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‘Why?’ She turned very blue eyes to him. ‘So that you can report back to Iosef?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Tell him I’m doing fine,’ Annika snapped, and, no, she didn’t kick up her heels, and she didn’t run, but she did walk swiftly away from him.
A year.
For more than a year she’d carried a torch, had secretly hoped that his smile, those looks they had shared, had meant something. All that time she had thought it had been about her, and yet again it wasn’t.
Again, all she was was a Kolovsky.
It rankled. On the drive home it gnawed and burnt, but when she got there her mother had left a long message on the answer machine which rankled rather more.
They needed to go over details, she reminded her daughter.
It was the charity ball in just three weeks—as if Annika could ever forget.
When Annika had been a child it had been discovered that her father had an illegitimate son—one who was being raised in an orphanage in Russia.
Levander had been brought over to Australia. Her father had done everything to make up for the wretched years his son had suffered, and Levander’s appalling early life had been kept a closely guarded family secret.
Now, though, the truth was starting to seep out. And Nina, anticipating a public backlash, had moved into pre-emptive damage control.
Huge donations had been sent to several orphanages, and to a couple of street-kid programmes too.
And then there was The Ball.
It was to be a dazzling, glitzy affair they would all attend. Levander was to be excused because he was in England, but the rest of the family would be there. Iosef and his wife, her brother Aleksi, and of course Annika. They would all look glossy and beautiful and be photographed to the max, so that when the truth inevitably came out the spin doctors would be ready.
Already were ready.
Annika had read the draft of the waiting press release.
The revelation of his son Levander’s suffering sent Ivan Kolovsky to an early grave. He was thrilled when his second-born, Iosef, on qualifying as a doctor, chose to work amongst the poor in Russia, and Ivan would be proud to know that his daughter, Annika, is now studying nursing. On Ivan’s deathbed he begged his wife to set up the Kolovsky Foundation, which has gone on to raise huge amounts (insert current figure).
Lies.
Lies based on twisted truths. And only since her father’s death had Annika started to question them.
And now she had, everything had fallen apart.
Her mother had never hit her before—oh, maybe a slap on the leg when she was little and had refused to converse in Russian, and once as a teenager, when her mother had found out she was eating burgers on her morning jog, Annika had nursed a red cheek and a swollen eye … but hardly anything major …
Until she had asked about Levander.
They had been sorting out her father’s things, a painful task at the best of times, and Annika had come across some letters. She hadn’t read them—she hadn’t had a chance to. Nina had snatched them out of her hands, but Annika had asked her mother a question that had been nagging. It was a question her brothers had refused to answer when she had approached them with it. She asked whether Ivan and Nina had known that Levander was in an orphanage all those years.
Her mother had slapped her with a viciousness that had left Annika reeling—not at the pain but with shock.
She had then discovered that when she started to think, to suggest, to question, to find her own path in life, the love and support Annika had thought was unconditional had been pulled up like a drawbridge.
And the money had been taken away too.
Annika deleted her mother’s message and prepared a light supper. She showered, and then, because she hadn’t had time to this morning, ironed her white agency nurse’s uniform and dressed. Tying her hair back, she clipped on her name badge.
Annika Kolovsky.
No matter how she resisted, it was who she was—and all she was to others.
She should surely be used to it by now.
Except she’d thought Ross had seen something else—thought for a foolish moment that Ross Wyatt had seen her for herself. Yet again it came back to one thing.
She was a Kolovsky.
CHAPTER THREE
‘SLEEP well, Elsie.’ Elsie didn’t answer as Annika tucked the blankets round the bony shoulders of the elderly lady.
Elsie had spat out her tablets and thrown her dinner on the floor. She had resisted at every step of Annika undressing her and getting her into bed. But now that she was in bed she relaxed, especially when Annika positioned the photo of her late husband, Bertie, where the old lady could see him.
‘I’ll see you in the morning. I have another shift then.’
