Knight on the Children's Ward

‘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?’