Harlequin Presents: Once Upon A Temptation June 2020--Box Set 1 of 2

by Dani Collins

  But, he ruefully admitted to himself, it wasn’t just that. His exhaustion stemmed mostly from the fact that he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep for even one night in the estate he shared with Ella. Knowing that she was along the hall, knowing that he hadn’t enforced the sleeping arrangements he’d crassly thrown at her in a fit of pique, was undoing him.

  And when he wasn’t thinking about the ecstasy that only his wife had brought him he was wondering what kind of father he would be. His own father had abandoned him, Vladimir had been a cruel, manipulative piece of work and the foster homes afterwards not much better. Until now, he’d embraced a solitary path, a ruthless pursuit of single-minded vengeance. What if he betrayed his child? What if he betrayed Ella? All these thoughts were sneaking in under the defences of a certainty that usually protected his conscience. The certainty that he was doing the right thing. Though he knew that generating two plans for two different futures was not ‘doing the right thing’. Not for Ella, anyway.

  Slamming the door on the car that had brought him home, he closed the door on the fears he refused to expose to his wife. Dorcas was standing guard at the door, wagging her tail furiously but clearly knowing better than to pounce on him. Unaccountably, something in his chest eased to see the animal so happy at his arrival.

  As he entered the hallway he ground to a halt at the sight of his wife, at the large mirror by the side table, putting in her earrings. It was such a simple gesture, so simply domestic, that it took him a moment to realise that she was dressed in a stunning creation that shone beneath the lights in the hall.

  The bodice that encased her chest was made up of thousands of folds of pale pink chiffon, all meeting to twist in the centre of her breasts, drawing his hungry gaze to the perfection they hid. The cap sleeves, dotted with crystals, perched on her shoulders as if almost about to fall, illuminating the length of her collarbone and the beautiful curve of her neck. The material gathered beneath a band at her waist, and plunged to the floor in swathes of silk.

  The beauty of his wife undid him completely, robbing him of speech or thought—at least any thought other than mine.

  She turned to him then, head still bent, fiddling with an earring, and frowned. A look of hurt passed across her features, which she vainly tried to hide. Turning back to the mirror, she said, ‘You have forgotten.’

  Honestly, Roman would have replied that he’d forgotten his own name until he caught sight of the invitation on the table and something cold and hard gripped his gut.

  ‘The ballet,’ he said, his tone completely devoid of emotion.

  ‘The meeting with Ivan Mozorov,’ she clarified. ‘Apparently he enjoys mixing pleasure with business, and has generously graced me with the period of the interval to make my pitch.’ She turned back to him, having won the battle over her earring. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, shaking her head in a way that clearly indicated it was anything but, ‘you can stay—’

  ‘I just need ten minutes,’ Roman said, stalking past his wife and towards his room and the shower, desperate to wash off the cold sweat that had gathered at the nape of his neck.

  Not for a minute did he think Ella had realised what she had done, what that would do to him. And, for the first time he could remember, that hurt.

  His muscles ached as he climbed the staircase towards the bedroom. He pulled off his jacket and threw it on the bed, he struggled with the cufflinks at his wrists and toed off his shoes. All these things were done automatically and blindly. Because, in his mind’s eye, he saw his mother staring at the small black and white television set in the small room they shared as she watched her old ballet company perform for the Russian president. He saw her round, wide unblinking eyes fill with a sheen of tears still yet to be shed. Even as a child, he’d heard her unspoken thoughts.

  That could have been me. That should have been me.

  His touch, his attempted hug, his words of love hadn’t been enough to pull her from the trance-like way she had watched every second of the performance.

  And that had been the one and only time he’d ever seen the ballet. Before tonight.

  * * *

  The Palais Garnier in Paris was breathtaking. The nineteenth-century opera house was a glory of pillars and arches, flanked by two magnificent golden statues proclaiming the beauty of the building. If Ella had been awed by the exterior of the building, the interior was almost too much. Stunning marble flooring reached to the dual arched staircases, at the bottom of which two female allegories held torches as if to guide the visitor onwards and upwards.

  As they took their seats in the box that Célia had somehow arranged for her and her husband, Ella scanned the auditorium in the vain hope that she might be able to catch sight of Ivan before the interval. The hushed whispers of the audience rose up from below, inciting a low thrum of excitement within her—not just for the business meeting but because she had not been to the ballet for years.

  How much had changed since she’d last seen a performance. Vladimir now gone from her life, she now married and about to be a mother herself. But Ella forced her mind back to the task at hand. She wasn’t here for this performance, but one of her own. To secure their first client. It had meant so much to her that Roman hadn’t cried off and had come with her. Although, casting a glance to where her husband sat, grim-faced and clench-jawed, she wondered if perhaps it would have been better if he had stayed behind.

  Just as she worked up the courage to ask him if he was okay, the orchestra began their warm up and an expectant hush descended. The lights in the auditorium dimmed and soon Ella was lulled into the beautiful and heartbreaking story of Giselle.

  By the time that the curtain came up for the interval Ella’s heart ached and the tissue clutched in her hand was damp from the tears that she had swept away from sight. But she thrust all thoughts aside as she now had to focus on Ivan and her business.

