LITMIR.BIZ

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      One she opened and saw there a huge wooden floored area. Unlike the rest of the house, it was very modern and Anya guessed this would be his gym.

      Like Daniil’s.

      She turned when she heard the elevator and then Roman stepped out.

      He was wearing a suit and carrying a laptop bag and it felt like a tiny glimpse of him coming home to her.

      ‘I went to look at an apartment,’ he said by way of explaining where he had come from.

      ‘Was it as nice as this?’

      ‘Nowhere is as nice as this,’ he said.

      He came and joined her and they walked into the room.

      ‘It is like the room at Daniil’s,’ Anya said. ‘You two are so similar, even though you have been apart. Maybe you could put a boxing ring in here...’ She guessed at his dream. ‘One day you and he can fight again, but fairly this time.’

      ‘Maybe,’ Roman said. ‘How was class?’

      ‘It was very good.’ Anya nodded. ‘Well, they are not happy with me, I think, but my dancing went well.’

      ‘Why aren’t they happy with you?’ He frowned.

      ‘Because I am not staying at the hotel, or joining them tonight.’

      ‘You can go out with them tonight.’

      ‘No.’ Anya shook her head. ‘Even if you weren’t around I wouldn’t have gone. It is the open-air cinema and last time I went I got bitten.’

      She was so careful with her skin. Roman remembered her telling him to take care where he kissed her because their first time had left her bruised.

      ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I thought we might go out for dinner tonight.’

      She wanted to see if things really could be different this time.

      Roman nodded.

      He needed to know too.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

      SHE WORE A simple black dress and did her make-up carefully.

      He looked so elegant in a suit and her stomach was in knots as they were driven through twilit streets but he told the driver they would walk home. He took her to a rooftop restaurant and, as they were led to a sumptuous table that overlooked the Seine, Roman requested somewhere more private instead.

      They were seated in a plush velvet booth that muted the sound from fellow diners. He moved the silver candelabrum aside and she liked it that he did. They stared at each other and the candlelight darkened the shadows beneath his cheekbones; she fought with her hand not to reach out to touch his face.

      Her heart was fluttering in her chest. She felt that seat belts should be provided, for it was as if she were on a roller-coaster, and she ought to be strapped in.

      She felt as if they were on their way to something. Something real, and very beautiful.

      And she was scared to hope.

      The menu was amazing, but her lazy days spent daydreaming of Roman rather than practising meant that she was careful as she chose.

      ‘The asparagus and orange rind,’ she said, and braced herself for him to comment, to point out that it was their first meal out in more than a decade, but he said nothing and simply ordered for himself.

      Roman then spoke with the sommelier but she shook her head as he translated for her. ‘I’ll just have water.’ Not just that she couldn’t afford to indulge, she did not want her guard lowered an inch.

      Last night, on seeing his injuries, she had wept so hard and she would not allow herself to do that again.

      He did not like the sommelier’s suggestion to accompany his côte de veau foyot and asked for his preferred wine instead. Anya watched as he conversed with ease.

      ‘What are you having to eat?’ she asked.

      ‘Veal, with Parmesan and white wine sauce.’

      ‘Your French is excellent,’ she commented.

      ‘I know. Even the French think I am French...’

      ‘You are,’ Anya responded tartly, alluding to his new identity, but Roman shook his head.

      ‘When people ask where I’m from the answer is, “Je suis legionnaire.”’

      He said it with pride.

      ‘And you also speak English,’ Anya commented.

      ‘Not so well. I only started to learn it last year. If I wanted to be able to converse with Daniil and his family...’ His voice trailed off.

      ‘So it was no accident you got back in touch.’

      She was as observant as he.

      Roman thought of the time after Celeste had died, and the mounting need to see for himself how his brother was.

      And Anya.

      ‘I didn’t know if I would get in touch, but in case I ever did I wanted to be able to converse...’ He gave a slight eye roll.

      ‘Tell me?’ Anya said, because, unlike the scars on his back, those tiny facial expressions of his she did still know and could read.

      Roman could tell her.

      For whatever reason, he found that he could talk to her about his twin, when usually he would remain silent.

      ‘When I greeted Libby, I congratulated her on the baby and then Daniil came along and asked where I had been. I told him that I had been in Paris and he was annoyed that I was just an hour away. I asked him, in Russian, how he was. He told me that we were to speak in English in front of his wife.’

      He looked into her pale green eyes and they narrowed.

      ‘He’s been in England since he was twelve. There was an assumption, given that I had greeted Libby in English, that I was fluent.’

      ‘Shishka,’ Anya said as she used Daniil’s nickname that they had teased him with before he’d gone to be with his new family, and it made Roman smile.

      ‘You should have told him how much effort you went to, just so that you could speak with his family.’

      ‘Perhaps, but I don’t want to,’ Roman admitted. ‘I just don’t feel close enough to him to go over things yet.’

      ‘He did try to write to you,’ Anya said. ‘Libby told me that he did. And he has searched for you, but people who join the French Foreign Legion don’t tend to want to be found.’

      He stared at the tears that pooled in her eyes and saw the hurt and confusion he had caused.

      Only the wine waiter arriving to pour their drinks broke their gaze.

      Anya took a sip of her water and breathed.

      Then took another sip.

      And she was now ready and curious to know.

      ‘What was it like?’ she asked, but her voice rose in hurt as she asked the next question. ‘When did you apply?’ It upset her that he had been filling out application forms while seeing her. That he had been planning to go, even as they’d made love. ‘Did you hide the forms from me?’

      ‘There were no forms that I hid,’ Roman said. ‘You don’t apply as such; instead you make your own way there and then you knock on the door,’ he explained, and took a sip of his wine.

      ‘And that’s it?’

      ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘That is just the start of it. All your things are taken from you and you are given a dark uniform and boots and over the next couple of weeks they run many tests

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