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Return of the Untamed Billionaire
by Carol Marinelli
CHAPTER ONE
EVERY TIME SHE danced it was for him.
It was the closing night in London of the spectacular ballet Firebird.
The last time she had been here, Anya had gone from being one of the princesses and an understudy to dancing the leading role.
Now, due to popular demand, the stunning ballet was back.
It was Tatania, Anya’s stage persona, the gathering audience had come to see.
The theatre was packed and Anya had been told that there was a duchess in the audience tonight; yet Anya would dance only for him.
For Roman Zverev.
Her first and only love.
Apart from ballet.
The hours of practice and absolute self-control, the rigorous preparations and the endless reach for perfection Anya did for herself.
Yet, when she danced, it was always for him.
Now she had her own dressing-room. Like most performers, Anya was swathed in superstition and her dressing table was prepared like an altar. It was filled with tiny trinkets she had gathered over the years and specific make-up and brushes that were all neatly arranged.
She had warmed up. Her feet were bandaged and her pointe shoes had been broken in—there were other pairs ready if needed. She had already scraped her straight brown hair into a tight high bun and whitened her face. Carefully, and with great precision, she applied the black and gold make-up that enhanced her pale green eyes.
Everything was done to order.
Now, as she was given the half-hour call, she took a drink of coconut water and slowly ate half a banana. The other half of the banana she carefully wrapped and would eat during the interval, along with a small chocolate treat.
Anya loved chocolate.
It reminded her of Roman.
After she had eaten, Anya dabbed her mouth and then she put on her headpiece of red and gold feathers. She carefully secured it, checking it over and over. Happy that it was firmly in place, she painted her lips crimson and then called for the costume manager.
She slipped off her silk robe and stepped into her costume. The tight-fitting bodice was a deep red with orange and gold appliqué and the ten-layered tutu was adorned with silk feathers.
Anya raised her arms as the concealed zipper was closed. The costume fitted perfectly and showed the long slender lines of her arms and legs.
Out in the real world, her tiny frame drew stares and whispers because Anya was so very thin, and yet that tiny body was a powerhouse of lean muscle and she was incredibly fit.
Oh, every single day, she worked for it. Hours of training and rehearsal and rigorous self-control meant that her body could perform feats most others could only dream of. Yet, despite her command on the stage, right now she shivered with nerves as the ten-minute call came and the costume manager did a final check.
Now she was Tatania, her stage persona.
‘Merde!’ the costume manager said—the dance equivalent of ‘Break a leg’—and Tatania nodded but did not respond because her teeth were chattering too much.
She wrapped a heavy silk shawl, one that she had bought for her mother, around her bare arms and shoulders.
Her mother, Katya, had been a single mum and a cook in a Russian orphanage. She had died recently but had lived to see her daughter reach these heights and for that Anya was grateful. Katya had had a vision for her daughter long before Anya had.
As a young girl, Anya could remember practising her dance steps in the kitchen of the detsky dom where Katya had worked. As Anya had grown older, rather than going home to their tiny cold, empty house, she would go to the orphanage and practise her steps with an ache of hunger in her stomach for the stew her mother cooked.
Sometimes she would sneak a taste but, if caught, her mother would give her a slap.
‘Do you want to get big, like me?’ Katya would say.
Of course they had clashed, though never more so than during her teenage years.
‘No boys,’ Katya had said, when she had caught Anya staring at Roman. ‘Especially not one like Roman Zverev. He is trouble.’
‘No,’ Anya had said. ‘He just misses his twin.’
‘The twin he beat up, the twin he scarred.’
‘No,’ Anya had attempted, ‘that was just because Daniil refused to be adopted without his twin and it was the only way Roman could get him to leave.’
‘Don’t answer back,’ Katya had said and had pulled down the roller blind and sent Anya to the back of the kitchen. That night, once home, Katya had spoken more harshly to her daughter. ‘There can be no boys. To succeed with your ballet you can have only one focus.’
Anya had obliged—there had been no boys.
But a few years later, away from the orphanage, she had met Roman.
And he had become a man.
Ready now to take herself to the stage, Anya looked at her trinkets and touched them. She opened a small box but did not take out the bunched-up piece of foil. She would save that for the interval. Instead she ran her fingers over a faded label. It was a label that she had torn from the sheets when she and Roman had first made love and beside it was a small gold hoop earring.
