LITMIR.BIZ

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she looked at him as she found out not just that he loved her but that he knew the depth of their love.

      ‘You were by my heart when I jumped out of planes, and you were there with me through war, and when I thought I might die you were with me too.’

      He would not have died without her knowing, and that meant more than the world to Anya. She had not been left behind.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me this last night?’

      ‘Last night was to clear the air.’

      ‘And what about at the stage door?’ Anya said. ‘You should have told me then before I went on.’

      ‘You did not require my love to dance as you did,’ Roman said. ‘You did that by yourself, for yourself...’

      And she understood him some more.

      With the drip in the back of her hand and her fingers suddenly shaking, it was Roman who opened the box.

      ‘It’s time for us to make it official, Anya. You are my family, always.

      ‘Tomorrow, in sunlight, the stone will be the colour of your eyes. Tonight it is the colour of fire.’

      He did not ask her to marry him.

      He did not need to ask, he just slid the ring onto her finger and kissed it.

      ‘All the years we wasted,’ Anya said with a sob in her voice.

      ‘No. These haven’t been wasted years...’

      They hadn’t been, she realised.

      Roman was so proud and so determined in all that he did and he had made his way back to her, and to his twin, only when he had been ready. He had returned proud to reclaim the life he’d had to leave behind.

      ‘What about babies?’

      ‘Anya, I love you. If that’s what you want, we can look at other ways.’

      ‘What do you want?’

      He had never considered that he might become a father until he had held Nadia.

      Then he’d looked at Anya and had never really considered her a mother.

      Until now.

      Others thought Anya icy, yet he knew her passion and love.

      ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Maybe, one day, we could look at adoption. We could go back to Russia...’ His voice came the closest it ever had to breaking, because he had never thought he might go back, and certainly never to an orphanage. ‘We can work it out.’

      They could now.

      A nurse popped her head around the curtain and it would seem they had visitors.

      ‘I can tell them to wait,’ Roman said. ‘Or to go home.’

      ‘I’d like to see them,’ Anya said.

      She wanted to show them her ring!

      And they all spilled in, the men in suits and beautiful, especially Daniil because he was carrying a tray of hot chocolate, and the women were dressed for an evening at the ballet and looked stunning too.

      And she could have felt drab, given that she was wearing a hospital gown, but she felt the most beautiful woman in the world as she showed them her ring.

      She watched as the twins shook hands and the other men offered congratulations and the women squealed.

      ‘You must come to New York for new year, all of you,’ Sev said, and this time Roman didn’t roll his eyes.

      And Anya would go too. She would because they accepted her. There was no punishment or silent judgment of her predicament tonight.

      They seemed to love her as she was.

      Their engagement was toasted in hot chocolate that Daniil had bought for everyone.

      It was the best after party Anya had ever known.

      The medic came back with some equipment and asked everyone to wait outside, but Roman remained.

      ‘He can stay,’ Anya said.

      The doctor’s Russian and English was about as good as Anya’s French and so he spoke through Roman.

      ‘He asks how long you have been feeling dizzy,’ Roman said.

      ‘Since I ate the mushrooms,’ Anya said, and then smiled. ‘Just when I came off the stage. I felt sick before but I always do...’ She thought of all the work that had gone into the production and all the people who would be disappointed if she couldn’t perform. ‘Tell him that I have to perform. There are two more nights and a matinée...’

      ‘Let’s just find out how you are,’ Roman said. ‘He’s asking when you last had a period.’

      She lay back on the pillow and decided that perhaps a translator might have been a better idea because she was about to be told off, and in front of Roman.

      ‘A year...’ Anya said, and then gave a small shake of her head as she tried to think. ‘Maybe closer to eighteen months. And you can tell the doctor that I don’t need a lecture,’ she snapped.

      Translation was awful. She didn’t understand why Roman took twice as long to say her brief words and why he asked questions as the doctor spoke, without translating for her.

      She understood why Roman had needed that time to learn English.

      It was very disempowering.

      ‘Could you tell me what he’s saying?’ Anya interrupted Roman in mid-question.

      ‘He says that your electrolytes are fantastic, your iron levels are good, you are supremely fit but that maybe a small lecture might be in order.’

      Roman spoke to the doctor again, telling him that Anya did push herself but her diet had been better of late and that no one could do what she did day after day, night after night without being incredibly fit.

      And Anya lay there rolling her eyes. It was her consultation and she had not a clue what was being said.

      Then she looked at Roman, who had gone very quiet and the hand over hers had tightened.

      ‘What did he say?’ Anya asked, and as Roman turned to look at her his face had gone pale and she had the sudden feeling that something was terribly wrong.

      ‘Am I dying?’

      ‘No, Anya.’ He started to smile at her drama, but instead he cleared his throat before speaking. ‘He said, while he appreciates how fit you are, you are going to need to watch your nutrition for the duration of the pregnancy...’

      And the world again seemed to shift, just as it had when she had been on the stage, but it did not go dark. It was as if stars had come out in the sky.

      ‘I can’t be pregnant. I haven’t...’

      What was the point of trying to speak? Roman was asking the doctor questions for her and then answering them as if he knew exactly what she would have asked.

      He did.

      ‘You must have ovulated and, instead of getting a period, you fell pregnant,’ Roman said. ‘He wants to do an ultrasound...’

      A nurse rearranged the sheet and Anya lay there with her head spinning and wondering if she dared hope, because even a positive pregnancy test might be wrong.

      Except it wasn’t.

      And they looked at the tiny black circle on the screen and it was her baby and there was a flicker, the beating of a tiny heart.

      ‘He says it is in a nice position,’ Roman said, and then he listened as the doctor spoke and was silent for a moment.

      ‘What did he just say?’ Anya asked.

      ‘That you are six weeks pregnant and that in a few weeks’

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