CHAPTER 38

 

“It’s good to see you again, Cate,” Vladimir smiled brightly, showing off his perfect teeth for the benefit of the watching camera crew.

“What are you doing here?” Cate looked around the studio, really, seriously hoping that this was a joke? Her replacement partner couldn’t be Vladimir, it just couldn’t. Hadn’t she already been punished enough?

“I understand that poor Declan had to return home unexpectedly.” It was clear that Vladimir was enjoying her discomfort immensely. “Fortunately, I was able to step in at the last minute.”

“Aren’t I lucky?” Cate scowled, dropping her dance bag on the floor.

The door swung open and Alyssa, Vladimir’s wife walked in. As if this day couldn’t get any better. “We don’t have much time,” Vladimir reached for Cate’s wrists and tugged her into the middle of the dance floor. “Alyssa has kindly volunteered to help out with the choreography.”

Cate had no doubt that Alyssa’s motives for helping them were anything but kind; she obviously believed that Cate was a grubby little homewrecker and was determined to make sure that she didn’t make a move on her husband. As if I would! Even if they’d both been single… no, scratch that, even if they’d been the only two souls left on Earth after the apocalypse, Cate wouldn’t have made a move on Vladimir. Run as fast as she could in the opposite direction? Far more likely!

As in the semi-final, they had two dances this week: the Tango and the Show Dance.

“Sit down,” Vladimir commanded. Alyssa pushed a hard plastic chair against the backs of Cate’s legs. “Save your energy. Alyssa and I will show you the routine.”

He might have had the personality of a World War Two dictator but watching Vladimir and Alyssa dance together felt like a privilege, it was like poetry.

When they stopped, Cate clapped her hands. They both looked at her strangely. “That was so beautiful.”

“It wasn’t for your enjoyment,” Alyssa frowned. “You were supposed to be concentrating on the intricacies of the choreography.”

She might have had high scores in the past on Stepping Out but when she was with Vladimir and Alyssa, she felt so awkward it was like she was trying to dance in flippers. After she’d stomped on Vladimir’s toes for what felt like the hundredth time, she asked if they could take a quick break. If she was going to get through this training session let alone the rest of the week, she desperately needed to give herself a good talking to.

Vladimir shook his head, “no breaks.”

Alyssa came back into the studio; she’d left briefly to make a phone call. Of course, she’d left the door open so she’d know if Cate tried to make a sneaky move on Vladimir.

She and Vladimir exchanged a look and then he turned to Cate, “ten minutes.”

Cate rushed to the bathroom and locked herself in the furthest stall. She needed to stop being so intimidated by Vladimir and Alyssa. She switched on her phone and there was a message from Annie. “I’ve just heard about Declan; I genuinely hate you right now.” Cate was stunned; surely Annie didn’t believe that Cate was having an affair with Declan? She scrolled further down the message. “If I’d known Vladimir would step in, I’d have locked Mickey in that cattle shed a long time ago.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Cate murmured, thinking about how Vladimir resembled a fire-breathing dragon when he was disappointed, which he’d been almost constantly with Cate this morning. She looked at her watch. Ugh, her ten minutes were almost up. She reluctantly stepped out of the stall and went to wash her hands.

She could hear sniffles from one of the other stalls. “Are you, um, okay?”

“Go away,” Cate recognised Alyssa’s slight Russian accent.

“Do you want me to go and get Vladimir?”

Alyssa opened the door; her eyes were a little red. “I want you to not have forced your dance partner to flee the country, meaning that my husband has to step in as his replacement.”

“He could have said no,” Cate reasoned.

“He has a bad reputation,” Alyssa sniffed, “after what that whiny, little bitch Poppy said about him, the producers made it clear that if he didn’t fix his reputation, his contract wouldn’t be renewed. He looks like a hero right now, stepping in at the last minute to replace Declan.”

“It’s only a week.”

“A week we were supposed to spend with our daughter in Miami,” Alyssa said bitterly. “She’s been staying with her grandmother. We haven’t seen her since Stepping Out started.”

“I’m so sorry.” As a mother, Cate felt the other woman’s pain. “Surely you could still go?”

Alyssa looked at her with disdain, “after what you did with Declan, do you really think I’m stupid enough to leave my husband alone with you?”

“Oh for goodness sake,” Cate fumed. “I didn’t cheat with Declan.”

“Whatever you say,” Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Some people have a very loose definition of cheating.”

Cate wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. “I’m very happily married, OK. I’ve never kissed Declan, not even once. It wasn’t me in that photo; it was my half-sister, Ruby. I think it was taken at Seattle airport in the early hours of Sunday morning but I didn’t fly back to Seattle until late last night because I had a meeting in L.A. yesterday morning for my charity. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Michel or Casey because we all went out for dinner after the show on Saturday night and then I went back to my hotel room alone.”

Cate stormed back into the studio, closely trailed by Alyssa. “Where do you want me?” she snapped at Vladimir. He raised an eyebrow; he’d obviously expected her to be more difficult.

