Chapter 16
Laura felt as though she was flying across the stage. Her body hadn’t felt this light in ages. Her movements were perfectly timed with the music, and she could feel the audience leaning in to every gesture.
She was dancing, center stage, inside a ring of male dancers in chairs. During this piece of the show, she was playing at seducing them. But this didn’t feel like play. She could almost see Charlie sitting in one of the chairs, looking at her like had on the wedding video. He’d been a little in awe of her when she’d approached him at the bar. He hadn’t been able to fake it.
The only way she’d gotten through the remainder of rehearsals had been thinking about Charlie. He was going to be at the front of her mind, regardless. So, she used that as fuel. If she’d stopped to ponder the fact that he was gone from her life, even for a moment, she would have broken into a million pieces. She would not have been able to get off the floor, much less leap.
The whole theater held its breath on the final set of turns before the end of her solo. Her leg cut through the air as the music crescendoed, and her body filled with the joy and longing of the character she played.
As she stopped in a plié, her arm and gaze extended up to the ceiling, the stage lights hit her eyes. That had to be the explanation for the tears threatening to send her mascara and fake eyelashes down her face.
She managed to fight the tears until the end of the show. She took her bows, and rushed to her dressing room. Although she made it there in one piece, the bouquet of roses she’d been holding didn’t fare so well. She’d beheaded them against a sharp corner in her haste.
Tossing the stems on the couch, she made her way to the stool at the counter. The lighted mirror was helpful in applying makeup and making sure costumes were perfect, but she couldn’t look herself in the face right now. She was afraid that the woman looking back at her wouldn’t really be the her she wanted to be anymore. Her insides were rending themselves at the pull between the life she’d always wanted, the life she was living tonight, and the man who’d set her heart aflame in just a few short weeks.
Her whole body buzzed when someone knocked at the door. Hoping it was Charlie despite herself, she hopped up and opened it to a stranger.
He must have recognized the shock on her face because he extended a hand. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Gil Rosen, I’m with the New York City Ballet.”
“Oh?” She motioned him inside the dressing room, keeping the door open. She recognized the name, and his face was familiar now that she could place it.
“Yes. I’m on vacation with my husband, but I can’t seem to leave work behind.” He pulled up the legs of his well-tailored pants and sat on the edge of the couch. “Matthieu called me and told me I needed to see your performance, and he wasn’t wrong.”
She waited for the excitement to bubble up at the possibility he was here to offer her something. And waited. And waited.
Two years ago, she would have given her eye teeth for an opportunity with the New York City Ballet. If this had happened before her injury, she would have barely been able to contain herself.
But now? All she felt was resignation. He was probably just here out of a courtesy to Matthieu, to compliment her on her performance, but even the possibility that he was going to offer her something that would take her away from Charlie was too much.
“We’d been planning to do Carmen next season.”
Laura sat on the stool. “With Matthieu’s new choreography?”
“Yes. And some performers from the Met are interested in participating.”
That made total sense.
“Who were you thinking of having dance the lead role?”
“You.”
Excitement and fear mixed with the nothing in her stomach to make nausea. With the reason for his visit on the table, her foreboding should have dissipated. The universe was showing her that she’d made the right choice. If that was the case, why did she feel a blanket of sadness settling over her.
“You’re not interested?” Gil’s gaze narrowed. Her lack of excitement must have shown up on her face.
She pulled herself together and nodded vigorously, shaking the tears out of her eyes. “Absolutely. I’m just so surprised. This has been a lifelong dream.”
“You’d be a guest performer for this piece.” Gil’s posture softened, as though he was relieved she had said yes. Her entire career as a dancer, she’d been at the mercy of company directors, choreographers, teachers who needed to say “yes” for her to succeed. This was the first time in her career that someone had come to her needing something from her in order to make something work. For someone who had always been fungible, it was a heady experience. That sensation cut through her sorrow about leaving Miami. After all, she’d never had a problem leaving her family before. They weren’t even here tonight, and they usually made all of her openings. She knew it was because it would look bad if they didn’t, but it still meant something to her.
“I understand, and I would be delighted to join you.”
“And if you’re interested in joining the company, this would be an excellent audition.”
“It’s been my dream forever, Mr. Rosen.”
* * * *
Laura was talking to another man. Pretty much the only man who could take her from him successfully.
Charlie heard enough to get the gist of the conversation from outside her dressing room. Laura had been invited to dance for the New York City Ballet. In the role she’d just danced so beautifully that Charlie could scarcely believe it was his woman on stage instead of some sort of goddess of dance.
