A Bride for Kolovsky Read Online Free PDF

with perfume. ‘I’ll be back before two.’
    â€˜Back from where?’
    â€˜Lunch!’ From his expression she might just as well have sworn. ‘I’m surely entitled to a lunch-break?’ Insupport of her argument, Catering wheeled in a sumptuous trolley of delights for Zakahr, but it did not appease him.
    â€˜We will work through lunch,’ Zakahr said. ‘Come and eat with me.’
    â€˜I really can’t,’ Lavinia said. ‘I’ve got an appointment. A doctor’s appointment.’ She ran a hand over her stomach and Zakahr pressed his lips together.
    She knew every trick, he realized. Knew with just that fleeting gesture no man would pry into women’s business—and Lavinia was certainly that: a woman.
    â€˜Sorry!’ Lavinia added.
    She didn’t hang around for his reaction. Instead she darted out to the lift, just a little bit breathless at her lie—because if Zakahr knew where she was going on her lunch-break he’d do more than sack her. It was, she knew, the ultimate treachery. He’d go ballistic if he knew where she was heading.
    But she couldn’t not go.
    Â 
    â€˜Hi, Nina.’
    Nina didn’t look up—she was talking to herself in Russian—but Lavinia hugged her. Trying to keep the shock from her voice, she chatted away—except Lavinia was shocked. In a couple of days the other woman had surely aged a decade.
    Nina had somehow got through her son’s wedding. On day leave from the plush psychiatric hospital, and sedated from strawberry-blonde head to immaculately shod feet, she had worn a smile and a fantastic Kolovsky dress,and with Lavinia’s help had managed to get through the service. But clearly the public effort had depleted her.
    Her hair hung in rats’ tails, her nail polish was chipped, and there was no trace of make-up. The silk she usually wore was replaced by a hospital gown, and all Lavinia knew was that Nina—the real Nina—would absolutely hate to be seen like this.
    â€˜I’m going to do your hair, Nina,’ Lavinia said, rummaging in her locker and finding some hair straighteners. ‘And then I’m going to do your nails.’
    Nina made no response. She just sat talking in Russian as Lavinia smoothed out her hair. Only when Lavinia sat and worked on her nails did Nina speak in English—the questions, the statements, always in the same vein. ‘He hates me. Everyone hates me.’
    â€˜I don’t hate you, Nina,’ Lavinia responded, as she always had since the day the news had hit.
    A terrible day that was etched for ever in her mind.
    Aleksi had returned from his accident to find Nina had taken over, and a terrible struggle for power had ensued. Nina had taken advice from Zakahr, who from afar had fed her ideas that would make huge profits but, as Aleksi had pointed out, would also cause Kolovsky’s demise.
    Then Zakahr had swept in, and for Aleksi realisation had hit: the man toying with Nina was actually his brother.
    Lavinia could still recall the moment Nina had found out that Zakahr was her son. She had held Nina as she’d collapsed to the floor while Aleksi had told her in no uncertain terms of what Riminic, the child she hadabandoned, had endured in the orphanage, and then in graphic detail what the runaway teenager had gone through to survive on the streets.
    â€˜They will never forgive me.’ Around and around Nina went.
    â€˜Your family just need some time to process things,’ Lavinia said patiently. ‘Annika has been in to see you, and Aleksi has rung from his honeymoon. I know Levander has been in touch from the UK, and Iosef has been in to see you.’
    â€˜They are all disgusted with me.’
    Lavinia let out a breath and focussed on painting a middle nail. Sometimes she truly didn’t know what to say. ‘They need time,’ she said.
    â€˜I had no choice,’ Nina pleaded, but Lavinia would not