Ballet Shoes and Engine Grease

by Tatiana March

  “Reproduction. Queen Anne. Not all of it is solid wood.”

  “Heavens, Mom,” Crimson muttered under her breath. “You know antiques?”

  “Dolls’ houses,” her mother whispered back. “I want mine to be authentic.”

  Across the table, the lawyer cleared his throat. He looked like Donald Trump after a month on hunger strike. They had already been introduced. Adam Andrews. Limp handshake. It seemed clear to Crimson that the small man was nervous, and not at all happy with the turn of affairs.

  “So, Miss Mills.” He handed back the passport she’d used to prove her identity. “I understand you have been informed that Nicholas Constantine is not willing to—”

  Myrna cut in. “Surely, there is no need to go into anything…irrelevant.”

  The lawyer jerked his head up, like a surprised turtle. Crimson felt his slightly protruding eyes settle on her. Evaluating. Assessing. Something flickered in their dull gray depths. “Perhaps you are right,” he replied, and addressed his next words to her. “Miss Mills, when I provide you a copy of the will, it will be an extract of the relevant portions.”

  Crimson heard her mother exhale in relief.

  Myrna Constantine gave the lawyer a regal nod.

  Something is definitely wrong, Crimson thought, but she couldn’t figure out what. It involved her, and things that were better left unsaid. She brushed aside the thought. Her mother was a loyal, sincere person, able to keep secrets, but she was also naïve and gullible. It might not be too difficult to trick her into revealing what they were trying to hide.

  The lawyer continued, in his annoying way of turning questions into statements. “So, Miss Mills, I understand that you have been informed of your inheritance?”

  “I’ve been told that Uncle Stephan left me sixty percent of his company, but I have no idea why. Mother and Myrna—” She sent a quick sideways glance and a tiny smile to Mrs. Constantine, to prove they were on first name terms “—will each get twenty percent.”

  Adam Andrews took down his horn rimmed glasses and polished them with a silky polka dot cloth he pulled from his breast pocket. “Perhaps your stepfather felt that you were the best person to leave his fortune to,” he suggested. “That is the usual reason.”

  “Or he wanted to annoy someone else by not leaving it to them.”

  The lawyer restored his glasses on his nose, dragging out the gesture to cover up his reaction to her comment. Crimson got the impression that he wavered between respect and disapproval at her bluntness.

  “Do you have any business skills?” he asked.

  “Business skills?” She emitted an unladylike chortle. “No. I’m a ballet dancer.”

  He spoke slowly, as if lecturing at an uncooperative child. “In which case, have you given any thought as to how you will satisfy the condition of running the business until the end of the financial year without a decline in profits?”

  “What?” Crimson swiveled to the right to glare at her mother. Then she swung to the left, landing her angry gaze on Myrna Constantine. Both women tried to shrink in their seats. Myrna, with her slender frame and discreet clothing managed it better than Esmeralda with her bulk encased in red.

  “Did you two know about this?” Crimson demanded.

  Her mother squirmed in her seat. “Honey, don’t fly off the handle.”

  “Crimson, please.” Myrna reached out and dug a set of manicured nails in Crimson’s forearm, as if to stop her from escaping. “We knew about it,” she said in her upper class don’t-argue-with-me tone. “But we felt that Mr. Andrews with his detailed understanding of Stephan’s legal affairs is in better position to explain everything to you.”

  Crimson met the woman’s innocent blue eyes. “Poppycock.”

  It occurred to her how alike the two wives of Stephan Constantine were. Blue eyed blondes. If her mother had grown up with more money and a better sense of nutrition, she might have turned out similar to Myrna Constantine. Crimson thanked heavens for inheriting her father’s brown eyes. Otherwise, she might have felt like a clone, in a bad remake of The Stepford Wives, a town filled with brainless women trained to obey their men.

  “All right,” Myrna admitted. “We chose not to tell you the details.”

  “You lied, you mean.”

  “We omitted to tell you everything we knew.”

  “Fine.” Crimson turned to the lawyer. “Can you tell me the rest?”

