Page 149 of The Failed Audition

My body shudders with a cry. “No.”I’m done.

He pulls me closer. “Let’s tell them the truth.”

“Give up on me,” I beg. “Please.”

His bloodshot eyes bore into me. “Let’s tell them how you should be in Amour. How you know the aerial silk routine.”

My face contorts in confusion and hurt. “I don’t…”I don’t know that routine.“I don’t know that routine.”

“You’ve never seen it performed. So how would you know if you do or don’t?” He wipes some of my tears while my brows knot, processing, but not understanding…

“Thora,” he says lowly, “Itaught you that routine. For months, I’ve been teaching it to you.”

No…

“Every trick,” he explains, “is one that you needed for Amour.”

It hits me like a forty-foot wave. I sway back, and he holds my hips so I don’t drift too far. I barely whisper, “The death drop.”

“The modified straddle slide,” he rephrases.

I digest our months of time together. I never saw the aerial silk routine. It was removed from the show before I even arrived in Vegas. And I never watched Elena and Nikolai practice together. I remember that Nikolai was incessant I drop closer to the ground for the straddle slide. He wouldn’t let me leave it at seven feet.

He wanted it to be perfect, I realize. To the choreographer’s standards.

“No…” My voice cracks again. “No, you didn’t do that.” I shake my head again and again and again.

“I did,” he refutes, his emotions welling to the surface, his features as brutal as mine.

“Why would you…?” It doesn’t make sense.

“Because I wanted youto be my partner.”

“Elena—”

“Never had chemistry with me. And the entire piece is aboutpassion.” The way he says passion, it’s with his entire soul. “And you—wehad it. From the first audition, it was there.”

I point at him accusingly, tear-streaked and still overwhelmed.He taught you the entire routine, Thora. He wanted you to be his partner.“You tricked me.” I don’t know why I land on this statement, of all statements. But it’s what comes out.

“Because you wouldn’t have wanted me to teach it to you,” he explains. “You would’ve thought I was screwing over another girl.”

My stomach drops. “Did you?” Elena was fired. She was let go because she couldn’t “cut it”—was he resigned with her since he had a backup plan? He had me.

“No,” he says. “I didn’t screw her over.”

“But she was fired—”

“For not showing enough emotion on stage,” he clarifies. “There was a point, Thora, where I needed Elena. I thought you’d be going to Somnio.”

I shut my eyes tightly as I recall the timeframe of all these events. Elena was fired after we learned that Somnio was being revived. So he was genuinely upset when she was let go. He truly thought his act would be retired. Because I wouldn’t be in it.

“I was prepared to lose you,” he suddenly says.

My chest rises in a sharp inhale.He was prepared to let me go to Somnio.“Why?”

Beads of water still roll down his temple. “You worked hard to land a contract on your own, and I wasn’t going to take that from you.”

We’re closer. We’ve drawn together somehow. I’m clutching onto his arms. And he’s holding me around the waist, his body warm.

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