Page 16 of Prelude To You

He scooped me up in his arms and kissed my face.

I laughed. “I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “Dance with me. If the girls don’t mind.”

The girls knotted together in a morose little group, some of them staring daggers at me. I wanted to tell them that jealousy was pointless, because one of them would end up in Sergei’s bed tonight.

Gossip spread like wildfire through the ballet ranks, and it was just a matter of time before someone in the group told the others about our history.

For the briefest moment I considered seducing Sergei to blow off some steam. Even if the sex wasn’t earth-shattering, he was fun and considerate. I nixed the idea the moment it surfaced. It would be incredibly unfair to Sergei, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause him any hurt. Or give him hope for something that would never happen.

Sergei unbuttoned my coat, twirled me out of it and threw it in a heap against the wall. I was already in my dancewear. I sat on the small wooden bench, put on mypointeshoes and lacedthem up. He watched with a frown etched on his face. “You think it’s a good idea to goen pointewith your ankle,malishka?”

He called me babygirl in Russian before we became involved, and he called me that after.

“I’ve been goingen pointewhen you’re not here, Sergei. It’s fine. Just nofouettes. Orarabesques.”

“You hurt your ankle again we can forget about the competition.”

I offered him my sweetest smile. “I’m sure one of these girls won’t mind taking my place.”

That earned me a kiss on the crown of my head. “Nomalishka, I only dance ballroom and freestyle with you.”

He pulled me to my feet and held me by the waist while I tested goingen pointe.“Warm up,” he instructed. “I’ll go put on the music.” As he sauntered to the hi-fi system, he cast the girls a cocky grin. “You ladies might want to pay attention when Isabel and I dance.”

We danced for an hour and a half. Eventually I invited the girls to dance with us. Mainly because I didn’t want them to feel left out. I had them do the Dance of the Little Swans because I was curious to see who had what it took to move up from corpse de ballet one day.

But I wasn’t dancing every day anymore, and my stamina wasn’t what it used to be. And drinking the champagne and Meg’s godawful cocktail wasn’t helping.

Sergei dragged me away to a private corner and sat me on the floor to cool down. He gently wiped my face and neck with a towel. Ever since I could remember, that was the first thing he did when we finished a dance session. He looked into my eyes. “What is wrong?” he asked.

“Why would something be wrong?”

“I’ve known you for a long time, Isabel.”

Telling Sergei I was fired would only lead to trouble for Jean-Rene. And I could hardly tell him about being kissed by a complete stranger in a bookshop and liking it. There was just no way for me to explain to Sergei that the desire I’d never felt for him was suddenly blazing through my body because of someone else.

“It was just not my day, okay?” I mumbled.

“Is there anything I can do?”

I leaned my forehead on his shoulder. “No, it just has to work itself out. Thank you for caring though.”

He lifted my face to his and gently kissed me on the lips. It was loving and sweet, but I pulled away. He rested his head against mine. “Maybe one day you will fall in love with me. And we’ll take over this dance studio and we’ll marry and have twenty babies who will all be dancers.”

Desperate to get off the topic, I cast a glance at the girls as they tried to master their new dance steps. “Which one is sharing your bed tonight?” I asked.

“Which one do you think should share my bed,malishka?” He asked, unlacing mypointeshoes.

“This is where I draw the line. I refuse to pick your sex partners.”

“Probably Pauline,” he mused. “She dances like you. With her heart and her soul.”

“I like her dancing too. And if you ask me, two years from now she’s going to make soloist.”

Sergei put my ballet shoes aside and gently massaged my feet. “I hate that you’re not jealous,” he said.

Oh I was jealous. Stark raving jealous of whoever was sharing Stranger’s bed tonight.

I patted his cheek. “All I want is for you to be happy, Sergei.”

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