Dangerous Dancer (Dangerous Series Book 1)

by L. P. Rose

  “Fucking hell, Raine,” he screamed. He let go of my hair and literally flung me away from him, my body landed in a heap near the bedroom door. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and raised myself back to my feet, brushing it off as if I was pain free and okay, but the truth was my scalp was throbbing and an instant headache had arrived at full speed making me feel nauseous.

  “My dick is fucking killing me,” he cried. I watched him hop around the bedroom clutching his groin. I smiled as I looked on, finally I’d hurt him, finally I’d caused him pain, finally I had retaliated. It may not have been something to shout from the roof tops, but it was a start and I could feel pride soar through me that for once in my life, I had attacked him back.

  “I’m sorry, Max I thought you liked it rough?” I said, carefully trying to move my hair from my face.

  “God, damn it!” He shrieked as he dropped to his knees and panted heavily. I walked past him and went back into the bathroom as if nothing had happened.

  “Go and get a bag of frozen peas or chips, stick that on your groin, it should help,” I shouted with a smirk as I listened to his deep grunts and gasps for breath. Then it went silent. I poked my head back around the door to see that the spot I’d left him, was now Max free. Noticing the laptop still open on my dressing table I decided to check my emails, it had been two weeks since I’d logged into them.

  Unbeknown to Max, I had enquired about some online journalism courses, I knew I was playing with fire going behind his back but I was stuck in a rut, miserable as sin and lonely as hell. I wanted a life but I wanted a life away from Max. I suppose subconsciously I was already planning my future without him when I enquired for further information. My fingers moved across the keys with speed, continually aware his presence would soon be felt again. My pulse quickened while I sat and watched the circle spin around slowly.

  “Hurry up, you piece of shit,” I grumbled. My nerves became shot hearing him moving around downstairs. Finally, my account sprang to life and I noticed seven new messages. Two weeks I hadn’t logged in and all I had were seven messages. I shook my head ashamed that I had no friends, that I’d lost them all through Max. I noticed the first message was from an unknown sender, I quickly opened it and my heart twisted and sunk as ten photos of Max sprung to life. He was laughing and smiling with a woman stood next to him, but not just any woman, that woman in the emerald green dress, that woman who looked like a goddess stepped straight from out of a painting.

  My eyes glanced from one picture to another as the white light from the computer enveloped me coldly. My body shook and my breaths came in short, sharp pants. Visions of her that night, partially hidden by the shadows, flooded my mind. I looked away from the screen. The bastard was cheating on me all along. I had felt it that night, deep in my gut, the look of panic in his eyes, the look of shock across his face and as my eyes closed and bowed towards my clasped hands, trepidation swelled through me. I heard him mount the stairs, each thud of his feet echoing in my head and my anxiety increased. I blew out a deep breath and opened my eyes, raising them yet again to the shining screen, and that’s when I spotted the last picture.

  Quickly clicking on it to bring up the bigger version, my heart slowed to an unhealthy pace when I noticed the jewelry piece adorning her wrist, the pearl bracelet, the one I thought was for me, the one I should have had.

  “Raine,” he said coming back into the bedroom. A large dark circle was prominent on his groin against the greyness of his sweats.

  Anger filled me as I glanced towards him. I had no right to feel as angry as I did considering I had been enjoying another man’s company, but we hadn’t slept together, we hadn’t exchanged gifts and flaunted ourselves out in public for someone to take photographs of, and those reasons fueled the temperature of rage to turn up a notch as the venom dripped from my tongue. “Why did you lie to me?” I snapped.

  “Lie? Lie about what?” He asked casually.

  “You denied to my face you weren’t seeing another woman,” I growled pushing to my feet.

  “Not this again, Raine please!” He shot back, his hands raked through his blonde locks in exasperation.

  My feet were moving of their own accord, slowly moving towards him, my fists were balled at my sides ready to attack, my breathing was labored and even though anger coursed through my veins, I felt strangely calm. This unnerved me. “You lying bastard,” I screamed. I picked up the bedside lamp and struck him across the face with it. I dropped it straight to the floor and he staggered backwards clutching the side of his head.

