Читать книгу Modern Romance June 2016 Books 5-8 - Мишель Смарт, Tara Pammi - Страница 18

CHAPTER TEN

ANYA GOT INTO the car as her cases were loaded.

She had insisted on not checking out of the hotel. It felt safer knowing she had a bolt hole to return to at any time if they didn’t work out.

And she very much doubted that they could, for she simply could not foresee a time when they could speak of Celeste, and neither could she ever forgive him for leaving her all those years ago.

He had ended their relationship without consultation.

And now, with just as little consultation, he was starting it again.

Roman had a driver.

Oh, her heart knew him, but who was this man and how had he got to where he was? Her brain was dizzy from him.

‘I’m tired, Roman,’ she said as he got into the car and sat beside her.

It was long after midnight and she was utterly drained.

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘Soon you can rest.’

His apartment wasn’t very far from the hotel she was staying at.

He lived in the chic Eighth District just off the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, which was arguably the most beautiful avenue in the world.

How?

He insisted his money was his own but Anya knew where he had come from and it did not seem possible to her. As they drove through heavy gates and into a private street a horrible thought occurred. They pulled up at a stunning classic Parisian residence and there was one thing Anya had to know before she got out of the car.

‘Is this where you lived with her?’

‘No,’ Roman answered. ‘I bought this last year.’

And so she got out.

The foyer was serviced and they were greeted. The gates of an antique elevator opened and an elderly man came out and spoke for a moment with Roman in French.

There were several elevators and it was like a faded, luxurious hotel, Anya thought.

‘This is the only elevator you can use. I shall give you a key,’ Roman explained as they stepped in. ‘If you press this...’ he showed her which button ‘...it takes you straight up to my apartment.’

It made no sense.

Still, she asked no questions, just nodded as they jolted upwards. When the lift came to a halt he pulled the door open and she stepped into luxury that wasn’t faded, but magnificent.

They stood in a reception area the walls of which were deep crimson; the ceiling and carpets were too. There were antique furnishings and a huge gilded mirror in which Anya could see her pale reflection.

An elderly rotund woman came through and conversed in rapid French with Roman before speaking directly to Anya, who shook her head to say she didn’t understand.

She was almost too tired even to speak.

‘Josie said that your room is ready and asked if you would like some supper.’

‘Tell her, no, thank you,’ Anya said.

‘Do you speak any French?’ he asked.

‘I know an awful lot of ballet terms,’ she said, ‘but that’s about it.’

The elderly man returned at that moment and deposited the cases, presumably in her room, and when he came out he and Josie wished Roman and herself good night and Anya waited as they spoke for a few moments.

She was more than a little bewildered.

Roman chatted easily with them and whatever he had just said had made Josie laugh.

They did not seem like staff and yet they were here in the dead of the night, sorting out his home, dealing with his sudden guest, and now they were leaving in the internal elevator.

‘Who are they?’ Anya said.

‘Josie and Claude,’ Roman explained, and now even he laughed and it was a rare sound. In fact, she hadn’t heard that sound since they had met again. It was low, deep and familiar from times gone by and she wanted to hear it again.

‘They came with the apartment,’ Roman explained as he showed her through to perhaps the most beautiful lounge ever. Heavy jade silk drapes were closed and the large living room was gently lit by damask-shaded lamps. Anya looked up at the high ceiling and the large chandelier, which, though opulent, was somehow soothing.

‘I didn’t know about them,’ Roman explained further. ‘The first morning I woke up here, I came through to the kitchen and there Josie was, making breakfast. “Bonjour, monsieur,” she said, and then told me that she would bring my food out to me on the balcony. I went out there and there was Claude, setting up. I was as confused as you are now,’ he said, and it made her smile. ‘All I could think was that I was glad that I hadn’t been armed at the time!’

Now it was Anya who laughed.

‘It turns out that they have a small apartment downstairs, and take care of this one. They’ve been here for decades. You’ll get used to them.’

‘Did you?’

‘It took a while,’ Roman admitted.

Could they last a while? Anya wondered. Could they somehow be together while avoiding the hurtful things that needed to be discussed?

