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She was scared to get her hopes up again.
Yes, she understood that it was imperative that she greet the duchess and she gave a terse nod. Of course one of the sponsors was here and with him his teenage daughter, who wanted to be a ballet dancer too. Anya felt her hands ball in impatience as the list was read out.
‘Who else?’ Anya snapped.
‘There is a gentleman, he says that you would remember him as Daniil Zverev’s twin...’
Anya’s heavily made-up lashes fluttered as it was confirmed that Roman was here, yet he had not directly given his name.
‘He offered his congratulations for your performance tonight. He said that he always knew that you would make it. He asked that I pass on this.’
Anya glanced down and there in the assistant’s palm was the small, thin gold hoop that she had left behind the time they had first made love.
Oh, she remembered coming home that day, late of course. Her mother had asked where she had been.
‘Your earring is missing,’ Katya had said, and then she had seen her daughter’s glittering eyes and flushed cheeks and her mouth and skin inflamed from Roman’s rough, hot kisses and she had slapped Anya’s cheek.
Hard.
And then the other.
Now Anya’s cheeks reddened at the memory of their first time and the bliss that both had found, and now Roman had brought the earring back to her.
‘Tell Daniil’s twin that he can return it himself. You can bring him to my dressing-room after I have greeted the others.’
Oh, she ached to have the pair. Her mother had given her the earrings when she had been accepted into the school of dance.
But, no, it would be a cheat to her heart and it would scald her fingers to take it from anyone other than Roman.
For now she had to line up with the rest of the cast, and as the duchess congratulated her on her performance, she shivered with the hope that Roman was still near. Tatania curtsied deeply and smiled and conversed with the duchess, but her breathlessness was not from awe, but for the potential moment to come.
She greeted others that she had to and accepted their congratulations with grace. She spoke with the sponsor’s young daughter and even gave her a pair of pointe shoes.
Yes, she did all the right things until finally she sat at her dressing table and told the assistant that she was ready to receive her final guest.
She stared into the mirror and saw that the feathers shook in her headdress and her eyes were wide, as if in shock.
She was.
After all these years they would come face-to-face and speak.
Oh, she had seen him once, a couple of years ago, but it had been from a distance and Anya did all she could not to think of that time.
All she could.
There was a knock on the door and she could not stand or turn. All she managed was to call the word Enter in Russian.
And still, as the door opened and then closed behind him, she did not turn.
Her skin shivered just to have him close.
He came into view in her mirror. At first there was just the darkness of his suit and the whiteness of his shirt, but it was enough to let her know that his body was still delicious. Oh, better even, because he was taller perhaps and broader, and as he came and stood behind her, Anya forced herself to look into the mirror and meet his eyes.
Roman was more beautiful than she remembered.
His hair was shorter than she recalled but was still black and glossy. The black eyes that met hers warned her heart to still fear him, for even after all these years he had the absolute power to hurt her again.
She could not recover from losing him twice.
Three times, in fact, but she chose not to go there in her mind.
It would seem that the years of despair she had suffered through had suited him. The man she looked back at was polished and poised and the cologne she now inhaled was heady.
He commanded her senses—he always had, for whether he wore cheap denim or a designer suit, the effect of Roman up close was the same.
Her senses did not point out the differences.
They did not care that the fingers that came to her shoulder were now manicured.
Just his touch had her fighting not to arch her neck, to rub her cheek against his hand.
He was back.
That was all she knew.
And as his hand remained on her shoulder, the contact had her eyes close in the ecstasy of his touch.
‘Brava,’ he said.
‘Roman.’ It was all her voice would allow.
For Roman, just one word was almost too much—hearing his name from her lips, the familiar slight huskiness of her voice, made locked-away memories pour in.
Finding out that his brother had married, that Daniil’s wife had just had a baby, had hit Roman like a fist. Knowing that he had a niece and that his twin was now a father had been difficult and he had fought not to make contact.
He could remember a worker speaking with him on the day of the fight, the last time the four had shared a dorm. Called into the office, Roman had been nonchalant as he’d been used to being in trouble.
‘Daniil is talking about not taking this opportunity unless they adopt you too.’
Roman had sat.
‘They don’t want you.’
Roman had said nothing.