  “You fucking bitch,” he roared when his back connected with the wall. “I’m not cheating on you!”

  “You’re a liar, Max! A fucking liar and now I have the proof!” I ran towards the laptop and picked it up, turned it around and showed him the pictures.

  Expecting a look of guilt and silent admittance at being caught to radiate from him as his eyes briefly flickered over the screen, I was surprised to see the complete opposite when his wide eyes that now seemed malicious and sinister, fixed onto my face. He let out a deep laugh, spitting the blood from his mouth and slowly walked towards me. The evilness behind his laugh had my blood running cold and my body to tremble. His face hardened and I dropped the laptop to the floor and edged myself backwards, away from him.

  “I’ll give you that, Raine. Now we are even. But you truly are as stupid as you fucking look,” he sneered lowly.

  He was boxing me into a corner and I realized with great horror that I had nowhere to go as he continued towards me. Before I could catch my breath, I was pinned to the wall by my throat. My nails instantly dug into his sleeved arm as I gasped and tried to claw my way free. I felt him pull me away from the wall, then he slammed me back into it with force causing my breath to fly from my mouth in one sharp grunt.

  “Stop fighting me and listen to me,” he growled into my ear. His next words immobilized me in to submission.

  “That woman in those pictures, the same woman you accused me of eye-fucking last week, the same woman you called a bitch? She is not my mistress, my lover or my girlfriend, she is my fucking daughter!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

  “Your daughter?” I whispered as he let me go. My eyes felt like they were popping from their sockets while his words bounced around in my head. He wandered towards the edge of the bed and dropped himself down, his head falling into his hands.

  “She turned up at the office about a month ago,” he began. I remained emotionless leant against the bedroom wall. “Claiming she was my daughter, her mother being none other than Clarissa Major.”

  I closed my eyes at her name and shook my head. Clarissa had been Max’s high school crush and when they both moved onto college, she finally relented in to Max’s attempts to woo her and they dated, until the day Max took the bar exam and then she just disappeared off the face of the earth. Max spent months trying to find her but he never could, her parents refused to tell him where she was or her reasons for leaving. “And you believed her?” I asked accusingly.

  He scoffed then shook his head, “You know I don’t believe anything without proof, Raine. I threw her out of the office and slammed the door on her, but I couldn’t get her out of my mind, she looks the spitting image of Clarissa.”

  My eyes travelled towards the clock on Max’s side of the bed, it was coming up to 6.45pm and all I could think about was getting to my dance lesson, if I was late Nikoli wouldn’t be happy. I was about to suggest we carry on this talk about his so-called daughter later so I could get out of here, but Max had other ideas when his mouth began to move and his dulcet tones hit my hearing again. “She came back to the office three days later, she had sat outside my office for five hours whilst I’d been in court, just sat there waiting for me.”

  I tried to stifle a yawn as I glanced toward the clock again. “So, she is your daughter then?” I pressed urgently.

  “Yes. We had words that day and I decided to get a paternity test done. I got the results two weeks
ago, she’s mine all right,” he said. The words poor bitch threatened to fall from my mouth.

  “How old is she? She looks like she’s my age!”

  He looked up at me and ground his jaw before answering. “She’s twenty.” He sharply stood up with his palms up towards me, “I’m so sorry, I had no idea she existed.”

  My insides churned at the thought of being a step-mother to a girl two years younger than me. If I’d have found this out a few weeks ago, I would have died of embarrassment, especially considering Max was hell bent on ensuring he had the snip before we got married, because he didn’t want children. I went along with it, because I only wanted what he wanted, I was happy when he was happy and I stupidly gave no regard for how I would feel being childless myself years down the line. Now, as I think about it, I’m glad he had the snip, how would I have been able to bring up his child in this kind of environment? How would I ever get away from him if we had of had a child together? I’d always be tied to him until the day I died.