Still Elsie didn’t answer, and Annika wished she would. She loved the stories Elsie told, during the times when she was lucid. But Elsie’s confusion had worsened because of an infection, and she had been distressed tonight, resenting any intrusion. Nursing patients with dementia was often a thankless task, and Annika’s shifts exhausted her, but at least, unlike on the children’s ward, where she had been for a week now, here Annika knew what she was doing.
Oh, it was back-breaking, and mainly just sheer hard work, but she had been here for over a year now, and knew the residents. The staff of the private nursing home had been wary at first, but they were used to Annika now. She had proved herself a hard worker and, frankly, with a skeleton staff, so long as the patients were clean and dry, and bedded at night or dressed in the morning, nobody really cared who she was or why someone as rich as Annika always put her hand up for extra shifts.
It was ridiculous, though.
Annika knew that.
In fact she was ashamed that she stood in the forecourt of a garage next to a filthy old ute and had to prepay twenty dollars, because that was all she had until her pay from the nursing home went in tomorrow, to fill up the tank of a six-figure powder-blue sports car.
It had been her twenty-first birthday present.
Her mother had been about to upgrade it when Annika had declared she wanted to study nursing, and when she had refused to give in the financial plug had been pulled.
Her car now needed a service, which she couldn’t afford. The sensible thing, of course, would be to sell it—except, despite its being a present, technically, it didn’t belong to her: it was a company car.
So deep in thought was Annika, so bone-weary from a day on the children’s ward and a twilight shift at the nursing home, that she didn’t notice the man crossing the forecourt towards her.
‘Annika?’ He was putting money in his wallet. He had obviously just paid, and she glanced around rather than look at him. She was one burning blush, and not just because it was Ross, but rather because someone from work had seen her. She had done a full shift on the children’s ward, and was due back there at midday tomorrow, so there was no way on earth she should be cramming in an extra shift, but she clearly was—two, actually, not that he could know! The white agency nurse dress seemed to glow under the fluorescent lights.
He could have nodded and left it there.
He damn well should nod and leave it there—and maybe even have a quiet word with Caroline tomorrow, or Iosef, perhaps.
Or say nothing at all—just simply forget.
He chose none of the above.
‘How about a coffee?’
‘It’s late.’
‘I know it’s late,’ Ross said, ‘but I’m sure you could use a coffee. There’s an all-night cafe a kilometre up the road—I’ll see you there.’
She nearly didn’t go.
She was extremely tempted not to go. But she had no choice.
Normally she was careful about being seen in her agency uniform, but she didn’t have her jacket in the car, and she’d been so low on petrol … Anyway, Annika told herself, it was hardly a crime—all her friends did agency shifts. How the hell would a student survive otherwise?
His grim face told her her argument would be wasted.
‘I know students have to work …’ he had bought her a coffee and she added two sugars ‘… and I know it’s probably none of my business …’
‘It is none of your business,’ Annika said.
‘But I’ve heard Caroline commenting, and I’ve seen you yawning …’ Ross said. ‘You look like you’ve got two black eyes.’
‘So tell Caroline—or report back to my brother.’ Annika shrugged. ‘Then your duty is done.’
‘Annika!’ Ross was direct. ‘Do you go out of your way to be rude?’
‘Rude?’
‘I’m trying not to talk to Caroline; I’m trying to talk to you.’
‘Check up on me, you mean, so that Iosef—’
He whistled in indignation. ‘This has nothing to do with your brother. It’s my ward, Annika. You were on an early today; you’re on again tomorrow …’
‘How do you know?’
‘Sorry?’
‘My shift tomorrow. How do you know?’
And that he couldn’t answer—but the beat of silence did.
He’d checked.
Not deliberately—he hadn’t swiped keys and found the nursing roster—but as he’d left the ward he had glanced up at the whiteboard and seen that she was on tomorrow.