‘Do you remember when you were four and that family took you for a walk?’
‘Nyet.’
‘They were a married couple and were considering adopting the two of you, but they said you were too wild.’
Roman had vaguely recalled something of the kind. They had been taken to a park and he had remembered standing on a swing for the first and only time.
‘Back then we said we would prefer not to separate twins. Roman, Daniil lost an opportunity once because of your poor behaviour. Don’t let this happen again.’
‘Tell him that if he goes, when I am older—’
‘No.’ Immediately the worker had interrupted him. ‘I don’t think you understand the opportunity this is. Daniil will be receiving a private education, he will be given the best chance for a new life. Do you want your twin to have to look out for you? To support you?’
Never.
‘You need to do the right thing by him and let him go for good.’
And he had.
Daniil now worked in London. Roman told himself he was here to purchase a property—that it happened to coincide with Firebird’s return was a coincidence.
In the end he had bought a ticket for tonight’s performance.
Dressed in a black suit, ready to leave his luxurious hotel, Roman had sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the earring and told himself to tear up the ticket.
To not go back.
He had made a vow to himself that he never would.
Yet he had gone to the ballet and watched silently in a box seat. His breath had caught when Anya had first briefly appeared on the stage.
And then again.
He had watched her dance and had ached with pride for all she had achieved.
That little girl who had diligently practised over and over in the kitchen, the teenager who had devoted herself to her dream was now a prima ballerina.
And she could not have made it this far with him.
He knew that for a fact.
Standing to applaud, Roman had meant to leave then, to slip away with the precious memory of watching Anya perform at her peak, but unable to resist he had called out to her. He had watched her face lift and her eyes search for him and he admitted to himself that he had lied about slipping away, for he had brought with him the gold earring that he had found on the floor as he had cleared out his bedsit.
No, he reasoned, for he took it with him everywhere.
Would she want to see him?
Roman didn’t know.
And now Anya asked a question he could not answer properly.
‘Why are you here?’ she said. They spoke in Russian and it had been a long time since Roman had used his native tongue, but he slipped into it with unexpected relief.
‘To congratulate you, of course,’ Roman said. ‘You made it. I always knew that you would.’
He leant forward and Anya breathed in again the heady scent of him and felt his arm brush her bare shoulder as he placed the missing earring on her dressing table.
She picked it up and remembered them at eighteen, lost to the world, wanting only each other.
‘You told me you couldn’t find it.’
‘I couldn’t,’ he said. ‘But when I packed...’
He had packed everything he had into a small backpack and left without even a goodbye.
‘You could have come and given it to me.’
‘No,’ Roman said. ‘Because we would have ended up making love. It had to be that way.’
She couldn’t dispute that they would have ended up making love, neither could she forgive his choice to leave, but that he had kept her earring for all these years meant so much.
Anya wanted to open the small box and put the earring with its partner but she decided to do that once he had gone. She did not want Roman to know just how much she had missed him, so she placed it back down and stood and turned to face him. She was tiny compared to his large frame. Her breathing was too shallow but face him she would, even if it nearly killed her to do so and to see all she had lost.
He looked immaculate.
His glossy black hair was superbly cut, he was beautifully clean shaven and scented with expensive cologne. His suit was exquisite, so much so that she reached up and touched the lapel. His chest was a toned wall of muscle beneath her fingers and she could feel tears pooling in her eyes as she saw a different Roman from the impoverished youth she had known.
His hand came and took hers, at first to remove it, because contact was too much, but then it closed over hers.
Now she lifted her eyes to his and they stared and the years that had parted them seemed to drift away.
No one could move her like Roman and it was the same for him.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
He did not answer when there was so much she needed to know; she could almost feel his reluctance to tell her.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does to me.’
‘I cannot stay long.’ Roman shook his head yet still he held her hand.
‘You could at least take me to dinner—we can talk properly. There is so much to catch up on.’
‘Don’t you have an after party to go to?’ Roman checked. From the shadows he had watched her accept the duchess’s congratulations and had heard the chatter.
Still they held hands, but now their fingers were entwining and their palms were exerting beats of pressure as the flame that had never died started to burn brightly again.
‘I can miss it.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘We didn’t do too well at dinner last time, remember?’
