Dance for Me (Fenbrook Academy #1) - New Adult Romance (8 page)

Clarissa gave a howl of rage, grabbed a pain au chocolat and stalked out. A moment later, we heard the front door slam.

In the silence that followed, I shifted my bag up on my shoulder. “I should probably....”

“Sure. Oh!” He pulled something from a pocket—a white envelope.

I took it, surprised, with no idea what it was. I caught Neil looking between the two of us, a suspicious look on his face, and hurried out before things got any weirder.

***

Clarissa gunned the engine and tore off down the driveway in a hail of gravel. The gates barely opened in time. “That guy!” she told me. “That guy!” And she gave a little scream of frustration.

“I won’t ask you to go back there,” I told her meekly. “Sorry.”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t. Not for anything. God, he was so
annoying.
” She sighed. “How was your billionaire?”

“Millionaire.”

“Same thing.”

I had to think. “It was weird,” I told her at last.

“Really? Dancing one-on-one for a slightly off multi-millionaire in his batcave?”

“It’s not a batcave.”

“What is it?”

“It’s an underground...workshop.”

“It’s a batcave.”

I started picking at a loose thread on the seat. Then stopped because this was Clarissa’s BMW and she’d rage if she saw me. “Do you really think he’s off?”

Clarissa shrugged. “If you had a mansion like that, would you spend all day down in the cellar?” She suddenly gasped. “Maybe he’s a vampire!”

I poked her in the side. “I’ve seen him in daylight.”

“Sunblock. Say what you want, next time I’m bringing garlic and a mirror.”

“I thought you weren’t coming next time?”

She didn’t reply. I finally opened the mystery envelope and gave a gasp of my own. There were five crisp hundred dollar bills inside. I’d completely forgotten about the money part of the arrangement.

Clarissa watched me fingering the bills. “Level with me. Was it a lap dance?”

“Clarissa!”

“I promise I won’t tell anyone, not even Jasmine.” She considered. “Maybe Jasmine.”

“
No!
”

“These days it’s almost okay. I wouldn’t see you any differently. I mean—”

“Okay, okay,
yes.
Yes, it was a lap dance and yes, we had sex. I went on top.”

Clarissa’s hands jerked on the wheel and we swerved, tires screeching. She fought for control while trying to look at me at the same time. By the time we recovered, I couldn’t control the smile any longer and let it break across my lips. She pummeled me in the arm while letting fly with some choice curses.

I let the laughter bubble up from inside me. I couldn’t remember when I’d last laughed—really laughed—and it felt good.

Chapter Nine

Darrell

The last chunks of gravel were still hitting the ground when Neil, chewing on a pastry, asked, “So, did you bang her?”

I closed my eyes and sighed. I loved the guy like a brother, but sometimes...“No. It’s not like that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She danced for me. I need inspiration.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s all it was!”

“Was that an envelope of cash you gave her?”

“...yes.”

Neil didn’t even reply. Just looked at me and poured himself more coffee.

“It’s not like that!”

“Like what?” He was watching me over the top of his coffee mug.

“It’s not about the money.”

“Oh. So it’s love?”

I felt my face go hot. I wasn’t ready to talk about that part of it with him. I barely understood what was going on myself. Jesus, was I blushing? What was I, a fourteen year-old girl? “No! It’s business. I pay her to dance!”

“Uh-huh. Millionaire pays beautiful woman to dance for him in his cellar. That ain’t suspicious at all.” He drank about half his coffee without looking away from me. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“I’m fine.”

“How’s the prototype? That fine?”

“Awesome.”

“Liar. You figure out how to make it dodge yet?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. That’s what this thing with Natasha is about. I think there’s something there, something to do with dancing.”

Neil cocked his head to one side. “You going to put ballet shoes on a missile and have it pirouette out of the way?”

“Why do you have to be so literal? I don’t know what the connection is yet. That’s why I need to watch her dance some more.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t start that again.” I poured myself some coffee. It was difficult to think, the kiss still burning in my mind. There was no way Neil could know what happened, right?

“You tell her about the missile? Does she know what she’s helping you make?”

I said nothing.

Neil raised his eyebrows. “But you told her you make weapons for a living, right?”

“In a manner of speaking,” I said shiftily.

“
What
manner of speaking?”

“The sort where I told her I’m an engineer.”

Now Neil folded his arms and looked at me suspiciously. “You’ve never been secretive about it before.”

He was right. I didn’t hide what I did—I was proud of it. The world needed weapons, and
someone
was going to make them. I made the very best. So why hadn’t I just told her, when I’d talked to her outside the audition? Or in our Facebook chat? Or downstairs, when she saw the workshop for the first time? Why had I flung a sheet over the missile, moments before she arrived? All of the girls I’d dated, the ones from the charity fundraisers and the horse races, had known what I did and they’d never had a problem with it. If they’d mentioned it at all, they’d claimed to be impressed. Why was she any different?

I shrugged. “She doesn’t need to know.”

“Mm-hmm.” Neil picked up another pastry and started munching on it. “Because lying right from the first date always goes well.”

“It wasn’t a date!”

“There’s an alternative.” Neil paused for effect. “You could, you know, not make things that kill people.”

