‘What about this one...?’ Dario said. They were reading the personal ads. ‘If I was leaving this is where I’d be headed. I don’t know about going to the ballet and theatre, but the adventurous sex I could do with...’
Roman smiled as he read it.
She was in her early forties and lived in Paris. No name was provided, just that she had given up on finding love but wanted to marry to please her dying father. She wanted someone, preferably younger and attractive, to accompany her on nights out to the theatre and ballet. As well as that she wanted an adventurous sexual partner. She understood that the marriage might not be a long one but hoped it would last at least two years. Naturally accommodation would be provided and she was an excellent cook, though preferred to eat out in the evening.
He liked her directness.
Throughout his life Roman had always had board and lodgings provided, first as an orphan, then as a fighter and perhaps now as a lover!
The men had whooped in delight when he had pocketed the details and even Roman had grinned.
Responding to the advert was a calculated move. He had never lived in a home, let alone been to the theatre. On a rare day off he might have hit a bar with comrades but he had never been to a restaurant except for that one disastrous time with Anya.
Roman headed to Paris.
Yes, he had been right not to contact his twin, Roman soon found out as he tried to acclimatise to living in an apartment in Paris and sharing a bed. Even lingering over meals proved difficult—he been nowhere near ready to face Daniil.
After those awkward first weeks things improved. More than delighted with happenings in the bedroom, Celeste wanted to venture out. She loved the job of ‘improving’ Roman. She had an eye for fashion and he was dressed well. He learnt to eat from fine china and to order at a restaurant with ease. She cooked with passion and soon so too did he. He always spent his own money, yet Celeste knew real estate in Paris and soon his portfolio consisted of houses as well as shares, though, as was the case with his shares, he was not attached to any of the properties.
And the sex?
There was a lot of it, of course, but, although it started out risqué, tenderness and affection grew, so much so that when, at the end of two years, Celeste fell ill, Roman stayed in the marriage. Just as he’d done all he could to never leave a comrade behind, he remained by her side. He was now the teacher, showing her that with focus and determination six months to live could be turned into a year.
‘You are the best thing that ever happened to me,’ Celeste said just before she died.
Her estate naturally went to her sister, who had blinked in surprise that Roman had not contested the will.
Of course they had assumed he had been there for the money.
Not for a moment.
He had been there for the education: to somehow transition from a life lived in regimented institutions or war zones to the real world.
After her death he left the hotel he had checked into and went to look at a property in the Eighth District in Paris to add to his portfolio. Taking the antique elevator to the top floor, he walked into the magnificent apartment and felt something he had never felt before. The very French furnishings, the stunning view of Paris, the wraparound balcony all appealed. So much so that for the first time he felt attached to a building and had bought it to live in. But more than that he finally felt a part of the planet he lived on and he was ready to consider contacting his brother.
Almost.
Daniil had been adopted by a rich English family. Roman had read that he had married an English woman and so, as he was only able to converse in Russian and French, Roman had spent the last few months learning English.
He was ready to face his twin now.
The brother he had sworn to let go forever.
He would not be a burden.
Roman took out a suit and dressed and he did up his tie with steady hands.
They only shook slightly as he opened the hotel safe.
He had found a Russian jeweller.
There he had seen a stone in the palest of greens and it had reminded him of Anya’s eyes.
Yet the gift he’d had made for his niece was a platinum cross studded with diamonds and on the back the word Sila had been engraved in Cyrillic. It was the Russian word for strength. This was not a trinket to be worn— more, if need arose, and his niece ever fell on hard times, it was insurance.
Money was all he had to give.
He didn’t even know if he was ready to get in touch with Daniil but he had taken seriously Anya’s warning that she would no longer pretend she hadn’t seen him. So, on the morning of the christening, he was driven to the address Anya had given and entered an impressive foyer.
The doorman nodded.
‘Good morning, Mr Zverev.’
It had been a long time since that had happened, Roman thought.
In the orphanage they had always been mixed up and had often used it to their advantage.
‘I didn’t do it,’ they would say separately. ‘You’re mistaking me for him.’
‘Well, your brother says that it must have been you.’
This morning Roman used it to his advantage again and headed for the elevator and pressed the button that would take him to Daniil’s penthouse suite.
Roman had fought in the harshest of conditions and had witnessed the hell of the front line but now he was nervous.
As he had stood watching Anya curtsey to the duchess and knowing he would soon see her, Roman had felt his heart pounding in his chest, and it was pounding in the same way now. He knocked on a large wooden door and after a few moments it opened. A blonde woman stood there and her expression showed that not only did she recognise him, she was shocked.
‘Daniil!’
She called her husband, her tone urgent, and then she blinked rapidly as if she had suddenly remembered she had forgotten to greet him. ‘Roman, we’ve been looking for you,’ she said, and stepped towards Roman and embraced him.
