Natasha didn’t scream, but from the way she gasped and grimaced, Dimitri knew it had to hurt. He leaped to pull her into his arms, taking the weight off her feet.

“What are you doing, Tasha?” He cradled her close. “Why are you walking around without crutches? You should have woken me up.”

“Put me down,” she demanded in a firm voice.

“Kroshka, I’m too tired to argue with you about this. Come back to bed.” He carried her through the bathroom, holding her with care, but she struggled.

“Damn it, Macho, I said put me down.”

With a sigh, Dimitri sat on the edge of the jacuzzi and cuddled her in his lap. She squirmed, trying to get away from him, so he set her beside him on the wide lip of the tub but kept her injured ankle elevated across his lap.

Ignoring her glare, he unwrapped the bandages and skimmed his fingers gently over the fading bruises. “Did you hurt yourself?”

She was breathing hard. “Dimitri, I need you to stop doing this.”

“Doing what?” With slow, methodical movements, he wrapped her ankle again. They’d ramp up the light physical therapy exercises tomorrow, to make sure her ankle healed right. “Caring about you?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be silly.” He was too tired for this conversation. He’d stayed up late, flipping through his “Idea Book,” as it was labeled on the front in big block letters written in permanent black marker. When he’d woken to find her side of the bed empty, he’d gone looking for her. The crutches were still in the living room—his fault, for not thinking to bring them into the bedroom—and he’d worried she’d hurt herself. And then she had.

“There’s no need for it,” she continued.

“For what?” He yawned.

“For you to care about me. I don’t need it.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Everyone needs someone to care about them. And I’m good at it.”

“You never cared about me before.”

At that nonsense, he pinned her with a hard look. “I have always cared about you.”

She shrugged. “You’ve never shown it. Why should I believe you?”

Damn it. She was right. “I’m trying to show you now.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she muttered, looking away from him.

“Why not?”

And then, to his intense horror, her breathing hitched. His heart broke for her, and he crooned her name as he pulled her into his lap.

She put up a short struggle, but when he tightened his arms around her, she laid her head on his shoulder and let the tears come.

These weren’t like before, when she had cried on the sofa. Those tears had been more feeling-sorry-for-myself tears. These spoke of deep inner pain, strumming answering vibrations of his own fears within him.

She wiped at her eyes. “Will you please just go back to bed and leave me the hell alone?”

“No.” He rested his cheek on her head and rocked her. “You’re going to let me care about you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

She was quiet for a while. “Because I don’t deserve it.”

He sighed. “That’s bullshit.”

She shook her head, her hair sliding against his chin. “It’s true. I’m a mess.” Her body shook harder, and she sobbed out the words. “I’m useless. I can’t get my life in order. Can’t take care of myself. I’ve failed at everything. It’s all going to fall apart.”

“That’s not true,” he murmured, dropping kisses onto her head. “You’re going through a rough patch. It happens. We’ll get through it.”

“There’s no we, Dimitri. It’s just me. Alone. And this is it. The end.”

He shifted her so he could look at her face. Her eyes were red and puffy, but even more alarming was the desolation in her expression. She was giving up.

“I’m going to lose my job, either because of my ankle or because I haven’t been able to work enough to make the money to move out on my own. When that happens, I’ll lose my main source of income, and that’ll be it. I can’t stick around LA imposing on people. I’ll have to go back to New York. Back h-home.”

Fresh sobs wracked her frame, and he held on, gritting his teeth against the onslaught. He wanted to make it right. He wanted to fix everything for her. But she wouldn’t let him. So, he just held her and tried to show her without words that he was here for her, however she needed.

After a few minutes, she sniffled and struggled to speak, gasping the words out.

“And what then? What if this gets worse?” She gestured at her ankle, now resting on the edge of the massive tub. “All I know how to do is dance, and who’s going to hire me for choreography gigs? I’ll be nothing, nadie. And then she’ll be right.”

