Return Of The Untamed Billionaire

They stopped kissing, but still Roman held her. Anya could feel that his body was broader, more primed, and she ached … simply ached for him—for the years he had denied her his touch, his body.

She should tell him to go. Now was her chance to do just that.

Roman knew, too, that he should leave instead of resurrecting them.

Once, their eyes said. Just this once.

Their bodies could kiss the other goodbye.

Without a word he went and turned the key in the door.

He was back.

For their closing night.

Irresistible Russian Tycoons

Sexy, scandalous and impossible to resist!

Daniil, Roman, Sev and Nikolai have come a long way from the Russian orphanage they grew up in. These days the four sexy tycoons dominate the world’s stage—and they are just as famed for their prowess between the sheets!

Untamed and untouched by emotion, can these ruthless men find women to redeem them?

You won’t want to miss these sizzling Russians in this sensational quartet from

USA TODAY bestselling author Carol Marinelli

Available only from Mills & Boon Modern Romance!

Find out where it all started in

The Price of His Redemption December 2015

The Cost of the Forbidden January 2016

Billionaire Without a Past May 2016

Return of the Untamed Billionaire

Carol Marinelli

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAROL MARINELLI is a Taurus, with Taurus rising, yet still thinks she is a secret Gemini. Originally from England, she now lives in Australia and is the single mother of three. Apart from her children, writing romance and the friendships forged along the way are her passion. She chooses to believe in a happy-ever-after for all, and strives for that in her writing.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Irresistible Russian Tycoons

Title Page

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

Endpage

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

EVERY TIME SHE danced it was for him.

It was the closing night in London of the spectacular ballet Firebird.

The last time she had been here, Anya had gone from being one of the princesses and an understudy to dancing the leading role.

Now, due to popular demand, the stunning ballet was back.

It was Tatania, Anya’s stage persona, the gathering audience had come to see.

The theatre was packed and Anya had been told that there was a duchess in the audience tonight; yet Anya would dance only for him.

For Roman Zverev.

Her first and only love.

Apart from ballet.

The hours of practice and absolute self-control, the rigorous preparations and the endless reach for perfection Anya did for herself.

Yet, when she danced, it was always for him.

Now she had her own dressing-room. Like most performers, Anya was swathed in superstition and her dressing table was prepared like an altar. It was filled with tiny trinkets she had gathered over the years and specific make-up and brushes that were all neatly arranged.

She had warmed up. Her feet were bandaged and her pointe shoes had been broken in—there were other pairs ready if needed. She had already scraped her straight brown hair into a tight high bun and whitened her face. Carefully, and with great precision, she applied the black and gold make-up that enhanced her pale green eyes.

Everything was done to order.

Now, as she was given the half-hour call, she took a drink of coconut water and slowly ate half a banana. The other half of the banana she carefully wrapped and would eat during the interval, along with a small chocolate treat.

Anya loved chocolate.

It reminded her of Roman.

After she had eaten, Anya dabbed her mouth and then she put on her headpiece of red and gold feathers. She carefully secured it, checking it over and over. Happy that it was firmly in place, she painted her lips crimson and then called for the costume manager.

She slipped off her silk robe and stepped into her costume. The tight-fitting bodice was a deep red with orange and gold appliqué and the ten-layered tutu was adorned with silk feathers.

Anya raised her arms as the concealed zipper was closed. The costume fitted perfectly and showed the long slender lines of her arms and legs.

Out in the real world, her tiny frame drew stares and whispers because Anya was so very thin, and yet that tiny body was a powerhouse of lean muscle and she was incredibly fit.

Oh, every single day, she worked for it. Hours of training and rehearsal and rigorous self-control meant that her body could perform feats most others could only dream of. Yet, despite her command on the stage, right now she shivered with nerves as the ten-minute call came and the costume manager did a final check.

Now she was Tatania, her stage persona.

