Chapter 1
These are the best days.
Gabriella leans sideways in her wheelchair, arm curved over her shiny black hair. Even at four years old, her ballet movements show expression and deep emotion.
She is her mother’s daughter, even if she doesn’t realize it. She may never know that I gave birth to her and spent years searching for her. I’m okay with that. Teaching her ballet is a joy.
Her pale pink tutu is brilliant with sparkles. It matches mine, minus the glitter. When I glance in the wall of mirrors behind the barre, my long black hair blending into hers, I don’t see how anyone could miss that we are related.
But so far, she’s a perfect secret.
“Hold,” I tell her, and shift her fingers into a prettier position.
“Good call,” Blitz says. He’s standing nearby, his hand cupping his scruffy chin, watching Gabriella’s movements with an eye toward improvement. He wants to maximize the ways she can dance from the wheelchair.
You’d never guess this patient man, who seems to have all the time in the world, is actually Blitz Craven, currently the most famous dancer in the world due to his reality TV show Dance Blitz.
I turn toward the mirrored window to the hall outside. I can’t see through it, but I know Gabriella’s adopted mother Gwen is watching. She’s been a good mother to my baby, strong and caring even after the car accident that killed her husband and damaged our little girl’s spine.
After I told Blitz about my secret daughter, he suggested we give her private lessons. I changed my life to be near her, and now he has too.
Gwen was delighted at the idea of extra dance help, especially from someone as famous as Blitz. So now I get to see Gabriella twice each week. Once in her class for all the wheelchair ballerinas. And again during the lesson with me and Blitz.
Gwen doesn’t know who I am. No one does. My parents, whom I haven’t seen in the month since I left home to be with Blitz, don’t know I found her.
For a year, my discovery of her was my own solitary secret. Then I told Blitz just a few weeks ago, at the Christmas dance recital.
Now the new year has begun and it’s off to an amazing start. Blitz and I are staying at a hotel close by, still hoping my parents will come around and be willing to speak to me again.
Blitz and I dance together at Dreamcatcher every day while the producers of his show Dance Blitz manage the publicity following my surprise arrival and Blitz’s unscripted announcement on live television that I was his new dance partner. His manager Hannah still hasn’t calmed down about it.
Right now things are easy and good. I miss my little brother Andy, and since he is homeschooled like I used to be, I can’t easily see him. But I’ve been up to my church and managed to tell him hello and give him a hug before my parents took him away.
“Let’s try something with a quicker tempo,” Blitz says, heading toward the audio equipment in the corner. “Gabriella, are you getting tired?”
The little girl whizzes across the room. “No way! This is the best!”
She whirls in circles as Blitz starts a new song. We let her lead a little conga line with me and Blitz behind her, then Blitz gives her a ribbon stick to practice with.
I take a step back to watch them. Blitz is wearing sleek black jazz pants and a tight gray dance shirt. He takes my breath away. His hair has grown out a little and falls in a black wave across his head. Despite living with him for over a month, I still don’t know how he manages to keep his sexy stubble at precisely the same length all the time.
He catches me watching him and winks, showing Gabriella how to make a rapid cascade with the ribbon. Seeing them together never fails to fill my heart with unabashed joy.
The lights flicker, signaling that the hour is ending. Another group will use this room next.
Blitz takes Gabriella’s ribbon stick and rolls it up. She speeds across the room to make a circle around me. Her chair is good, light and nimble. There is a lot she will be able to do.
Gwen opens the door and peeks inside. “All done?” she asks.
She looks happier now that she’s made it through the holidays. It’s not the first one without her husband, but I imagine it’s not much better yet. It will probably never be easy for her. She approaches Gabriella with a hot-pink coat.
“Thank you guys so much for doing this,” she says. “Gabby, you looked so good. Was it fun?”
Gabriella sticks her arms in the coat. “It was!” She tries to zip it up herself, but like many four-year-olds, she’s not agile enough. Gwen leans over to fasten it for her, one of a million small acts of mothering I will never get to do.
“I will see you on Tuesday for the big class,” I tell her, leaning down for a hug. She smells like strawberry shampoo. It’s hard to let her go, and especially to hide how I’m feeling, but I straighten and keep my expression friendly and light.
“Bye, Livia!” Gabriella calls. “Bye, Benjamin!”
Gwen waves to us and follows Gabriella out of the room.
I bite my lip to stay in control and turn to Blitz. “I should probably call you Benjamin too,” I say. “It’s the rest of the world who knows you as Blitz.”
He walks up and wraps his arms around me, resting his chin on my head. “You can call me anything you want.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I say with a laugh. “I can come up with all manner of depraved nicknames.”
He pulls back and presses a light kiss on my mouth. Then he says, “I like it when you’re depraved.”
He spins me out in a whirl, his hand and body communicating where I should go. For a few dizzying seconds, we dance together in dramatic turns, the world a blur. Then he pulls me against him, our bodies flush against each other.
A lot of our conversations end like this.
“Lunch?” I ask him, breathing hard.
He laughs. “Absolutely.”
I head to the corner where I’ve stashed my coat and a bag with normal shoes.
He heads for the sound equipment. “Make sure you save room for dinner, though. Mom will expect you to eat!”
My stomach flutters. Tonight I’ll be meeting Blitz’s parents for the first time. We would have done it before now, but they spent Christmas and early January in Colorado, so they’ve just now gotten back and settled down enough to have visitors.
Blitz shuts down the music as Aurora arrives to set up for her toddler class. She has a little girl with her, Cassandra, her boyfriend’s daughter.
“You have a helper!” I say to Aurora.
“No school today,” Aurora says. “I’m watching her while Samuel works.” Her eyes flit over to Blitz. Even though he volunteered here for a few weeks around Thanksgiving last year, everyone is still a little starstruck when they see him.
It’s been worse since the live finale of his show, which went completely viral and has been the highest-rated reality show episode of all time. My face still flushes when I think of how bold I was to march on that stage and demand he dance with me instead of the contestants.
Sometimes my friend Mindy sends me memes of a screenshot from the broadcast. It shows me crossing in front of the three finalists in their sparkly dresses. I look grim and determined. The captions are always changing.
What a hostile takeover looks like.
When you ain’t gonna let no ho dance with your man.
I try to ignore all the fuss. Blitz and I want to live as quietly as we can for as long as possible, at least until we can figure out what’s next. I know the finalists from his show feel robbed and angry. One of them, Mariah, has sued the producers, since she was supposedly slated to be the actual winner. She lost out on a lot of publicity and fame because of me.
It’s a mess.
Blitz takes my hand as I stand up from putting on my shoes. We head down the hall of Dreamcatcher Dance Academy, which is filling with moms and little girls for their classes. There’s more kids here today with school out, siblings of the tiny ones who usually attend alone. The mothers seem more harried than usual.
We cross the foyer, waving at Suze, who sits at the front desk. A few moms stop talking to point at Blitz. He smiles and is friendly, but doesn’t pause, his hand on my back as we head for the doors.
I’m on the steps when my brain stutters. My attention fixes on a man on the sidewalk, looking up, his cheeks ruddy from the cold as if he’s stood there a while.
My body gets some message from my brain before I can comprehend exactly what is happening, why I’m feeling a threat. My feet are rooted to the concrete, my chest buzzing with alarm.
Blitz stops with me. “You okay, Livia?” he asks.
His words are what bring the moment into focus. This man in front of me wears a black leather jacket, his layered brown hair flying in the wind.
It’s him.
God.
It’s him.
Denham Young.
Kicked out of my life when I was fifteen. Gone for good. Lost to me.
My great love. My shame.
Gabriella’s father.
He’s found me.