He’d shown up with signed divorce papers, a bouquet of flowers, and a bottle of tequila. Symbols of leaving the past behind, a tribute to her gorgeous dancing, and a way to toast the future—their future.
The plan had been to tell her that he wanted to start over and date, that it had been a terrible idea to do that while they were still married. He’d wanted the chance to show her, over a long period of time, that they were right for each other.
The instant he heard her agreeing to leave Miami temporarily, in the hopes of leaving for good, he knew he’d made a mistake. He thought about leaving without talking to her. He didn’t know if he could be decent about this right now. When she’d talked about moving to New York, it had been a distant possibility. Now that it was right here, he couldn’t wrap his head around it. Everything he’d told himself about how he would cope—working for his father and moving with her—fell away.
He couldn’t do that, and he wouldn’t be a man who deserved Laura if he did. So, he shouldn’t see her right now. Like a wounded animal, he might lash out. And he wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow her to bear the brunt of it.
She’d chosen the ballet, and herself. He couldn’t actually blame her for that. All her life, she’d had to rely on only one person—the one in the mirror. It would be unfair for her to expect him to be there for her. It would be insane for him to expect her to rely on his love for her. He hadn’t even told her about that. But it was there. It was the fact that he’d married her in the first place.
He’d been in love with her even then. His chest felt tight, and breathing felt like choking.
If it had merely been a lust thing, they would have hooked up at the wedding. She wouldn’t have snuck away in the morning, and they would have had lazy, hung-over sex. Maybe it would have been awkward when they saw each other again, but he would have been able to stay away.
He wouldn’t have sponsored her ballet in hopes of spending more time with her. Wouldn’t have threatened a reporter for saying words about her.
If he hadn’t been in love with her, he wouldn’t have made her go to dinner with him to sign those annulment papers. Even if his subconscious hadn’t made him marry her, he wouldn’t have felt the driving need to touch her again even now.
Moments from making his escape and faxing the damned papers to her house, he must have caught her eye.
“Charlie.” She sounded surprised to see him. As surprised as he was to still be standing outside her dressing room like a rube.
He shook off his black mood and decided to pretend that he hadn’t just had his heart ripped out. Instead of tossing the divorce papers at her, throwing the flowers in the trash, and taking the bottle of tequila to the beach so he could get drunk and drown himself in the ocean, he walked in and shook the man’s hand.
“Gil Rosen.”
“Charlie Laughlin.”
“Oh, the husband?”
Laura slid her hand in the crook of his arm. She might as well have stuck a knife in his back. It was all for show. Every bit of affection she’d given him had always been for show.
“Yes.”
The other man didn’t see his wince because he turned his attention on Laura. “You’ll share the good news?” The guy’s wink was like a gunshot. Charlie felt like crumpling to the floor and dying. He’d clearly spent too much time around ballet people. All the drama and longing had made him go soft.
“He’ll be so excited for me.” She rubbed his arm, and it was all he could do not to slap her away. “He knows that I’ve been wanting this for so long.”
When Gil walked out of the room, he yanked his arm away from Laura. Not even looking her in the eye, he tossed the divorce papers on the counter. “They’re signed.”
She approached him from behind and put a hand on the middle of his back. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what, Laura?”
“How much did you hear?”
“I heard enough to know that you’re leaving.”
He thought he heard a sob on her voice, but he wouldn’t turn to look, before she said, “I have to go.”
“I know.”
“You deserve someone who can give you what you want.”
She still didn’t understand. The things he’d said before he’d realized that Laura was his person didn’t matter. He didn’t need kids or a white picket fence kind of boring life. He needed her.
Finally, he turned. Her gaze was all fractured, black glass. She hated this as much as he did. But she had her war paint on. The costume, the severe bun, the heavy makeup—he longed to rip it all off and touch the woman underneath.
His cock didn’t care that she was ruining both of their lives. Whenever she went near him, he needed to be inside of her. He wanted to rain kisses all over her face, down her neck, down to the very core of her where he knew he could make her come apart until her will to leave him was so weak that she would promise to stay with him for another orgasm on his tongue.
The desire to bite her neck, to mark the perfect skin where her shoulder met her graceful neck pulsed through him.
She must have felt his energy change because she backed up. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“What isn’t?”
“This is not how we solve this problem.” She brought her hands up. He took another step forward, and her palms met his chest.