‘Merde!’ the costume manager said—the dance equivalent of ‘Break a leg’—and Tatania nodded but did not respond because her teeth were chattering too much.

She wrapped a heavy silk shawl, one that she had bought for her mother, around her bare arms and shoulders.

Her mother, Katya, had been a single mum and a cook in a Russian orphanage. She had died recently but had lived to see her daughter reach these heights and for that Anya was grateful. Katya had had a vision for her daughter long before Anya had.

As a young girl, Anya could remember practising her dance steps in the kitchen of the detsky dom where Katya had worked. As Anya had grown older, rather than going home to their tiny cold, empty house, she would go to the orphanage and practise her steps with an ache of hunger in her stomach for the stew her mother cooked.

Sometimes she would sneak a taste but, if caught, her mother would give her a slap.

‘Do you want to get big, like me?’ Katya would say.

Of course they had clashed, though never more so than during her teenage years.

‘No boys,’ Katya had said, when she had caught Anya staring at Roman. ‘Especially not one like Roman Zverev. He is trouble.’

‘No,’ Anya had said. ‘He just misses his twin.’

‘The twin he beat up, the twin he scarred.’

‘No,’ Anya had attempted, ‘that was just because Daniil refused to be adopted without his twin and it was the only way Roman could get him to leave.’

‘Don’t answer back,’ Katya had said and had pulled down the roller blind and sent Anya to the back of the kitchen. That night, once home, Katya had spoken more harshly to her daughter. ‘There can be no boys. To succeed with your ballet you can have only one focus.’

Anya had obliged—there had been no boys.

But a few years later, away from the orphanage, she had met Roman.

And he had become a man.

Ready now to take herself to the stage, Anya looked at her trinkets and touched them. She opened a small box but did not take out the bunched-up piece of foil. She would save that for the interval. Instead she ran her fingers over a faded label. It was a label that she had torn from the sheets when she and Roman had first made love and beside it was a small gold hoop earring.

Tonight she brought the label up to her lips and then replaced it back in the box and snapped the lid closed.

There was a knock at the door, and she was informed it was time. Anya made her way through the maze of corridors in the old London theatre. ‘Merde,’ was said many times but still she did not respond.

Anya did not make friends readily. Her only focus had been getting to the top and they all thought her cold.

She was.

Anya was the queen of ice.

Until she danced.

Mika was there; he wore a suit of red and a small cap, which would soon hold a feather that the firebird would give to him. They nodded to each other but that was it; they were immersed in their own pre-performance routines.

The press insisted that they were a couple. Mika had quite a reputation with women and, such was their chemistry on stage, it was assumed it carried on afterwards.

In truth they did not really get on.

Anya wasn’t particularly close to anyone.

Once she had been. Until Roman had left her, there had been laughter and passion and she had been open to others.

Not any more.

The audience started to applaud and Anya shrugged off her shawl and did a final limber up as the audience hushed and the orchestra teased.

‘Merde,’ she said to Mika as he picked up his bow and arrow, the props used for the opening act, and, before her very eyes, he became Ivan, the prince, and went onto the stage—the setting for the magical garden.

Anya took some deep breaths and her teeth chattered as she fought nausea. Even after all these years, she still suffered with the most terrible stage fright and the more she advanced in her career, the worse it became.

It was an incredibly demanding role and the pressure on her was immense.

She moved several steps back and positioned herself and, closing her eyes, she took in some slow deep breaths and waited for the moment.

When it came, she was no longer Anya, or even Tatania.

As she flew onto the stage, she was the firebird.

A flash of gold, caught by the light, darted across the stage and she heard the audience gasp. The sight of the firebird intrigued Ivan, the prince.

Now he hid behind a tree as the firebird waited on the other side of the stage, taking more deep breaths and preparing to stun the audience again.

She did so.

Now the prince hid in the garden in wait to watch and then capture the firebird, and after another pause she came back on and swept up a piece of golden fruit.