Tonight she brought the label up to her lips and then replaced it back in the box and snapped the lid closed.
There was a knock at the door, and she was informed it was time. Anya made her way through the maze of corridors in the old London theatre. ‘Merde,’ was said many times but still she did not respond.
Anya did not make friends readily. Her only focus had been getting to the top and they all thought her cold.
She was.
Anya was the queen of ice.
Until she danced.
Mika was there; he wore a suit of red and a small cap, which would soon hold a feather that the firebird would give to him. They nodded to each other but that was it; they were immersed in their own pre-performance routines.
The press insisted that they were a couple. Mika had quite a reputation with women and, such was their chemistry on stage, it was assumed it carried on afterwards.
In truth they did not really get on.
Anya wasn’t particularly close to anyone.
Once she had been. Until Roman had left her, there had been laughter and passion and she had been open to others.
Not any more.
The audience started to applaud and Anya shrugged off her shawl and did a final limber up as the audience hushed and the orchestra teased.
‘Merde,’ she said to Mika as he picked up his bow and arrow, the props used for the opening act, and, befo
re her very eyes, he became Ivan, the prince, and went onto the stage—the setting for the magical garden.
Anya took some deep breaths and her teeth chattered as she fought nausea. Even after all these years, she still suffered with the most terrible stage fright and the more she advanced in her career, the worse it became.
It was an incredibly demanding role and the pressure on her was immense.
She moved several steps back and positioned herself and, closing her eyes, she took in some slow deep breaths and waited for the moment.
When it came, she was no longer Anya, or even Tatania.
As she flew onto the stage, she was the firebird.
A flash of gold, caught by the light, darted across the stage and she heard the audience gasp. The sight of the firebird intrigued Ivan, the prince.
Now he hid behind a tree as the firebird waited on the other side of the stage, taking more deep breaths and preparing to stun the audience again.
She did so.
Now the prince hid in the garden in wait to watch and then capture the firebird, and after another pause she came back on and swept up a piece of golden fruit.
Firebird was so beautiful, Anya thought as she danced. So slender, fragile and graceful. Few knew the agony that it took to birth this beauty and tonight, on closing night, it all came together as she shimmered and danced for him.
For Roman.
The man she had loved too much.
Their love affair that had lasted for just two short weeks but then he had so cruelly left.
For a long time she had feared he had died.
He had not.
And he had never once told her he loved her.
Had he? And would she ever see him again? Firebird asked herself over and over as the prince captured her in his arms and the pas de deux commenced.
There was a small flutter of hope that she might—soon the dance company would move to Paris and that was where she was now sure he lived.
Would Roman seek her out this time? Firebird wondered as the prince lifted her high into the sky.
Left alone on the stage towards the interval, she danced her solo with everything she had.
Everything, everything, was right.
The interval came and she did not respond to the chatter from her colleagues; instead she shut herself in her dressing-room. For the first ten minutes she just recovered her breathing. The role was the most demanding of any of them. Then Anya ate the other half of her banana and a small chocolate bar and closed her eyes, desperate to not escape the zone that she had found tonight.
And with the sweet taste of chocolate on her tongue she remembered her first taste.
Always she had practised in the kitchen, but once she had become a teenager, her mother had told her she could not dance when the boys were eating, as it teased them.
She would put on an apron and serve their meals instead.
Oh, but there was one she would love to tease.
Roman.
He and his twin had a talent for boxing and Sergio, the maintenance man, trained them and insisted that the Zverev twins would make it in the boxing world.
As a younger girl, Anya had laughed as they’d trained and had told them that she was far fitter.
She had been.
Anya had been accepted at a prestigious dance school, but in the holidays she would come back.
There were four boys, and they were always together—Roman, Daniil, Nikolai and Sev.
Trouble the workers called them.
Anya didn’t think so.
But on the eve of Daniil’s adoption by a rich family in England, a fight had broken out and Roman had won.
She could remember Daniil sitting in the kitchen as her mother had done what she could to repair his cheek.
‘The rich family don’t want ugly,’ Katya had said to him as Anya had fetched the first-aid box.
She had looked at Daniil and seen the confusion in his eyes that his brother could have done this to him.
