The Scandalous Kolovskys: Knight on the Children's Ward

He chose none of the above.

‘How about a coffee?’

‘It’s late.’

‘I know it’s late,’ Ross said, ‘but I’m sure you could use a coffee. There’s an all-night cafe a kilometre up the road—I’ll see you there.’

She nearly didn’t go.

She was extremely tempted not to go. But she had no choice.

Normally she was careful about being seen in her agency uniform, but she didn’t have her jacket in the car, and she’d been so low on petrol … Anyway, Annika told herself, it was hardly a crime—all her friends did agency shifts. How the hell would a student survive otherwise?

His grim face told her her argument would be wasted.

‘I know students have to work …’ he had bought her a coffee and she added two sugars ‘… and I know it’s probably none of my business …’

‘It is none of your business,’ Annika said.

‘But I’ve heard Caroline commenting, and I’ve seen you yawning …’ Ross said. ‘You look like you’ve got two black eyes.’

‘So tell Caroline—or report back to my brother.’ Annika shrugged. ‘Then your duty is done.’

‘Annika!’ Ross was direct. ‘Do you go out of your way to be rude?’

‘Rude?’

‘I’m trying not to talk to Caroline; I’m trying to talk to you.’

‘Check up on me, you mean, so that Iosef—’

He whistled in indignation. ‘This has nothing to do with your brother. It’s my ward, Annika. You were on an early today; you’re on again tomorrow …’

‘How do you know?’

‘Sorry?’

‘My shift tomorrow. How do you know?’

And that he couldn’t answer—but the beat of silence did.

He’d checked.

Not deliberately—he hadn’t swiped keys and found the nursing roster—but as he’d left the ward he had glanced up at the whiteboard and seen that she was on tomorrow.

He had noted to himself that she was on tomorrow.

‘I saw the whiteboard.’

And she could have sworn that he blushed. Oh, his cheeks didn’t flare like a match to a gas ring, as Annika’s did—he was far too laid-back for that, and his skin was so much darker—but there was something that told her he was embarrassed. He blinked, and then his lips twitched in a very short smile, and then he blinked again. There was no colour as such to his eyes—in fact they were blacker than black, so much so that she couldn’t even make out his pupils. He was staring, and so was she. They were sitting in an all-night coffee shop. She was in her uniform and he was telling her off for working, and yet she was sure there was more.

Almost sure.

‘So, Iosef told you to keep an eye out for me?’ she said, though more for her own benefit—that smile wouldn’t fool her again.

‘He said that he was worried about you, that you’d pretty much cut yourself off from your family.’

‘I haven’t,’ Annika said, and normally that would have been it. Everything that was said stayed in the family, but Ross was Iosef’s friend and she was quite sure he knew more. ‘I see my mother each week; I am attending a family charity ball soon. Iosef and I argued, but only because he thinks I’m just playing at nursing.’

This wasn’t news to Ross. Iosef had told him many things—how Annika was spoilt, how she stuck at nothing, how nursing was her latest flight of fancy. Of course Ross could not say this, so he just sat as she continued.

‘I have not cut myself off from my family. Aleksi and I are close …’ She saw his jaw tighten, as everyone’s did these days when her brother’s name was mentioned. Aleksi was trouble. Aleksi, now head of the Kolovsky fortune, was a loose cannon about to explode at any moment. Annika was the only one he was close to; even his twin Iosef was being pushed aside as Aleksi careered out of control. She looked down at her coffee then, but it blurred, so she pressed her fingers into her eyes.

‘You can talk to me,’ Ross said.

‘Why would I?’

‘Because that’s what people do,’ Ross said. ‘Some people you know you can talk to, and some people …’ He stopped then. He could see she didn’t understand, and neither really did Ross. He swallowed down the words he had been about to utter and changed tack. ‘I am going to Spain in three, nearly four weeks.’ He smiled at her frown. ‘Caroline doesn’t know; Admin doesn’t know. In truth, they are going to be furious when they find out. I am putting off telling them till I have spoken with a friend who I am hoping can cover for me …’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I’m asking you to tell me things you’d rather no one else knew.’

She took her fingers out of her eyes and looked up to find that smile.

‘It would be rude not to share,’ he said.

He was dangerous.

She could almost hear her mother’s rule that you discussed family with no one breaking.

‘My mother does not want me to nurse,’ Annika tentatively explained. And the skies didn’t open with a roar, missiles didn’t engage. There was just the smell of coffee and the warmth of his eyes. ‘She has cut me off financially until I come back home. I still see her, I still go over and I still attend functions. I haven’t cut myself off. It is my mother who has cut me off—financially, anyway. That’s why I’m working these shifts.’

He didn’t understand—actually, he didn’t fully believe it.

He could guess at what her car was worth, and he knew from his friend that Annika was doted upon. Then there was Aleksi and his billions, and Iosef, even if they argued, would surely help her out.

‘Does Iosef know you’re doing extra shifts?’

‘We don’t talk much,’ Annika admitted. ‘We don’t get on; we just never have. I was always a daddy’s girl, the little princess … Levander, my older brother, thinks the same …’ She gave a helpless shrug. ‘I was always pleading with them to toe the line, to stop making waves in the family. Iosef is just waiting for me to quit.’

‘Iosef cares about you.’

‘He offers me money,’ Annika scoffed. ‘But really he is just waiting for this phase to be over. If I want money I will ask Aleksi, but, really, how can I be independent if all I do is cash cheques?’

‘And how can you study and do placements and be a Kolovsky if you’re cramming in extra shifts everywhere?’

She didn’t know how, because she was failing at every turn.