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!
‘What is the password?’ Zakahr asked. ‘For the computer?’
‘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…’
‘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.’
‘And?’ Zakahr shrugged.
‘Once a month or so we have an esteemed bridal guest—a Kolovsky always greets her at the airport and brings her back here…’
‘Here?’ Zakahr frowned—because surely they would head straight for a hotel?
‘Here,’ Lavinia confirmed. ‘Because this is the moment she’s been dreaming of.’ He was far too male to understand. ‘Anyway, she’s hardly been cooped up in Economy. She will have been in their own jet. But someone high up has to greet them—it’s what happens, what’s expected.’
‘The designer can go,’ Zakahr dismissed, but when Lavinia still stood there he offered rare compromise. ‘You go—if you have to.’
Lavinia ignored this. ‘And then, as their host, you will invite her to dinner later in the week, and if their stay has been satisfactory you and your guest will be invited by her family to dinner…’ She frowned for a minute. ‘I think it’s that way around—yes, in a few days she’ll ask you to dinner to thank Kolovsky for its hospitality. She’s here for a couple of weeks, as the wedding is only a couple of months off.’ She saw him frown. ‘There are normally a number of trips—Jasmine’s doing it all in one.’
‘The designers can take care of that side of things.’
‘The designers are busy designing.’ Lavinia rolled her eyes with impatience. ‘The design team will be working day and night on the first designs…’
‘I have more important things to do than meet some spoiled princess at the airport.’
‘Fine.’ Lavinia shrugged. ‘Then so do I.’ She turned to go, then changed her mind. ‘These things matter, Zakahr.’ He was working on the computer and didn’t look up, and though in truth it wasn’t Lavinia’s problem, on her previous bosses’ behalf it incensed her. ‘This is the biggest day of the Princess’s life we’ve been entrusted with. It’s her wedding!’ Lavinia said.
But that word clearly didn’t move him, and if he didn’t care then neither should she—except Lavinia did.
‘I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now, Zakahr. And, just for the record, I didn’t race to get here because the new head of Kolovsky was taking office, I didn’t sit putting on my make-up to impress you—I’m here and ready because I knew that the Princess had to be met. I’m not at my best with our international guests—Kate hated sending me. I forget things, I talk too much, or I show the soles of my feet and such. But I turned up today to try to do what is expected, because that’s what Kolovsky is about—beautiful gowns, beautiful women, and at the top of the food chain those blasted wedding gowns.’
He just sat there. Zakahr did not need to be told how things were done by some Assistant PA who fell asleep at her desk. Except he knew he just had been. She was a strange mix, Zakahr decided. Disorganised, yet conscientious. There was also a brazenness to her—a boldness in her slender stature as she awaited his response, hand on hip, toes resisting tapping. Still he said nothing.
‘Fine,’ she shrilled to the cold silence. ‘I’ll go myself.’
But first she had to make a phone call …
Back at her desk, Lavinia checked the Princess’s flight details, and that the cars were all ready, and waited anxiously for the clock to edge to nine before picking up the phone and dialling.
Ms Hewitt, Rachael’s case worker, sounded more angry than exasperated. ‘I spoke with you on Friday. You cannot ring in for daily checks—you are not her next of kin.’
‘I’m trying to be, though.’ Lavinia resisted the urge to say something smart, knowing that she needed these people to be on her side. ‘I just want to know that she’s okay, and to find out when I can see her.’
‘Rachael’s father is visiting her on Wednesday evening, and again on Sunday. Really, it’s very unsettling for Rachael to have so many visitors.’
‘She’s my half-sister,’ Lavinia bristled. ‘How can it be unsettling for her to see me?’
‘I’ll speak with her carers and see if we can arrange something.’
‘And that’s it?’ Lavinia asked. ‘Can I at least have a phone number so that I can ring her?’
‘We’ll contact you if we need to.’ Ms Hewitt would not be swayed. ‘I’ll see if I can arrange a visit.’
Lavinia somehow managed to thank her, then replaced the phone and buried her head in her hands. She hated the lack of speed—couldn’t stand what was happening to Rachael—and knew that Kevin, Rachael’s father, was still probably dredging up every piece of dirt he could on Lavinia. He’d done everything he could to shut her out of the little girl’s life. Maybe it was better that she was at work, because otherwise she’d be standing outside the kindergarten, waiting for Rachael to arrive, and that wouldn’t go down well. Lavinia knew she had to stay calm. Had to accept that nothing was going to happen fast—and that she had to prove she was the responsible one.
‘Sorry to inconvenience you with work.’
