Page 16 of The Pucking Wrong Man

Madame Leclerc’s cold and disapproving gaze brushed over me again, and I quickly dipped down into a plié. The last thing I needed was for her to voice concerns on if I was ready to perform my piece or not.

“Shoulders back, chin up,” she barked at us. “Plié, plié, demi plié and rise, demi and rise, demi into grand plié. Hold!”

My muscles trembled as I obeyed her instructions.

“Téndu en second to coupé, extend, extend!”

“Grand battement, higher, higher!”

Her eyes scanned the room for any signs of weakness, falling on me the most.

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to push through, each step sending shockwaves of agony up my leg.

After barre warm ups, we moved across the floor and every leap felt like a death sentence, the strain and pressure of the movements threatening to tear me apart from the inside out.

But I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop. I refused. Not when the stage called to me like every dream I’d ever possessed for this life, the only time I ever found release, the only time I ever felt...free.

The music swelled around me, and I lost myself in the dance, my body moving on autopilot despite the protests of my leg. I was teetering on the edge of oblivion, every movement a tightrope walk between ecstasy and agony.

There were hundreds of eyes on me, but I blocked them all out, soaking in the lights and the sounds and the passion that throbbed in my soul.

I danced with a desperation that bordered on madness. There was no greater high than the rush of adrenaline that flooded my veins when I stepped onto this stage. There was no pain that was too great, no sacrifice too large.

The only pure moment of bliss I would ever get in this life.

I danced.

I danced until my muscles screamed in protest, and my breath came out in ragged gasps. I danced until the world faded away and all that was left was the music and the movement.

As I leapt across the stage, I finally let myself soak in the audience’s gaze.

On this stage...I wasn’t poor. I wasn’t homeless. I wasn’t the daughter of a drunk father and a mother who never wanted her.

I was perfect up here in front of them, someone they admired. Someone they respected.

I was something more.

I soared through the air with reckless abandon.

I was alive. I felt nothing else but that.

And although the strain on my body might kill me someday.

I danced.

CHAPTER 4

CAMDEN

“Thanks for coming with me, sweetheart,” Geraldine said as she smoothed the pink cotton of her sweater, a much more conservative outfit than she usually wore.

“Of course, Mimi. Nothing I like better than a date with my best girl,” I answered, giving her a wink that brought a flush to her wrinkled cheeks.

“Such a charmer, you are. Such a nice boy. The girl that catches you will be a lucky woman, Camden.”

I patted her hand, laughing inwardly that she always called me “boy.” Geraldine had been my neighbor since I’d moved into my penthouse. Her husband had owned an exclusive jewelry store in Dallas that a bunch of celebrities had come from all over the world to visit. He had passed, but had left her loaded. She’d charmed me the first day I’d moved in when she’d brought me some homemade macarons. I’d since learned that macarons were the only cookie she approved of as she thought they were the classiest cookie out there—and she considered herself very classy.

Worked well for my stomach.

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