  Roman shook his head when she asked if he wanted to accompany her, his focus zeroed in on the empty stage. If she’d had more presence of mind, if she hadn’t been so distracted by her own focus, she might have entreated him to explain, might have wondered what had happened to cast her husband in such a dark aura. But she hadn’t and as she went in search of Ivan she instead only felt the thrill of the chase, the hope and expectation that she would secure her and Célia’s first client.

  * * *

  ‘Come on, darling.’

  It was his mother’s voice, not Ella’s, that Roman heard when she returned to him.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Ella’s clipped words cut through the memories that had shrouded him the moment he’d remembered where she’d wanted to go that evening. As if his mind had worked against him, had purposely chosen to forget that they were to attend the ballet.

  He frowned, his mind taking a moment to catch up with what Ella had just stated.

  ‘Go?’

  ‘Yes. I… I want to go.’

  ‘What happened with Ivan?’ he asked as he stood up and was practically hauled from the box, out into the hallway mid-performance and out to the waiting car that would take them to the helicopter he’d arranged to fly them back home.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Are you going to repeat everything I say?’ she asked, the bitterness on her tongue nothing compared to the glittering tears he could see gathering in the corners of her eyes.

  ‘But I’ve heard your pitch, it was faultless. He would have been mad to turn it down.’

  ‘It wasn’t a problem with the business plan,’ she said, her head turned away from him as they slipped into the limousine.

  ‘Then—’

  ‘You.’

  ‘What?’ he asked, outraged.

  ‘Ivan was deeply apologetic, but he simply wouldn’t do business with the wife of the Great Wolf,’ she concluded scathingly.

  An almost savage fury roared within him—tha
t he had been the cause of Ella’s upset—and then he truly appreciated the irony within that thought. His mind quickly veered away from that to action, to purpose. Roman was more than willing and capable of tangling with anyone who would want to mess with him, but his wife? Oh, no. That would not stand.

  ‘He will regret it,’ Roman forced darkly through his teeth.

  ‘Really? And what damage would that do to my business? You can’t bully and cajole clients into working with me.’

  ‘I will find someone for you,’ he declared.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I said no. I think you’ve done enough, don’t you?’

  Every single other question, suggestion or attempt to broach the shield around his wife was met with a withdrawn silence that cut him as deeply as the thought that he had been responsible for her failure.

  By the time they had returned to the estate and he had watched Ella, all poise and elegance, retreat to her room, Roman felt as if he were fit to burst. Sleep would be impossible as fury had lined his veins like detonating cord and he needed to move, to walk off this energy that was almost sparking from his fingers.

  Restlessness like he’d never known before spurred him out onto the sloping garden that led towards the stream and the forest. The darkness of the night shrouded him in a heady combination of past memories and present concerns. That he’d been the cause of Ella’s failed business meeting ate at him, that the reputation he’d garnered in order to achieve his own ends with Vladimir had somehow directed Ella’s future had caught him by the throat and the ache that formed there lodged into a solid, painful thing.

  * * *

  Ella hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d tried, forcing herself to let go of the anger and frustration that had clouded her since being dismissed by Ivan. That it was not the business or the plan that he had objected to but the person she had married had infuriated her. Not for one moment had she placed the blame at Roman’s door—but as she lay in bed she realised that was quite possibly what he thought.

  No, she was furious that, once again, she had not been seen or valued in her own right, but as an attachment to someone else. A way to lash back at Roman for some prior reckoning that he had nothing to do with.

  Only now, as flashes of the night before burst through her mind, did Ella realise that something had been wrong with Roman long before her business meeting with Ivan. Something she had failed to see at the time. Because the dark aura that had surrounded him belonged to neither her fiancé nor the man she seemed to have married. It was something strange and new and something she now desperately wanted to confront.

  But his bed was empty, his room, the entire house, save for Dorcas, curled up on her bed in the corner of the landing. She had raised her head briefly as Ella had moved about the empty rooms and, apparently deciding that this was the business of humans, had promptly gone back to sleep.

  Returning to the landing, Ella took in the view of the sloping garden, the forests, the copper domed gazebo glinting in the moonlight and the silver thread of the freshwater lake winding across the bottom of the garden like a slash upon the horizon. Although Ella hadn’t seen a glimpse of him, she instinctively knew that he was out there. She ran back to her room and grabbed the first thing that came to hand—the red cloak—swept it around her shoulders and, with bare feet, slipped from the house and into the forest.

  She found him sitting on the cold stone steps of the gazebo, staring out into the distance, where a strange fog had begun to roll in off the Pyrenees, creating an odd sense of foreboding. For a moment she held her breath, taking in the sight of him—shirtsleeves rolled back, tie loose and hanging down either side of his collar, as motionless as the stone he sat upon.

  The fall of his slightly long hair had been swept back from his forehead, his nose proud and jawline determined, clenched, as if warding back some great bank of emotions. It had been the same way he’d looked as she had snuck glances at him through the ballet that evening.

