“Come on Soph,” he said, “It’s been nearly six years since Christian. Don’t you think it’s time to get back out there?”
“I am out there.” She lowered her eyes, knowing full well that she’d been avoiding men since her injury.
“When’s the last time you went on a date?”
“He asked for private lessons, Darren, not dinner and a movie,” she snapped, sick of his interrogation.
A look of remorse twisted onto his face and he quickly changed the subject. “Are you still coming with me and Wayne to look at apartments on Saturday?”
She let out a small laugh; she had never been able to stay angry at him for very long. “Of course I’m coming.”
Darren and his husband had been in the same tiny place for the past three years, but the zany blond had finally convinced his more cautious partner that it was time for them to find a new apartment. And thus began the Great Apartment Hunt of 2013. They’d already spent endless hours preparing—making lists of neighborhoods, amenities, schools (for when they had kids, Wayne intoned solemnly, with a twinkle in his eye), and figuring out a price range. Now it was finally time to begin the actual hunting.
“You think I’d miss the two of you in action?” she asked. “You guys are hilarious together. You know Wayne’s the perfect straight man.”
He gasped dramatically. “Don’t even joke!”
She grinned. “You’ve been together for five years, I’m pretty sure he’s all yours.”
“God, I can’t believe it’s been that long. I was just a baby when we met.”
“Because you’re so mature now.” She rolled her eyes playfully.
Darren jogged quickly out to reception, shouting over his shoulder. “I am! I’m looking for an apartment, aren’t I? That’s grown up and responsible.”
“Whatever you say!”
As she moved to the small desk to set up the iPod the door to the studio banged open. Stephen, one of the young boys from her beginners classes, skidded to a halt in front of them. “‘Scuse me, Miss Becker.”
Sophie breathed a sigh of relief at his arrival; she needed to work off the tension she was feeling from all the Henry talk. She winked at the boy. “Save that energy for the lesson, Stephen.”
She was on the floor before she realized what had happened, her students staring down at her with wide, startled eyes. A wave of hot shame washed over her. She’d been demonstrating a simple step, moving backward on her left leg, and it had just buckled beneath her without warning.
“Ms. Becker! Are you alright?” one of the younger girls asked her, panic lacing her words.
Sophie shook herself, anger and mortification burning in her cheeks. Her eyes stung with tears, and she blinked them rapidly back. “I’m fine. Really. I just slipped.” The girl took Sophie’s elbow in one hand and helped her to her feet. She didn’t protest; her knee was throbbing now.
The other students fluttered around her, bobbing nervously. This is what she had feared, the frightened looks and uneasy whispers. She steadied herself against a nearby wall and let out a slight laugh. “It’s okay everyone. Let’s get back to our places and begin again.”
“Soph?”
She sighed at the worried note in Darren’s voice. He must have heard the commotion from reception. Her shoulders slumped. He was going to come in and insist she sit down. Her spine stiffened at the idea of letting her injury get the better of her. But her knee was throbbing.
Sophie forced herself to smile at the ring of anxious faces. “I do feel a little dizzy. Maybe I overdid it today. Darren? Why don’t you finish the class and I’ll take over at the front desk.”
He was at her side in an instant, hand on her shoulder. “Everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” she assured him. “Just a little dizzy, like I said. You think you can handle this?” She motioned to the surrounding group. Darren snorted, rolling his eyes.
“They’re kids, Soph, not a pack of piranha.”
She grinned, pleased that she cajoled him into a lighter mood. He’d be less likely to hound her about the incident later. “Same difference,” she whispered with a wink. He grinned and shooed her toward reception.
Sophie closed the door behind herself, moving slowly toward the front desk. She slid into the chair, her knee a ball of hot pain. Even taking her weight off it didn’t help lessen the pulsing ache. She gritted her teeth, taking deep, even breaths, and squeezed her eyes shut.