Lavinia looked up to the owner of the voice that dripped sarcasm. He was holding out her jacket, and she didn’t even attempt to explain herself. She knew how bad this looked. Instead she just took her jacket and clipped ahead, trying to switch her mind to the job, to being the happy, outgoing person she was at work, whatever the problems in her private life.
They used the rear entrance. A huge limo swallowed them up, with another following to accommodate the royal entourage, and they headed for the airport as Lavinia filled him in as best she could on Princess Jasmine’s details. Even Zakahr’s eyes widened when she told him what this gown and the dresses for the bridesm
aids would be costing King Abdullah.
No wonder Kolovsky, despite everything, was still riding high.
For Zakahr, it was in fact a relief to get out of the office—to get away from the scent of Kolovsky, the surroundings—and for the first time since he had taken over he felt the creep of doubt. He had given himself a month to come to a decision. He was starting to wonder if he could stand to be there for even a week.
For years he had watched the House of Kolovsky from a distance, researching them thoroughly. Levander, Ivan’s illegitimate son, had been brought over from Russia as a teenager and given the golden key to Kolovsky. There was no mention of Riminic, Nina and Ivan’s firstborn.
Riminic Ivan Kolovsky they had named their baby, as was the Russian way—Riminic, son of Ivan—then at two days old they had taken him to Detsky Dom. Some orphanages were good, but Nina and Ivan had not chosen well. The Kolovsky name meant only hate to Zakahr.
At thirteen he had left the orphanage and had done what he had to to survive on the streets. At seventeen he had been given a chance—shelter, access to a computer, to a different path. Discarding his birth name, he had followed that path with a vision—and that vision included revenge.
As rumours had escalated that Levander had been raised in Detsky Dom, of course the House of Kolovsky had rapidly developed a social conscience, raising great sums for orphanages and street children.
Zakahr had been doing it since his first pay cheque.
And so he had made contact—attending a charity ball Nina had organised as guest speaker, telling the glamorous audience the true hell of his upbringing and his life on the streets. Nina had been sipping on champagne as she had unwittingly met her son.
‘It’s not just a gown.’
Lavinia dragged him from his thoughts. She was still in full flood, Zakahr realised. She’d probably been talking for five minutes and he hadn’t heard a word!
‘It’s the experience, it’s working out the exact colour scheme, it’s watching how she walks, her figure, her personality—that’s why she has to come to us. For the next few days the Princess will be the sole focus of our designers. Every detail has to be sorted out while she’s here. The team will be in regular contact afterwards, of course—and then a week before the wedding our team will fly to her and take care of everything. Hair, make-up—the works. All the Princess will have to do is smile on the day.’
‘And how many weddings?’ Zakahr asked. ‘How often do we have to do this?’
‘Once, sometimes twice a month,’ Lavinia said, and then, when she saw his face tighten, it was Lavinia who couldn’t resist. ‘And what with it coming in to spring in Europe we’re exceptionally busy now. You’ll be doing this a lot.’
‘Great,’ he muttered. Talking weddings was so not Zakahr.
They sat in silence, and the car was so lovely and warm, and she was just so, so tired, that Lavinia leant back in the sumptuous leather. She wasn’t at her desk now, so she did what she would have done had it been any of her old bosses there, and closed her eyes.
Even if she wasn’t quite what Zakahr was used to, he begrudgingly admired her complete lack of pretence. Rather more privately, after another sleepless night, he felt like doing the same, but instead he took the opportunity for closer inspection.
She really was astonishingly pretty—or was attractive the word? Zakahr couldn’t decide. Her jacket was hanging up, her arms lay long and loose by her sides, she had wriggled out of her stilettos, and sat with her knees together and her slender calves splayed like a young colt. Though there was so much on his mind, Zakahr wanted a moment’s distraction—and she was rather intriguing. He actually wanted to know more about her.
‘How long have you worked for Kolovsky?’
‘A couple of years,’ Lavinia said with her eyes still closed. ‘I did a bit of modelling for them, but I had an extra olive in my salad one day and Nina said I would be better suited in the office.’ She opened one eye. ‘I’m aesthetically pleasing, apparently, but I’m just not thin enough to model the gowns.’
She was tiny! Well, average height. But her waist could be spanned by his hand, her legs were long and slender, her clavicles two jagged lines. Zakahr, who trusted his personal shopper to sort out his own immaculate wardrobe, realised he knew very little about the industry he had taken on.
‘What did you do before that?’ Zakahr asked her once more closed eyes.
‘Modelling—though nothing as tasteful as Kolovsky. It wasn’t my proudest period.’
Zakahr didn’t say anything.
Lavinia just shrugged. ‘It paid the rent.’
It had more than paid the rent.
