Page 33 of Bound by Their Christmas Baby

‘And you began to learn ballet after she died?’

She nodded. ‘My father k

new I wanted to be like Mom. But it was more than that. He wanted me to be like her. I look like her,’ she said quietly. ‘And I move like her.’ That was a lie. Abby had been told several times by careless, callous people that her mother’s talent had been nothing to Abby’s. As though that were praise and not a dagger through a grieving daughter’s heart.

‘What happened?’ he asked, shifting a little in his seat.

‘It was a child’s dream,’ she said, ignoring the lurch of pain in her chest.

‘You grew out of the dream?’

That wasn’t precisely true. And, though she generally didn’t speak about her ballet career, she felt compelled to make Gabe understand, to explain the truth. ‘It’s a funny thing, being good at something.’ Her smile was just a ghost. ‘I was good at ballet, Gabe. Very good. Exceptionally good.’ She spoke without even a hint of bragging. She was simply admitting the truth. ‘I was given amazing opportunities. I danced with some of the world’s best.’

‘And then?’ he prompted when she took a pause to bite into a strawberry.

‘I broke my leg,’ she said, a smile curving her lips at the reminiscence.

He waited for her to continue.

‘And I could no longer rehearse. I had to rest. For the first time in my life, I had time to explore new diversions, and I discovered, much to everyone’s displeasure, that there were things I loved more than dancing.’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘So you quit?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded slowly. ‘A friend brought me Jane Eyre one evening. It was supposed to be a joke. He teased me that I was a bit like Bertha in the attic, and I wouldn’t understand until I’d read the book.’

She laughed.

‘It was silly—he was playing on the fact that I was “locked up” by Dad, but of course that wasn’t true. Anyway, by the time I finished it I was hooked, and I devoured anything I could get my hands on. I realised there was so much more to life than dancing. Books, for one thing. I wanted to read everything ever written.’

Abby fingered one of the cinnamon doughnuts, her mind far away.

‘I just… I didn’t want my whole life to be consumed by ballet any more. My every waking thought given over to the act of dance. Oh, no. I wanted to be in the ocean, aboard the Pequod, or in ancient Troy by Agamemnon’s side as he fought Achilles, I wanted to be at Manderley and Thornfield Hall, I wanted to be twenty thousand leagues under the sea. I thought breaking my leg and missing rehearsals for so many months was an ending, but it was a beginning. The world opened up to me in a way I had never even hoped it would.’

Gabe’s lips were tight. ‘Yet you still dance?’

‘Oh, I’ll always dance,’ she agreed. ‘I love it as a hobby, but I don’t want to spend my life pursuing it as a career.’

‘You said your father wanted you to be like your mother. How did he take your decision to abandon professional ballet?’

Abby dropped her head forward, not wanting to answer. Her father had behaved appallingly; it was impossible to convey that to Gabe without allowing him to condemn her father, and it wasn’t that simple.

‘He got over it,’ she said stiffly.

‘I’ll bet he didn’t.’ Gabe eyes narrowed. ‘Yet you still adore him enough to do his bidding?’

She swallowed. How could she explain that, in part, guilt at disappointing her father had motivated many of her decisions, including the one that had brought her to Gabe’s feet? A desperate, soul-deep need to impress a man who was, perhaps, impossible to impress?

‘He’s my father.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s hard to explain. I know he has his faults,’ she whispered. ‘But I love him.’

‘And you’d forgive him anything?’

‘I guess,’ she said, bright green eyes meeting his glittering black. ‘Wouldn’t you do the same?’

Gabe’s laugh was a scoff. ‘No, tempesta. I destroyed my father at the first opportunity I had and I would do the same a hundred times over.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

ABBY STARED AT RAF, a frown etched on her face. In the two weeks since the morning in Fiamatina, she’d barely spoken to Gabe, yet his statement had continued to play on her mind, making her wonder to the point of distraction.

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