  “In order to inherit, you’ll have to run the business until the end of December and show a profit at least in line with the previous financial year. That will be just over seven million dollars before tax. You are not allowed to employ a manager. You must run the business yourself, with the existing management team.”

  “And if I refuse?” she asked. “Or if I fail to make the required profit?”

  “The company will be sold to Ballard Automotive and the proceeds donated to charity.”

  “Good Lord, no,” Myrna cried out.

  “Shit,” Esmeralda muttered.

  Crimson glared at the pair. “Tough luck,” she told them. “Get a job. You’ve had a free ride long enough.”

  “No, no. You don’t understand.” Myrna was wringing her elegant hands together in her lap. “There is...bad blood...between David Ballard and my son...I can’t understand why Stephan would have agreed to the sale...unless he really hated...” She looked up, a bruised look in her pale blue eyes. “Can he really have hated his own son so much...?”

  “Shit,” Crimson heard her mother mutter again. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  So do I, Crimson thought. Uncle Stephan had been fond of practical jokes, the kind that ended up with someone sprawled face down in a puddle of mud. Her palms grew damp, and she discreetly rubbed them against her cotton pants.

  “Who gets to decide what charities?” she asked.

  “Stephan Constantine has already stipulated that,” the skinny little man behind the mahogany desk replied. “He is aware how strongly you feel against discrimination of women in sport. Women are particularly underrepresented in boxing. The entire hundred and fifty million dollars will go to funding boxing academies for women.”

  Her stomach churned. Nausea, jetlag, stress. Her windpipe seemed to close up. “My bag...” Crimson doubled over, rooting in the canvas tote by her feet. She found her inhaler, sat straight again, tipped her head back and squirted a spray of medication into her mouth.

  “What is it, baby?” Her mother jumped out of her seat, bouncing up and down, crowding her, making the choking sensation worse. “Crimson? Honey?”

  “It’s...asthma...I’m...okay.” She drew a few wheezing breaths, one arm stuck out to keep her mother at a distance. “Sorry. I was going to tell you. That’s why I had to quit dancing. The ankle injury was just an excuse. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “So, not telling everything is fine…provided it’s you doing it.” Myrna Constantine’s cool comment rose above Crimson’s panting gasps. She slanted a glance toward the woman and saw one elegant eyebrow rise in a mocking arch.

  She didn’t care. All Crimson could think of was that unless she became an instant business wizard and an expert in luxury cars, one hundred and fifty million dollars would be spent on teaching women how to beat each other’s brains out in front of an audience.

  She could not let that happen.

  Whatever it took, she had to run the company, and succeed.

  Back to Contents

  Chapter Two

  Nick Constantine fumbled at the alarm clock by his bedside. The noise didn’t cease but it went on and on, like a bell going off inside his head. It took him a full minute to realize it was the doorbell. Why hadn’t the porter downstairs called to check with him before letting anyone up?

  He slithered out of bed. Finding his balance, he adjusted the thin cotton pants that rode low on his hips. In an unsteady slouch, he made his way through the hall, to the front door. On every step, nausea lurched in his throat. His head threatened to implode.
/>   What day was it? Yesterday? Tomorrow? Damn if he cared.

  His fumbling hands managed to release the lock. While he waited for his eyes to adjust to the bright light in the corridor, the familiar scent of perfume hit him in the face. Of course. His mother. She lived in the same building and could accost him any time she chose.

  “Nicholas.” Her mouth puckered with distaste as she studied him.

  So, he’d fallen out of favor. Normally, she called him Nick, unless she wanted something, when it was Nicky. Without a word, he stepped aside to let her in. She was wearing beige Chanel, but that didn’t mean it was still the day it had been when he’d left her in the lawyer’s office. His mother had a wardrobe full of designer outfits in neutral colors.

  “Say your piece, and then leave me alone,” he grumbled.

  “You look terrible.”

  “Then don’t hang around watching me.”