  She heard him sigh, an exhalation of something more than just oxygen, an acknowledgement of her presence. Without a word, she stepped forward from the soft springy grass that had been merely damp with dew onto the solid frigid stone, sending shivers through her feet and legs all the way up her spine. Ignoring it, she took a seat beside him, leaving the smallest space between their bodies.

  For a moment they stayed like that, the silence vibrating with unspoken words, a conversation of bodies, adjusting to the presence of another.

  ‘So, do you come here often?’ she ventured, regretting the crass joke almost the moment the words had come out of her mouth.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied after a breath, surprising her with his honesty.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, smiling gently into the night.

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘I… I’ve always found it slightly difficult to sleep, but…’

  ‘It’s been worse here?’

  He nodded. Ella opened her mouth to ask why, but Roman pressed on.

  ‘When I was younger—before my mother…’ He stopped, seeming to begin again in a different time and place. ‘After Vladimir cut off my mother, and she could no longer dance because she was pregnant with me, she was hired as a cleaner by a rich family in Voskresensk. They were a decent enough family, from what I could tell. But they had this garden that bordered the river there. And sometimes—more often after she became ill—she would wake me in the middle of the night, and bring me out under the stars to dance.’

  * * *

  As if he had conjured her from his memories, Roman could have sworn that he saw her that night. Dressed in a white cotton shift, moving beneath the stars, twirling pirouettes, the gentle sweep of her arms as they reached, yearning, probing the night air, dancing to music that only she could hear, the gentle footfalls and sweeps creating their own rhythm. He had sat there for hours, over hundreds of nights, and it was not enough, would never be enough. He would swap his soul to be sitting there, shivering in the cold and not minding it one bit, because it was the only time he’d ever seen his mother truly happy. Truly free.

  ‘She was an incredible dancer. She had been the principal at the Utonchennyy Ballet Company. And the last performance she had with them before Vladimir cut her from his life was Giselle.’

  From the corner of his eye he saw Ella raise her hand to her mouth as if to stifle some expression he wasn’t sure either one of them wanted to acknowledge.

  ‘What was she like?’ Ella ventured after a while using hushed tones as if not wanting to break the gossamer-thin web around them.

  ‘Sad,’ Roman admitted. ‘She was sad a lot of the time. It was hard for her, the life of a cleaner so different from the luxury that she had grown up in. I could see, even as a child, the wrench that she felt at not being able to give me more. The struggles she had, working and raising a child on her own. But the nights when she would bring me out were…they were enough for me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. So sorry. If I’d known, I would never have asked you to come with me.’

  Roman didn’t do her the injustice of dismissing her apology. ‘I know.’

  ‘I wish I could have seen her dance.’

  He smiled. Somehow, no matter how their wedding had come about, he knew that his mother would have liked Ella. The kindness in her, the goodness. All the things that he was not. That he had forced out of his breast the moment he had laid his mother to rest. And, for the first time ever, he feared that while his mother might have liked Ella, she might not have liked what her son had become.

  ‘She would have been proud of what you have achieved,’ Ella said as if she had somehow sensed his inner thoughts.

  ‘But would she have been proud of me?’ he said, finally giving voice to his fear.

  For a moment he thought she might not answer, might not be able to find any redeeming qua
lity within her husband.

  Then he felt her small hand slip beneath his arm, winding him towards her, and her head lay on his shoulder as she leaned into him.

  ‘She would have been proud of the man determined to raise his child with its mother. Proud of the man determined to give his wife the home she’d always wanted. She would have been proud of the man who comforted his wife when she felt lost.’

  ‘Even if that man was the cause of his wife’s insecurity?’

  Ella nestled her head deeper into his shoulder. ‘And proud of the man who would change his ways to try to be better for his wife and child. Because that’s all we can do. Try.’ She paused, as if working up towards something Roman feared might hurt. Might cause an even greater ache in his chest. ‘Earlier I said I was sorry for asking you to come to the ballet tonight. But I’m not,’ she said, pulling back so that she could look at him, so that he could see the sincerity in her eyes. ‘I’m not, because it brought us here. Because I now see a little of your mother.’

  ‘I haven’t thought about her dancing in years,’ Roman admitted roughly.

  ‘That is a shame. Because I want you to have those memories. I want you to talk about her, so that our child can know their grandmother. I don’t have any real memories of my parents, only what Vladimir told me, and my grandmother told me. And I want you to be able to talk about Tatiana—share stories, anecdotes, memories that made you laugh and love, because that’s what I want our child to be surrounded by.’

  He looked at his wife for the first time, seeing her properly as she sat beside him, her cornflower-blue eyes large and round and her lips so red against the pale creamy skin lit by the stars, and he wanted to lose himself in her. Wanted to take what she was consciously or unconsciously offering. But he didn’t feel as if he had that right. Didn’t know if his touch, his kiss would be welcome after all the damage he had wrought. Not just the loss of a business deal, but long before then.

  And as if she could sense his hesitation, sense the current of his thoughts, the need coursing through him like wildfire, as if all this time, all these weeks and months of frustration and want and desire, came crashing about them in this one moment, she pulled him to her and pressed her mouth against his in comfort, in her own need.