“Isn’t it straightforward? I practice, I dance, and I get paid?” I leaned back in my seat.
Finally, his green eyes focused on me. “No. Ms. Harper, this isn’t a high school recital. You will be dancing in front of an audience of at least five hundred. Not to mention the millions who watch live—”
“Are you trying to scare me?”
“I’m trying to figure out why someone who was adamant about punishing herself for the rest of her life suddenly thinks she’s capable of dancing in front of millions of people.”
Now he was just being hostile and an asshole.
“It doesn’t matter what my reasons are as long as I can do it. Right?”
“Can you? When did you last dance? You’re out of shape and untrained. On top of which, you do not know any of the music. You’re a good dancer, but I hardly believe you are ready to come out of nowhere and lead a production.”
“Then why am I here?” It took everything I had not to snap at him.
“Because my brother magically thinks he can make you a star in weeks. I don’t think we have time to be experimenting.”
“It seems like you’re in a tight predicament. Shouldn’t you decide so both of us can move on?”
He pulled out a list, placing it in front of me. “This is your diet, and this is your workout regimen for this week. Starting tomorrow, you will try to build your strength.”
The list was of things I could eat, which boiled down to eggs, nuts, chicken, fruit, and veggies.
I remembered this list. I’d hated it when I was young, and I doubly hated it now.
“No wine. No cheese. No bread,” he said, and for a moment it sounded like he was laughing at me.
“You know you thinking this is impossible for me actually makes me want to do it more?” I sat on the edge of my chair.
He sat up as well, leaning forward. “You say that now, but you haven’t started boot camp yet. I’m sure after the first day you will regret this.”
“I’m glad we broke up since you have so little faith in me.”
He clenched his jaw, narrowed his eyes at me. Leaning back, he slid the contract across the desk. “Read it over with someone and then get back to me before—”
I took the pen from his desk and signed it. “Are we done?”
He nodded.
Taking my bag, I got up to leave.
“Felicity—”
“Yes?” I sighed, facing him.
“Don’t say ‘we’ as if it were mutual. You broke up with me for no reason other than the fact that you’re scared to be happy. I want to believe in you, but I also have to run this company. Don’t make me explain it again.”
Ass. “Yes, Mr. Darcy. I’ll do my best.”
When I walked outside Walt was already waiting with Tori, who upon seeing me smiled brightly and gave me hug.
“I’m so excited to be working with you,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“Are you ready? I want to introduce you to the dancers and show you a dry run of everything.”
I followed them, even though my mind was still in that office with Theo.
Theo
I wanted her to do this.
Maybe if she did, she could move on. However, if she failed, what if she ended up worse? On top of that, I couldn’t get over the fact I was gambling one of our biggest nights on her.
Knowing she had followed Walt down to the dance hall, I quietly entered the sound booth overlooking the dancers below. She stood in front, watching as one by one, they went through the dance routine. Walt stopped every so often to show her where her cues were along with where the musicians would be with them on stage. She watched intently, nodding at each move.
“You don’t think she can do it?” Tori asked me.
“It’s my job to be critical.” I found myself smiling when Felicity laughed at something, pointing to a spot on stage. I had missed what she had said, but Walt thought about for a moment before nodding and laughing too.
“How did the other dancers take the news? I’m sure Violet’s understudy was not pleased at all.” From what I remembered being with Violet, she always complained the other dancers gave her a hard time, and that was with her rightfully earning the position as lead. With Felicity, I didn’t doubt there would be some hostility.
“You don’t know Walt.” She smiled proudly, and I almost wanted to roll my eyes. “Everyone knows he doesn’t like egos. He tolerated Violet because of your past and her experience. But everyone else? The first day some girls were complaining, and he told them to leave. I’m sure they were pissed, but they won’t say it in front of her or anywhere they could get caught. This is their chance to.”
“Good. I’ll leave you too it, then.”
“What’s going between you two?”
“Nothing—”
“Liar. You were always the cold and polite Theodore Darcy. You were like a robot even with Violet. Now all of sudden you’re relaxed and being—”
“Tori, there is nothing new about me. Nor is there anything between Ms. Harper and me. She doesn’t know her own feelings.” I muttered the last part under my breath.
“Do you?” She gave me a look I didn’t understand. “Either way, I’m happy she at least made you more human.”
“Make sure to let me know how this is going. Walt might be too blind to see if it’s not the right choice.”
Stepping out, I remembered chasing her down this very same hall a few weeks ago, and she’d told me she would hurt me. I was more annoyed than hurt. But why? She was just a woman.
That wasn’t true.
The more I thought of her and the weeks we’d spent fighting, laughing, screwing, and everything in between, the more I liked her.
Damn it.
Damn her.
And damn myself for getting involved to begin with. I should have just let her go the first time I met her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It’s all coming back to me
Felicity
2:10 a.m.
“GET HELP,” I screamed. “I’m so sorry! Oh god, I’m so sorry.”
She was lying there, light brown hair soaked in blood.