  “This is no time to be difficult, Nicky.” She spun him around and started to propel him back toward the bedroom. “She is up on her way. That girl, Crimson—what a ridiculous name—Mills. She is using the bathroom in my apartment, and then she is coming up here to see you. You’ll have to help her to run Constantine Motors.”

  His feet stopped moving. His mother kept pushing, her nails digging into his side until he flapped her hands away. “Mom, what the hell are you talking about?” he growled. “I have no intention of marrying her.”

  “Or course not.” She laid her palms flat against his back and started pushing again. “She doesn’t know about that part. Don’t tell her. Rejection is not a good basis for teamwork. It’s the other provision in the will. My twenty percent. If you had remained to listen, you would have learned that I won’t get anything unless Crimson Mills runs Constantine Motors until the end of the year without a decline in profits. You’ll have to help her. Otherwise I’ll be broke. You’ll have to support me. I’ll be a millstone around your neck till the day I die.”

  Her panicky voice, so different from her usual smooth tones, penetrated the hangover that fogged Nick’s brain. His mother’s forceful shoving had brought them to the living room archway. Through the huge picture windows, the setting sun gilded the New York skyline.

  He braced his heels against the hardwood floor. By the look of it, it was the evening. He’d opened a bottle of Scotch as soon as he got back from the lawyer’s office. He knew he’d been drunk for more than a few hours. It had to be the day after. He raked both hands through his disheveled hair and peered at his mother through gritty eyes.

  “What the hell are you going on about?” he asked.

  “Your father’s will. The conditions that you refused to stay and listen to. That girl must run the company until the end of the year and make a success of it. Otherwise she gets nothing. I get nothing. Everything goes to charity.”

  Nick stared at his mother as the facts took shape in his mind. By refusing to marry Crimson Mills, he might have said goodbye to the family fortune, but that didn’t get him off the hook. For his mother to inherit, he would have to step in and help the stripper run the business. It there was one person in the world he cared about, one person he would struggle to say no to, it was his mother, and his father had understood how he felt.

  An odd sensation bubbled up in Nick’s gut. At first, he thought he was going to be sick. Then it burst out. A deep, roaring laughter that rocked him on his feet. On and on it went, rippling through him, spilling out of his lungs in an endless stream.

  Son-of-a-bitch.

  Even in death, his father knew how to pull people’s strings.

  ****

  Crimson tiptoed along the carpeted corridor toward Apartment 14B, concerned by the strange rumbling noise that drifted out through the open doorway. Was someone going nuts? Should she call the security desk downstairs? When she reached the entrance, she craned her neck and peered inside. The hallway seemed peaceful enough. An Oriental rug covered the hardwood floor. A black leather jacket and a few sports coats hung on the rack on the left. On the right, a narrow table stood beneath a tall gilt-framed mirror.

  “Hello!” she called out. “Is anyone in?”

  No reply, but the strange sounds continued. She ventured down the hall, where an archway opened up into a big living room. Through the huge picture windows that gave a view of the Manhattan skyline, streaks of fading sunlight fell over the stark white walls and a matching pair of black leather couches arranged around a low glass and steel coffee table.

  A man, clad in nothing but soft cotton pants that hugged his narrow hips and long, powerful legs, stood in the middle of the room, doubled over, laughing like a lunatic.

  Crimson stepped forward. “Excuse me.”

  Slowly, the lean muscles uncurled and the man turned to face her. When his eyes fell on her, the roars of laughter died, and an odd, assessing expression settled on his handsome features. His gaze raked over her, from the top of her flaxen hair, down to the toes of her worn Reeboks. The silent, narrow-eyed scrutiny, combined with the impressive sight of his bare torso, sent her heart racing.

  She’d never met Nick Constantine before, not in real life.

  He looked wilder, even more devilish than she had imagined. Black curls fell in a tangle across his forehead, and a thick coating of stubble covered his square jaw. The dark, thickly lashed eyes were bloodshot and shadowed with anger, but even that didn’t spoil the brooding, masculine beauty of his features. The hours she had spent poring over photographs of him, listening to Uncle Stephan talk about his estranged son, rushed back into her mind, making her skin tingle.

