This was her own fault. She could hear her mother’s voice in her head, telling her as much. She’d known that there was something going on with Salim and Nikolai. She’d known they were friends, and she’d certainly known that the way that they had been acting with her wasn’t normal.

She had thought it was some kind of underhanded business deal, at first. Maybe something Nikolai wanted to do that Salim had gotten caught up in—from what she’d read of the rumors about Nikolai’s business dealings, it wouldn’t surprise her. There was even a part of her that had thought that Salim needed her to help him get out of it.

Stupidly, she had thought that she could save him, somehow.

Again, she heard her mother’s mocking voice in her head. This was a distraction. In many ways, Moscow was the most important performance of the tour, and instead of centering and preparing herself backstage as she should have been, she was here, shaky and upset.

She’d thought that Salim was worth the risk of distraction. She’d thought that, although there might be something strange going on, he cared for her. She’d even let herself think he might love her. And no man that really felt that way would do anything to jeopardize what she’d been working towards her entire life.

But the way he sat down, looking like he’d seen a ghost, told her that she had been right about her original misgivings.

The ballet confirmed her worst fears.

It wasn’t subtle. Not in the slightest. Two handsome princes were introduced, one of whom was richer, the other cleverer. The cleverer one was interested in a princess, and told the richer one of his intention to win her heart. The two then made a bet as to which of them would succeed first.

It was so blatant. So crude. So unlike the man she thought Salim was, as easily as she could believe it of Nikolai.

By the time the end of the ballet came around, with the princess grief-stricken that neither man actually cared for her, Ophelia had seen enough. The advances from the two men, supposedly professional in nature but then strangely personal—it all made sense; the oddity of Salim suddenly buying the company, and the over-the-top gift Nikolai had tried to give her, as well as the condition that she would have to leave the tour and therefore get away from Salim.

It all clicked into place, and left Ophelia feeling humiliated and naïve, and broken.

She’d thought he’d wanted her. She’d thought he’d actually had feelings for her, and she’d been so desperate to believe it that she’d set aside all the suspicions she’d rightfully had.

And Nikolai! She’d actually believed that he thought her on the same level as the first prima ballerina of his company. How quickly she’d been ready to believe that, too! She hadn’t quite fallen for it, but if Salim hadn’t won her over, she might have.

And all this for what? To win?

Then, there was the lingering thought. Had they known of her virgin status? Had they guessed? When she’d bared her soul to Salim, had she only been telling him something that he already knew—something that he was competing for?

She didn’t stay for the curtain call. She couldn’t wait that long. She needed to be away from everything these two disgusting men had touched. The ballet, the theater, the very air they had breathed.

Ophelia stood and walked out of the box toward the exit to the alley. An usher tried to stop her, saying in heavily-accented English that there was no intermission between performances and that she would miss the Moscow Ballet if she walked out, but she waved him off. She didn’t care.

She was aware of Salim’s presence behind her. She could hear him calling out to her, but it only made her quicken her pace.

She couldn’t breathe. She needed to get somewhere, anywhere else.

And then, there she was, out there in the alley, laughing to herself manically when she realized that this was exactly how it all had started on the day the ballet opened, and this whole mess must have begun.

“Do you find this funny?”

To his credit, Salim looked ashamed. She let his question hang in silence for a long moment, and when she replied, she noticed that her voice sounded lower and harsher than usual.

“Is it true?” she asked. The painful look on his face when he replied almost made her feel sorry for him.

“It’s a version of the truth. But it’s not all of the truth.”

There was a part of her, even now, that wanted to believe him. Even having just seen that everything between them had been a set-up. And it was that part of her that stopped herself from telling him that anything remotely close to that truth was too close for her to want to be a part of it.

Instead, she stayed quiet, and he must have taken it as an invitation to explain himself, because he began talking.

He’d rehearsed this; that much was clear. It had the slightly disingenuous, planned feeling of the lines that he’d used on other women—that he’d tried to use on her. He went on and on, saying how he might have taken the bet, but that his intentions were honorable. He said he only wanted to save her from Nikolai, that he knew what his friend was like and he wanted to spare her that suffering; that all he meant to do was to make her fall for him just enough so that she wouldn’t be taken advantage of.

At his explanation, Ophelia felt another low, harsh laugh build up within her. And when she released it, she saw Salim’s face crumple from hope to defeated confusion.

“You really don’t see it, do you?”

“See what?”

“You really don’t see that that’s worse?”

Salim took a step back, as though she’d physically shoved him.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you—”

“If you didn’t want to hurt me, there was an easy way to avoid it. You could have just warned me. You could have been honest with me. Or, I don’t know, you could have talked your friend out of it. Or you could have just not chosen friends who would act that way in the first place!”

His mouth kept opening and closing as though he had a response.

“But, no, somehow, you tell yourself that breaking my heart yourself is better. That you’re saving me. And the saddest part of it is, I think you actually believe it.”

“Ophelia.” His expression changed from confused to steely. “I know you’re angry, but you don’t understand—”

“I don’t understand? I don’t understand? Nikolai is a lot of things, but at least he’s honest about what he wants and who he is. He lied to me, sure, but how could you possibly have thought…”

She shook her head as she continued. “You bought the company. You poured yourself into it. You’ve done all of this, and you think you were trying to protect me, but all the while, you were lying to me. Who would ever want a man who would do that?”

Again, his mouth opened and closed, but he seemed to be at a loss.

Ophelia was finished talking. She turned—as quickly and abruptly as a woman with years of dance training could—and walked away.

“I have a show to perform,” she said over her shoulder. And she left him behind her, where she intended for him to remain.