She was not going to cry. She’d cried enough.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do,” Christian had said, throwing his hands up. “I can’t actually carry you through a performance, Soph.”
It was the second rehearsal since the doctor’s had proclaimed her healed. Or rather “as healed as she was going to get.” She reached for Christian, drawing him back into her embrace. “I’m just a little stiff, Chris. It’ll get better, I promise. With the physical therapy and practice.”
His blue eyes were hard, but he curved his arm around her back. “Just go for it. Give me one ‘wow’ moment today, and I’ll have a little more faith.”
She nodded, desperately grateful. She moved when he did, ignoring the stiffness in her knee and throwing herself into the rhythm of the dance. The music pounded in her ears, through her blood. Her breaths were short and hard as she pushed her trembling leg muscles as far as she could. She’d made it through the whole dance, all the ochos and colgadas, heart thundering in her chest. Sweat pricked her brow and slid down her neck, but she’d made it.
They were meant to end with her right leg hooked on his hip, her left carrying her weight. It was dramatic and had a strong visual flare for the judges. She was pressed against him, breasts heaving, as she stared into his eyes. She saw the ice melt from his gaze, saw the same flare of passion that had tumbled them into bed one night in a hotel in Paris when she’d finally come to the end of her resistance. And her heart sang with triumph.
But then she overbalanced. Her left knee wobbled, the atrophied tendons not strong enough to hold her up as she leaned into Christian’s arms. She toppled against him, right leg squeezing his thigh in an attempt to hold on. The heat in his eyes faded as he tried to right their position, but she was too off balance. They both tumbled to the floor.
Hot spikes of agony seemed to stab into the tender flesh of her knee and she cried out. Christian flinched, extricating himself from her and quickly getting to his feet. He didn’t offer her a hand up. “This is ridiculous,” he said bitterly, and then walked away. Sophie sat, sprawled on the floor of the practice studio, and wept
That rehearsal had been a mere few weeks before Christian had informed her that he was leaving her. The horrible thing was, part of her understood.
Dancing had been their shared passion. Even when Christian’s self-involvement and occasional pettiness had grated on her nerves, she had never doubted that he was committed to the dance. And he couldn’t give that up just because she could no longer perform. The part of her that was a dancer didn’t blame him at all for continuing to pursue his dream.
But the part of her that was a woman could never forgive him for loving the dance more than he’d loved her. Her breath hitched, hot tears flooding her eyes and trembling on the edge of her lashes, as she thought about Christian’s fickleness .
“Soph?” Darren’s voice came quietly from behind her. She swiped hurriedly at her eyes and turned to face him, wobbly smile in place.
“Is class over already? That went fast!” she said, feigning pleasant surprise.
Darren put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing. “Everyone’s just packing up. You okay?”
“I’m great,” she chirped. Her nails bit into her palms, the tiny pricks of pain offering her a distraction. Darren crossed his arms, leaned his hip against the desk, and waved absently to the students as they exited.
“Mhmm,” he replied, doubt evident in his tone. “And I just taught twenty kids how to tango in half an hour.”
She hiccuped a short laug
h. “I should let you teach classes more often.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, whatever. Fine. You don’t want to talk about it. Message received. All I’m going to say is—”
The phone rang. Sophie could have kissed the person on the other line. As much as she loved Darren, hearing him bad-mouth Christian wasn’t going to help. She snatched up the receiver and held it to her ear. “Silent Poetry Studio, this is Sophie.”
“Have you thought about my offer?” Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of Henry’s throaty rumble. Darren inclined his head, eyes questioning, but she waved him off.
“Oh, hello,” she said lamely, too caught off guard to address his question. She could hear the scratch of a pen on paper and pictured the gorgeous businessman poised over his desk, a slick suit hugging his muscled form.
“The offer?” he asked again, more insistent this time.
He didn’t sound like he was willing to take no for an answer, but she was still skeptical. Why did he want the lessons to take place at his house? Why did he want lessons at all? “I’m sorry, but I’m too busy with the classes I’m already teaching.”
