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.CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURBEING a doctor brought strange privileges.It brought insight and knowledge gleaned when a person was at their most vulnerable, and it weighed heavily on Ross.He loved Annika, which meant he cared about Aleksi.And, he didn’t want to keep secrets from Annika, but, like it or not, he knew something that she didn’t.He had spoken with his colleague, Seb, who had revealed that Aleksi had refused any attempt to discuss his past.Ross considered, long into the lonely nights while Annika was at her mother’s, if perhaps he should take the easy option and just leave it.Then one day, checking in on a patient in the private wing of the hospital, Ross saw the Kolovsky clan leaving.The door to Aleksi’s room was slightly open.A nurse was checking his obs, but apart from that Aleksi was alone.Ross walked away, and then turned around and walked back again just as the nurse was going out.‘How are you doing?’ He wasn’t offended by Aleksi’s frown as he attempted to place him—after all, they’d met only once, and Aleksi was recovering from a head injury.‘I was in Emergency when you came in.’‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t remember, then,’ Aleksi said‘I’m also a friend of Annika’s; I was at the charity function.Ross Wyatt…’He shook his hand.‘Annika’s spoken about you,’ Aleksi said, then closed his eyes and lay back on the pillows.Just as Ross thought he was being dismissed, as he realised the impossibility of broaching the subject of Aleksi’s old injuries, Aleksi spoke, though his eyes stayed closed.‘How is Annika doing?’‘Okay.’‘She’s moved back home?’ Aleksi asked.‘Your mum was upset, with the accident and everything.She wanted Annika close.’‘She should be back at her own flat.’ Grey eyes opened.‘Try and persuade her…’‘Annika will be fine,’ Ross said, because that much he knew.‘You don’t need to worry.’‘For her, I do.’‘Let me do the worrying on that score,’ Ross said, and Aleksi gave a small grimace of pain as he tried to shift in the bed.Ross saw his opening.‘That’s got to hurt.I saw the X-rays…’‘I’m going to bleep for ever going through security at airports,’ Aleksi said.‘I’m full of wires and pins.’‘It was a bit of a mess.’‘So, are you an emergency doctor?’‘No.’ Ross shook his head.‘I’m a paediatrician.I was just in Emergency when you came in—and I broke the news to Annika.She asked me to find out more.’ He held his breath in his lungs for just a second.‘I was trying to get more information for her.I was speaking to Seb when he was looking over your X-rays.’‘The emergency consultant?’ Aleksi checked, and Ross nodded.‘He was up a couple of days ago to see how I was doing.’And then Aleksi looked at Ross, and Ross looked back, and the conversation carried on for a full two minutes but not a single word was uttered.Finally Aleksi cleared his throat.‘What happens to patient confidentiality if I’m not your patient?’‘You still have it.’‘Even if you’re screwing my sister?’ Aleksi was savage for a moment, but Ross was expecting it—even if Annika’s brother was a generation older than Ross’s usual patients, his reaction was not dissimilar.‘I’m a doctor,’ Ross said.‘It’s my title at home, at work, in bed; it’s not a badge I can ever take off.Some conversations with your sister might be more difficult for me—I will have to think hard before I speak, and I will have to remember that I know only what she chooses to tell me—but I’m up to it.’‘Thanks, but no thanks.’Aleksi closed his eyes and Ross knew he had been dismissed.Inwardly cursing, he turned to go, wondering if he’d made things worse, if he could have handled it better, if he should have just left well alone.And then Aleksi’s voice halted him.‘It was only me.’Ross turned around.‘You don’t have to worry that Annika was beaten.’ He gave a low mirthless laugh.‘She had it tougher in many ways.My father was the sun, my mother the moon, and they revolved around her.She had the full beam of their twisted love, but they never laid a finger on her.It was just me.’‘I’m sorry,’ Ross said, because he was.‘It was my own stupid fault for knowing too much…’ He looked up at Ross.‘Every family has their secrets, Ross,’ Aleksi said, ‘and Levander thinks he knows, and Iosef is sure he knows, but they don’t….’ He gave a thin smile at Ross’s frown.‘Annika told me…’ He faltered for a moment.‘Some…’‘About Levander being raised in an orphanage—and my parents conveniently not knowing he was there?’Ross nodded.‘That isn’t the half of it.And I’ll save you from future awkward conversations with my sister by not telling you.Suffice to say I know more than any of them.That’s why my father beat me to within an inch of my life, and that’s why my mother, instead of taking me to hospital, kept me at home.’‘Any time,’ Ross said.‘Any time you can talk to me.And I promise I’ll keep it confidential.’He’d had enough.Ross saw the anger and the energy leave him, knew Aleksi had revealed all that he was going to—for now.It was almost a relief when Annika walked in, for a quick visit at the end of her shift.She smiled and frowned when she saw Ross with her brother.‘I thought I’d see for myself how he was doing,’ Ross said by way of explanation.‘I was just saying to Aleksi that he looks a hell of a lot better than he did last time I saw him.’‘I was wondering why they’d sent a paediatrician to see me.’ Aleksi gave a rare smile to his sister.‘I didn’t realise at first it was your boyfriend.’‘Boyfriend?’ Annika wrinkled her nose.‘He’s thirty-two.’And Ross laughed and left them to it
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