Return of the Untamed Billionaire

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Of course,’ he said, and took her phone.

  They walked in through the sumptuous foyer, and Mika dropped his arm and abruptly went to walk off.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. She had hoped for conversation, to share her pain with another soul who might help her to understand.

  ‘To the bar.’

  As opposed to the barre.

  And then she felt it. Just as she had when she had stolen the chocolate cups—as she stood there she knew that she was being watched.

  She turned and there Roman was, sitting in the sumptuous foyer, his legs outstretched, utterly relaxed and clearly waiting for her to arrive. He had that glint of triumph in his eyes as he stood.

  She felt the sudden impulse to run, to get away from him, yet her body disobeyed that command, which meant that she just stood there, loaded with adrenaline, as he calmly walked towards her.

  ‘How?’ Anya could manage but one word.

  How had he found her?

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘YOU HAVE TWO CHOICES,’ Roman said, without answering her question. ‘We go up to your suite so that you can pack, or I take you to my home now and send someone to collect your things.’

  ‘I have told you, I don’t want to go to your home. I need to rehearse. I need—’

  ‘This isn’t a debate,’ he told her. ‘You are coming back with me.’

  ‘You can’t make me,’ Anya said. ‘I’ll have security remove you!’

  ‘Why would they remove a guest from the hotel?’

  ‘You’ve checked in here?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And, really, Anya, do you think they could remove me?’

  He looked to the entrance and Anya’s gaze followed and, sure enough, the two security guards, dealing with the press, would be no match for Roman.

  ‘I’ll put you over my shoulder now,’ he warned.

  He would.

  ‘Or,’ Roman said, as he took her bag from her and opened it, taking out the hotel card and checking her room number, ‘we can go up now and get your things.’

  ‘I’m not...’Anya started, but he had already taken her by the elbow and marched her towards the elevator.

  ‘How?’ she asked again as Roman pressed a button that would take them to her floor. ‘I told Reception that no information was to be given out.’

  ‘I didn’t call Reception.’

  ‘Did you have me followed?’ she asked, her voice rising.

  ‘You’re too dramatic,’ he said as the doors opened and they stepped out onto her floor.

  She always had been.

  Until the day he had left, she had been upfront with her emotions and had expressed them. She had been closed off for years but he had flicked the switch and turned her back to the woman she had been when he’d last been in her life.

  ‘I want to know how you found me.’

  ‘Your boyfriend put a picture up on social media of the view from his hotel room. I know the skyline,’ Roman said, and then she heard the edge to his voice as he asked a question. ‘Are you sharing a room with him? Is that why you don’t want me here?’

  She was not ready for this, Anya thought. She was not ready to reveal the depth of her love—that there had been no one since him, that there could never be anyone other than him. Neither was she ready to hear about his wife, and suddenly the instinct to run that had hit her in the foyer kicked in now.

  She turned and ran back towards the lifts.

  Roman did as he’d promised.

  He caught up easily, picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.

  ‘Put me down.’

  He did not do as asked and she beat at his back.

  ‘I thought that you liked to be lifted...’ Roman said as he strode back down the corridor, and then he thought of Mika holding her. ‘Does he do this...?’

  He ran a hand up between her legs.

  She smiled unseen at the jealous edge to Roman’s voice as they arrived at the door to her suite.

  ‘He does,’ Anya said, ‘only with far more skilled hands.’ She felt the grip of his fingers tighten high on her thigh and then his hand moved and he fingered her damp knickers, where she was hot and swollen for him.

  ‘Liar,’ he said, for there were no more skilled hands than his where Anya was concerned.

  He removed his hand and swiped the card, pushed open the door and strode through. He dropped her onto the bed and she lay staring up at him.

  She was breathless.

  So too was he.

  Not from exertion. He had hiked through rugged terrain with far more weight than Anya on his back.

  He stared down at her and there was a dangerous edge to the air. She felt he might take her now, might get on the bed and simply have her.

  And she fought the desire for just that.

  Then suddenly he turned and walked away.

  He went into the bathroom and stood for a moment holding the sink, looking at the marble bench where he saw just her toothbrush, her things. Relief washed over him when he saw that she did not share her suite with Mika.

  He understood Anya better now, how she could not bear to discuss Celeste, for Roman knew he had serious work ahead of him. Jealousy and possession churned the bile in his stomach and he took a long drink of water.

  Anya worked with Mika, she trained with Mika and would perform with him. Roman knew that if he and Anya were to have any chance at being together then he would have to learn how to deal with that.

  In the midst of reclaiming them, he had to acknowledge and accept her past, her present, and for that reason he stood for a moment to regroup.

  Anya lay there. She couldn’t see him, she just lay there trying to work out what to do next.

  Roman came out and offered a solution.

  ‘We need to get to know each other again,’ he said.

  She was scared to see his home, scared to get more involved in his life—after all he had left her so easily last time. Their love had burned just as intensely then and yet he had walked away.

  And he had married her!

  ‘I know you already, Roman,’ Anya said. She did. She knew his heart for it had connected with hers many years ago. She knew the might of the pain he could cause, had caused, and still did. ‘I can’t forgive you.’

  ‘I’m not asking for you to forgive me,’ Roman said. ‘But we need some time together to at least—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There will be no discussion about Celeste until you are ready.’

  Anya closed her eyes even at the sound of his wife’s name.

  ‘We will just spend some time together, catching up, little by little...’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we are back in each other’s lives.’ It was why he had stayed away for so long.

  ‘I need to focus on my dance,’ Anya said. It wasn’t going well. Since Roman had come back she had been rehearsing less and eating more. ‘I have to rehearse and train every day.’

  ‘Of course you can rehearse and train. I’m not kidnapping you.’

  She looked into coal-black eyes as he spoke.

  ‘I want you to come back to my home and I know that you want to be there too.’

  ‘I don’t want to share a bed with you.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Roman said it as fact. It was. ‘But if you want to play coy then you can stay in one of the guest rooms.’

  ‘Guest rooms?’

  Who was this man? Anya thought. Maybe she didn’t know him after all. ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Don’t think,’ he interrupted, and he went to the wardrobe and took out her cases.

  She lay and watched as he made a call to someone and spoke in French then he calmly packed up h
er things.

  Calmly, because it felt right.

  Roman was taking her home.

  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.