Firebird was so beautiful, Anya thought as she danced. So slender, fragile and graceful. Few knew the agony that it took to birth this beauty and tonight, on closing night, it all came together as she shimmered and danced for him.

For Roman.

The man she had loved too much.

Their love affair that had lasted for just two short weeks but then he had so cruelly left.

For a long time she had feared he had died.

He had not.

And he had never once told her he loved her.

Had he? And would she ever see him again? Firebird asked herself over and over as the prince captured her in his arms and the pas de deux commenced.

There was a small flutter of hope that she might—soon the dance company would move to Paris and that was where she was now sure he lived.

Would Roman seek her out this time? Firebird wondered as the prince lifted her high into the sky.

Left alone on the stage towards the interval, she danced her solo with everything she had.

Everything, everything, was right.

The interval came and she did not respond to the chatter from her colleagues; instead she shut herself in her dressing-room. For the first ten minutes she just recovered her breathing. The role was the most demanding of any of them. Then Anya ate the other half of her banana and a small chocolate bar and closed her eyes, desperate to not escape the zone that she had found tonight.

And with the sweet taste of chocolate on her tongue she remembered her first taste.

Always she had practised in the kitchen, but once she had become a teenager, her mother had told her she could not dance when the boys were eating, as it teased them.

She would put on an apron and serve their meals instead.

Oh, but there was one she would love to tease.

Roman.

He and his twin had a talent for boxing and Sergio, the maintenance man, trained them and insisted that the Zverev twins would make it in the boxing world.

As a younger girl, Anya had laughed as they’d trained and had told them that she was far fitter.

She had been.

Anya had been accepted at a prestigious dance school, but in the holidays she would come back.

There were four boys, and they were always together—Roman, Daniil, Nikolai and Sev.

Trouble the workers called them.

Anya didn’t think so.

But on the eve of Daniil’s adoption by a rich family in England, a fight had broken out and Roman had won.

She could remember Daniil sitting in the kitchen as her mother had done what she could to repair his cheek.

‘The rich family don’t want ugly,’ Katya had said to him as Anya had fetched the first-aid box.

She had looked at Daniil and seen the confusion in his eyes that his brother could have done this to him.

‘It’s because Roman wants what is best for you,’ Anya had wanted to say, for it had been clear to her that Roman had not really been cross with his brother, just let him think he could do better in boxing without him.

She had been too nervous to say that in front of her mother.

After Daniil had left for England, the little group of four had quickly disbanded.

Sev had been given a scholarship to a very good school and had later boarded there.

Nikolai had, they’d thought, run away and thrown himself in a river. But, as they had recently found out, he had simply run away.

Only Roman had remained in the orphanage.

Now, at mealtimes, Roman had come for the second sitting, the one reserved for the older, most troubled boys.

He had been so beautiful. Dark hair and pale skin and he’d had black eyes that would look across the dining room and catch Anya’s at times. Always she had been aware of him and anticipated his arrival. Even on the coldest of mornings, when he’d come in to breakfast, there had been heat in her cheeks, just because he had been near.

In the evenings, when she’d served him his stew, sometimes their fingers had touched under the plate he’d held out.

Anya had lived for those moments and ached for time to speak with him properly, but he had been in the secure wing, so it had been an impossible dream. Sometimes she’d convinced herself that she was imagining that Roman felt the same way about her, until one night when their fingers had met beneath the plate. He had given her something and Anya frowned as she’d felt the slim package.

Worried that her mother would notice, she’d quickly put it into the pocket of her apron but then, when she’d been sent to the cupboard to eat her soup, she’d taken it out.

Chocolate.

Belgian chocolate.

And a whole bar!

How had he got it?

And why, instead of eating such a rare treat himself, had Roman saved it for her?

Oh, her mother had found out. She had opened the cupboard door and found Anya pushing chocolate into her mouth.

Katya had berated her daughter as she’d slapped her, but for Anya it had been worth it, not just for the sweet taste, more that Roman had thought enough of her to give her such a treat.

