I can wait,’ the driver offered. ‘Make sure someone’s home…’

‘Go,’ Aleksi repeated.

He stood there, in the middle of suburbia at three a.m., with no phone, watching the cab drive off and wondering to himself what the hell he was doing here.

Again.

He quashed that thought, tried to dismiss memories of his other late night visits to this house, but they rose to the surface again, demanding an answer he struggled to give.

He’d known her the longest.

It was the first time he’d considered it, thought about it, pondered it.

Apart from family, Kate had been in his life the longest of any woman—their fractured five-year history was the furthest back he’d ever gone. Aleksi travelled
light; when a relationship was over it was over, and as for female friends—well, he’d never quite worked out how to keep it at that…

But he’d had to with Kate.

He walked up the path. Stared at the door. Told himself he could handle it.

And then took a breath and knocked.

Hearing the knocking on the door, Bruce barking just a couple of moments too late to earn the title of guard dog, Kate turned on the light. Half awake and half asleep, even as she headed down the hall she told herself not to hope.

Kate sometimes wondered if she imagined these visits.

There was never any mention of them—and certainly no acknowledgment of them—afterwards.

She didn’t really understand why he came, yet three times before now he had arrived on her doorstep.

Once, a couple of weeks after she had started back at Kolovsky, he had said that the press had been chasing him and he had shaken them off and ended up here. She had loaned him her sofa. His silver car had looked ridiculous in her drive and he had been gone by the time she had awoken the next morning.

Then, a few weeks later, there had been a row and she had resigned when he’d demanded she stay at work late. He had arrived in a taxi, a little the worse for wear, and had asked her to reconsider handing in her notice—had offered to more rigorously uphold the part-time conditions he had previously agreed to and then, when she had agreed to return, promptly fallen asleep on her sofa.

He had returned a third time after the charity ball, incoherent, clearly the worse for wear and at odds with everyone—furious with Belenki, with his family, and
with the world. They had shared their second kiss—a sweet, confusing kiss, because even as it had ended she’d seen the conflict in his eyes. What had taken place would not be open to discussion, and again he had been gone by morning. Then the accident had happened.

But now he was back—not just at work, but in her home, too.

Cruel, restless, angry—and never more so than now—again he was at her door.

‘My leg…’

She could see the sweat beading on his forehead as he limped over the threshold—which told her of the pain he was in, because this week he had hidden his limp so well. ‘Have you had a pill?’ She had never seen him like this. Not since the early days at the hospital, when they had been trying to get his pain medication under control. ‘Maybe you need an injection?’

‘I’ve stopped taking anything!’ he gasped.

He was so pale beneath his tan she thought he might pass out.

‘You’re supposed to be on a reducing dose.’

‘I have reduced—I’ve stopped completely.’

‘When?’

‘Today.’

‘Aleksi!’ She was truly horrified. ‘They said you had to reduce slowly—that it would be months before you could manage without them. You can’t just stop like that.’

‘Well, I just did.’ Aleksi said. ‘I need to think straight.’

‘You can’t think straight if you’re in pain!’ Kate insisted.

‘Listen!’ His hand closed around her wrist, his voice urgent. ‘Listen to me. Since the accident I have not been able to think straight…’

‘That’s to be expected.’

‘Exactly.’ His eyes were grey, the whites bloodshot, and she had never seen him look more ill. ‘They do not want me to think straight. Since that new doctor, always there are more pills…’

‘He’s the best,’ Kate insisted. ‘Your mother researched…’ Her voice trailed off—surely Nina wouldn’t stoop that low? But from the way she was acting now, maybe she could.

‘I am going back under the care of the hospital. I have an appointment on Monday. Once I can think, once I am off this medication, I will get them to manage things—not a doctor of my mother’s choosing.’ He looked over to her, and she could see pain there that was so much more than physical. ‘You must think I’m being completely paranoid…’

She was silent for the longest time before she spoke. ‘Regretfully, no.’ She thought a moment longer. ‘I think maybe we’re
both
being paranoid but, yes, I can see you don’t trust her.’

‘If I can get through tonight then I can think straight…’

That much she understood.

There was still so much she didn’t.

It should have been uncomfortable—awkward, perhaps, but when he was here in her home. It wasn’t.

Oh he was scathing and loathsome and everything Aleksi, yet he travelled lighter here—even if he was in pain, it was as if all his baggage had been checked and left at the door.

‘How,’ he said, standing at the bathroom door, ‘can you lose a plug?’

She’d suggested a bath and, given he’d probably
never run one in his life, for tonight she’d made allowances and offered to run it for him. Except she couldn’t find the plug!

‘Maybe Georgie…’ Kate started. But, no, she’d had a bath herself tonight.

‘Retrace your footsteps!’ was his most unhelpful suggestion.

‘What about a shower?’

‘You’ve just talked me into a bath, Kate,’ Aleksi said. ‘You spent the last ten minutes telling me how it would relax me, how—’

‘Here!’ The plug was in one of its regular hiding places—between the pages of a book she’d been reading—and of course he didn’t let her get away with it that easily. As she put in the plug and turned on the taps, having checked for towels and the like, she tried to beat a hasty retreat. But Aleksi blocked the door, holding out his hand and taking the novel from her reluctant hands.

‘I might like to read in the bath too,’ he told her.

He must, because he was gone for an age.

She didn’t really know what he was doing here—what it was that made him come. She just knew that he did.

Knew, somehow, that to question him would close the tiny door that occasionally opened between them.

The suave, sophisticated thing to do would be not to answer the door.

To pretend perhaps that she was out.

But she was in.

Definitely in to Aleksi.

She had a life.

A career.

A family.

But he was her thrill.

A guilty, delicious secret. An endless question that delivered no answers. But how nice he was to ponder. Unattainable to her, but for a while, at least, here with her in her home.

Oh, she knew what Aleksi was going through tonight—going cold turkey from his medication—and tomorrow, when she awoke to him gone, it would once again be Kate battling withdrawal symptoms from the loss of Aleksi.

‘Does she go back to him?’ He stood, leaning in her doorway, dripping wet, a towel around his hips, and Kate jumped where she lay on the bed and tried to scramble her thoughts into order. ‘Jessica?’

He really had been reading it! ‘For a little while,’ Kate said as he walked over. Really, there was no question of the sofa for either of them; somehow she knew that tonight they were both staying here in her bedroom. ‘Then…’

‘Then what?’ Aleksi asked, sitting on the bed. ‘Then she realised she was better off without him?’ He lay down beside her, stretched out, just a towel covering his loins, and she couldn’t look—how she wanted to look, but she couldn’t.

‘I haven’t got that far yet.’ He closed his eyes and now she
could
look at him. Sitting up against the pillows, she stared at the most beautiful specimen of a man, lying beside her, one of her small towels a sash around his groin, his cheekbones—oh, God, his perfect cheekbones—two dark slashes on his cheeks, and the spike of wet eyelashes closed. But it was his nearly naked body that was new to her tonight—many nights of imaginings hadn’t sufficed. Up close and personal, he was nothing but stunning.