  That’s when I realized, I did want children one day, just not Max’s. “So why now? Why has she suddenly come seeking you out?” I asked. I bit down on my lip and my eyes wandered back to the clock, it was now 6.55pm and my heart dropped, it didn’t look like I’d be getting anywhere near to the dance studio tonight.

  “Clarissa had told her I died when she was little, by all accounts I wasn’t worthy enough to be informed she was carrying my child, or be involved in her life, physically or financially,” he grumbled. He started to pace up and down the bedroom. “Her mother died, six months ago, she had a heart attack. When Shona began going through her mother’s things she came across a load of photos of us together and love notes we had written along with a letter Clarissa had typed up outlining all her father’s details. Her grandparents confirmed everything.”

  I pushed away from the wall and took a seat at the dressing table to look at my neck, it was still burning and I knew there would be marks in the morning. “So why all the secrecy and lies? Why didn’t you tell me who she was last week when she was at your business function?” I asked, pulling out a silk scarf from the bottom drawer and dangling it around the back of my neck.

  “This has been hard enough for me to deal with, you know how I felt about kids, I didn’t want them! I needed to get my own head around it before I had to tell you and then deal with your meltdown over it!” He snapped.

  I turned to face him and narrowed my eye’s as a scoff of disbelief flew from my lips. “My meltdown? She’s a grown woman, Max, twenty years of age, not a five-year-old child!”

  “I know she’s a grown woman! What, do you think that makes it easier do you, because she is an adult? Of course, it doesn’t, it makes it fucking well worse because I’ve missed absolutely everything! I never had a chance to be a father to her because I knew nothing about her,” he growled, coming to a standstill in front of me. He sighed and dropped to his knees, grabbing my hands in to his. “You want the truth? Why I kept it a secret?”

  I pulled my lips in to a thin line and fixated on a spot on the carpet, doing my up most to avoid his eyes. “I wanted to get to know her on a one-on-one basis before I sprung her on you. I imagine it wouldn’t be easy finding out you’re a step-mother to a woman two years younger than yourself…” He sighed and trailed off, resting his head on my lap.

  I knew what was coming. The begging, the apologies then it would be the roll on the bed before he would act like nothing had happened.

  But not this time. I pushed his head from my lap and yanked my hands away as I stood up. “Do you have the proof, that she’s your daughter?” I caught the shrill of the house phone ringing out on the landing and I swiftly turned to check the clock. Ten past seven. I had a gut feeling it was Petra wanting to know why I hadn’t turned up. I went to walk towards the bedroom door when I felt Max’s hand grab my wrist.

  “Leave it, we have things to talk about,” he said quietly, gently trying to coax me back in to the room.

  “The proof?” I snapped. My patience was beginning to wear thin, my anxiety at not being at dance class was starting to build within and I had an unnerving feeling that if I didn’t make some form of contact with Petra, and soon, either she or Nikoli would turn up at the house and that’s the last thing I needed.

  Silently, he turned away from me and headed towards our large, framed wedding photograph adorning the opposite wall. Pulling back the frame he revealed the safe, the safe that I was never privy to the combination to. Until now. He turned around and instinctively I diverted my attention to my nails, once he turned back towards the safe, I took a small side step to the left and clearly watched him type in the numbers 2, 11, 15. The first two numbers being my birthday and the last number being the year we got married.

  I smiled to myself as I sidestepped back to my original spot. I knew he kept cash in there and I was going to make sure that when I walked out on him, the contents of that safe would be going with me. The phone rang again as he slammed the safe door shut and replaced the photograph. “Maybe I should get that,” I said sternly.

  He shook his head as he walked towards me holding out an envelope, “I’ve said leave it once, I don’t like repeating myself.” He thrust the envelope towards me.

