Only the Brave Try Ballet

by Stefanie London

  Elise jumped out of the desk chair, allowing Jasmine to sit, but retained control of the mouse. The search engine spat out a seemingly endless amount of ‘Grant Farley’ links. The images that popped up showed shots of Grant in action on the football pitch, as well as a younger Grant with a bounty of beautiful girls on his arm—she recognised two of them as Australian models on the rise.

  Seeing photos of famous men and their trophy women made her stomach churn. It was a little too close to home.

  ‘Did you see that?’ Elise leaned in, clicking on one of the photos.

  Red carpet shots from the previous year’s Brownlow Medal sent shivers down Jasmine’s spine. The man certainly scrubbed up well in a suit. One blonde woman came up with him repeatedly—captions identified her as Chelsea Aims, fiancée of Grant Farley.

  Jasmine raised an eyebrow. This was the first she’d heard of him having a fiancée. Looking more closely at the pictures, she could see the photos featuring Chelsea were old. Grant’s face showed the youthful glow of a young man in his prime. He lacked the serious, square-jawed look he now wore permanently, and he seemed lighter...happier.

  When the photos of Chelsea stopped there were a few of Grant suited up with a brooding stare—much closer to the way he looked today—standing alone on the red carpet.

  Elise flicked over the articles section of the search engine. There was a link to the official Jaguars website, and a few articles referencing him when the Jaguars merger had taken place. But one headline stood out in particular: Jaguars Star Grant Farley Falls from Grace.

  ‘Oooh, what’s this?’ Elise clicked on the link and both girls waited with bated breath.

  As a picture of a very bleary-eyed Grant appeared on the screen, Jasmine sucked in a breath. Holding his hand up in an attempt to cover his face, though doing a poor job of it, Grant appeared to be stumbling, and there was a smear of something red across his fitted white T-shirt.

  Farther down there was another picture of him, looking very sombre, wearing a dark suit and an open-necked shirt. The caption read: ‘Grant Farley leaves court in Melbourne after pleading not guilty to assault charges.’

  The article detailed the incident: a bar fight that had ended up with two men being hospitalised. It mentioned that the assault charges had been dropped after the matter had been settled out of court, which could only be code for using his money to make his problems go away.

  ‘That doesn’t sound like him at all.’

  Jasmine couldn’t keep the quiver out of her voice. The article showed a person very different from the tender, passionate man she’d come to know. Sure, he was a typical football player—headstrong and iron-willed—but she couldn’t imagine him beating two men to a pulp and then paying them off.

  It didn’t sound right. Yet she couldn’t deny the heaviness that settled in the pit of her stomach like lead. Perhaps it was a good thing they had decided on a one-night-only rule. She’d already been with a man who thought he could buy his way out of anything, and he’d ended up treating her like another investment.

  * * *

  With the end of the football season looming, Grant was more focused than ever. This was his opportunity to put the past behind him. He’d cleaned himself up, kept off the partying and was playing the best footy of his life. As much as he hated to admit it, the ballet was doing him a world of good...and not only due to the magical touch of one very sexy ballet teacher.

  The weeks since he’d slept with Jasmine had gone by in a blur. He’d missed a few lessons as the preparation for footy finals increased. It was the last week of August and they were only a month out from Grand Final. The Jaguars had been hovering around the top of the ladder for the last three rounds—not a first in the club’s history but certainly a first in the past few years.

  He wanted to be a part of them making the Grand Final for the first time in the past decade, and he knew it was his moment to show the team and the fans that he was a changed man. That he’d moved on from his mistakes and that he could be the player they all wanted him to be. He was so close he could taste it.

  Jasmine had been distracted too. She seemed absent during their lessons but he assumed she was as focused on recovering from her injury and other ballet stuff as he was on his footy. Though it hadn’t stopped him thinking about revisiting their fantasy-provoking scorcher of a night together.

  Today he watched as she wrapped up her lesson with some of her older students, her beautiful face pulled into the look of concentration he now knew well. She clapped her hands together and gave a pep talk to the group.

  ‘Well done, ladies,’ he said as he entered the studio, passing the students on their way out.

  One winked at him and the other women tittered amongst themselves, blushing under his praise. At one point he would have enjoyed the blatant adoration, but now his tastes seemed to run more to the snarky sting of a former ballerina with a soft, sensual centre.

  ‘Your effect on women is sickening,’ Jasmine drawled, standing with her hands on her hips.

  That’s more like it. His heart kicked up a notch and his lips were unable to resist a smile.

  ‘I don’t do it on purpose,’ he replied, leaning against the barre and cocking his head to one side.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Tell me you don’t love it. You relish the sex-symbol status.’

  Ha! She made it sound as if he was one of those vain sportsmen who supplemented their incomes by modelling jocks or something ridiculous like that. He’d even turned down a spot in a Most Eligible Bachelor competition because he hated all the attention. These days if people were paying attention to him he wanted it to be because of his footy. Nothing else.