All these years later she still had the foil and, as she touched it, she smiled at the memory.

It was time to return to the stage.

With her mother’s shawl wrapped around her, again she painted her lips scarlet and then back through the maze of corridors she went.

Firebird soared even higher.

She danced the monsters into the shadows and as she did so, she thought of the lover who had left her.

How he had broken her heart when he had left without so much as a goodbye.

But she had risen.

Anya had poured all her grief, her anger and her longing into her next love—ballet.

And it had paid off, it would seem, for she was here, under the lights, now a prima ballerina, enchanting the audience, whom she held in the palm of her hand tonight.

How the firebird mocked the monsters on stage as she danced them into exhaustion and yet her energy remained.

Just as she always did, she imagined Roman watching as the prince held her and turned her and she was perfection in his arms. She hoped Roman ached in regret for leaving her behind.

As the magical egg cracked open, she closed her mind to the grief and the memory of his smile filled her heart.

Flu had swept through the orphanage and the orphans had been confined to their dorms. Walking into his room in the secure unit to deliver his supper, just before he’d left the orphanage, they had been alone for the first time for a moment. How she had ached to lower her head and kiss that sulky mouth.

‘How did you get the chocolate?’ she had asked.

Roman hadn’t answered but she had warmed to the first glimpse of his smile.

And tonight she was on fire to the memory of it.

But then it had been over.

Firebird did not appear in the final scene; instead she sat on the floor in the wings and dragged in air, utterly drained. Then as the performance ended, she listened to the cheers and the applause and she hauled herself up. When it was her turn, the firebird ran onto the stage as serene and as beautiful as ever to accept the applause.

The audience rose as she returned. They knew they had seen an amazing performance tonight and that she had danced with all that she had.

Tatania offered deep curtsies, swooped and picked up the roses that were thrown onto the stage.

She knew that she had earned every bravo and every cheer and Tatania smiled as still they cheered on.

There was a ten-minute standing ovation and over and over they called her back to accept the applause, but just as the noise started to ebb, she heard it.

‘Brava krasavitsa!’

Beautiful woman.

Tatania froze momentarily and turned her face up and to the right and peered into the darkness but she could not see him.

Yet her soul recognised his voice.

Roman was here.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS NOT the words that made her freeze, because there were many Russians in the audience and she heard that phrase often. No, it was the depth of his voice that made her face lift and her eyes scrutinise the darkness, and for a brief second in an otherwise faultless performance, she was Anya Ilyushin.

The cook’s daughter.

The orphans had all thought her posh because she’d had a parent and had later attended a prestigious dance school where she had learnt not just to dance but to talk well and to eat and walk like a lady. They had not understood that she too had been dirt poor. Before she had boarded at dance school and later during the holidays, she had risen before five in a freezing house and had gone to the orphanage with her mother. There, unlike at home, the kitchen had been warm. Katya would work all day and through till late at night, not just cooking but cleaning and scrubbing and sorting out supplies. Once her mother had put the oats to soak, ready for the morning, they would return to their dark, cold home, ready to do it all again the next day.

Anya had always yearned for the next day. When she was there, she had always looked out for him.

And she was looking out for him now.

Now she peered into the dark of the audience, but he did not call out again. Perhaps she had misheard. Or maybe she was going mad, Anya thought as she made her way back to her dressing-room.

Now she was exhausted and aching.

She sat there at her dressing-room table and fought to concentrate as she was told that soon she would receive the duchess.

‘Who else?’

There were many people who would want to greet her, and Anya found she was holding her breath as the names were read out.

Last year, when she had first played Firebird, Daniil, Roman’s twin, had been in the audience and had come backstage to make sure that it really was her.

She had run to him as for a tiny second she had thought it was Roman, but even before she had seen the scar, her heart had collapsed as she had realised it was not Roman.

She was scared to get her hopes up again.