A few years ago he would have recoiled but Celeste had taught him well and so he accepted the embrace.
‘I’m Libby,’ the woman said, and stepped back.
Roman could see that there were tears in her eyes.
‘I know this is a shock,’ Roman said in English. His English accent was a mixture of French and Russian. ‘Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. I have a gift...’ And then his voice trailed off as she turned to her husband, who was coming down the hall.
They were absolutely identical. It was almost like looking into a mirror except Daniil had the livid scar on his cheek that Roman had put there.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Daniil said by way of greeting. ‘I thought you were dead...’
‘Well, I’m not,’ Roman said.
There could be no warm, effusive greeting after all these years; there was too much pain and far too many questions before they could even begin to hope for that.
‘I hear that you have had a baby. Congratulations.’
‘Her name is Nadia,’ Daniil said.
Even within that brief exchange Roman could hear his own heavy accent compared to his twin’s, and simply for ease he continued in their native tongue and asked his brother how he was. ‘Kak dela?’
‘We shall speak in English in front of my wife,’ Daniil snapped.
‘Daniil?’ Libby frowned, clearly a bit stunned at her husband’s reaction, but Daniil did not to stop to explain the unexpected wash of agony that tempered his relief that his brother was alive; instead he asked Roman the vital question again.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
Roman didn’t answer.
‘Where do you live?’ Daniil pushed.
‘Paris.’
‘And how long have yo
u lived there?’
‘Several years.’
‘That’s an hour away!’ Daniil said, and he fronted his brother as if ready to fight him. ‘You live an hour away and yet you haven’t been in touch.’
‘Daniil.’ Libby raised her voice and then tried to speak in a more normal tone. ‘Come in, Roman.’
It was a beautiful apartment and a gorgeous view of London played out before them through glass walls—the city sparkled in the early morning sun yet the atmosphere in the room was as tense as Roman had expected it to be.
He took a seat and it was odd seeing Daniil grown up when he was still twelve years old in Roman’s head. They were incredibly similar except for the scar and Roman was surprised that Daniil hadn’t had cosmetic surgery on it.
‘You need to get that taken care of,’ he said, pointing to his own cheek .
‘I kept it to remind me of you.’ Daniil’s response was bitter. ‘It’s all I had.’
‘No,’ Roman refuted. ‘Didn’t you get the pictures that I put in your case?’
Daniil nodded. Roman remembered slipping them into his twin’s case just before he’d headed to England.
‘I’ve been searching for you,’ Daniil said. ‘I’ve been back to Russia several times and someone said that you had been talking of joining the foreign legion.’
‘I joined when I was eighteen. I served for ten years.’
‘And so what is your name now?’ Daniil asked, but Roman wouldn’t answer him. ‘Pierre?’ Daniil’s sneer as he guessed at a French name told Roman how angry he was that his brother had changed his identity. ‘You’re not going to tell me, are you?’
Roman wasn’t, only not for the reason Daniil assumed.
In the foreign legion everyone, on joining, was given a new identity but what Daniil and Anya clearly didn’t know was that at the end of the first year legionnaires could choose whether to continue with their new identity or revert back to their own.
When Roman had joined, it had been his intention to wipe his slate clean. But a year on, on the eve of making the decision, he had lain on his bed, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling and deep in thought.
And had decided he couldn’t do it.
He had survived the most brutal training, he had jumped from planes, had become fluent in French, he’d had comrades and purpose. Everything that he had hoped to attain from joining he had.
His contract then had been for five years and he would sign up again, and yet when the moment had come, he couldn’t bring himself to make that final turn of the key and close himself from the past.
If he’d maintained his new identity the rules would have had to be adhered to and he’d been a soldier trained to obey. It would have meant never making any sort of contact with Daniil.
Or Anya.
The night they had shared last week could never have taken place.
This morning could never have happened.
Yet if he told Daniil or Anya this, it would show them how much he needed them, but he did not want to invade their lives so he said nothing.
‘That fight.’ Daniil had a question. ‘It was to make me go, wasn’t it?’
‘You wouldn’t have left otherwise.’
‘I didn’t want to go.’
‘Look at all you have. The family you went to—’ Roman started, but Daniil suddenly stood.
‘I was sent to hell!’ he told Roman. ‘I was a replacement for their dead child.’
Roman just sat there unmoved. ‘You got a good education.’
‘Poshyol ty...’ Daniil swore at his brother in Russian.
‘I thought we were supposed to speak English in front of your wife,’ Roman calmly reminded him.
‘You don’t know what it was like...’ Daniil said.
‘Because you never wrote and told me.’
Oh, there was so much hurt on both sides.
‘I did, but I’ve since found out that my adopted parents never sent the letters. I changed my name from Daniel Thomas back to Daniil Zverev just so that you could find me.’
‘I saw that you did.’
‘When?’
‘Last year.’
‘And still you waited?’
