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!’
Zakahr had realised back at the office that it would be extremely offensive for him not to greet the royal guests, and he was more than a little grateful to his dizzy PA for her strong stance. Because it wasn’t just the Princess—the King himself was here. Zakahr quickly assessed that one bad word from this esteemed guest and even the great Kolovsky name would be dinted.
Zakahr swung into impressive action—greeting the guests formally in the VIP lounge, and immediately quashing any disappointment that neither Nina nor Aleksi was here to greet them.
Lavinia was very good at small talk, Zakahr noted, back in the limousine. She chatted away to the shy Princess and her mother, and very quickly put them at ease. And every layer of lipgloss, Zakahr conceded, was merited—because it was clear the royal family expected nothing less than pure glamour, and Kolovsky could deliver that in spades.
‘The team are so looking forward to finally meeting with you,’ said Lavinia now.
She was nothing like the pale, wan woman who had stepped into his office this morning. She was effusive, yet professional, and as they stepped out of the limo it was Lavinia who paved the way, speaking in low tones to Zakahr about what was taking place.
‘We take them through to the design team now.’
The King remained in the car, his aides in the vehicle behind, and they all waited till they had driven off before the colourful parade made its way to the centre of Kolovsky. Every door required more authorisation, but then they were in.
‘Thank you.’ Zakahr was not begrudging when praise was due, and as they left the Princess in the design team’s