AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Here.’ He brought her coffee and the paper as she lay there fitfully thinking, and it was easier to sit up and take a sip of her drink and read the paper than deal with all that was on her mind. ‘I don’t think I can come over tonight, but tomorrow…’
‘I want to see that.’ Flicking from her horoscope to the movie guide, Annie tapped at an advertisement. ‘It sounds really good.’
‘Why don’t you?’ Iosef asked, giving the completely wrong reaction. ‘I’m not coming tonight and I can remember Melanie saying something about wanting to see it.’
She didn’t want to go to the movies with Melanie— well, shedid,but notthismovie. Growing more unsettled by the second, she flicked through the paper as he dressed, gazing unseeingly at the words until her eye was caught not by a headline but by a photo, Iosef and his family walking out of a plush restaurant, her stomach knotting as she saw his hand firmly linked in Candy’s.
House of Turmoil.
The headline gave a teasing taste of what was to come. Her mind worked ten to the dozen as Iosef chatted unwittingly on while he dressed. Annie silently read about the growing turmoil reported to be within the House of Kolovsky—the obvious declining health of its founder, the public and business world’s growing fascination with who would be named heir and whether or not the hugely successful empire could be sustained without the maverick personality of Ivan Kolovsky. And it would have been fascinating if her heart wasn’t thumping so loudly in her chest, if a picture of the man in her room hadn’t been plastered above the article, holding hands with his girlfriend...
‘There’s a piece about your family in here!’ Somehow she kept her voice light, watched as his hands paused for just a second on the way to pick up his wallet from the bedside table.
‘There’s always something about my family in the newspaper.’
‘It talks about you!’ She watched as he gave a surly shrug. ‘It says that with Levander in the UK and Aleksi back in Australia, he’s the son most likely to take over, especially given Annika is a designer and you—’
‘I have no interest in hearing or reading some journalist who has no idea, spouting what he thinks he knows about my family!’ Iosef interrupted.
‘There’s a photo here, too.’ Annie forced herself to look at him, her throat tightening as he turned to go, giving the paper a very cursory glance. ‘You’re holding hands with Candy.’
‘So?’
‘So...’ Annie swallowed. ‘What the hell are you doing holding hands with her when—?’
‘It’s an old photo,’ Iosef interrupted. ‘They’ve used a library photo. Next week it will be someone I dated in high school. You are going to have to get used to seeing me in the paper, you are going to have to get used to not believing everything you read.’
His goodbye kiss was so haphazard it barely grazed her cheek and though it couldn’t be classed as a row, couldn’t even be classed as a disagreement, as the front door closed behind him, as she heard his car purr into life and leave, her heart was hammering as if they’d had the most vile of confrontations.
Theyhadhad the most vile of confrontations, Annie realized, running a shaky hand through her hair, suddenly glad he couldn’t make it tonight, suddenly glad that she could put off till tomorrow what should have been done not just today but weeks ago.
Shedidn’tbelieve everything she read, but she knew what she’d seen—and it wasn’t the dart of his eyes that had her convinced he had been lying, hadn’t been the set of his lips as he’d tried to tell her otherwise... The truth was much simpler than that.
Irrefutable, actually.
Staring down at the photo, her tears blurred the image on the page, only not enough to hide the truth, because unless Iosef made a habit of slashing his cheek two inches beneath his right eye with a razor on a regular basis, he was lying.
Hurling the paper against the wall, Annie swore she’d accept no excuses, swore that the next time they were alone she’d confront him with what she now knew...
The first morning they’d made love, he’d climbed out of bed and gone toher.
Chapter 11
‘Whatdo you mean, the bed’s not made?’ The phone was hot in his hands as he loudly demanded that any red tape be swiftly cut. ‘No, I’ve already listened to how busy you are on the ward—now it’s your turn to listen to me! In between resuscitating a four-year-old and trying to get this thirty-nine-year-old terminally ill woman out of pain, I have had to sit on this phone, trying to find a single room for her. And when I finally get one, when I finally tell her family that she will soon be in a private bed and more comfortable, you tell me that you arestillwaiting for the domestic staff to come and make it.’
Stuffing syringes into a drawer and tearing up alcohol swabs, Annie and Jackie shared a wide-eyed glance as Iosef continued angrily.
‘No—you listen! If you do not ring me back in the next five minutes to tell me that you are ready for her, I will bring her up myself andI’llmake the bed!’ He didn’t even hang up, just tossed the phone in the vague direction of the wall as he muttered something in Russian that certainly didn’t sound too complimentary.
‘Thirty-nine!’ He finally said to Jackie. ‘Thirty-bloody-nine—and she has to put off dying comfortably to wait on someone to come and make a bed!’
‘You know it’s not that straightforward,’ Jackie said. ‘I’ll ring the nursing co-ordinator and try to speed things along.’
‘I’ve done that,’ Iosef retorted. ‘And still nothing has been done.’
‘Well maybe if a consultant rings, she’ll listen.’
‘That’s a very good point.’ Iosef glanced up meaningfully at her. ‘Because I should already be one.’