“What did you do?” her little girl yelled, rushing to her mother. She wrapped her arms around her.
“I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to. I never meant to.” Shaking, I took a step back, slipping off the edge of the street corner and falling on my ass. Everyone one was looking at me, looking at me like I was a monster, and I couldn’t move.
I just sat there, watching the little girl cry. Everyone stood in horror at what I had done.
My friends pointed to me and all of sudden, an officer pulled my hands behind my back and cuffed my wrists, taking me to his car. Someone covered the woman.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” I cried out to them.
“You should be the one dead!” the girl yelled. “You should be the one dead! Give me back my mom! DIE! DIE!”
Another officer held her back.
My hands chained, the doors of the police cruiser shut in my face. But I can’t stop hearing it. Die. I should have been the one to die. Everyone knew it. If there was justice in the world, I would be dead. But there wasn’t.
“Felicity… Felicity, wake up!”
For a second I thought it was Theo. But when I opened my eyes, it was Mark and Cleo staring at me. My heart was pounding in my chest, but it was nothing compared to the pain in my head. I was covered in sweat, causing my hair to stick to my face. My hands were numb and shaking. I felt like I couldn’t control my body. I tried to form words, but nothing came out.
“You are okay,” Mark whispered, wrapping his arms around me.
Cleo looked at me sadly, petting my head. “Your nightmares are back.”
I tried not to speak, but a wave of nausea hit me, and I was up out of my bed, running to the bathroom and on my knees, clasping the toilet bowel, emptying my stomach.
It looked like the vomiting was back as well.
Cleo patted my back. “Maybe this dancing thing is a bad idea. It’s been only a few days and you’re back to your old self.”
“Cleo, not now.” Mark placed a glass of water beside me.
Wiping my mouth, I gargled water and spit it out. Flushing the toilet, I laid back onto the ground. The cold tiles felt amazing against the heat of my skin.
“I bet I don’t look sugar baby beautiful now,” I whispered.
“It’s two in the morning. No one but prostitutes look good at this hour,” Cleo joked, laughing, and I lay there for the longest time. Soon my vision became blurred by my own tears. Curling up in a ball, holding on to myself, I sobbed.
I just want to be okay.
8:04 a.m.
According to my workout regimen, every morning I would need to spend at least an hour and a half exercising before practice at noon. That was added to the change in my food. My breakfast was now oatmeal and raisins, then a bag of fruit after my workouts.
The first day I almost died.
The second day I thought I did die.
Now I was sure someone was possessing me. It was the only way I could keep going at this pace.
“Coming!” I yelled. Putting the dish in the sink, I grabbed my mp3 player. Walt came every morning to run with me. The fun, goofy Walt vanished when it came to dancing. He was stricter than I had given him credit for. Every minute I was late was another hundred feet I had to run at the end, and I was already looking at four hundred. It seemed like nothing, but after two hours of working out, it was a new circle in hell. There was no babying me. I was thrown in the deep end once I signed the contract.
“I’m here, I’m here!” I opened the door but jumped back when I saw Theo dressed in track pants and a sleeveless shirt, exposing his arm muscles.
“You’re late,” he stated sternly.
Stunned, I nodded.
“Let’s go.” He moved aside for me to step out.
“Cleo, Mark, I’m leaving!” I yelled, closing the door and running down the stairs, out into summer.
“Did you stretch?” he stopped to ask me.
“Yeah. Walt yelled at me the first day about it. I won’t ever make that mistake again.” I tried to smile, but I couldn’t bring myself to.
He looked at me oddly but didn’t comment on my failed attempt to be cheerful. “You lightly jogged the first day and yesterday, you ran for half the trail. How are you feeling?”
“Sore.”
“Good. Try to run as much as you can today.” He was already ahead of me. My body screamed in protest, but ignoring my aching muscles, I ran right beside him down the street.
Just like Walt, he didn’t speak to me as he ran. Both of them hovered to make sure I wasn’t slacking. I wasn’t sure if it was the music I put on or the fact I knew he was running slowly on purpose that made me so competitive when I was near him. Whatever the reason, I pushed to get in front of him.
He caught up easily. Again I pushed ahead, and again he was right beside me.
He pulled one of my ear buds out. “You do know you can’t outrun me, right?”
“I wasn’t trying to,” I lied.
“So why do you keep running ahead of me?”
“Because you make me feel awkward.” The moment I said it, I regretted it because it made it seem like I wasn’t over him.
He smiled as we turned the corner.
“Don’t get the wrong idea!” I moved out of the way for another runner. “I mean, the fact that you were just next to me and not talking made me feel awkward. I would feel awkward near anyone.”
“Do you ramble for anyone too?” Urgh, that smug look on his face.
“Don’t think you’re special. I’m over—”
“I think I might love you.”
I stopped in my tracks.
“What did you just say?” I whispered.
“I said I think I might love you.”
My mouth dropped open. “You can’t just say something like that completely out of the blue and keep running.”
“Why? My feelings have no bearing on you, remember?” he replied, jogging in place. I was dreaming… wait, wouldn’t it be a nightmare? “But apparently you aren’t completely over me, or else you would have shot me down right now instead of trying to overthink things. Now keep moving. Your legs will get stiff.”
Without another word, I went on. But I couldn’t get those words out of my head. I think I might love you. Just like that he’d said it. Even with an ‘I think I might’ before those two words, shouldn’t there be some buildup to it? Some big dramatic moment? Then again, this wasn’t a movie. And he must have said it to get a reaction out of me. If he had, it was working.
What was worse was how I felt happy. After this morning… after the last couple of mornings, I was sure I wasn’t meant to be with anyone. But I wanted to be. I could accept that much now. I wanted to get myself together on my own, and maybe I wouldn’t be that broken girl anymore.
“Theo,” I said, not looking at him. “After the gala ask me out again.”
“And why should I do that?”
“Because you think you might love me.” I grinned. “And I’ll be one step closer to being a better me.” I took off.
“Felicity!” He chased after me, and I laughed.
I want to be better.
1:04 p.m.
“Again, Felicity. I need you to get up higher. Greg, you need to speed up. You were half a second late. Christina, you look lost, which is odd because you’re doing fine. Dwight, lift Melrose higher on the turn.” Walt shouted instructions as we danced on stage.
I was dripping sweat, and my feet and thighs burned but in a good way. I remembered this feeling, and I hadn’t even realized I had missed it so much. Some things came naturally, like twirling, spins, and lifts, but the jumping—my body felt so much heavier than I remembered from when I was a teenager.
“Five minutes, guys. Catch your breath, then we run on from the top,” Walt yelled, moving over to the group of dancers.
I wanted to fall to the ground and just stay there. However, the only choice I had was to stretch, staring out at the empty seats in the audience. One, because the other dancers didn’t like me. They didn’t say it, but they kept their distance. I could live with that. Two, because if I fell to the floor, there was no way I could get back up. Walt had gone through everything on the first day. Seeing all the seats had made me sick and nervous. I didn’t know if I could do this.
Breathe. Felicity, you got this. You are new to dancing—
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
We all turned to find Violet, who was holding on to her cane, her leg in a brace, glowering at us. She had cut her hair shorter and dyed it lighter too.
“Violet, you shouldn’t be here—”
“It’s bad enough I can’t be on the stage, but you replace me with her!” she screamed at Walt while pointing at me. “Thousands of dancers in this state, and you chose a former waitress. How dare you insult me like this.”
I noticed that more than a few of the other dancers didn’t disagree with her. They scowled at me, shaking their heads.
I knew that look. I saw it in my nightmares.
Theo
I think I might love her. It was all I could think about the last couple of days. Watching her practice. Seeing her laugh and smile, spending hours upon hours pushing herself. I was happy for her and torn at the same time, because I wanted us to go back to Ambler, North Carolina. I wanted to spend more time with her. So this morning I had told Walt not to run with her, that I would go. And I would have been fine just being beside her. Even if she hadn’t said one word, I would have been okay, but I blurted it out: I think I might love you. Once it was out, there was no backtracking. There was nothing I could do but accept what I had said. Seeing her wrestle with it for a moment and then ask for a date, well, that was something even I couldn’t have foreseen.
“Why are you smiling?” Tori asked when I entered the gala venue. The staff was a
lready putting up the banners, changing out the lights. Everything was supposed to be white, gold, and black for the evening.
“I’m not smiling. This place still has a ways to go before Sunday,” I muttered. Every year our annual fundraising gala was held to raise money for the arts. However, it soon became somewhat of fashion show event for celebrities since all of our clients came. The red carpet was madness, everyone dressing up in some sort of costume for the cameras. The number of artists and actresses on stage had been capped at twenty-five this year.
“Well, we kind of have a problem,” Tori muttered.
“What kind of problem?”
“Nothing major. Everything is going according to plan—”
“But?”
“Violet’s here.”
Sighing, I followed her into the stage hall. I should have known Violet wouldn’t be able to let this go. If she couldn’t dance, then she was going to want to control everything else. It was who she was.
“Violet, you have no say about who dances for me!” Walt snapped in her face at the foot of the stage. “I understand you are upset, but every moment I waste trying to tend to your ego is a minute not training them.”
“She isn’t good enough to replace me,” she hissed through her teeth.
“In your mind, who is?”
She clenched the cane in her hands so tightly, I wondered if she was considering using it as a bat.
“Ms. Harper, step forward,” I called, taking a seat in one of the red chairs of the front row. All their attention fell on me. Felicity’s hazel eyes widened, but she put down her water bottle and did as she was asked. There was a first time for everything, it seemed.
“Melrose, you are the understudy, correct?” I asked the redhead standing by Felicity. “Both of you go through the whole first movement for us.”
“Theo, we haven’t—”
“Now.” I cut Walt off, signaling for the music to start.
I noticed the glare and the same look of superiority Violet had given her. Felicity looked more annoyed with me than she did them.
Walt sat beside me, and Violet beside him.