Hauled out of school by her raging mother one afternoon, the sixteen-year-old Lavinia had become the breadwinner. She had wanted to finish school, had been bright enough to go university—and though she hadn’t known what she wanted to be at the time, she had known what she didn’t want!
Lavinia had also been bright enough to quickly realise that her mother had no need to know just how many tips she was making.
For two years she had squirrelled away cash in her bedroom.
At eighteen she had opened a bank account and started studying part-time.
At twenty-two, six months after starting work at the House of Kolovsky, and with the requisite employment history, she had marched into her bank, taken her money and bought her very small home.
A home she now wanted to share with Rachael.
Just the thought of her sister alone, with a stranger getting her ready for kindergarten this morning, had Lavinia jolting awake. Her eyes opened in brief panic and she looked straight into the dark pools of Zakahr’s gaze—a dark, assessing gaze that did not cause awkwardness. He didn’t pretend he hadn’t been watching her sleep, he did not use words, and somehow his solid presence brought comfort.
‘Rest,’ Zakahr said finally.
Only now she couldn’t. Now she was terribly aware of him, felt a need to fill the silence. But he was staring out of the window, his expression unreadable, and Lavinia was filled with a sudden urge to tell him she knew who he was, to drop the pretence and find out the truth.
The drive took a good thirty minutes, and was one Zakahr had made a few times in the past months as he had slowly infiltrated Kolovsky. Each time he’d left Australia his heart had blackened a touch further at realising just how lavishly his family had lived all these years while leaving him to fend for himself.
‘It’s just coming up…’
Zakahr frowned as Lavinia interrupted his dark thoughts.
‘Where Aleksi’s accident happened…’
There wasn’t much to show for it—the tree that had crumpled his car simply wore a large pale scar—but it did move Zakahr.
A troubled Aleksi had been trying to halt Zakahr in leaving after his speech at the charity ball, unsure as to his own motives, not even realising that the businessman he was dealing with was actually his brother. Something had propelled him to race to the airport in the middle of the night with near fatal consequences. Though little moved Zakahr, Aleksi’s plight had. At seven years old Aleksi had uncovered the fact that he had not just one but two brothers in Russia, and he had confronted his father with the truth. Ivan had beaten him badly enough to ensure that it was forgotten. Only the truth had slowly been revealed.
Out of all of them, Aleksi was the only Kolovsky he had any time for.
‘Have you known him long?’ Lavinia fished, but Zakahr didn’t answer. ‘I was surprised Iosef wasn’t his best man…’ Lavinia tried harder ‘ … given they’re twins.’
He was, Lavinia decided, the most impossible man—completely at ease with silence, with not explaining himself. He didn’t even attempt an evasive answer—he just refused any sort of response.
‘Five minutes, Lavinia,’ Eddie the driver warned her and, sick of her new boss’s silence, Lavinia opened the partition and asked after Eddie’s daughter as she pulled out her make-up bag.
‘Six weeks to go!’ Eddie
said.
‘Are you excited?’ Lavinia asked, and then glanced over to Zakahr. ‘Eddie’s about to become a grandfather.’
It could not interest Zakahr less, and his extremely brief nod should have made that clear, but Lavinia and Eddie carried on chatting.
‘I can’t stop my wife shopping—we’ve got a room full of pink!’
‘So it’s a girl!’
Lavinia seemed delighted, and Zakahr watched as she snapped into action—touching up her make-up and combing her long blonde hair.
She could feel him watching her, sensed his irritation, and her blue eyes jerked up from the mirror. ‘What?’
He shrugged and looked away before he answered. ‘I don’t like vanity.’
‘I’d suggest that you do!’
‘Pardon?’
‘You’ve dated enough vain women,’ Lavinia pointed out. ‘According to my impeccable sources.’
‘Five-dollar magazines?’ Zakahr was derisive, but still he was intrigued. Lavinia wasn’t remotely unnerved by him, and it was surprisingly refreshing. ‘Are you always this rude to your boss?’
‘Was I rude?’ Lavinia thought about it for a moment. ‘Then, yes, I suppose I am. You wouldn’t last five minutes in this place otherwise.’ She was annoyed now—he just didn’t get it. ‘And it has nothing to do with my being vain—this isn’t me!’ Lavinia said. ‘This is me at work. Do you really think the Princess wants someone greeting her in jeans with oily hair?’ She was on a roll now! ‘And another thing—while by your calculations I was five minutes late, I was actually fifty-five minutes early. Most people start work at nine. And because work insists I look the part, when I got to work I ensured that I did,’ she concluded, snapping closed her lipgloss as the driver opened the car door. Then, having said her piece, she suddenly smiled and did what Lavinia did best—got on with the job. ‘Let’s go and meet the Princess!’
The Devil Wears Kolovsky Page 2
