Zoya полностью

“Merry Christmas.” He said it in Russian, as he had heard again and again at St. Alexander Nevsky.

She repeated it back to him, and for a long quiet moment he stood and held her. He gently stroked her hair, and listened to the fire crackle as Sava slept beside them.

“I love you … Zoya …” He hadn't wanted to say it to her yet, he had wanted to be sure, and yet he was. He had known it since September when he left her.

“I love you too.” She whispered the words that were so easy to say to him. “Oh, Clayton … I love you …” But then what, there was the war, and eventually he would have to leave Paris and go back to New York. She wouldn't let herself think of it now. She just couldn't.

He pulled her gently onto the couch, and they sat holding hands, like two happy children. “I've worried about you so much. I wish I could have stayed here for all these months.” And now they only had four days, a tiny island of moments in a troubled sea that might drown them at any moment.

“I knew you'd come back.” She smiled. “At least I hoped so.” And she was more than ever grateful that she hadn't allowed her grandmother to force her to marry Antoine. If she had listened, she might have been married to him, or even Vladimir, by the time Clayton returned to see her.

“I tried to fight this, you know.” He sighed and stretched his long legs out on the ugly green rug. It had grown even more threadbare in the past months. Everything in the apartment looked dingy and old and shabby, except the beautiful girl at his side, with the green eyes and red hair, the sharply etched face like a perfect cameo, the face he had dreamed of for months, in spite of all the reasons he gave himself to forget her. “I'm too old for you, Zoya. You need someone young, to discover life with you, and make you happy.” But who was there? The son of some Russian prince, a boy who had as little as she did? The truth was that she needed someone to take care of her, and he wanted to be the one to do it.

“You make me happy, Clayton. Happier than I've ever been …” she smiled honestly, “in a long, long time anyway.” She turned to him with serious eyes, “I don't want anyone younger. It doesn't matter how old or young you are. It only matters what we feel. I wouldn't care if you were rich or poor, or a hundred years old, or ten. If you love someone, none of those things should matter.”

“But sometimes they do, little one.” He was older and wiser than she was. ‘This is a strange time, you have lost everything, and you're trapped here, in a war, in a strange land. We're both strangers here … but later, when things quiet down, you might look at me and ask yourself what am I doing with him?” He smiled at her, afraid it might happen just as he predicted. “War does funny things.” He had seen it happen to others.

“For me, this war is forever. I can't go home again. Oh … some of them think we will go back one day … but now there has been another revolution. Everything will always be different. And we're here now. This is our life now, this is real …” She looked at him seriously, suddenly no longer a child no matter how young she was in actual years. “All I know is how much I love you.”

“You make me feel so young, little Zoya.” He held her close again, as she felt his warmth and his strength, all the good things she had felt long before when her father held her. “You make me so very happy.” This time she kissed him and suddenly he pulled her more tightly into his arms and had to fight his own passion for her. He had dreamed of her for far too long, ached for her, needed her, and now he could barely fight his own feelings and desire. He stood up and went to look out the window into the garden, and then slowly he turned to her, wondering which path their lives would take now. He had come back to Paris to see her, and yet suddenly he was afraid of what might happen. Only Zoya seemed sure and calm, certain that she was doing the right thing being there with him. Her eyes were peaceful as she looked at him. “I don't want to do anything you'll regret, little one.” And then, “Are you dancing this week?” She shook her head and he smiled. “Good, then we'll have time before I have to go back to Chaumont. I suppose I should leave you now.” It was three o'clock in the morning, but she wasn't tired as she walked him to the door and Sava followed.

“Where are you staying?”

‘The General very kindly let me use Ogden Mills's house this time.” It was where they had met, the beautiful hotel particulier on the rue de Varennes, on the Left Bank, where they had walked in the garden the night of the reception for the Ballet Russe. “May I come to get you tomorrow morning?”

She nodded happily. “I'd like that.”

“I'll come at ten.” He kissed her again in the doorway, uncertain of where they were going, but aware to his very core that there was no turning back now.