‘It’s because Roman wants what is best for you,’ Anya had wanted to say, for it had been clear to her that Roman had not really been cross with his brother, just let him think he could do better in boxing without him.
She had been too nervous to say that in front of her mother.
After Daniil had left for England, the little group of four had quickly disbanded.
Sev had been given a scholarship to a very good school and had later boarded there.
Nikolai had, they’d thought, run away and thrown himself in a river. But, as they had recently found out, he had simply run away.
Only Roman had remained in the orphanage.
Now, at mealtimes, Roman had come for the second sitting, the one reserved for the older, most troubled boys.
He had been so beautiful. Dark hair and pale skin and he’d had black eyes that would look across the dining room and catch Anya’s at times. Always she had been aware of him and anticipated his arrival. Even on the coldest of mornings, when he’d come in to breakfast, there had been heat in her cheeks, just because he had been near.
In the evenings, when she’d served him his stew, sometimes their fingers had touched under the plate he’d held out.
Anya had lived for those moments and ached for time to speak with him properly, but he had been in the secure wing, so it had been an impossible dream. Sometimes she’d convinced herself that she was imagining that Roman felt the same way about her, until one night when their fingers had met beneath the plate. He had given her something and Anya frowned as she’d felt the slim package.
Worried that her mother would notice, she’d quickly put it into the pocket of her apron but then, when she’d been sent to the cupboard to eat her soup, she’d taken it out.
Chocolate.
Belgian chocolate.
And a whole bar!
How had he got it?
And why, instead of eating such a rare treat himself, had Roman saved it for her?
Oh, her mother had found out. She had opened the cupboard door and found Anya pushing chocolate into her mouth.
Katya had berated her daughter as she’d slapped her, but for Anya it had been worth it, not just for the sweet taste, more that Roman had thought enough of her to give her such a treat.
All these years later she still had the foil and, as she touched it, she smiled at the memory.
It was time to return to the stage.
With her mother’s shawl wrapped around her, again she painted her lips scarlet and then back through the maze of corridors she went.
Firebird soared even higher.
She danced the monsters into the shadows and as she did so, she thought of the lover who had left her.
How he had broken her heart when he had left without so much as a goodbye.
But she had risen.
Anya had poured all her grief, her anger and her longing into her next love—ballet.
And it had paid off, it would seem, for she was here, under the lights, now a prima ballerina, enchanting the audience, whom she held in the palm of her hand tonight.
How the firebird mocked the monsters on stage as she danced them into exhaustion and yet her energy remained.
Just as she always did, she imagined Roman watching as the prince held her and turned her and she was perfection in his arms. She hoped Roman ached in regret for leaving her behind.
As the magical egg cracked open, she closed her mind to the grief and the memory of his smile filled her heart.
Flu had swept through the orphanage and the orphans had been confined to their dorms. Walking into his room in the secure unit to deliver his supper, just before he’d left the orphanage, they had been alone for the first time for a moment. How she had ached to lower her head and ki
ss that sulky mouth.
‘How did you get the chocolate?’ she had asked.
Roman hadn’t answered but she had warmed to the first glimpse of his smile.
And tonight she was on fire to the memory of it.
But then it had been over.
Firebird did not appear in the final scene; instead she sat on the floor in the wings and dragged in air, utterly drained. Then as the performance ended, she listened to the cheers and the applause and she hauled herself up. When it was her turn, the firebird ran onto the stage as serene and as beautiful as ever to accept the applause.
The audience rose as she returned. They knew they had seen an amazing performance tonight and that she had danced with all that she had.
Tatania offered deep curtsies, swooped and picked up the roses that were thrown onto the stage.
She knew that she had earned every bravo and every cheer and Tatania smiled as still they cheered on.
There was a ten-minute standing ovation and over and over they called her back to accept the applause, but just as the noise started to ebb, she heard it.
‘Brava krasavitsa!’
Beautiful woman.
Tatania froze momentarily and turned her face up and to the right and peered into the darkness but she could not see him.
Yet her soul recognised his voice.
Roman was here.
Copyright © 2016 by Carol Marinelli
ISBN-13: 9781488000898
The Greek’s Nine-Month Redemption
Copyright © 2016 by Maisey Yates
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