Even when he was at his meanest, even when Kate had somehow managed to erase six months of figures and had tearfully been trying to retrieve them as he hovered like a black cloud over her shoulder one very early morning, still he’d managed a smile and an eye-roll for Georgie.
‘Mummy will find them, Georgie,’ he had assured the little girl.
‘Mummy damn well can’t,’ Kate had growled.
‘Yes, Kate,’ Aleksi had said, ‘you can. And,’ he had added, winking to his latest fan, ‘don’t swear in front of your daughter.’
‘Does Aleksi have a girlfriend?’ Georgie probed, and Kate hesitated.
Aleksi cast new meaning on the term ‘playing the field’, and Georgie was way too young for that. Still, she didn’t want her daughter getting too many ideas on her mother’s behalf.
‘Aleksi’s very popular with the ladies,’ Kate settled for, and then tried to hurry things along. ‘Come on, eat up—you’ve got school.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
‘You’ll enjoy it when you’re there,’ Kate said assuredly. But, seeing Georgie’s eyes fill up with tears, she had trouble wearing that brave smile.
‘They don’t like me, Mum.’
‘Do you want me to have another word with Miss Nugent?’
Kate had had many words with the teacher. Georgie was gifted—incredibly clever. She could read, she could write, but she was also funny and naughty and almost five years old. And Miss Nugent had more pressing problems than a child who could read and write.
‘Then they’ll be more mean to me.’ Her voice wobbled and tore straight through Kate’s heart. ‘Why don’t they like me?’
There was no simple answer. Georgie had had a miserable year at kindergarten and now school was proving no better. Though her daughter ached to join in with the other children at playtime, the other little girls didn’t include her, because in the classroom she didn’t fit in. She could read and write already; she could tell the time. Bored, she annoyed the other students, and the teachers too with her incessant questions, and there had been a few incidents recently where Georgie—Kate’s sweet, happy little Georgie—had been labeled as ‘difficult’.
Shamefully, it was almost a relief to Kate that Georgie didn’t want her to speak to Miss Nugent!
Bruce the dog got most of Georgie’s egg and toast, and as they drove to school it took all Kate’s effort to keep wearing that smile as she walked a reluctant Georgie across the playground and into her classroom.
‘Come on now, Georgie!’ Miss Nugent said firmly as Georgie lingered by the pegs—though at least today she didn’t cry. ‘Say goodbye—Mum has to go to work.’
‘Bye, Mum,’ Georgie duly said, and it almost broke Kate’s heart.
All the little girls were in groups, chatting and laughing, whereas Georgie sat alone, looking through her reader, her pencil case in front of her. How Kate wished Georgie could just join in and play. How Kate wished her daughter could, for once, fit in.
As she drove to work, not for the first time she reconsidered Aleksi’s offer—if she worked full-time for him, he had told her, then he would pay for Georgie’s education. Kate had already found the most wonderful school—a school with a gifted children’s programme—one that understood the problems along with the rewards of having a child that was exceptionally bright. But, more importantly, Kate had known the moment she had stepped into the class during the tour that Georgie would instantly fit in.
There, Georgie would be just a regular child.
Hitting a solid wall of traffic on the freeway, she shook her head and turned on the radio. Georgie needed a mum more than Aleksi needed a full-time, permanently on call PA, and Aleksi’s moods changed like the wind—Kate couldn’t let Georgie glimpse a future that might so easily be taken away if Aleksi Kolovsky suddenly changed his mind about paying for her education.
Kate wouldn’t be so beholden to him.
‘It’s good to see you, sir.’
Normally Aleksi would have at least nodded a greeting to the doorman, but not this morning. As his driver had opened the car door he had remembered the steps that led up to the golden revolving doors of the impressive city building that was the hub of the House of Kolovsky.
He had not yet mastered steps—but he would this morning.
It had taken an hour to knot his tie—that once effortless, simple task had been an exercise in frustration this Monday morning—but no one would have guessed from looking at him. Immaculate, he walked from the car to the entrance, negotiating the steps as if it had not been four months of hell since he’d last done it. But the ease of his movements belied the supreme effort and concentration Aleksi was inwardly exerting.
‘Aleksi?’ Kate heard the whisper race through the building. ‘What do you mean he’s here?’
She could sense the panic, the urgency, but she pretended not to notice. Instead she sat at her desk, coolly typing away, glad—so glad—for the extra layer of foundation she had put on this morning, and wondering if it would stand up to Nina’s scrutiny.
Aleksi’s area was always a flurry of activity. He had his own vast office, but around that was an open-plan area which he often frequented—Kate worked there, as did Lavinia, the assistant PA. Kate could feel several sets of eyes on her as Aleksi’s mother approached.
‘Did you know about this?’ Nina demanded as she stopped beside Kate’s desk.
‘Know what?’ Kate frowned.
‘Aleksi is on his way up!’ Nina hissed, her eyes narrowing. ‘If I find out you had anything to do with this, you can kiss your perky little job goodbye,’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Kate swallowed and tried to feign genuine shock at the news. ‘Aleksi isn’t supposed to back for months yet.’
Just his presence in the building set off a panic.
There was a stampede for the restrooms as everyone dashed to fix their face. Accountants, who had been resting on their laurels, seemingly safe in the knowledge that the astute Aleksi’s return was ages away, suddenly flooded Kate’s e-mail inbox and phone voicemail with demands for reports, figures, meetings.
Though outwardly unruffled, inside Kate was a bundle of nerves, her heart hammering beneath her new jacket and blouse, her lips dry beneath the glossy new lipstick, her hands shaking slightly as she tapped out a response to one of the senior buyers. Even as her head told her to stay calm, her body struggled with the knowledge that, after the longest time, in just a few seconds, finally she would see him again.
She sensed him, smelt him, tasted him almost, before she faced him.
His formidable, unmistakable presence filled the entire room and her eyes jerked up as he approached—and she remembered.
Remembered the shock value of his presence—how the energy shifted whenever he was close.
It wasn’t precisely that she had forgotten. She’d merely refused to let herself remember.
‘What are you doing here, Aleksi?’ Kate didn’t have to feign the surprise in her voice; the sight of him ensured that it came naturally. A couple of months ago there had been a single photo of him captured by a paparazzo that had been sold for nearly half a million dollars. It had showed a chiselled and pale Aleksi recuperating in the West Indies, his wasted leg supported on pillows, and that was the Aleksi Kate had been expecting—a paler version of his old self.
Instead he stood, toned, taut and tanned and radiating health, his rare beauty amplified.
‘It’s good to have you back, Aleksi,’ Lavinia purred. ‘You’ve been missed.’
He