“Again,” Vladimir demanded, making her repeat each and every step until he was satisfied that she’d done it correctly. If he was trying to break her, it had the opposite effect. The hard, physical work was invigorating.

“Enough,” Vladimir clapped his hands, the sound was deafening in the quiet studio. “I’ll see you at nine am tomorrow morning.” Cate looked out of the windows of the gym and the sky was already pitch-black, she hadn’t realised how late it was. She’d been lost in the Tango; it was everything she needed it to be; it was everything she was feeling; dark and stormy. She could channel all of her burning anger into the sharp, staccato movements of the dance.

It was only when she was away from Vladimir and Alyssa, in the privacy of the Tank with its blacked-out windows, that she allowed herself to switch on her phone and see what the reaction had been to their press release. The glare of the media spotlight had quickly shifted away from them and on to Declan and Ruby instead. Cate quickly scrolled past the photos of Declan being hounded by the paparazzi at Shannon airport. She couldn’t believe that she’d once been foolish enough to think that he was her friend.

She felt a tiny sliver of guilt when she saw the photos of Ruby surrounded by photographers as she tried to reach the front door of her hotel. She looked terrified. Had Cate and Kian really done the right thing in “outing” Ruby to the press like that?

Cate forced herself to take a deep breath. She had to think about the alternative. What would have happened if they’d let the press continue thinking that it was Cate who’d kissed Declan? Kian was right; they had to prioritise their children. When they’d lived in England, Lola had got into trouble for fighting with one of her classmates in the school playground. The boy had taunted her about Kian’s very public affair with Jenna.

As she drove home through the dark, rainy streets of Seattle, she spotted a hot-pink neon sign advertising a tattoo parlour. She thought about the tattoos on Kian’s ribs and pectoral muscle which symbolised his commitment to their marriage and family. Those tattoos had meant that they could prove definitively that it wasn’t them on that awful sex-tape. With all the questions about her fidelity, Cate wanted something on her skin to prove that she was Kian’s.

She knew that there was a good chance that she would later regret being so impulsive but she still parked up in front of the tattoo parlour and pulled out her phone. An internet search told her that the parlour had a really good reputation; it was clean and hygienic. She texted Kian and asked him to meet her there. As she got out of the car, she felt that same heady surge of adrenaline as when she’d climbed up on to the mechanical bull in L.A.

“Hey, I’m Mara,” the female tattooist greeted Cate. “What are you looking for today?”

After Cate had explained what kind of tattoo she wanted, Mara sketched something for her. “What do you think?”

“It’s perfect,” Cate nodded. Mara led her through to one of the back rooms. She wanted the tattoo on her hip so she tugged her yoga pants and the strap of her thong down over her hip. Mara handed her a sheet of paper, not unlike at the doctor’s office, to protect her modesty.

The leather was cold against the bare skin of her back. The radio was playing “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri.

“Cate?” Kian’s voice came from outside. Mara looked up from prepping her needle.

“It’s my husband,” Cate said. “Would it be OK if he…?”

“It’s OK, Todd,” Mara called, “you can let him back here.”

“Angel,” Kian looked at his wife on the leather chair, her yoga pants and panties pulled indecently low. He could see the shadow of the start of her cleft through the thin, white paper.

“Can you…?” Cate gulped as Mara approached with the needle. “Hold my hand?”

Kian reached for her hand, clasping it inside his own as Mara made the first scratch. “Wow, that hurts,” Cate hissed through her teeth.

“It gets better, I promise,” he soothed, kissing her brow.

As his eyes drifted down his wife’s flat stomach to where Mara was working on her hip, Cate squeezed his fingers, “please don’t look, I want it to be a surprise.”

Kian’s eyes darkened, “tell me you’re not doing this just for me.” She didn’t have to get a tattoo to prove that she belonged to him.

“I’m not,” Cate winced. “I promise.”

After Mara had finished the tattoo, Cate felt dizzy. “Are you ready to see it?” Mara asked.

“Mm,” Cate willed the contents of her stomach to stay just where they were. She sat up a little. “It’s a little red at the moment but that’s normal,” Mara explained.

Cate looked at the Chinese symbol for courage which now marked her hip. It was almost identical to Kian’s tattoo except that it was smaller and the lines weren’t solid black, they were made up of all of the dates that were important to Cate. All of the ties that bound her and Kian and the family they’d created so tightly together; their wedding date, the children’s birthdays. “It’s perfect,” Cate marvelled at Mara’s beautiful artwork. “Thank you so much.”

Kian helped Cate into the passenger side of the car. “Do you like it?” she asked, biting her lip.

“I love it,” Kian reassured her. “How do you feel?”

“Sore but a little bit giddy,” Cate admitted. “I’ve always wanted to get a tattoo. I’m sure it was on the list I made when I was pregnant with Lola. I wish I knew what had ever happened to that list? I’d love to know just how many of the things on there I’ve actually done.”