Oh, no! Libby thought as she sat there, bemused by their reactions. She knew how hard Daniil had searched for his twin and simply didn’t understand. She wanted hugs and champagne and smiling Russians.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be!
‘I’ll get the baby!’ she said, and dashed out and returned with a tiny sleeping infant in her arms, hoping that Nadia would work her magic.
‘How old is she?’ Roman asked as Libby came back.
‘Two weeks,’ Libby said.
That was the age he and Daniil had been when they had been left at the orphanage.
Or the guessed age.
‘You can hold her,’ Libby said.
‘No.’ Roman shook his head. ‘Let her sleep.’
But Libby put the baby in his arms.
He had never held one.
‘She’s very light,’ Roman said, and then the baby stirred and opened her eyes and she recognised the eyes that stared back at her as her father’s.
She was absolutely beautiful and she looked a combination of both Libby and Daniil, and of course that meant she looked as if she could almost be his. It was odd, he had never imagined himself a father, or Daniil come to that. Now, he looked at the tiny infant and felt a rush of emotion and also relief to see her so safe and cared for and to know his brother had done well and would take very good care of his wife and child.
Roman was doing everything he could to get through these days. Catching up with his past was agony, and to hold her for even a moment longer meant he might break down.
He had never shed a tear.
Not one.
And he would not now.
He handed Nadia back to Libby and then he stood and got to the reason he was there.
‘I had this made for Nadia.’ He went to hand over the box to Libby but Daniil intervened.
‘She gets christened in an hour. You can give it to her after the service. We are all coming back here for a small celebration.’
‘I can’t attend the christening.’
‘I don’t give a damn about your new identity and whether you can be seen out or not with us,’ Daniil said. ‘You will be at your niece’s christening.’
Roman said nothing.
‘Nikolai will be there and so too will Sev—he married a couple of weeks ago but he’s returning from his honeymoon just to attend. He’s made the effort to be there and so too will you. We are all getting together on Nikolai’s yacht afterwards. The four of us will be together again.’
They had once all been so close.
‘Anya might be coming to the christening. You remember her...’ Daniil said. ‘The cook’s daughter who always danced?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘She’s a prima ballerina now.’ Daniil said what Roman already knew.
‘And she was almost Nadia’s godmother,’ Libby sighed, and Roman frowned.
‘You’re that close?’
‘Not really,’ Libby admitted. ‘Well, we’re all ballet dancers...’
‘All?’
‘My friend Rachel and I, but Anya keeps herself apart.’
‘Is that how you met her?’ Roman asked. He was curious while trying not to let on that he knew Anya intimately. ‘You have danced together?’
‘No, no,’ Libby said. ‘I retired last year and Daniil took me to the ballet to cheer me up.’
‘It didn’t work,’ Daniil said in a dry voice.
‘Well,’ Libby continued, ‘Daniil recognised Anya from the program and we went backstage and we’ve kept
in touch since then. We weren’t sure if Rachel could be there today and Anya had offered to step in as godmother. I found out last night that Rachel can make it after all. I think I’ve offended Anya, so she might not come.’
The intercom buzzed. It would seem that the caterers had arrived and Libby gave a yelp when she saw the time.
‘I have to get Nadia changed. Roman...’ Libby took a breath. ‘You are coming to the christening?’
Roman hesitated. The fact Anya might not be there made it easier so he nodded.
Alone with his twin, for a moment before the caterers invaded and the christening day took hold, they stared at the other then Roman spoke. ‘I’ll let you get ready and see you at the church.’
‘Come in the car with us.’
‘I’ve got my own driver.’
‘Don’t disappear again, Roman,’ Daniil warned.
He couldn’t if he tried.
Now that contact had been made, he wanted to be in their lives.
‘You’re a curse, Roman.’ He thought of Katya’s words. ‘A burden on the system. You’re not even suitable for adoption, what family would want you in it?’
His?
Roman had to be sure.
CHAPTER SIX
AS ANYA CLIMBED out of the taxi her eyes scanned the gathered crowd outside the church but there was no sign of him.
He wasn’t here.
She had flown in from Paris that morning and had booked a return flight for this afternoon to safeguard her from a night in bed with Roman.
As if that would stop them!
Everyone had made the effort—Sev and Naomi, who lived in New York, had returned from their honeymoon for today. Nikolai, who had come to London only for their wedding, had delayed his departure to celebrate today. Even Rachel, who until last night hadn’t known if she’d be able to get out of a family arrangement, had made it.
Yet Roman hadn’t.
Anya was angry.
Furious.
As she walked towards the group she made a beeline for Rachel. She was a stunning redhead who had recently retired as a dancer and had just started a blog about ballet. Anya had been alerted to it when she had checked her emails and had read it on the plane. To cover her disappointment, she smiled rather more brightly than she would usually.
Return of the Untamed Billionaire Page 5