‘Do you want me to show you around?’ he offered, but she shook her head.

‘Not now, I’m really tired.’

‘Then I’ll show you where you are sleeping.’

True to his word, he did not try to persuade her to share his bed and Anya found that she was pouting as he showed her the door and then wished her good night. He walked off without so much as a kiss.

She stepped in and again the décor was amazing. The room was as big as her entire apartment. The wallpaper was a riot of pinks and reds and the drapes were the same design but in silk. A canopied bed was dressed beautifully and on the intricate bedside table Josie had placed a glass and a jug covered with a weighted circle of linen.

It really was stunning. There was even a reading area, with a dark chaise longue and bookshelves that were overflowing. The books were all in French, though.

Anya couldn’t resist so she pulled open the drapes and the shutters and there was the Eiffel Tower twinkling in the night.

It was the most romantic, feminine room Anya had ever been in and she would never have expected it to be in a home that Roman owned.

She undressed in a pretty bathroom and pulled on a slip nightdress.

It was a home that felt like a palace, Anya thought as she climbed into the very high bed.

She had been living in hotels for weeks and now she lay staring out at the view, trying to take in the fact that she was there.

There were too many questions that buzzed in her mind.

Though exhausted, she could not relax. Though aching with tiredness, she could not sleep.

She could not lie down a hallway away from Roman.

She could hear him turning off lights and she knew that he had gone to bed.

She ate one of her chocolate cups.

And then another.

But that was not where her hunger had originated. She climbed out of bed and her feet dropped silently to the floor. Like a homing pigeon she walked down the long hall and turned to the left.

There was a high door and a shaft of light was coming from beneath it. She knew he was in there and she opened it.

He sat on the bed, his head in his hands almost in grief, and though he spoke he did not turn towards her.

‘Go to bed, Anya.’

She did not.

She stayed.

He had taken off his shirt and was wearing only black trousers. Every inch of his body Anya had thought she had known, yet the livid scars on his back proved her knowledge of Roman to be flawed. She let out a small cry and it seared through him.

He did not want her to see them, for he knew they would cause her pain and yet there was this odd relief that she knew now.

She climbed onto the bed and touched his back. ‘What happened?’

‘Just leave it for now.’

‘You could have died and I would never have known!’ she sobbed, and he just sat with his head in his hands as he remembered how close he had come to just that as Anya spoke on, her anger and desperation evident in every word. ‘I waited for you, and I feared for you,’ she wept, and everything she was trying to hold back from admitting started to pour out. ‘I was scared for you in war zones and I grieved in case you lay dead. And yet I hoped and prayed that you were safe and that one day you would come for me, and while I did all that, you took her as your wife.’

He stood and for the second time that night he picked her up and put her over his shoulder. She kissed the scars on his back as he carried her back to her room. ‘I don’t want to play coy,’ Anya pleaded. ‘I want your bed.’

‘When we are capable of an adult discussion about Celeste and...’ Roman too was not ready, he could not even say Mika’s name. He pulled back the covers that were littered with the foil of her chocolate cups and popped her in. ‘We can reward ourselves later.’

‘I’ll never be able to speak of it nicely.’

‘Then you’ll never get your reward.’

‘Oh, so you’re on a sex strike?’ she scoffed. ‘We’ll soon see who gives in first.’

‘You don’t know the life I have lived,’ Roman said. ‘Believe me, I know how to go without.’

He did not walk out but closed the shutters and drapes and then came and sat on the bed.

‘It is too beautiful not to look at,’ he said of the Eiffel Tower. ‘You need to sleep.’

‘I have class at eight.’

‘That’s not long from now.’

She looked at his shoulder and it too was scarred, and she put her hand up to it.

‘Tell me.’

‘Shrapnel.’

‘How bad was it?’ she asked.

‘It was fairly bad,’ he said. ‘I had a punctured lung.’

‘Could you have died?’

He nodded.

And she wanted to ask if he’d thought of her then, but Roman was so honest that she was scared to ask, in case she did not like the answer.