Yes, she understood that it was imperative that she greet the duchess and she gave a terse nod. Of course one of the sponsors was here and with him his teenage daughter, who wanted to be a ballet dancer too. Anya felt her hands ball in impatience as the list was read out.

‘Who else?’ Anya snapped.

‘There is a gentleman, he says that you would remember him as Daniil Zverev’s twin...’

Anya’s heavily made-up lashes fluttered as it was confirmed that Roman was here, yet he had not directly given his name.

‘He offered his congratulations for your performance tonight. He said that he always knew that you would make it. He asked that I pass on this.’

Anya glanced down and there in the assistant’s palm was the small, thin gold hoop that she had left behind the time they had first made love.

Oh, she remembered coming home that day, late of course. Her mother had asked where she had been.

‘Your earring is missing,’ Katya had said, and then she had seen her daughter’s glittering eyes and flushed cheeks and her mouth and skin inflamed from Roman’s rough, hot kisses and she had slapped Anya’s cheek.

Hard.

And then the other.

Now Anya’s cheeks reddened at the memory of their first time and the bliss that both had found, and now Roman had brought the earring back to her.

‘Tell Daniil’s twin that he can return it himself. You can bring him to my dressing-room after I have greeted the others.’

Oh, she ached to have the pair. Her mother had given her the earrings when she had been accepted into the school of dance.

But, no, it would be a cheat to her heart and it would scald her fingers to take it from anyone other than Roman.

For now she had to line up with the rest of the cast, and as the duchess congratulated her on her performance, she shivered with the hope that Roman was still near. Tatania curtsied deeply and smiled and conversed with the duchess, but her breathlessness was not from awe, but for the potential moment to come.

She greeted others that she had to and accepted their congratulations with grace. She spoke with the sponsor’s young daughter and even gave her a pair of pointe shoes.

Yes, she did all the right things until finally she sat at her dressing table and told the assistant that she was ready to receive her final guest.

She stared into the mirror and saw that the feathers shook in her headdress and her eyes were wide, as if in shock.

She was.

After all these years they would come face-to-face and speak.

Oh, she had seen him once, a couple of years ago, but it had been from a distance and Anya did all she could not to think of that time.

All she could.

There was a knock on the door and she could not stand or turn. All she managed was to call the word Enter in Russian.

And still, as the door opened and then closed behind him, she did not turn.

Her skin shivered just to have him close.

He came into view in her mirror. At first there was just the darkness of his suit and the whiteness of his shirt, but it was enough to let her know that his body was still delicious. Oh, better even, because he was taller perhaps and broader, and as he came and stood behind her, Anya forced herself to look into the mirror and meet his eyes.

Roman was more beautiful than she remembered.

His hair was shorter than she recalled but was still black and glossy. The black eyes that met hers warned her heart to still fear him, for even after all these years he had the absolute power to hurt her again.

She could not recover from losing him twice.

Three times, in fact, but she chose not to go there in her mind.

It would seem that the years of despair she had suffered through had suited him. The man she looked back at was polished and poised and the cologne she now inhaled was heady.

He commanded her senses—he always had, for whether he wore cheap denim or a designer suit, the effect of Roman up close was the same.

Her senses did not point out the differences.

They did not care that the fingers that came to her shoulder were now manicured.

Just his touch had her fighting not to arch her neck, to rub her cheek against his hand.

He was back.

That was all she knew.

And as his hand remained on her shoulder, the contact had her eyes close in the ecstasy of his touch.

‘Brava,’ he said.

‘Roman.’ It was all her voice would allow.

For Roman, just one word was almost too much—hearing his name from her lips, the familiar slight huskiness of her voice, made locked-away memories pour in.

Finding out that his brother had married, that Daniil’s wife had just had a baby, had hit Roman like a fist. Knowing that he had a niece and that his twin was now a father had been difficult and he had fought not to make contact.

