Disciplining the Duchess

I looked around for my lockbreaking savior but he’d disappeared again. “Just get through it, Ashleigh,” said a low voice at my side. The company director. His name was Yves Thibault but I would never dare call him by his first name. The Great Rubio could do such a thing, but not me, never. Mr. Thibault was a great director because he understood his dancers. For instance, he understood that I danced best in a group, at the back of the stage out of the spotlight. I appealed silently for him to intervene and save me, perhaps by canceling the rest of the ballet or delaying it until another principal ballerina could be fetched.

It wasn’t happening.

Rubio stretched on the other side of the stage, oblivious to the drama, deep in performance mode. He wasn’t called The Great Rubio for nothing. Such focus, such artistic brilliance—and the body of a Brazilian Adonis. He’d jeté’d from the slums of Rio de Janiero to the top of the ballet world on pure, glorious talent. Me, I’d scratched my way into the City Ballet corps and that was probably as far as I’d manage to go.

I scurried to my mark, or maybe one of the stagehands pushed me. I heard the cue to enter and looked up at the same moment into Rubio’s dark, wide-set eyes. My inspiration, my idol—this was both a dream and a nightmare. We moved toward each other, arms outstretched. My smile said oh God, help me, while his was more WTF? He fixed his expression first, turning to the audience with a blazing smile. I did the same. We posed, the happy couple, Sleeping Beauty and her prince.

The orchestral cue straightened my spine like the demanding tap of a teacher. I could do this. I’d been dancing for twenty of my twenty-four years. I could do it—I just wasn’t ready to. Rubio swept me forward to center stage and we struck another pose. His whole body tensed, vibrating beside me. I could sense his fury like a palpable thing and it shook my already-faltering confidence. Don’t mess up. Don’t dare, my brain screamed. Don’t do one thing wrong or your idol will hate you forever.

The dance began with a sustained développé facing away from the audience. I had to extend my leg to the front and then lean backward in a very slow, graceful, controlled movement. One wobble, the slightest falter, and I’d fall on my ass in front of four thousand eyes. My balance depended solely on his skill as a partner. My hands were so sweaty I was afraid my fingers would slip, but his grasp tightened like a vise. He centered me, supported me. In those slow, panicked seconds he sent me a message with his stance, his grip, his balance.

I got you. This is yours to fuck up.

Oh God, I was going to fuck it up.