‘My comrade was worse, though,’ Roman said, and her hand remained on his shoulder, feeling the muscle and the ridges of the scars. ‘I tried to keep him conscious.’

And he told her how Dario had spoken of the stock market and the rules to which he had been unable to adhere.

‘I could, though,’ he said. And he told her about his rehabilitation in Provence. ‘I was going to come out of the legion after five years, but they were good to me there and when my contract came around again I felt it right to serve for another five years.’

He told her how he had started to make his money, and then she believed that it was all his own.

‘Your comrade?’

‘Dario,’ Roman said. ‘He is still in the legion.’

‘Do you keep in touch with him?’

‘I do,’ he said.

He turned off the light, gave her a brief kiss on the lips and then left. She lay in the dark, and slept. A sleep so deep that when she awoke Anya took a moment to realise where she was.

The previous night’s events felt like a dream.

She went into her bag for her phone to find out the time, but remembered that Mika had it. She went into the bathroom and freshened up.

Did she dress for breakfast?

Was it even breakfast time?

She pulled on her robe and hurried out. She had class at eight and then rehearsals.

‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,’ Josie called out.

‘Bonjour, madame,’ Anya called back, and then wandered out to the balcony where Roman sat, reading the newspaper.

Actually, he lounged in a chair.

He was wearing only black jeans and he hadn’t shaved and when he looked up and gave her a smile, Anya had to fight not to go and sit on his lap and kiss him.

‘What time is it?’ she asked.

‘It is almost seven, I was going to get you up then,’ Roman said as she took a seat at the breakfast table. There were flowers in a vase and baguettes and pastries and a large silver jug, presumably coffee.

‘How did you sleep?’ Anya asked him.

‘I always sleep well,’ he told her. ‘So you don’t have to ask. If that changes I’ll let you know. What about you?’

‘I never sleep well,’ she answered. ‘But I did in the end. My room’s beautiful. You didn’t choose the furnishings, I take it?’

Roman shook his head. ‘The apartment came as it was, even the staff! That was one of the most appealing things about it. I would have had no idea how to decorate it.’

‘Well, it’s perfect,’ Anya said, and reached for the coffee pot to fill her cup, and then frowned when delectable hot chocolate poured out.

‘I would like green tea,’ she said, cross with him for the temptation.

‘Sure,’ Roman said, and went to call out to Josie, but she was already there, bringing out some yoghurt and fresh berries, which she added to the collection of food on the table as Roman put in Anya’s order.

‘It might be a while,’ Roman said when Josie left. ‘She will have to go to the shop to get some.’

‘Oolong tea, then, or just—’

‘Do I look like a man who keeps a herbal tea collection?’ Roman interrupted.

‘I’m sure you’ve had other lovers ask for green tea,’ she sneered.

‘I don’t bring women here,’ Roman said. ‘There are hotels for all that.’

And he both hurt her with the knowledge that, yes, there were women, and comforted her that he never bought them here, and yet here she was.

‘Tell Josie not to bother,’ she grumbled, and shot him a look as she poured hot chocolate. ‘Are you trying to fatten me up again?’

‘Anya,’ Roman said calmly, ‘I asked Josie to provide an alternative breakfast for you.’ He sliced open a baguette and slathered it with butter. ‘I drank black tea in the orphanage and then black coffee in the legion—’ he left out the years they could not speak of ‘—and then, that morning, when I found Josie in my kitchen, she brought out the same breakfast as she did for me today. She gets up early and goes to the bakery and she buys fresh bread and pastries and then comes back and makes the hot chocolate. I like it. That’s it. My choice of breakfast has nothing to do with you. You shall have a full herbal tea selection by the time you get back from dance.’

‘I might be back late. I have to work hard these next weeks,’ Anya said as she reached for berries and yoghurt but she did have hot chocolate.

‘Come back whenever it suits,’ he said to the newspaper but then he looked up. ‘Just come back.’

‘We’ve never had breakfast together,’ she said.

‘No,’ he agreed, and put down his paper and looked at her. ‘We cannot linger, though, you don’t want to be late.’