  ‘I’m a country boy.’ He thrust a hand through his hair, his fingers pushing the strands away from his face. ‘I don’t see myself as a sex symbol.’

  The words sounded weird coming from his mouth—unnatural. In his experience girls were after more than looks. What mattered were important three-letter acronyms like VIP and MVP, and lots of zeros on your bank statement. Looks were a bonus.

  ‘But you are,’ she replied, her tone cool. ‘A quick internet search will tell you that.’

  ‘Have you been stalking me?’ He laughed. The thought of her poring over images of him online seemed ridiculous.

  Never mind the fact that he’d done exactly the same thing. He’d trawled through photos of her dancing en pointe and even found a video of one of her Australian Ballet performances and watched it, enraptured.

  ‘It’s not stalking if you’re looking up someone famous.’

  His heart stilled. What had she been looking for? A mask of calm slipped over his face. As he’d said to her before, fame was an unfortunate by-product of his career. A necessary evil. Something he put up with because it was part of the deal.

  In truth, after the paparazzi hell he’d endured as part of the court proceedings he’d be happy never to see another camera again. But life didn’t work that way, and sometimes you had to slap a smile on your face even when you wanted to drop an F-bomb. Swallowing, he forced himself to relax. This was Jasmine, not some fame-hungry groupie.

  ‘You know I’d prefer to play footy without the added extras.’ He walked over to the barre and got himself ready for their warm-up. ‘Although there are some perks to the celebrity aspect.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like the fact that I get to take dates along to fancy functions,’ he said, keeping his tone even. ‘You should come along to one.’

  He hadn’t planned on using the invitation as a test to see what her intentions were, but when she’d said she’d been looking him up online a funny feeling had settled in his stomach. He wanted so desperately for her to be the woman he’d come to know—for her to be so very different from all the women he’d been with before.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Her eyes widened.


  ‘The Brownlow is coming up.’ He leant forwards, watching her intently. ‘I want you to come with me.’

  Jasmine stood there, her mouth agape. He’d gone stag in the past, but it had usually ended up with the other WAGs pairing him with one of their friends/sisters/cousins. They were seldom good company and always in it for the chance to get their picture in the papers. Taking Jasmine would mean having a shield against those annoying matchmaking offers, and he’d have the pleasure of seeing her dressed up to the nines. Something told him that she’d outshine every other woman there by a mile.

  Yeah, he wanted this firecracker with her smart mouth and gorgeous smile by his side all night. He could only hope that she’d want to be by his side for the person he was—not for the other reasons people usually gravitated towards him.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She shook her head, her dark brows pulling together. ‘I’m not the red-carpet type.’

  He stepped forwards, closing the space between them. ‘It’s all very glamorous.’

  Mixed emotions churned in his gut. On one hand the fact that she hadn’t jumped at the invitation meant she wasn’t after the limelight. On the other hand he hadn’t expected her to decline his invitation flat-out.

  Wasn’t it every girl’s dream to frock up and walk down a red carpet? He’d even called in a favour with an old acquaintance who was a designer. The gown was wrapped up in a huge box hidden in his linen closet with a note he’d written himself. That was a first—notes and cards and gifts were way out of his MO.

  Usually the girl would ask for something before he’d even had the chance to offer. Perhaps Jasmine was perfect for him. He frowned to himself.

  ‘Why don’t you take someone from your family?’

  Her voice brought him back to the present.

  ‘I want you.’

  She drew her lower lip between her teeth. She could block him out with a lowering of her thick dark lashes if she liked, but he’d seen the heat that flared bright and brilliant. He’d seen the black of her pupils expand at his words I want you.

  ‘Jasmine, I could take anyone. I bet if I asked any of the teachers from this ballet school they would come with me at the drop of a hat—Elise included.’

  She frowned. ‘Your point?’

  ‘I don’t want anyone else.’ He brushed his hand down the length of her arm, sucking in a breath at the way goosebumps rippled along her skin at his touch. ‘I want you to come with me. I plan to win, and when I do I want you to help me celebrate. Think about it.’

  ‘Fine.’ She smiled stiffly, the curve of her lips a mismatch with the guarded expression in her eyes.

  She crossed her arms on her chest, guarding herself. Something was amiss. What was going on with Jasmine Bell?

  ELEVEN

  Jasmine was stunned, he’d asked her—no, told her—she should be his date to the Brownlow. This wasn’t in line with their one-night-only rule, and frankly the idea of having cameras shoved in her face while they posed on the red carpet turned her stomach. The Brownlow was the biggest off-field football event of the year, and even as a complete sports dunce she was well aware of the event’s prestige.

  Did he want her as arm candy? She’d been there, done that. Having Kyle parade her around like a piece of designer luggage had been bad enough, but at least back then there had been something in it for her—a chance to further her career. Now Grant wanted her to do the same thing. Why? Surely he had his pick of the pretty young things who normally attended those events. They were the type of girls who craved attention, with their hair extensions and fake tans, the ones happy to have their photo taken.

  Girls not like her.