He could remember a worker speaking with him on the day of the fight, the last time the four had shared a dorm. Called into the office, Roman had been nonchalant as he’d been used to being in trouble.

‘Daniil is talking about not taking this opportunity unless they adopt you too.’

Roman had sat.

‘They don’t want you.’

Roman had said nothing.

‘Do you remember when you were four and that family took you for a walk?’

‘Nyet.’

‘They were a married couple and were considering adopting the two of you, but they said you were too wild.’

Roman had vaguely recalled something of the kind. They had been taken to a park and he had remembered standing on a swing for the first and only time.

‘Back then we said we would prefer not to separate twins. Roman, Daniil lost an opportunity once because of your poor behaviour. Don’t let this happen again.’

‘Tell him that if he goes, when I am older—’

‘No.’ Immediately the worker had interrupted him. ‘I don’t think you understand the opportunity this is. Daniil will be receiving a private education, he will be given the best chance for a new life. Do you want your twin to have to look out for you? To support you?’

Never.

‘You need to do the right thing by him and let him go for good.’

And he had.

Daniil now worked in London. Roman told himself he was here to purchase a property—that it happened to coincide with Firebird’s return was a coincidence.

In the end he had bought a ticket for tonight’s performance.

Dressed in a black suit, ready to leave his luxurious hotel, Roman had sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the earring and told himself to tear up the ticket.

To not go back.

He had made a vow to himself that he never would.

Yet he had gone to the ballet and watched silently in a box seat. His breath had caught when Anya had first briefly appeared on the stage.

And then again.

He had watched her dance and had ached with pride for all she had achieved.

That little girl who had diligently practised over and over in the kitchen, the teenager who had devoted herself to her dream was now a prima ballerina.

And she could not have made it this far with him.

He knew that for a fact.

Standing to applaud, Roman had meant to leave then, to slip away with the precious memory of watching Anya perform at her peak, but unable to resist he had called out to her. He had watched her face lift and her eyes search for him and he admitted to himself that he had lied about slipping away, for he had brought with him the gold earring that he had found on the floor as he had cleared out his bedsit.

No, he reasoned, for he took it with him everywhere.

Would she want to see him?

Roman didn’t know.

And now Anya asked a question he could not answer properly.

‘Why are you here?’ she said. They spoke in Russian and it had been a long time since Roman had used his native tongue, but he slipped into it with unexpected relief.

‘To congratulate you, of course,’ Roman said. ‘You made it. I always knew that you would.’

He leant forward and Anya breathed in again the heady scent of him and felt his arm brush her bare shoulder as he placed the missing earring on her dressing table.

She picked it up and remembered them at eighteen, lost to the world, wanting only each other.

‘You told me you couldn’t find it.’

‘I couldn’t,’ he said. ‘But when I packed...’

He had packed everything he had into a small backpack and left without even a goodbye.

‘You could have come and given it to me.’

‘No,’ Roman said. ‘Because we would have ended up making love. It had to be that way.’

She couldn’t dispute that they would have ended up making love, neither could she forgive his choice to leave, but that he had kept her earring for all these years meant so much.

Anya wanted to open the small box and put the earring with its partner but she decided to do that once he had gone. She did not want Roman to know just how much she had missed him, so she placed it back down and stood and turned to face him. She was tiny compared to his large frame. Her breathing was too shallow but face him she would, even if it nearly killed her to do so and to see all she had lost.

He looked immaculate.

His glossy black hair was superbly cut, he was beautifully clean shaven and scented with expensive cologne. His suit was exquisite, so much so that she reached up and touched the lapel. His chest was a toned wall of muscle beneath her fingers and she could feel tears pooling in her eyes as she saw a different Roman from the impoverished youth she had known.

His hand came and took hers, at first to remove it, because contact was too much, but then it closed over hers.

Now she lifted her eyes to his and they stared and the years that had parted them seemed to drift away.

No one could move her like Roman and it was the same for him.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked.