Page 32 of The Dancer and the Grumpy Billionaire

And then I hear a woman’s voice – Gigi’s voice – from somewhere. “Leave him alone!”

The battering stops, Gigi at my side, her hands on my face. Blood runs into one of my eyes, but through the other one, I can see her brightly colored ballet costume, her grey sweatshirt. Her look of panic.

Gigi lets out a torrent of expletives in Russian. The men tell her to be quiet. She gets louder.

“I love him!” she screams. “You fucking barbarians, I love him!”

“Chertova shlyukha,” the bigger goon hisses.

“I am afucking slutfor falling in love?” Gigi asks, her tone fiery. She scoffs. “You two are mindless. How can either of you feel good about this? About what you do to me every day? About the bruises you leave on me? About the way you box me into a life I do not want? And for what? For who? For a man who likely doesn’t remember your names? Shame on you both!”

The men are quiet for a moment, then I hear them talking quietly in Russian. I cannot hear what they are saying – my ears are ringing incessantly. I grimace and Gigi grasps my hand tightly.

“Roman,” she says, addressing one of them by name. “You are notthis. Let us go. Let me get him upstairs. Let me take care of him.”

“Galina,” he says in warning.

“No,” she insists. “No. I am an adult, and a person I love is hurt. I will take him inside and I will come home when I am done.”

She works to get me to my feet, and it is quite an effort. I can barely see, can barely feel my legs. I wrap an arm around Gigi, and we start to limp out of the alley.

“Wait,” Roman, I presume, says in a thick accent. “Do not go to the front. I will help.”

Roman practically carries me swiftly to some side door to the building, then up flights of stairs until I feel Gigi rummaging through my jacket pocket for my keys. Inside, the big bodyguard sets me on my couch - ungently.

“One time,” Roman warns. “Home in one hour.”

“I will be home when I am ready,” Gigi answers, defiant.

Roman huffs a laugh, but then I hear the door shut to the apartment.

Gigi is at my side in moments, asking me where I am hurt, her hands guiding along my body, looking for injuries.

“You have a cut above your eye. I think it is bleeding worse than I thought. Your lip is bleeding, too. Does anything feel broken?”

I stretch out, breathing in and out, turning my wrists, my torso. “No. Just bruised, I think.”

She lets out a breath. “Good.”

Gigi stands and heads back to my bathroom. I hear her rummaging around and minutes later, she emerges with my first aid kit. She wets a cotton square and douses it with peroxide before dabbing it against the cut on my face. I hiss in response to the sharp sting, and she tells me to stop being a baby.

“You took a beating,” she says. “I am sorry.”

“I decided there was no value in fighting back,” I say. “Those men are brick walls.”

She laughs but there is no humor in it. They have bricks for brains. Roman maybe less so, but Alexei is a piece of shit.”

Eventually, I sit up, Gigi still working to clean the blood from my face. I shove myself off the couch and walk gingerly to the bathroom, where I strip, gawking at the bloom of bruises spreading across my body like ghostly moss.

Gigi stands behind me, her eyes dark and intense as she assesses the damage. “I hate that this happened because of me.”

“Well, I asked you to sneak away.”

“No, this is not right. You have done nothing wrong. They had no reason to hurt you like this. No wonder you walked away today. No wonder you decided not to take the risk. It is not worth it. I am not worth it.”

“Gigi,” I say sternly. “This isn’t about your worth. Not to me.”

I turn so I am facing her and find her chin trembling as she works to hold back tears. I reach out, wincing at the way the motion pulls at a bruise forming near my ribs. Shit, maybe something is broken after all. She comes to me, wrapping her arms around my bare torso, her head resting lightly on my chest. She feels small and fragile in my arms.

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