Modern Romance June 2016 Books 5-8. Tara Pammi
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After her death he left the hotel he had checked into and went to look at a property in the Eighth District in Paris to add to his portfolio. Taking the antique elevator to the top floor, he walked into the magnificent apartment and felt something he had never felt before. The very French furnishings, the stunning view of Paris, the wraparound balcony all appealed. So much so that for the first time he felt attached to a building and had bought it to live in. But more than that he finally felt a part of the planet he lived on and he was ready to consider contacting his brother.
Almost.
Daniil had been adopted by a rich English family. Roman had read that he had married an English woman and so, as he was only able to converse in Russian and French, Roman had spent the last few months learning English.
He was ready to face his twin now.
The brother he had sworn to let go forever.
He would not be a burden.
Roman took out a suit and dressed and he did up his tie with steady hands.
They only shook slightly as he opened the hotel safe.
He had found a Russian jeweller.
There he had seen a stone in the palest of greens and it had reminded him of Anya’s eyes.
Yet the gift he’d had made for his niece was a platinum cross studded with diamonds and on the back the word Sila had been engraved in Cyrillic. It was the Russian word for strength. This was not a trinket to be worn— more, if need arose, and his niece ever fell on hard times, it was insurance.
Money was all he had to give.
He didn’t even know if he was ready to get in touch with Daniil but he had taken seriously Anya’s warning that she would no longer pretend she hadn’t seen him. So, on the morning of the christening, he was driven to the address Anya had given and entered an impressive foyer.
The doorman nodded.
‘Good morning, Mr Zverev.’
It had been a long time since that had happened, Roman thought.
In the orphanage they had always been mixed up and had often used it to their advantage.
‘I didn’t do it,’ they would say separately. ‘You’re mistaking me for him.’
‘Well, your brother says that it must have been you.’
This morning Roman used it to his advantage again and headed for the elevator and pressed the button that would take him to Daniil’s penthouse suite.
Roman had fought in the harshest of conditions and had witnessed the hell of the front line but now he was nervous.
As he had stood watching Anya curtsey to the duchess and knowing he would soon see her, Roman had felt his heart pounding in his chest, and it was pounding in the same way now. He knocked on a large wooden door and after a few moments it opened. A blonde woman stood there and her expression showed that not only did she recognise him, she was shocked.
‘Daniil!’
She called her husband, her tone urgent, and then she blinked rapidly as if she had suddenly remembered she had forgotten to greet him. ‘Roman, we’ve been looking for you,’ she said, and stepped towards Roman and embraced him.
A few years ago he would have recoiled but Celeste had taught him well and so he accepted the embrace.
‘I’m Libby,’ the woman said, and stepped back.
Roman could see that there were tears in her eyes.
‘I know this is a shock,’ Roman said in English. His English accent was a mixture of French and Russian. ‘Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. I have a gift...’ And then his voice trailed off as she turned to her husband, who was coming down the hall.
They were absolutely identical. It was almost like looking into a mirror except Daniil had the livid scar on his cheek that Roman had put there.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Daniil said by way of greeting. ‘I thought you were dead...’
‘Well, I’m not,’ Roman said.
There could be no warm, effusive greeting after all these years; there was too much pain and far too many questions before they could even begin to hope for that.
‘I hear that you have had a baby. Congratulations.’
‘Her name is Nadia,’ Daniil said.
Even within that brief exchange Roman could hear his own heavy accent compared to his twin’s, and simply for ease he continued in their native tongue and asked his brother how he was. ‘Kak dela?’
‘We shall speak in English in front of my wife,’ Daniil snapped.
‘Daniil?’ Libby frowned, clearly a bit stunned at her husband’s reaction, but Daniil did not to stop to explain the unexpected wash of agony that tempered his relief that his brother was alive; instead he asked Roman the vital question again.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
Roman didn’t answer.
‘Where do you live?’ Daniil pushed.
‘Paris.’
‘And how long have you lived there?’
‘Several years.’
‘That’s an hour away!’ Daniil said, and he fronted his brother as if ready to fight him. ‘You live an hour away and yet you haven’t been in touch.’
‘Daniil.’ Libby raised her voice and then tried to speak in a more normal tone. ‘Come in, Roman.’
It was a beautiful apartment and a gorgeous view of London played out before them through glass walls—the city sparkled in the early morning sun yet the atmosphere in the room was as tense as Roman had expected it to be.
He took a seat and it was odd seeing Daniil grown up when he was still twelve years old in Roman’s head. They were incredibly similar except for the scar and Roman was surprised that Daniil hadn’t had cosmetic surgery on it.
‘You need to get that taken care of,’ he said, pointing to his own cheek .
‘I kept it to remind me of you.’ Daniil’s response was bitter. ‘It’s all I had.’
‘No,’ Roman refuted. ‘Didn’t you get the pictures that I put in your case?’
Daniil nodded. Roman remembered slipping them into his twin’s case just before he’d headed to England.
‘I’ve been searching for you,’ Daniil said. ‘I’ve been back to Russia several times and someone said that you had been talking of joining the foreign legion.’
‘I joined when I was eighteen. I served for ten years.’
‘And so what is your name now?’ Daniil asked, but Roman wouldn’t answer him. ‘Pierre?’ Daniil’s sneer as he guessed at a French name told Roman how angry he was that his brother had changed his identity. ‘You’re not going to tell me, are you?’
Roman wasn’t, only not for the reason Daniil assumed.
In the foreign legion everyone, on joining, was given a new identity but what Daniil and Anya clearly didn’t know was that at the end of the first year legionnaires could choose whether to continue with their new identity or revert back to their own.
When Roman had joined, it had been his intention to wipe his slate clean. But a year on, on the eve of making the decision, he had lain on his bed, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling and deep in thought.
And had decided he couldn’t do it.
He had survived the most brutal training, he had jumped from planes, had become fluent in French, he’d had comrades and purpose. Everything that he had hoped