Break

Her face reveals no emotion, but she comes in to give me a bullshit air kiss, her hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for the flowers.”

“Don’t touch me, Tayla,” I warn.

Her hand drops instantly. “Thank you, Dash. For caring.”

I pin her with my stare. “I don’t care.”

“Oh,” she whispers, her head cast down like a pathetic puppy.

Jesus, when did she get so fucking pathetic? The girl I used to know had fight in her. She used to laugh and smile and talk back. She didn’t let the assholes of the world get her down. I thought this game would be a challenge, but she’s already fucking broken. Me breaking her more won’t help anything. The only revenge that will give me any kind of satisfaction at this point is if I fuck her until neither of us can see straight. Fuck it. Maybe she’s bluffing.

“Is this what you want? Is this why you did everything you fucking did? Because this is the bullshit life you want?”

“What do you mean?”

“What happened to passion? What happened to changing the entire world of dance? That’s what we’re supposed to do, remember? You weren’t supposed to turn into some robot anorexic ballerina who hates herself. You’re exactly like her. You weren’t gonna be like her.”

Her head shoots up. For the first time since I’ve been back, I see fire in her eyes instead of that lifeless, dead look she’s been sporting. I almost see the girl I used to know, the sunshine to all my darkness for a few weeks before it all went downhill.

“That person died a long time ago, Dash. She cried herself to sleep every night for years because the only person she believed gave a fuck about her left and disappeared.”

She takes a step closer, limiting the distance between us, and stabs me in the chest with her finger. “You left me. You have no right to come back here and demand anything from me. You can go fuck yourself. And stay the fuck away from me.”

“Does that mean I’m no longer invited to your party?”

“Fuck you!” she yells before sprinting up the stairs.

Her words are like daggers to my heart and razors to my brain. We’re too much alike to play this game.

“I’m out. See you around, Sam,” I say to no one.

I walk across the hallway, sans bouquet of congratulatory roses with the sweet taste of strawberries and revenge on my lips. This is going to be easier than I thought. The cat unwittingly moved right into the mouse’s fucking apartment building.

Chapter Eleven

Natayla

“You okay? You look far away,” Lance asks. He’s holding Champagne coupes in his hands and passes me one.

“I’m fine. Just thinking about my schedule. It’s about to get crazy with Crestview and Ballet Arts competing for rehearsal time.”

He places his arm on my shoulders, bringing me to him, and gently squeezes, “You’ve got this, babe. If anyone knows how to kill an insane schedule, it’s you.”

I smile at him sweetly, moving my shoulders to pry his fingers off and put them anywhere else other than on me. Lance is a champion at delivering underhanded insults as compliments, almost as good as my mother. Lance isn’t a dancer. He’s a theatre guy, through and through but cannot dance worth a busked dime on the subway platform. And even though I’ve never told him, men who can’t dance are a huge turn-off for me. Men who can dance, on the other hand? Street styles, Breakers, Salsa, all of it is extremely sexy to me. What turns me on is a man who can partner well with me.

I take a sip of Champagne while some of Mother’s patrons of the arts guests give me air kisses of congratulations and tell me they’ve bought season tickets, hoping to see me snatch all the leads.

Lance is good at this part. The firm handshakes, the empty smiles, the name-dropping and forced pleasantries. On the other hand, I was not made for this kind of spotlight. I’m exhausted after only twenty minutes of standing by the French doors in the parlor after guests drop their coats with Shareen’s staff for the evening. I love to dance, but I could do without all the politics.

But I recklessly keep sipping bubbly on an empty stomach, and it has everything to do with the smooth-dancing, force-feeding, sexy-as-fuck maniac who slammed back into my life like a wrecking ball less than forty-eight hours ago. He knows all my secrets, and that makes me feel like he’s the only person on this planet who knows the real me.

Lance takes two more coupes from the tray proffered by a waiter and hands one to me. Maybe he doesn’t know that the only thing I’ve eaten today was a handful of carrot and celery sticks and a thermos full of bone broth at exactly noon.