Page 39 of Teach Me to Fly

“Likewise.” He grins, holding her gaze. “I’ve enjoyed watching your performances over the years.”

Angelique’s face turns crimson. “You’ve been to my performances?”

“Oh yes.” Terry’s eyes slide to mine, a sly smile playing on his lips. “I’ve practically been to all of them.”

Angelique tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and I feel the beginnings of furious jealousy bubbling inside of me, itching to claw its way out and wrap itself around Terry's neck like a noose.

“Why did you want us to meet with you, exactly?”

I can’t hide the bite from my tone as I stare at their still-joined hands. Terry looks amused but releases Angelique, winking at me when I lift my gaze to his.

The bastard is playing mind games with me, and he knows I know it.

“I heard through the grapevine that you two have a bit of a chemistry problem?” He gestures between me and Angelique. “Some type of‘underlying trauma with touching’, as Volkov put it.”

I grind my teeth as I hold his gaze. “It sounds like Volkov just doesn’t know how to do his job properly, and he’s having a hard time accepting that.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Terry sneers. “But I have to admit, the choreography for this production is boring me.”

“Aren’t you the one that put it together?” I ask, confused, as I sit down in one of the front row seats.

He pulls himself up onto the edge of the auditorium stage. “I know. Not my best work, but I think the problem is that I tried to stick to the original storyline of Swan Lake a bit too much and now the choreography doesn’t feel unique.”

I lift a brow, finding that Angelique is mirroring my expression as she stares at him. “What are you proposing, then?”

He grins. “Well, I found your chemistry dilemma inspiring, and it got me thinking…why don’t we rewrite Swan Lake? Make it ours.”

“What do you mean?” Angelique asks as she takes a seatnext to me, her shoulder brushing against mine and causing a spark of energy to ignite through my entire arm.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep myself from reaching over and dragging her onto my lap just to have her closer, to bask in the tension between us, and to prove a point to Terry.

She’s mine.

“In the original storyline, Odile is the villain, and she causes the famous tragic ending where both Siegfried and Odette choose eternal love in death,” Terry explains, tapping his clipboard with his pen.

“Right,” I affirm.

“Well, what if instead we explore Odile not as a villain, but as a wounded woman reaching for light?”

“You want to turn Swan Lake into a redemptive Odile arc?” I raise a brow.

Terry is known for being an imaginative choreographer, truly one of a kind. Butthis, this is on another plane of existence. And it might just be exactly what my father wants for Imperium.

“It would be a unique approach, one of a kind, especially with us having only one dancer to play both roles,” he says, gesturing to Angelique.

“I don’t think I understand,” she frowns, leaning forward.

“Okay, imagine Odette and Odile as one fractured soul. The curse is not evil magic, but trauma, and the love between Odette and the prince is not just romantic but also healing.”

Angelique shifts uncomfortably in her seat but nods in understanding.

“How would that look in terms of the performance?” I ask, my interest piqued now.

“We’d split it up into three acts,”Terry says as he draws imaginary lines on his palm that only make sense to him.

“Act One will beThe Split,wherewe start with Odette. She’s the graceful, delicate, and emotionally raw half. We’ll show the audience that she becomes cursed by her trauma, along with everything that she can’t process,” he continues.

Angelique’s brow furrows slightly. “What’s the trauma she experiences?”

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