Sketches done, she slumped back to the bed. She’d shower in the morning. And since she didn’t start work till two the next day, she’d have time to attend a couple of classes of her own—maybe a contemporary class in South Yarra, or trapeze in that converted warehouse in Notting Hill. Either way she’d kill it. Because look out, world, Nadia Kent was back, baby.
Despite the late hour, the last whispers of adrenalin still pulsed through her system, so she grabbed her TV remote and scrolled through the movies on her hard drive till she found what she was looking for.
The strains of Be My Baby buzzed from the dodgy speakers in her second-hand TV, and grainy black and white dancers writhed on the screen. When Patrick Swayze’s name loomed in that sexy pink font, Nadia tucked herself under her covers and sighed.
Yep, things were still on track. So long as she didn’t do anything stupid. Again.
Sliding into sleep, she couldn’t be sure if it was her mother’s voice she’d heard at the last, or her own.
TWO
“So how was it? Was it amazing? Aren’t you glad I made you go?”
Ryder pressed the phone harder to one ear to better hear Sam, and plugged a finger in his other ear to ward off the sounds of the construction site. “It was...” Excruciating. Hot. A lesson in extreme—patience. He tugged his hard hat lower over his forehead, and growled, “It was fine.”
“Told you. And how cool is the studio? And the ceilings. I knew you’d love the ceilings.”
No need to fudge the truth there. The beams were stunning. Old school. The exact kind of feature he’d once upon a time have sold his soul to study. He glanced about the modern web of metal spikes and cold concrete slabs around him, the foundations of what would in many months be a sleek, silver, skyscraping tower—as far from the slumped thick red-brick building as architecturally possible.
His foreman waved a torch in his direction, letting him know the group he was there to meet—and who were about to make his day go from long to interminable—had arrived. Ryder tilted his chin in acknowledgement, holding up his finger to say he’d be a minute.
“She was a dancer,” Sam was saying. “A real one. A Sky High one.”
Struggling to picture sultry Nadia Kent in a pink tutu and a bun, Ryder asked, “Nadia’s a ballerina?”
A pause, then, “No-o-o. I told you. Sky High.”
“Sam, just for a moment, treat me as if I am an Australian human male and speak plain English.”
“Man, you need to get out more. Sky High is huge. A dance extravaganza. A kind of burlesque meets Burn the Floor meets Cirque du Soleil; all superb special effects and crazy-talented dancers. In Vegas!”
Ryder’s focus converged until it was entirely on his sister’s voice. “Sam, do you have a showgirl teaching your wedding party how to dance?”
“Oh, calm down. She wasn’t working some dive bar off the strip.”
And yet, picturing Nadia in fishnets, towering high heels and cleverly positioned peacock feathers wasn’t difficult at all. Her pale skin glowing in the dim light, dishevelled waves trailing down her bare back, those lean calves kicking, twirling, hooking... Ryder closed his eyes and pressed his thumb into his temple.
“She’s so graceful. And flexible,” Sam continued, clearly oblivious to his internal struggle. “She was warming up the other night when we came in and she can pull her leg up so far behind her she can touch her nose!”
Ryder’s eyes snapped open to search for a speedy exit from the conversation at hand. He had every intention of shrugging off the spark between them for Sam’s sake, but the kid sure wasn’t helping any.
Sam sighed down the line. “If I had half her talent, half her confidence, half her sex appeal—”
“Okay then,” Ryder said, loud enough to turn heads. A few of his tradies laughed before getting back to nailing, laying pipe, measuring, chatting about the previous night’s TV. “You like her. That’s great. I’m taking lessons, as you wanted. Let’s leave it there.”
Sam might have missed his earlier silence, but he read Sam’s loud and clear. He swore beneath his breath as the hairs on the back of his neck sprang up in self-defence.
Sam’s voice was an octave lower as she said, “She’s single, you know.”
“Got to go,” Ryder growled. “My foreman’s jabbing a finger at his watch so vigorously he’s going to pull a muscle.”
With that he rang off. And stared at his phone as if he couldn’t for the life of him remember which pocket he kept it in.