  “I’m Crimson Mills.” She stuck out her hand.

  He didn’t move closer. “Crimson, huh?”

  “Don’t blame me. Blame my mother.”

  Humor flashed in his eyes. “Yeah. I’ve had the honor of meeting her.”

  A spark of resentment flared within Crimson. So, her mother wasn’t exactly cut out from the pages of a glossy magazine, but that didn’t give anyone the right to belittle her. “In that case,” she replied tartly, “you know that she is warm, sincere person, and generous to a fault.”

  “It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s money.”

  Hot color streaked up to her face. During her visits to Longwood Hall, where her mother had lived with Uncle Stephan, Crimson had tasted a life of luxury. At Christmas, she had received a pair of expensive earrings, and a gift voucher to a department store.

  “I never asked for anything.” Her voice was low, and those who knew her well would have heard the warning in her tone.

  “How about a business valued at a hundred and fifty million dollars?”

  “In particular, I didn’t ask for that.” She drew a deep breath. “I’m a dancer. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. All I’m trained for. Why would I want to ruin my life by taking on a job that I’m not cut out for? Why would I want to throw away six months of my life trying for the impossible?”

  “You’ve got it. Impossible.”

  “I know.” Her fingers curled around the tote bag that dangled from her shoulder. “But I have to try. Not for me, but for my mother, and yours. They want their twenty percent each. If I pull it off, their future will be secure. If I fail, you’ll end up supporting your mother, and I’ll end up supporting mine.”

  “I can afford it.”

  Her voice fell to a reluctant mutter. “But I can’t afford mine.”

  Nick Constantine ambled closer to her. He appeared relaxed, but Crimson could see the tension in his big body. It was there, in the muscles that flexed and bunched beneath the bronzed skin on his bare chest and arms, in the way he leaned slightly forward, broad shoulders hunched, arms bent, hands curled into loose fists.

  He came to a halt a step away from her. Towering over her five foot six. Crowding her. Intimidating her on purpose. “Why in hell would I want to help you?” he asked.

  Crimson swallowed, peering up at him. He was standing close, much too close. She could feel the heat radiating from his naked sk
in, could feel the subtle threat in his demeanor. What could she tell him? It was clear that she had stolen his birthright, albeit reluctantly. What could Uncle Stephan have been thinking of? If there was a joke somewhere in this garbled situation, none of those involved got it.

  “Because you can,” she said, knowing how lame it sounded. “Your mother told me you’d be happy to offer your support,” she added. “I’m not allowed to hire a manager, but the lawyer said you’d be permitted to help on a voluntary basis.”

  “So…” Thick forearms folded across a bare chest, covering the smattering of crisp, dark hair. Crimson tried without success to stop her gaze from drifting down, to where those hairs tapered into a line that vanished into the waistband of the soft cotton pants. Flushed with heat, she jerked her attention back to his face.

  “Let me get this right,” Nick continued, either unaware of her agitation or choosing to ignore it. “You want me to invest my time and effort into ensuring that you’ll inherit my father’s company, and you expect me to do it for nothing?”

  “Your mother said you’re between jobs.”

  “I resigned from my interesting, highly paid position when I heard that my father had died, and I had every expectation of taking over the family business. Now that things have turned out differently, I can get another interesting, highly paid job by making a few phone calls.”

  Silent, Crimson shifted one shoulder. What could she say?

  He leaned closer still, so close that she could smell the alcohol in his breath. “All my life, I’ve prepared for the task of one day running Constantine Motors. I’ve got an MBA, and an engineering degree. I’ve spent the last seven years building up experience. Design, marketing, finance. Big companies. General Motors, Toyota, Chrysler. Small companies. Morgan, TVR, Ginette. Before that, I spent ten years on the racing circuit. Now, why do you think my father would have left the company to you instead of me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Right. As you said, you never asked for anything.” He straightened, and the slight movement distanced his body from hers, allowing her to breathe again. She inhaled, deep and swift, and launched into speech.