  There was no way she’d accept his offer. She’d figure out a way to let him down gently, and until then she’d keep it one hundred per cent professional between them. There had been a tiny part of her that had entertained the idea of seeing Grant again, but his world was too different from hers. It had all the hallmarks of what she’d hated about her former life.

  They stood at the barre, their bodies close as they worked through the warm-up. Jasmine had been keeping her distance from Grant, yet every time she was near him her body rebelled. The tips of her fingers tingled with the need to touch, to explore. Her blood pulsed harder when he was around, and her heart fluttered at the mere signal of his presence.

  But she knew it was the wrong path for her. She’d promised herself when she left the Australian Ballet that her days of being someone else’s puppet were over. She wasn’t sure what it was that incited men to try to control her, tell her what to do. That was why it was easier to stay away.

  Then she could speak for herself. She could be her own person. Unfortunately it also meant she couldn’t be a part of Grant’s world.

  ‘I read an interesting article about you,’ she said.

  ‘There’s a lot of stuff on the internet.’ He shrugged.

  She could tell that beneath the blasé gesture he was hiding his true emotions and immediately jumping on the defensive. The relaxed stance didn’t match the hard set of his jaw, nor the acute focus of his light blue eyes.

  ‘Was it anything of particular interest?’ he asked.

  She paused for a second. Why was she even bringing this up? She knew that the majority of news relating to famous people was pure fiction. Did she believe that Grant was the person the gossip site had made him out to be?

  No, she didn’t believe it. But something deep within her compelled her to find out the truth. She had to know. Perhaps if she had another reason to push him away she’d be able to keep her distance. Lord knew she needed help in that department.

  ‘The one about you paying off those guys you got in a fight with.’ She knew the moment she saw him stiffen that she’d hit a sore spot.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I saw the pictures of you leaving court...’

  Fire blazed in his eyes and she thought for a moment that he might scream at her. But his voice came out deadly calm.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I want to know your side of the story.’

  He raked a hand through his hair and stared through her. He had asked so many questions of her, pressed her about her dancing. Didn’t she deserve to know him too?

  The studio was so silent she could hear the cars driving on the rain-slicked road outside.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Do I need a reason? I don’t believe the things they said—’

  ‘I paid them off.’ The words were sharper than a blade. ‘I did it.’

  She shook her head. ‘There’s more to it than that.’

  ‘How would you know?’ He seemed to sneer at her, his features fixed into a frightening mask of calm.

  ‘Because I know you, Grant. You’re not like that.’

  His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he choked the words out. ‘I did it.’

  ‘You hit them?’

  ‘No.’ The mask was slipping, cracks showing through to the vulnerability he’d no doubt become accustomed to hiding. ‘I was too drunk out of my mind to even get past the first swing in that fight.’

  ‘I knew it.’

  ‘But I did pay them.’

  ‘Why did you pay them if you didn’t hit them?’ She shook her head. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Because the club wanted it to go away as quickly as possible. We couldn’t take the bad press —not when we’d struggled through the past few years. We were losing sponsors...’

  Jasmine’s stomach pitched from side to side.

  He continued. ‘They’d rather let me appear to be the guilty party than risk damage to the club. There’s a good chance I would have been cleared, based on the witness accounts and footage from the pub security cameras, but they didn’t want to risk the media crawling all over us during the court case if it dr
agged on.’

  He glowered at her, his mouth pulled tight into a line. Had she pushed too far? No, she deserved to know. They were friends...sort of.

  ‘I’m not perfect—far from it. But I’m not violent.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then why did you ask?’ His expression softened, the defences slipping from him as his body relaxed.

  ‘I wanted to hear the truth. I wanted to...get to know you.’ She bit down on her lip, confused by the emotions running around in her.

  ‘You do know me.’ He uncrossed his arms.

  ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I know about you, but you seem to do all the asking when we’re together. I feel like you know me but I don’t know you. I wanted to know the real you.’

  ‘Fame is hard work,’ he said with a sad smile. ‘It makes you wary of anyone asking questions. I guess I’ve become a little more defensive than I realised.’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘I imagine it’s the same with ballet,’ he said, taking a step towards her. ‘Didn’t you want to dance and forget about everything else?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She nodded.

  Her whole body tingled with awareness as he closed the gap between them. On their first ballet lesson she’d seen a beef-head football player who thought he was a god. Now she saw a complex, intelligent, misunderstood man. No god, just a man.

  ‘I was a simple kid from the country who loved playing footy.’

  ‘You were dazzled by the big smoke?’

  ‘Damn straight.’ He reached for her, his large hand wrapping around her smaller one. ‘I was dazzled by all the beautiful girls.’

  ‘You’re full of it,’ she whispered.

  Energy crackled between them. The rest of the world fell away as he pulled her to him.

  ‘I left my family behind. I left a quiet, dull life full of expectation and burden. Everything here was exciting and I was like a kid in a candy store.’

  ‘And you ate too much candy.’ She could feel it. The ease with which he’d been swept up by his success was believable and forgivable.