A Bride for Kolovsky Read Online Free PDF Page B

be manipulated. She was used to her mother’s ways, and in a lot of things Nina behaved the same.
    â€˜There are always choices,’ Lavinia said. ‘Maybe you made the best decision you could at the time.’
    â€˜I should have tried to find him,’ Nina said, and Lavinia, who never, ever cried, felt her eyes suddenly well up.
    The nails she was trying to focus on blurred, and for a moment she couldn’t answer—because, yes, Nina should have tried to find him. And, yes, when they were so rich and powerful, surely, surely she should have tried to find her son. And it dawned on her, fully dawned, that the brooding, closed-off man she had met this morning was actually the baby Nina had abandoned.
    â€˜Why didn’t you?’ Lavinia couldn’t stop herself from asking. ‘Why didn’t you even try?’
    â€˜I saw how everyone hated me when Levander came to Australia—when they found out I knew his mother had died, and that Levander had been raised in Detsky Dom orphanage…’
    Lavinia blew her hair upwards. Nina was getting more and more indiscreet, and the rumour that had quietly blown through Kolovsky—that Nina had known all along—was, to Lavinia’s horror, confirmed.
    â€˜Levander wasn’t my blood, and still they hated me. I couldn’t face it if they knew there was more—that I had left my own son too.’
    â€˜Well, you have to face it.’ Lavinia bit down on the sudden white-hot fury that shot through her. ‘You have to face it because the truth is here.’
    â€˜Does he ask about me?’ Nina begged. ‘Does Riminic ask about me?’
    â€˜Nina…’ Lavinia shook her head in exasperation. ‘He doesn’t have a clue that I know who he really is—to me he’s Zakahr Belenki, someone Kolovsky was doing business with, and he’s taken over now that Aleksi is working solely on the Krasavitsa fashion line and you are not well. That’s all he thinks I know.’
    â€˜He is beautiful, yes?’ Nina said. ‘How could I not see he was my son? How did I look in his eyes and not recognise him?’
    â€˜Maybe you were scared to,’ Lavinia offered. She glanced up at the clock on the wall. She was loath to leave her because at least Nina was talking now, but she had no choice. ‘I have to go, Nina.’
    And then, in the midst of her devastation, as always Nina remembered.
    â€˜How is your sister?’
    Lavinia toyed with whether to tell her or not. She had always confided in Nina, but now it just didn’t seem the right time.
    â€˜She’s doing okay.’
    â€˜She likes kindergarten?’
    â€˜She does,’ Lavinia said quietly, thinking of Rachael’s serious little face—a guarded face that rarely smiled. She was reminded of Zakahr.
    â€˜You keep fighting for her.’
    Nina stroked Lavinia’s cheek, and Lavinia truly didn’t get it. She had seen the worst of Nina—had heard her bitch and moan, had worked alongside her even as she tried to have Aleksi ousted. With all the shame of her past—the fact she hadn’t fought for her own son—there was so much to despise, and yet Nina could be so kind.
    â€˜Give her my love.’
    â€˜I will.’ Lavinia stood up. ‘I’d better get back.’ She really had better get back—hospital visits didn’t really squeeze into lunch-breaks, and she’d have to run through the car park to make it back to the office.
    But as she raced out of the lift she saw Zakahr had beaten her to it.
    â€˜How was the doctor?’ he asked.
    â€˜Not great.’ Lavinia put on her best martyred face, but instead of being cross with her Zakahr actually wanted to laugh—she was such an actress.
    â€˜Poor you,’ Zakahr said, and she caught his eye, not sure if he was being sarcastic—not sure of this man at all.
    He unsettled her.
    All morning he had unsettled her—in