He had noted to himself that she was on tomorrow.
‘I saw the whiteboard.’
And she could have sworn that he blushed. Oh, his cheeks didn’t flare like a match to a gas ring, as Annika’s did—he was far too laid-back for that, and his skin was so much darker—but there was something that told her he was embarrassed. He blinked, and then his lips twitched in a very short smile, and then he blinked again. There was no colour as such to his eyes—in fact they were blacker than black, so much so that she couldn’t even make out his pupils. He was staring, and so was she. They were sitting in an all-night coffee shop. She was in her uniform and he was telling her off for working, and yet she was sure there was more.
Almost sure.
‘So, Iosef told you to keep an eye out for me?’ she said, though more for her own benefit—that smile wouldn’t fool her again.
‘He said that he was worried about you, that you’d pretty much cut yourself off from your family.’
‘I haven’t,’ Annika said, and normally that would have been it. Everything that was said stayed in the family, but Ross was Iosef’s friend and she was quite sure he knew more. ‘I see my mother each week; I am attending a family charity ball soon. Iosef and I argued, but only because he thinks I’m just playing at nursing.’
This wasn’t news to Ross. Iosef had told him many things—how Annika was spoilt, how she stuck at nothing, how nursing was her latest flight of fancy. Of course Ross could not say this, so he just sat as she continued.
‘I have not cut myself off from my family. Aleksi and I are close …’ She saw his jaw tighten, as everyone’s did these days when her brother’s name was mentioned. Aleksi was trouble. Aleksi, now head of the Kolovsky fortune, was a loose cannon about to explode at any moment. Annika was the only one he was close to; even his twin Iosef was being pushed aside as Aleksi careered out of control. She looked down at her coffee then, but it blurred, so she pressed her fingers into her eyes.
‘You can talk to me,’ Ross said.
‘Why would I?’
‘Because that’s what people do,’ Ross said. ‘Some people you know you can talk to, and some people …’ He stopped then. He could see she didn’t understand, and neither really did Ross. He swallowed down the words he had been about to utter and changed tack. ‘I am going to Spain in three, nearly four weeks.’ He smiled at her frown. ‘Caroline doesn’t know; Admin doesn’t know. In truth, they are going to be furious when they find out. I am putting off telling them till I have spoken with a friend who I am hoping can cover for me …’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because I’m asking you to tell me things you’d rather no one else knew.’
She took her fingers out of her eyes and looked up to find that smile.
‘It would be rude not to share,’ he said.
He was dangerous.
She could almost hear her mother’s rule that you discussed family with no one breaking.
‘My mother does not want me to nurse,’ Annika tentatively explained. And the skies didn’t open with a roar, missiles didn’t engage. There was just the smell of coffee and the warmth of his eyes. ‘She has cut me off financially until I come back home. I still see her, I still go over and I still attend functions. I haven’t cut myself off. It is my mother who has cut me off—financially, anyway. That’s why I’m working these shifts.’
He didn’t understand—actually, he didn’t fully believe it.
He could guess at what her car was worth, and he knew from his friend that Annika was doted upon. Then there was Aleksi and his billions, and Iosef, even if they argued, would surely help her out.
‘Does Iosef know you’re doing extra shifts?’
‘We don’t talk much,’ Annika admitted. ‘We don’t get on; we just never have. I was always a daddy’s girl, the little princess … Levander, my older brother, thinks the same …’ She gave a helpless shrug. ‘I was always pleading with them to toe the line, to stop making waves in the family. Iosef is just waiting for me to quit.’
‘Iosef cares about you.’
‘He offers me money,’ Annika scoffed. ‘But really he is just waiting for this phase to be over. If I want money I will ask Aleksi, but, really, how can I be independent if all I do is cash cheques?’
‘And how can you study and do placements and be a Kolovsky if you’re cramming in extra shifts everywhere?’
She didn’t know how, because she was failing at every turn.
