‘I DIDN’T SLEEP WELL,’ Roman said by way of greeting the next morning.
‘Nor me.’
He could see the shadows under her eyes and he knew his return had caused them.
There was a selection of herbal teas for her to choose from but Anya chose hot chocolate in the hope it might settle her stomach as she felt a little sick with nerves, wondering how the reception would be when she went to rehearsals.
The berries did not appeal this morning and the thought of yoghurt made her feel queasy.
Roman said nothing as she selected a croissant.
‘I’m not looking forward to today,’ she admitted.
Yet usually she did.
Usually she woke and rushed to dance.
It troubled her that she had pressed Snooze on her phone and that she felt so tired.
Dance was consuming and so too was Roman. She was honestly scared that there wasn’t room for both and that was further put to question when she arrived at the studio.
Until the theatre was available they would rehearse there.
It wasn’t ideal and, of course, there was no dressing- room she could hide in.
Instead she had to ride out the uncomfortable vibes. It was a bitchy, vain world at the best of times.
And this wasn’t the best of times.
Change was not welcome and Anya removing herself from the hotel was seen as a threat.
She tried to prove it was not, and gave rehearsals her best, but she was tired and a little distracted. By five, when she was ready to go home, Mika insisted they walk through it again.
The choreographer agreed.
When at seven the rest headed out for dinner, Anya and Mika walked through it again.
‘What the hell is going on, Anya?’ the choreographer asked when she forgot one of her routines. ‘Stop thinking of going home to your lover and concentrate on your steps.’
She was being punished, Anya knew. She was being tested on where her loyalties lay and they lay with dance when she was here.
Right now, though, she was hungry, but was nervous about saying so. She wanted dinner and a bath and to go to bed.
But she danced instead.
They danced till ten and she made her way home exhausted and very close to tears and she got a little lost. Unwittingly she found herself in the square where she had seen Celeste and Roman kiss.
It remained an agony.
She took the elevator to his apartment and wanted to fall into his arms but there was no Roman waiting.
No response when she called out.
She pushed his bedroom door open and, no, he was not there.
He was never there when she really needed him.
And then she wandered some more and pushed open a room, more beautiful than any she had ever seen.
It was a nursery.
Lemon wallpaper dressed the walls and the silk drapes were cream. A silver antique cot was in the centre and it hurt too much to go in so she hastily closed the door.
The next room was an equal torture.
Pretty in pink, the child’s bed was dressed in satin and roses, and Anya was in tears as she stepped out.
She could hear the elevator and tried to stop crying but she couldn’t.
‘Anya?’ Roman said, and went to take her in his arms, but she pushed him back.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Josie’s granddaughter is sick. My driver is on vacation, as is half of Paris at this time, so I drove them to the airport myself.’ He had never had to offer such explanations, but he did. ‘That’s not why you’re crying, though.’
It wasn’t.
It was the wretched couple of days at work; it was the memory of Roman and Celeste and, worse, just so raw right now, the babies that could never fill these rooms.
She didn’t know how to tell him.
She simply couldn’t bring herself to.
Her eating, or rather lack of it, had been such an issue with them all those years ago.
She thought of their row on the night he had caught her vomiting.
It was by her own doing that she hadn’t had periods.
There hadn’t been one for more than a year.
‘Come here,’ he said, and took her in his arms. ‘We can talk about it. Whatever it is, surely we can talk?’
‘We can’t,’ she sobbed, and she kissed him instead.
She wanted the oblivion that she found his bed.
And Roman could fight it no more and wanted the same thing.
But even the silken kiss he delivered could not banish the memory of what she had seen that terrible day in the square.
Oh, she tried.
She kissed him back hard but it would not erase that image. There were tears streaming down her cheeks, wetting their kiss, and he tasted them, yet still it could not erase the pain.
Her body was a heated mix of desire and rage and confusion and Anya pulled back.
‘You’re not helping. I need to go back to the hotel.’
‘You don’t.’
‘I do. I’m behind with my dance. I need to give it my full focus and I just can’t when I’m with you.’
‘Anya—’ he started, and she could not bear the voice of reason when her emotions were all over the place so she stopped him.
‘If you really care for me, you will let me leave,’ Anya said. ‘We don’t work together, Roman. I can’t focus on my craft when I am with you. Surely we should know that by now.’
He packed her things but as his car pulled up at the hotel he caught her hand as she went to get out.
‘You’re wrong,’ he said.
‘I’m not,’ Anya said. ‘Don’t call me.’
‘I shan’t.’
‘Don’t come here.’
‘I won’t.’
She felt as if the safety ropes had been cut.
Roman always meant what he said.
SHE WAS FORGIVEN for her brief absence when they all met in the foyer the following morning and her colleagues greeted her warmly when they found out she had moved back to the hotel.
Anya, though, could not forgive them.
Always she gave her dance her all, and she was angry at her troupe for their doubt in her, and it showed in each rehearsal.
Nothing was working.
Her body, usually fluid and flexible, felt brittle and like hardening wax.
‘It will come together when we get to the theatre,’ the choreographer reassured her.
And Anya held onto that as she suffered through frustrating days when her body refused to yield, and she ached through lonely nights.
She always gave her dance everything, yet she felt now as if she had nothing to give.
Always