  Snatching it from his hand I quickly pulled out the contents and scanned my eyes over the paternity test. I nodded and rammed it back in the envelope then pushed it into his chest. “Why did you let her flaunt herself at your function? Let her lurk around in the shadows taunting me? Then slap me for calling you out on the looks that passed between you, if all she is, is your daughter?” I was aware that my tone was high-pitched and laced with anger, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care anymore. “Then you buy a pearl bracelet, that I, your wife, would somehow stupidly mistake as a gift for me to then find that my actual gift was a shit $10 book token. Let’s not also forget your denial at seeing her, you had the chance to tell me who she really was, but you selfishly withheld that piece of information. Tell me, Max do I mean that little to you to not know who she really was?” I snarled as I came to a standstill in front of him, my hands gripping on to my hips to prevent them from doing something stupid.

  I heard the phone ring again and this time I bolted from the room and raced towards it. “Hello?” I gasped because Max was coming up right behind me.

  “Tell me, Raine you’re safe?” Came the panicked voice of Nikoli.

  “I told you to leave it!” Shouted Max.

  “Myshka, I’m at the end of the road. Get out of the house…” I faintly heard him say as Max tried to grapple the receiver out of my hand. Pushing his hands away I slammed it back down.

  “Who was it?” He asked, cocking his head to one side and smirking.

  “If you must know, it was Gleb. I haven’t shown for dance class and he was doing a roll call, obviously, I didn’t get chance to speak before you came charging towards me like an over-bearing father!”

  My heart was wild in my chest at hearing Nikoli’s voice, but it was more for the fact that Max could have heard him call me his pet name or say he was at the end of the road. As I defiantly held Max’s stern gaze, refusing to look away and refusing to shrink, there was a delicious moment where his face washed blank with confusion, like his brain couldn’t turn fast enough to take in my insolence.

  “You think I act like your father?” He whispered.

  “No, I don’t think so. I know you do,” I retorted. I felt like a student in class back-chatting the teacher, like I was rebelling against authority and the look on his face was priceless. I walked back into the bedroom and checked the clock, it was now 7.40pm.

  “Look about what happened with Shona, she’s been begging me to meet you and I’ve refused. She turned up at that function last week uninvited so when I saw her and she smiled, it was a shock. I panicked and then when you challenged me outside, I lost my temper and took it out on you. I know that doesn’t excuse my behavior at all but…”

  Ignoring him, I continued to move around the b
edroom. I had no wishes to stand and listen to the drivel falling from his mouth. He was killing me slowly, bit by bit. Whenever I soared, he would drag me down, he would stir up my anxieties on purpose just to be the one to soothe them away, he would pick fault with everything I said and did. Why was I so stupid not to see it? Was it because I really am stupid? Because I was so far under his spell I couldn’t fight back? Or was I more scared of what would happen if I attempted to leave him than what I would face staying with him?

  “Will you meet her?” I caught him ask as I snapped myself out of my thoughts.

  Grabbing my dance bag from the floor I slung it over my shoulder and walked past him. “Whatever,” I mumbled.

  “Where are you going?” He cried as I raced down the stairs.

  “Dance class, Max. No doubt I’ll have to stay later now, to make up the time I’ve lost.”

  “You aren’t seriously running out on me? We’ve shit to discuss,” he bellowed as he thundered down the stairs after me.

  As I reached the front door I turned to look at him. “I have Ballroom to learn. I’ve three weeks to master this, at your orders. Your discussion will have to wait. God, forbid I should fucking show you up!”

  “Raine Peters! Wait!”

  Slamming the door behind me I ran as fast as my legs could carry me to the bottom of the road, to Nikoli.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

  The back door swung open and with a fleeting glance over my shoulder to check that Max hadn’t followed me, I quickly dove in the back to find myself up close to Jared. “What are you doing here?” Nikoli reversed the car and sped off at high speed.

  “Nice to see you too, Raine!” He replied sarcastically leaning towards me and tugged the seatbelt over my shoulder.

  “I’m not a child,” I chastised. I swatted away his hand and proceeded to buckle myself in the back. My head fell against the seat and I let out a relieved but exasperated sigh.