Modern Romance June 2016 Books 5-8. Tara Pammi

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      She didn’t know what to do. She held it in and left without saying goodbye as she often did, but as Anya pushed open the exit door she could hold it in no more and she started to sob.

      But there, waiting for her, was Roman and she fell into his arms and wept into his chest as he told her that it would all be okay.

      Roman, having answered her call and heard her small sob, had rung straight back but Anya, being Anya, had turned off her phone.

      He did not want to disrupt the rehearsal and so he had waited outside.

      ‘I’m going to lose the part...’

      ‘You’re not.’

      ‘I am.’

      ‘Anya, you’re not.’

      ‘You don’t know that. I can’t dance, I’ve been rehearsing over and over and I can’t do it and I’ve just seen Lula, my understudy, trying on Firebird—’

      ‘Today was dress rehearsal?’ Roman checked, and Anya nodded into his chest. ‘Doesn’t everyone try on their costumes today?’

      ‘Yes, but Mika and I are fighting. He said...’ She closed her eyes. She was too humiliated to repeat what Mika had said.

      Roman closed his eyes too. Of course she and Mika were fighting. He could hardly stand to hear about their rows, or Mika’s reaction to Roman’s arrival.

      He would listen, though, if it made things easier for her.

      ‘What did he say?’ Roman asked.

      ‘I don’t want to tell you.’

      ‘Come home,’ he offered.

      ‘No, I’m going to go to the dance studio and go through it alone.’

      ‘How many times have you done that?’

      So many times, Anya thought.

      ‘Whatever you’re doing isn’t working,’ Roman pointed out.

      ‘No.’

      ‘So why not try something different?’

      They walked and they could go the long way and avoid the square where she had seen them kiss, but she had avoided so much and it was getting them nowhere so they walked through it.

      And his arm was around hers and it hurt less and less.

      ‘I’ve made you a light supper—’ he started, and Anya turned in surprise.

      ‘You cook?’

      ‘Yes,’ Roman said. ‘Josie and her husband are coming back tonight. I’ve sent my driver to pick them up this time. You can have a nice bath and then something to eat, then sleep.’

      He calmed her—he always had.

      Oh, he enthralled her and made her burn but he was so strong and so measured that with him she felt safe with her wild emotions.

      They arrived back at the apartment and again Anya felt soothed as she stood in the entrance hall.

      It felt good to be home.

      ‘Why don’t you go and have a bath?’ Roman suggested.

      ‘Do I smell?’ Anya asked.

      ‘Just a bit.’ He smiled and he made her smile.

      She ran the deepest bath and peeled off her clothes and the scented, oily water was relaxing to her aching limbs so she lay there for a generous while.

      And then she felt the pull of her body to be with him. She put on her robe and walked through to the kitchen.

      His back was to her and he was wearing black jeans and no top and his scars were becoming familiar to her now.

      She went up behind him and kissed his shoulder and then looked at what he was making.

      He was turning out a crab tartare, one of several, and she dipped her finger in a dish filled with red and tasted that it was hren, a horseradish relish, and one of her favourite foods from home.

      It was what she had ordered at the restaurant that terrible time.

      Yet now he had made it.

      ‘I love hren,’ she said.

      ‘I remember.’

      She watched as he sautéed wild chanterelles, and the scent of the mushrooms made her stomach growl.

      It really was the perfect supper for the night before such a performance and, had she eaten out tonight, this was what she might well have chosen.

      And it was also the perfect company to be in when your nerves were in shreds.

      Some considered Roman to be lacking in emotion.

      Anya had always known different.

      The emotions were there, and she felt them. His calm presence tonight was for her.

      ‘Did you learn to cook in the legion?’ she asked him.

      ‘The only thing I learnt about cooking there was to open cans.’

      ‘Was the food awful?’

      ‘It did its job.’

      ‘So, when did you learn to cook like this?’

      ‘Anya,’ Roman said ‘let’s not do this tonight.’

      ‘Celeste?’ Anya asked, and said her name without venom.

      Roman nodded. ‘Let’s go through.’

      There were so many parts of his life still missing. Her dancing had suffered since his return, not because of Roman, she was starting to realise, but because of her own dark thoughts and fears.

      They ate at the table, and it had been beautifully laid, with silver and candles, which Roman lit.

      And Celeste must have taught him this also, Anya thought, for there was no silver service at the orphanage, she knew for sure, and she guessed it was the same at the foreign legion.

      There was a burn of jealousy, but she breathed through it.

      Roman drank wine, Anya water, and she looked over as he loaded his plate.

      And she tasted the crab, so fresh that she knew it must have been prepared from scratch after she had called him.

      And all this would not be possible without Celeste, Anya knew.

      They would not be sitting having such a romantic meal, Roman, his top half naked, she in a robe, and eating СКАЧАТЬ