Anya knew what she had seen two years ago.
On seeing him again there had been little relief that the man she loved hadn’t died on a battlefield.
There had been rage instead and it resurfaced now.
She raised her hand and slapped him, and he took it without so much as a flinch.
And then she asked him what perhaps she should have asked earlier.
‘How’s your wife?’
YES, SHE SHOULD have asked earlier.
But this was how their love had always been, so consuming and so intense that there wasn’t room for anything else other than them.
Roman was sure that had Anya been married and a mother of triplets, had she been working on the checkout, still their first meeting, after all these years apart, it would have been the same.
They had to have each other.
It was why he had let her go.
‘You know?’ Roman frowned. ‘How?’
‘I saw you in Paris, two years ago, when I was performing there,’ Anya said. ‘You were sitting in a square, having a drink with her at a café and kissing in the afternoon sun...’ It had been agony to see and it was agony now to recall it. She had been rushing from her hotel to the theatre to prepare for her performance. She had progressed to being a soloist and had been playing the part of Violente, one of the fairies in Sleeping Beauty, and had been an understudy for the Lilac Fairy, who’d played a major role in the dance.
That night, for the first time, she would be performing as the Lilac Fairy, and it had been the only thing on her mind until Anya had turned into the square and her brisk pace had come to a rapid halt.
It was Roman.
Absolutely it was.
She had stood, frozen.
Roman had been sitting at a pavement café in the late-afternoon sun, and though her heart had recognised him she had not understood the exquisitely dressed man who’d lounged in the chair. Or why there had been a middle-aged woman by his side.
Her throat had closed and her jaw had gritted as she’d watched the woman reach over and kiss him.
The glint of her wedding ring had caused Anya to frown and, for a brief moment, she had assumed that Roman was having an affair with an older, married woman.
That had caused enough pain in itself but then, with the kiss over, she had watched as he’d lifted his cup and everything in her world had seemed to dim as she’d seen that there was a ring on his finger.
The cry she had let out had gone unnoticed by passers-by. Actually, no, as she now properly recalled it, a woman had turned her head as she’d walked past.
And then, when she’d thought her heart had died, Anya had found out that it was, in fact, being tortured as Roman, her brooding, distant, lover, had taken his wife’s hand and held it and they’d shared a kiss again.
She had wanted to scream in rage, to dash over and stop them. To demand of Roman how the hell he could cheat on her. For that was exactly how it had felt—as if she had caught him having an affair.
Yet she’d been unable to bring herself to confront him. She’d been tempted to run back to the tiny hotel room, to lie on her bed and sob, such was her grief, but that night’s performance was a vital one.
For the first time in her life Anya had truly thought she could not perform. On the most vital night of her career to date, she had doubted that she could go on.
Somehow she had made it to the theatre and taken out all her tiny keepsakes, her earring, the foil from the chocolate and the label from the sheet.
Oh, she had thought about tossing them; instead she had wept on them, grieved again for the two of them.
But then she had risen.
Anya, that night, had danced better than she ever had, though her fury, to this day, remained.
‘So,’ Anya demanded as she wrapped a robe around herself and Roman did up his clothes, ‘how is she? Does she wait backstage...’ She looked at his immaculate suit. ‘She dresses her plaything well...’
‘My money is mine,’ Roman said.
‘Please...’ she scoffed. ‘You had nothing.’
‘When I knew you,’ Roman said, ‘I had nothing. I made my fortune myself.’
‘Rubbish—you found a rich wife. I saw her sitting there, dripping in jewels. So, tell me, how is she?’
‘She was wonderful,’ Roman said, and let her know in those words that his wife had died and that he would defend not just his late wife but the indefensible fact that he’d had another woman after Anya. ‘Don’t speak poorly of her again, Anya, or you shan’t like my response.’
A violent drenching of jealousy flooded Anya as he spoke.
‘Celeste died a year ago.’
There were two things that Anya hated about that statement.
That she knew his wife’s name and that she had died a year ago yet still he hadn’t sought her out.
But, then, what did she expect? Neither had he sought out his identical twin. Roman was the coldest, most complex of men, his dark eyes had always held mystery and she stared into them now.
‘Did you know I was performing in Paris, then?’
‘I did.’
‘Did you come and see me?’ Anya asked, for always she danced for him.
‘No,’ Roman said. ‘Celeste wanted to but I made an excuse not to go and she went with a friend.’
‘Why?’
He didn’t want to answer.
Roman knew exactly the night Anya referred to. He and Celeste had been sitting at a pavement café and waiting for her friend to arrive.
‘Why don’t you want to come to the ballet?’ Celeste had asked.
‘I just...’ He had shrugged.
‘We’re breaking up, aren’t we?’ Celeste had reached over and kissed him. ‘It’s okay, Roman, we agreed to two years.’
And those two years would have soon been over. But Celeste had just found out that she was seriously ill and had had only six months to live.
He had taken a drink of his coffee and his decision had been made.
‘I’m not leaving you to face this alone.’
He had taken her hand.
‘I’ll be with you all the way through this,’ he had promised, and it had been sealed with a tender kiss.
A kiss that, it turned out, Anya had witnessed.
‘Why?’ Anya demanded. ‘Why did you not come and see me perform? Didn’t you care?’
‘No,’ Roman said. ‘I promised that I would be faithful to my wife. To watch you dance would have felt like an affair.’
It was the only glimpse he gave her that, through the years, feelings had remained.
She didn’t understand him and he gave her nothing that might bring her closer to doing so. ‘Why haven’t you told Daniil that you are in London?’ Anya challenged.
‘You don’t know that I haven’t.’
‘Yes, I do because I was at Daniil’s this afternoon,’ Anya said.
Roman said nothing