Her sobs strengthened, and it was difficult to follow her rapid-fire verbal spiral into sadness, but he latched on to the last thing she said. “Who will be right?”

He almost missed it, so light were the words. But he was fully awake now, and listening closely.

“My mother.”

Ah. He chewed that over, soothing her with soft caresses. When it her sobs quieted, he asked, “What will she be right about?”

She hiccupped. “That I’m a failure.”

“How, exactly?”

“Nothing I’ve done has ever been good enough for her. Most of the time, she couldn’t even be bothered to come to my shows. And when I got into Lennox, she acted like it was no big deal. A waste of time and money. Why not get a real job, or a real degree?”

Located near Lincoln Center in Manhattan, Lennox was the most prestigious college for the performing arts in the country, and notoriously difficult to get accepted into. He’d thought about going there himself, but with Alex’s help, he was already pro, and he hadn’t wanted to get off-track.

“Did you go?”

“Of course not.” She rubbed at her nose. “Gina did. I told her I didn’t get in. Instead, I worked, and saved, and waited for Gina to finish so we could move out here. But then my abuela died, and I couldn’t stay in that apartment another second. So, I came out here on my own, and that was a fucking disaster, too.”

Everything she said was new to him. He’d known she was from New York, like he was, and he’d known she moved to Los Angeles with Gina and secured a gig on Everybody Dance Now. But he suspected there were holes in the story, and he was going to hear them now. Since she was finally spilling her secrets, he did his best to be a good listener, to let her know she could trust him with them, that he wouldn’t judge her.

“What happened?”

She shook her head and buried her wet face in his neck. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” There would be time later. He didn’t need all her secrets now. But there was one thing he had to try to make clear to her. “You’re not a failure, Natasha.”

She sniffled hard. “She makes me feel like I am. Every step I took, every achievement, it was never good enough. I’m not like Gina. Gina wants to be the best, to be a huge success and a household name. I don’t need that. I just want to make a living off being a dancer. To be able to pay my bills and my rent and buy nice things. If I can do that, I’ll show her I’m a success. And I was so close, until all this shit started happening.”

“What about later, when you can’t dance?”

“I don’t know. I’ll deal with that when I get to it. Maybe . . . maybe choreography. I don’t know.”

It was a short-sighted mentality, especially for a career that was so hard on the body. But it was interesting that she’d mentioned choreography again.

“So, this is why you’re so dead-set on doing everything yourself?”

She nodded. “It doesn’t count if people help me. I’ll still be a failure. And when they’re gone, I’ll be nothing. You can’t rely on people for help, or you’re just asking for trouble.”

That sounded like something she’d been told, rather than what she truly believed, but she was crying again so he let it pass.

He held her through the fresh round of tears, murmuring sweet nothings to her in Russian, pressing kisses to her wet cheeks and bringing tissues to blow her nose. When she was finally quiet, he whispered, “I’m putting you to bed.”

She nodded, and didn’t struggle this time when he picked her up. She didn’t pull away when he tucked her into the bed and climbed in beside her, cuddling her close. She let him hold her, let him soothe her, and drifted off to sleep.

Dimitri didn’t rest so easily. He was overwhelmed by all she’d shared, both grateful that she’d trusted him to share it, and determined to do his part to help her. She still had secrets, but he could wait.

Her mother had done a number on her. But if there was one thing he was good at—other than dancing—it was caring about people. At one point in his life, he’d had nothing but his family. Now, even though they were separated by an entire country, everything he did was for them.

If she let him, he’d show her he was serious. He’d show her how much he loved her.

If he’d loved her before, it was nothing compared to the way he felt now. He admired the hell out of her—her quiet strength, her compassion, her work ethic. How could someone so amazing think she was unworthy of love? It was ridiculous to him, but they all had their own demons.

It was on him to show her the truth. By the time he was done, there’d be no doubt in her mind that she was lovable beyond belief.