LITMIR.BIZ

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he had not hid applying to join from her. ‘What was the training like?’

      ‘Hard,’ he admitted. ‘You do not get the kepi easily—you have to earn it.’

      ‘Kepi?’

      ‘The white cap we wear,’ Roman explained. ‘I have never trained harder in my life and then, if you get through that part, you are sent to The Farm and the real hard work begins. There are endless hikes, and physical and psychological obstacles to overcome. Then when I passed, when I got my kepi, I applied for the parachute regiment and went to Corsica.’

      ‘You jumped out of planes?’

      ‘Many times,’ he said. ‘Then we went on deployments...’

      And she asked him something she had been unable to last night and, though she might not like the answer, she was ready to hear it now.

      ‘Did you ever think of me?’

      ‘Not at first.’

      He was brutally honest, as was his way, but it did not hurt quite as much as it might have because his admission told her that eventually he had thought of her.

      ‘From the moment you knock at the door, they break you down, they want the strongest of men. You go to The Farm and you train and they break you further. Sometimes you do tasks so mundane that you would go mad if you thought of what you had left behind. Other times you are so exhausted from exertion that there is no time to think. You have to converse in French, and that takes a lot of head space.’

      And she listened and imagined him there and was proud that he had done all of those things.

      ‘You wake up and have coffee and bread and jam but you finish that meal and are still hungry. Then there are the endless hikes, and though only you, yourself, have to make it, you start to encourage each other and you start to change, you become a part of a team. We would march, and we would sing songs...’

      Anya laughed at that.

      ‘I can’t imagine you singing,’ she admitted. He was so deep, so private, so undemonstrative, that she could not imagine this man singing with others.

      ‘It is a big part of it,’ Roman told her.

      And he thought back to that time.

      It had been a hike, a long one, and it had been more than testing.

      Dario had been falling behind.

      ‘Suis-moi.’ Roman had told Dario to follow him, to keep up with him, and he had said it in French without thinking.

      The night before he had dreamed in French for the first time and he’d felt as if his past was slipping away.

      He thought of home rarely; he did not allow himself to. Yet, from a safer distance, he found he could examine his past.

      He thought of Daniil and he told himself he was right to have forced him to leave the orphanage. All he could hope was that his twin was doing well.

      And he thought of Sev. Yes, a nerd, but he had good brains and Roman hoped that the new school he had attended had helped refine him.

      Then he thought of Nikolai and there was a hollow, empty space that ached.

      Bleak.

      There was bleakness there and then he tried not to think of Anya.

      ‘Suis-moi,’ he said again to Dario and two of the men ahead started to sing to rally him, and others joined in.

      And his past had not slipped away; instead it had drawn in closer and had been right there with him that long-ago day.

      He looked at Anya.

      ‘One day, we were hiking and the men started singing. I found myself changing, in my head, the words of a song, to your name...’

      ‘Tell me the song.’ Anya asked.

      ‘It is a song of the legion.’

      ‘Tell me the name.’

      ‘“Monica.”’

      ‘Tell me the words.’

      He would not.

      Their meals were served and Anya looked longingly at his dish. The fragrance was amazing and her mouth watered.

      ‘Give me a small piece,’ Anya said.

      He sliced off a small piece as asked—it was the nicest piece from the middle. He slathered it with the sauce and then held out the fork and she ate from it and closed her eyes in bliss at the taste.

      ‘Is it hard?’ Roman asked, because he was curious about her also. ‘To deny yourself all the things you love?’

      ‘It is necessary. I want to stay at the top,’ she said, ‘and that requires discipline.’

      ‘How much longer do you think you will dance for?’

      She was suddenly defensive. ‘Why do you ask?’

      ‘I’m just curious.’

      ‘I hope that I have another decade in me at the very least.’

      She took a drink of water. The conversation was tipping them into the future she knew.

      ‘What if you wanted to have a baby?’

      Anya gave him a scornful look.

      ‘Libby retired to have Nadia,’ Roman said.

      ‘No, she didn’t,’ Anya refuted. ‘Libby retired because her career was over and then she had a baby.’ She blew out a breath. ‘What is it with men? They expect women to give up their careers and be barefoot and pregnant—’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Anya,’ he said. ‘The last place I want you in is the kitchen. I’ve had enough of watching you stir stew in your apron to last me a lifetime. And,’ he added, ‘I’ve seen your feet. They are not my top fantasy!’

      He made her smile, albeit reluctantly.

      ‘Well, I’m not going to retire. Libby might have, and Rachel too, but I shall be dancing well into my forties, I hope. I didn’t hit my peak just to give it away.’

      And she didn’t know how to tell him that she couldn’t have babies so she attempted to change the subject. ‘How did it go when you caught up with the others?’

      Roman, just as he had when Nikolai had swiftly changed the subject, also noticed it when Anya did. He didn’t comment, though, he just answered her question.

      ‘Most of it went okay. It was nice to hear what they have been up to. It didn’t go well with Daniil, though,’ he admitted. ‘He has this thought in his head that if he hadn’t been adopted we would still have been okay. He is wrong. I lived it, Anya, he did not. Teenage years were hell there and, even if it wasn’t to a happy home that he went, at least he got out before that.’

      ‘He doesn’t like that you made the decision for him. In the same way I don’t like that you chose to end us without discussion.’

      ‘Come on,’ Roman said, and called for the bill. ‘We are starting to fight and I don’t want a fight that doesn’t end in bed.’

      They chose to walk home, although they went the long way to avoid the square where she had seen him and Celeste kiss.

      Back home, he wished her good night.

      ‘I don’t want to go to bed.’

      ‘Fine,’ Roman said, ‘but I do.’

      He kissed her in the entrance hall.

      A deep kiss, a sensual kiss, but not a teasing one.

      He kept his word.

      There would be no reward till they could talk properly.

      It felt, as she lay in bed alone, unnecessarily cruel.

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