Darren’s eyebrows shot up in realization and a knowing smile creeped across his face. Sophie shoved at him, biting her lip to keep from giggling at his expression. The scratching of the pen on the other line stopped and turned into a low tapping.
“I’m willing to work around your schedule, Sophie.” An edge had creeped into his voice.
She was surprised by his apparent anger and wavered a little. He seemed to want this badly, but her knee chose that moment to give another sharp throb, and she knew she couldn’t take Henry up on his offer. “No. I’m sorry, it’s just not going to work.”
The clicking sound sped up. “What do you charge for classes?” he demanded.
“It depends, maybe a couple hundred but—”
“I’ll pay a thousand dollars an hour. That should more than cover the cost of your time away from the studio.”
Sophie sucked in a quick breath. She suddenly felt sick with the thought that he was propositioning her—no one would pay that kind of money just for private tango lessons. “Excuse me?” Her voice came out in a squeak.
“You can’t say no to that.”
She swallowed heavily. He was offering a lot of money, and Sophie was not so rich she could just turn up her nose at it. But Henry was wrong. She could say no, and she would. Money like that came with strings attached, and she knew she’d be indebted to him for more than just dance lessons.
“I don’t have time for this, you have my answer,” she said.
There was a moment of silence on the other line before he spoke again. “When you change your mind, call me.”
Sophie chewed her lower lip, aware that his number would be programmed into her caller ID. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
“We’ll see,” he said before hanging up.
Sophie slammed the phone into the receiver and braced herself for Darren’s slew of questions. She knew he was chomping at the bit to ask her what that had been about but she was too angry to talk about it.
He reached for her hand, but she stood and moved cautiously toward the classroom door.
Darren followed, eyes narrow. “What was that about, missy?”
“That,” she said, eyeing the empty classroom, “was about nothing. Just someone wanting me to do some freelancing. But I said no. End of story.”
He crossed his arms again. “Freelance work? And why would you turn that down?”
She shrugged. “No time.” Which was almost true—her only free time was before and after work, her business hours were booked solid. But really she just didn’t know how to tell Darren that the “freelance work” seemed to include more than just private lessons.
Sophie scrolled through the songs on her iPod, looking for some Enya. She found the lilting cadences of the Celtic music relaxing. “I’m going to do some yoga for my knee. You can go ahead and lock the front door on your way out. I’ll get the rest.”
“Are you keeping things from me?” Darren asked, hands on his hips. She unrolled her yoga mat, shaking her head.
“Nothing important.”
He studied her a moment longer and then sighed. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
“Right. Eleven a.m. sharp. The Great Apartment Hunt.” She smiled up at him as she folded herself down onto the mat. He bent and brushed a light kiss on her cheek before leaving.
When she was alone she closed her eyes, adjusting herself into lotus position, and began some deep breathing. She let the quiet of the studio and the light notes of the music wash over her like warm water. She cleared her mind of everything, the spill during class, her earlier thoughts of Christian, even Henry’s offer.
Her third physical therapist was the one who’d suggested she try yoga. In the year since her final surgery she’d regained much of the movement in her knee, and the joint was strong, but her flexibility was severely inhibited. The damaged tendons were not as elastic as they had once been.
She moved out of lotus and rolled onto her stomach, getting into position for Cobra. She kept her eyes closed, concentrating on slowly bending her knee while extending her arms. Her physical therapist had introduced her to a friend who taught yoga and Sophie had been doing it ever since. It helped with the pain, the weakness, and the flexibility, and she doubted she’d be able to teach at all if it hadn’t been for the exercises. But still, she could hardly dance.
Though, that hadn’t been true the other night. Sophie froze in the midst of rolling to her back, realization slamming into her like a fist. It hadn’t occurred to her at the time. She’d been so consumed with her sudden, wild attraction to Henry that all she’d been thinking about was him. Not herself. Not her knee.