Maybe they had changed.

In their two weeks together they would make love in the morning and Anya would forget the time and arrive late for class. Afterwards, when usually she would stay late and rehearse further, she would race back to his.

Her mother had once been at the stage door and had demanded that she come home and had chased her. Anya had outrun her, just for another night in Roman’s arms.

‘I won’t get in the way of your dance again,’ he said.

He had learnt his lesson.

After the disastrous meal and the row afterwards, the audition hadn’t gone well. Anya hadn’t made the corps and Katya had sought him out and come into the gym where he’d been training for his next fight. Anya had talent, she had told him. Anya had been doing well until he had arrived back on the scene.

‘You sabotage her dance,’ Katya had spat at him, and it was then she had told Roman that he was a burden to the system and that no family would want him in theirs. ‘You bring her down to your low level. Now I have to comfort her as she cries. All the work she has put in, all the agony she went through and now she has not made the corps. I wish, how I wish, for Anya’s sake, that you had never existed.’

His passport had arrived that very day and Roman had packed up his things and left to join the foreign legion.

No, he would not sabotage her dance again.

‘I need to go,’ Anya said.

‘Of course.’

She went into her room and packed her dance bag and pulled on three-quarter tights and a leotard. Over that she put on a tube skirt and a wrapround cardigan.

She arrived at eight, but that was late by her standards.

And Mika’s.

‘Where were you?’ he said as barre work commenced. He was working behind her. ‘We waited in the foyer for you and then had Reception ring up to your room but there was no answer.’

‘I’m not going to be staying at the hotel.’

She could feel his disapproval behind her and the same thing from Lula, who was working in front of her.

Even if Anya wasn’t close friends with anyone, they were a close group. They were on tour together and often dined and went out together.

Change was frowned upon.

For Anya the class went beautifully. The whole day did. Her floor work went well, even as she and Mika walked through the second part of The Firebird, she was confident, and felt energised, just at the thought that tonight she would see Roman.

‘Tonight,’ the choreographer said once they were packing up their bags, ‘we thought we might go to the open-air cinema at the Vilette Park.’

‘I can’t make it tonight,’ Anya said.

She did not have to give an excuse or a reason, yet as she headed for Roman’s she felt as if she should have, for she’d almost heard the silent disapproval from the group as she’d pulled back from them.

Anya tried not to think about it and as she stepped out of the elevator it took a moment to realise that she was alone in his home.

There was no answer when she called out Roman’s name. No Bonjour returned when she said it out loud.

Anya wandered around.

She looked out at the Seine from the lounge, where the drapes had been drawn last night. Then she walked down the hallway and past grand doors.

One she opened and saw there a huge wooden floored area. Unlike the rest of the house, it was very modern and Anya guessed this would be his gym.

Like Daniil’s.

She turned when she heard the elevator and then Roman stepped out.

He was wearing a suit and carrying a laptop bag and it felt like a tiny glimpse of him coming home to her.

‘I went to look at an apartment,’ he said by way of explaining where he had come from.

‘Was it as nice as this?’

‘Nowhere is as nice as this,’ he said.

He came and joined her and they walked into the room.

‘It is like the room at Daniil’s,’ Anya said. ‘You two are so similar, even though you have been apart. Maybe you could put a boxing ring in here...’ She guessed at his dream. ‘One day you and he can fight again, but fairly this time.’

‘Maybe,’ Roman said. ‘How was class?’

‘It was very good.’ Anya nodded. ‘Well, they are not happy with me, I think, but my dancing went well.’

‘Why aren’t they happy with you?’ He frowned.

‘Because I am not staying at the hotel, or joining them tonight.’

‘You can go out with them tonight.’

‘No.’ Anya shook her head. ‘Even if you weren’t around I wouldn’t have gone. It is the open-air cinema and last time I went I got bitten.’

She was so careful with her skin. Roman remembered her telling him to take care where he kissed her because their first time had left her bruised.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I thought we might go out for dinner tonight.’

She wanted to see if things really could be different this time.

Roman nodded.

He needed to know too.