She stood there.
‘You’re asking the same of me, Libby,’ Daniil pointed out. ‘You’re asking me to let you in, and I can’t do that from the other side of a door.’
She turned the lock and stepped back, and though she wanted to go into his embrace she remembered how Tatania had and she folded her arms in defence, confused and raw and hurting yet wanting him all the same. ‘I don’t believe for a moment that you and she weren’t lovers.’
‘We never were.’
‘Daniil, can we move past the lies? I saw the way she ran to you.’
‘Did you notice the way her shoulders sagged?’ he demanded. ‘Did you see her recoil, or her expression when I stepped out of the shadows and she saw my scar?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘She thought that I was Roman.’
‘Roman?’ Libby blinked. ‘Why would she...?’ Even as she asked, she knew the answer.
‘Roman is my twin.’
She felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room as he spoke on.
‘My identical twin,’ Daniil said. ‘For a moment, Anya, I mean Tatania, thought that I was him. I think you’re right. I think something must have gone on between them after I left the orphanage.’
‘They separated you?’ Libby could hear the horror in her voice as she struggled to comprehend what had happened. ‘They didn’t let you keep in touch?’
‘My parents never sent him the letters I wrote.’
Libby stood there, her head spinning, and Daniil mistook her silence.
‘I messed up tonight,’ he said. ‘When I saw—’
‘No, no,’ she said, for she understood now. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t storm the stage and demand answers.’
‘I had other things on my mind, too,’ Daniil said.
‘Like?’
‘A very unhappy date. I thought I was making you miserable.’
‘No.’
‘You could have told me it was too soon for the ballet.’
‘I’m glad I’ve been now,’ she said. ‘And Tatania was amazing. Why would you think you made me miserable? You know I’m crazy about you, I’ve never attempted to hide it.’
‘I listened to my cousin. He reminded me how miserable I made the family.’
‘Rubbish!’ Libby said. ‘They were miserable and messed up long before you arrived.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Oh, but I do,’ she said. ‘Marcus has been with them for thirty years...’ And she told him that Marcus had been ready to leave until a twelve-year-old orphan had arrived in a very unhappy home. ‘He felt he couldn’t leave you to deal with them.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I can’t believe they didn’t send your letters, that they took you from him.’
‘It’s okay,’ Daniil said to her obvious upset. He’d had many years to get used to the facts that Libby was only now trying to understand.
‘No, it’s not okay!’ she said, furious and hurting on his behalf, and then she told him not what perhaps she should say, just exactly what she felt. ‘We’ll find him.’
They were the best three words he had ever heard for they were delivered with the same urgency and passion that he felt. Whether finding Roman was possible or not, it was the priority she afforded it that sealed his love. For the first time since the orphanage there was we rather than I, and it meant she would reside in his heart forever.
‘We’ll find him,’ Libby said again, and she didn’t try to fight her feelings anymore—she simply flew to arms that lifted her, accepted her. And she had been right that first morning. She could live on his hips because her legs coiled around him and his face was near hers and it was better than being home. ‘We’re going to find him,’ she said, with the hope he’d been starting to lose.
‘I’ve tried.’
‘We’ll keep trying.’ And it hit Libby then, the we word, because she knew they were the future, as easily as breathing; somehow her mind accepted they were in each other’s lives forever. ‘Who’s the eldest?’
‘We don’t know,’ Daniil said.
And with that answer Libby glimpsed a world without a foundation.
‘We were going to be boxers—that was going to be our ticket out of poverty—but then the Thomases made enquiries about me. I didn’t want to be adopted but Roman insisted that I go. We had a fight... He said he would do better in the ring without me. I know now he was just trying to ensure I took my chance...’