Despite his outlandish offer, Sophie still found herself inexplicably attracted to him. She remembered the way she had followed his lead and how her body had acted in a way that had once been instinct. She’d done rulos, cuatros, boleos, even caricias. She hadn’t hesitated to put her weight on her bum knee at all. And she hadn’t faltered, hadn’t fallen. What if he hadn’t been propositioning her? She wondered. He was a good dancer, what if the lessons were really just worth that much to him? She scoffed, knowing how foolish that sounded.
She pushed herself up into bridge pose, squeezing her thighs together.
It had been a fluke. Henry may have been able to make her forget her knee and dance like she wasn’t crippled, but if she had taken him up on his offer it would have been a disaster. She would have floundered sooner rather than later. And whatever he had in mind for after the lessons, well, she couldn’t do that either.
Even if she had imagined it, desired it, she couldn’t be bought.
Chapter Five
She wished she hadn’t worn the skirt. Sophie never wore skirts anymore. Especially not knee-length skirts with a handkerchief hem. She didn’t know what had possessed her this morning. Though the cosmetic surgeons had done wonders, her knee was still scarred. And every step she took briefly bared both knees. She felt as if everyone had been staring at when she walked to Darren and Wayne’s first apartment showing.
No one was, of course. She was being ridiculous. She knew that. Still, she had to keep herself from turning around and going home so she could change. But when she showed up at the apartment she saw how excited her friends were, and she knew she was being selfish. Besides, the apartment showings would help keep her mind off Henry.
She had dreamt about him last night, about the dance they’d shared in the studio. It hadn’t ended there, though. In her dream, Darren hadn’t interrupted them. The kiss had happened. And then some. Sophie shivered, remembering the vivid visual of a primal, dark eyed Henry taking her from behind while she clutched the ballet bar and watched him move against her in the floor to ceiling mirror. Her anger at him only seemed to fuel her desire.
“How many square feet is this Cindy?” Wayne’s voice snapped Sophie from her thoughts. She looke
d around the apartment they were standing in, taking in its low ceilings and fading paint job. She knew Darren probably hated it.
“This unit is seven hundred square feet. Only the one bedroom, but it’s big. Fully furnished throughout. And as you can see,” she stepped aside with a flourish, showcasing the sliding glass doors to the terrace, “it’s got a great view.”
The apartment’s door opened into the wide living room space, and to the right was the hallway that lead back to the bathroom and the bedroom. Darren was disappearing down it, dragging his fingers along the wall beside him.
“And how much was this one, again?” Wayne asked, frowning down at the listing in his hand as he trailed Darren. Wayne was a broad, brown-haired, serious man while Darren was lithe, blond, and gregarious, but the two seemed to fit together like puzzle pieces.
“Fifteen hundred a month. Well within your price range,” Cindy replied.
Sophie opened the refrigerator, inspecting it for mold or mildew as Wayne and Darren wandered in and out of the rooms, whispering to one another about the pros and cons of the space.
“So?” Sophie flinched at the way Cindy drew the word out into multiple syllables. She had to admit though, it matched the woman perfectly. She was curvy, blonde, Southern, and wearing a power suit in lemon yellow. “What do we think?”
Darren chewed his lip. “It’s cute...” he trailed off, glancing around the living room and out toward the balcony.
“But,” Wayne continued for him, “we have some concerns about the size. We were really hoping for a two bedroom place.”
Cindy twisted her face. “I’m sorry Mr. Albright but the best properties in your price range are one bedrooms.” She tapped a long nailed finger against her lower lip. “If you’d like, though, I could show you a few places just a tad more pricey. There’s a lovely one on the Upper West Side that’s perfect. Just over a thousand square feet, communal terrace, gorgeous views, a fireplace. It’s only a scootch out of your range.” She held up her thumb and forefinger, less than an inch apart, indicating her definition of a ‘scootch’.
One Last Dance Page 3