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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—’