My chest tightened. Neil and had come to an understanding about my work, after many years of drunken rants on both sides. He’d accepted what I did, but that didn’t mean he liked it. “We can’t all be flower children, Neil.”

“The Bitch isn’t going to be pleased.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call her that—it’s childish. Her name’s Carol.”

“It’s both accurate and appropriate. The woman is distilled bad karma.”

I sighed. “How is it that you can have a problem with a respectable executive, but have no issue hanging out with someone called
Big Earl.”
The biker thing was more than dress-up and weekend rides for Neil. He was in pretty tight with one of the local motorcycle clubs, guys who’d leave you dead in a ditch without a second thought.

“Hey, those guys have honor and respect, man. They’re like a brotherhood. And I mean it, Carol’s going to be pissed.”

“She’ll get her missile.” I topped up my coffee. “I’ll get it working eventually.”

“I wasn’t talking about the missile.”

It took me a second to figure out what he meant. “
Natasha?
Carol won’t care about Natasha! It’s none of her business! The company doesn’t own me!”

“Uh-huh. You just keep telling yourself that, man. Hey, when are they coming again?”

“ ‘They’—Oh.
Clarissa.”

Now Neil was the one looking shifty. “Yeah. I want to make sure I’m not here if she comes back.”

I crossed my arms and watched him. “Uh-huh.”

Chapter Ten

Natasha

That night, I took a long look at the bike and decided that—for once—I didn’t need it. I just slid into bed and let my mind fill with thoughts of Darrell. Sleep took a while to come but I didn’t mind. I had something solid to hang onto as I lay there in the darkness. Something to focus on.

Fantasize about.

....

Some minutes later, my hips strained upwards, my breath ragged as his mouth devoured my breasts, his hands roving over my ass. My fingers were his fingers, on me and in me...
God
...

I fell back against the pillow, sated. I lay there for a second, just relishing the feeling of being a normal girl, of being
happy.

Then my fingers grazed the dressing on my thigh, the rough parallel lines of the scars beneath.

I wasn’t normal. I wasn’t normal at all.

I turned over, staring at the wall. The reality of what I did to myself, and why I did it, hit me like a freight train and I had to dig my nails into my palms to stop me sliding out of control. When it passed, though, it left something unexpected behind. A tiny, twisting thread of hope.

What if this was for real? What if, with him, I
could
be normal? When I was around him, I didn’t seem to panic and slide down towards my memories so much. He anchored me, just as firmly as the punishment of cutting myself—maybe better. Maybe I’d wake up tomorrow and I wouldn’t need the cigarette case.

Maybe.

***

The next morning, I figured I’d better stick to my routine, even if I wasn’t going to cut. Too much change, too soon, couldn’t be good, right?

My one deviation was to knock on Mr. Kresinski’s door and pay him my rent—early. He was overjoyed at not having to chase me, and I figured it would buy me some slack if things went wrong in the future. I had no idea how long the arrangement with Darrell was going to last—or what it might turn into.

I got to the restroom while it was still empty, then sat there on the toilet seat for ten whole minutes debating whether to do it or not.

I didn’t want to, but then I never
wanted
to. It wasn’t a want; it was a need.

I thought of Darrell and felt like I’d be okay without it.

Then I thought about the corridors. The way everyone would push against me, between classes, not knowing who was in their midst. The long hours of practice, lined up with the other dancers—the
real
dancers, the ones who weren’t fakes. The tension...dear God, the tension of feeling that, at any moment, someone was going to announce what I’d done and everyone would discover the sort of person I really was.

I ripped down my jeans and swabbed at my thigh with an alcohol wipe. When I cut, my vision was blurry with tears and I went deeper than I meant to. Blood swelled and trickled and I swore and sobbed, blotting it with toilet paper. But even though I had to fix it, even though the line was ragged and torn next to all the neat ones, it still worked. I could feel the floor under my feet, feel my breathing returning to normal.

I slapped a dressing over it, looked down at myself and then cried again—big, hot tears. Because I knew that the thing I had with Darrell, whatever it was, would be gone in an instant if he ever found out.

***

By lunchtime I’d got things into some sort of shape in my head. OK, so I had a problem. But I was
functional,
right? I got by. As long as Darrell didn’t find out, everything would be fine. Better than fine. Things could be great.

A little voice inside me told me I was kidding myself, but I crushed it.

The cafeteria at Fenbrook is your standard college eatery: trays of sodden mash potato, unidentifiable gray meat in sauce and wilted greens, long tables, cliques and noise. Only at Fenbrook you’d regularly see dancers in tights and tutus, grabbing a bite between rehearsals. Or a musician with his sax or guitar or violin next to him, watched as carefully as a favorite child. Or actors running lines while they ate, little snatches of Macbeth or Mamma Mia or CSI mixing together.

Clarissa and Jasmine were sitting across from me, which made it feel a little like an interrogation.

“She still hasn’t told me,” Clarissa said to Jasmine, as if this was the cruelest torture possible.

“You still haven’t
told
her?” Jasmine looked imploringly at me.

“Come on, Nat. You’ve had a day of mystery. What happened?” I could see Clarissa wasn’t going to quit. Actually, now I’d had time to work through everything in my head, it’d be good to talk to them.

“He kissed me.”

“
He kissed you
or
you kissed?
” Clarissa asked immediately.