Billionaire Doctor (House of Kolovsky) - Carol Marinelli Page 0,54

wedding.’ It was like having needles stuck into her, millions of needles that pierced every fragment of her being—the only word she wanted to hear from him the one she had to ignore. ‘It was the Monday before that—at eight minutes to twelve actually. I remember the time because I had some blood gases to do. I was just about to get up and then in you waltzed and the whole room lifted— actually, not just the room... ’ He gave a very wry smile. ‘So perhaps it was lust then... Love, however inconvenient it was for me, came rapidly later. I was particularly horrible to you because I didn’t want to get to know you. Hell, they could have spray-tanned you green with purple spots and I’d have been crazy about you. I was particularly angry with you for not eating, because I cared about you... ’ He shook his head helplessly. ‘I did not want to come to the wedding. I did not want to get involved with you. I offered to swap with Marshall, but he refused. He had been to the service, he said, and I should go to the reception.’

‘Why didn’t you want to go?’

‘Because of what I knew might happen.’

‘Did happen.’

‘Annie, there’s nothing between Candy and I.’

‘Don’t.’ She jumped to her feet. ‘Don’t go there, Iosef. I don’t care if you ended it tonight, I don’t care if it was almost over... ’

‘We were never together.’ He watched as she shook her head, eyes half-closed, a tired smile on her face at the futility of it all, that still he thought she might believe his lies.

‘Do you think I’m weak or stupid? I’ve seen you together!’ Her voice was rising, anger fizzing through her body now. ‘I was there when your own mother—’

‘Have you ever heard my mother address me in English?’ He halted her tirade with a seemingly meaningless question. ‘The one time she spoke to me in English it was for your benefit.’

‘My benefit?’ Annie gave a perplexed frown. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘So that appearances were kept up, so that when the nurse spoke to her friends, or to the press or to anyone, she would say that Candy was Iosef’s girlfriend.’

‘And she is.’ Annie started, then stopped, a tiny glimmer of something appearing in her mind, something so impossible, so improbable she shot it down in a second, didn’t even give it a second glance, just blasted him with the facts. ‘Your own mother sent for her, your own mother said that you needed to be with her. She rings you all the time, turns up at work crying and begging to see you. You left me the morning after the wedding and went to lunch with her—I saw the photo in the paper—and you lied to me and said that it was old!’ She was shouting at him now, hurling the facts that at the time she’d tried so hard not to see! Hurled them at him so the truth might hurt him as much as it had hurt her.

‘I took her to see my father.’

And the vision she’d glimpsed was taking shape now— taking impossible shape, before he even said the words.

‘Candy is my father’s mistress...was my father’s mistress.’ And Annie’s world stopped for a few moments while everyone got off and she was left standing there, her mouth opening, eyes widening as she stepped in the impossible place Iosef had inhabited. ‘My father has always kept a mistress...’ He just stood there and said it as she just stood there and tried to take it in. ‘My mother turned a blind eye...’

‘But, surely, I mean, how did your mother put up with it?’

‘We don’t have those sorts of conversations in our family. We don’t talk about our failings or our fears— we just deny, deny, deny. We just cover our tracks and bury whoever is in our way.’

‘Not you,’ Annie whispered.

‘Yes, me.’ He nodded. ‘Because I put you through hell all those weeks.’

It was too much to take in, her mind too muddled to even feel relief at the fact that he and Candy had never been involved with each other. ‘Why on earth couldn’t you tell me?’

‘How “on earth” could I?’ His eyes held hers. He let the question sink in for a moment before he elaborated. ‘I kept telling myself to ignore how I felt for you, not to go there, just to wait until...’ He swallowed hard. ‘It was not my secret