Hidden Worthiness

by Susan Fanetti

  She lay back and gave herself to him.

  He sank deep. She coiled her body around his and took him all the way in. They fucked in a frenzy, wild need and pure fire. Three words filled her head in a chant matched to the tempo of his thrusts, and the little voice joined in: I love you, I love you, I love you.

  ~oOo~

  “Ari, may I speak with you?”

  At Baxter’s question, Julian’s eyebrows lifted high, and he looked over Ari’s shoulder, toward the door. Ari stood shocked and wary and didn’t turn around. Baxter was set to announce the cast list for The Nutcracker in about five minutes. What could he want to talk to her about now? It couldn’t be good.

  Not that she could avoid it. Nor, apparently, could she avoid being alone with him, unless she dragged Julian with her like a chaperone. Which wasn’t a horrible idea, actually, but she hoped Donnie’s performance the day before, making so public a claim on her, had tempered Baxter’s perverse interest.

  She sucked in a breath full of courage. Julian squeezed her hand and let her go, and she turned and gave her director a smile. “Sure.”

  She felt every eye in the company singeing her back as she followed Baxter out of the studio.

  In the hallway, he kept walking, and she followed until he turned into one of the smallest rehearsal studios. Her warning system pinging like crazy, Ari let him usher her in, but when he moved to close the door, she said, “Please leave it open.”

  Baxter considered her, his expression serious, and let go of the door. “You’re afraid of me.”

  “I’m wary. Just between you and me, I think it’s been warranted.”

  “I’m hard on you.”

  “You’re abusive.” Why was she confronting him now? She’d been taking his bullshit for all this time, trying to save her career, and now she was going to stand up for herself?

  But she wasn’t standing alone, was she? That was where this courage had come from. Donnie was in the picture now, and Baxter knew it.

  “Donnie Goretti—you’re with him?”

  “Yes.” As of last night, that was true. She was with Donnie Goretti. And Donnie had her back.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “My personal life is none of your business. Is that why you called me out of the studio? To ask about my boyfriend?”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “Obviously I do.” If Baxter was now going to try to play some kind of concerned friend role, she’d gag. “Do you?”

  Another wince. Ari saw something interesting: Baxter hadn’t had some weird epiphany about her. He didn’t want to be more reasonable with her. He didn’t respect her any more than he had twenty-four hours ago.

  But he was afraid of Donnie. She hated that and loved it at the same time, in equal measure.

  “I called you aside to let you know that I’m giving Clara to Jessi.”

  Not overly afraid of Donnie, then. Ari dug deep and kept herself from reacting. She stared at Baxter and hoped her eyes were cold stones.

  He took a step closer. Ari wanted to stand her ground, but she didn’t want to be any closer to him. As a compromise, she crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I know that’s the part you wanted. I know you think you deserve the lead. But Ari, you have too much body to play a little girl.”

  Molten rage burbled in her belly. Fucking Baxter and his absurd obsession with the fact that she had the slightest hint of a shape. She barely had the breasts for a fucking A cup. She was a fucking size 4. No one in the world thought she was fat but this jerk standing in front of her.

  Holding her career in his fist.

  “There’s no question you’re a better dancer than Jessi, but Clara isn’t really the best dancer’s part, is it? Clara can be danced by a child. The best dancer should be the Sugar Plum Fairy. That’s the part for you.”

  Ari squinted at him, trying to see his scheme. Something was up. Or was he being honest? Was he trying to tell her he’d made his best judgment about the production, and he honestly didn’t think she was right for the lead? Come on, no—this was Baxter. Besides which, his beloved Devonny had danced Clara for years. Ari had been the Sugar Plum Fairy for the past six years. He was full of shit. Right?

  Her head began to pirouette.

  “If I’ve been hard on you, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a personal call. I’m giving Clara to Jessi because she’s smaller, and she can handle the part. You’re the only girl in the company who can do the Grand Pas de Deux justice as the centerpiece of the ballet.”

  The Sugar Plum Fairy’s signature dance, with her Cavalier. Sergei was the Cavalier. He was an excellent partner.

  “You hate The Nutcracker.” Her thoughts were too jumbled to know what else to say.

  “Indeed I do. But I always want to put on the best production we can. If you want to sic your boyfriend on me, tell me now, before I announce the parts. I know who he is, and I don’t want him as an enemy. If you want Clara that badly, you can have it. I’ll make Jessi the Sugar Plum Fairy, and we can all watch her legs start wobbling halfway through the pas de deux.”

  Her arms still crossed over her chest—that little bit of cleavage Baxter so despised—Ari took the time to sort through this shifting mass of feelings and information.

  “Is Devonny retiring?”

  The question surprised him, and he cocked his head. “Nothing’s been announced.”

  That was a public relations non-answer. “But is she?”

  “Yes. Please keep this to yourself. Dev deserves the chance to do it herself. At the wrap party in December, she’ll announce. She tore her Achilles again trying to get back in shape, and it will never be strong enough to support the rigors of performance again, especially at her age.”

  At her age. Devonny Allera was thirty-eight.

  “When she does, I want prima.”

  His head cocked again. “Obviously, Ari. Who else would it be?”

  Shock and relief hit Ari so hard, she nearly went slack and collapsed to the floor in a heap. Her arms dropped from their shielding grip, and she stepped her foot out before she fell. She wanted to ask him a million questions. If he knew her value, why did he treat her so badly? Why had he come onto her, when he found her so unappealing, and if he was still with Devonny? Why did he wield his power like a mallet? Why? Why? Why?

  She asked none of them. The answers didn’t matter. They wouldn’t undo anything. But he did know her value. He didn’t like her, but he knew what she was worth.

  Or maybe he was simply afraid of Donnie.

  But that didn’t matter, either. She deserved to be the company’s prima ballerina, and she would have it.

  “Jessi will do fine as Clara.”

  Baxter relaxed visibly, and Ari enjoyed watching his relief. Secondhand fear was almost as good as firsthand respect, at least when it came to the result.

  ~oOo~

  Ari went to the kitchen and leaned on the doorjamb. “What’re you making?”

  Julian looked over his shoulder. “Just sautéing a couple sliced chicken breasts to put on my salad.”

  “Is there enough for me?”

  “I can share. Is your mobster not coming?”

  “He has work.”

  “What work do mobsters do in the dark? Kneecapping? Sending people to sleep with the fishes? Leaving the gun and taking the cannoli?”

  “Don’t be an ass, Jule.” She stepped in and got the wine from the fridge.

  “I’m just worried. As best friend, I claim the right of worry. You’re in over your head with this guy, Ari. You of all people know what guys like him are like.”

  “Okay, either I’m in over my head or I know what he’s like. You have to decide whether I’m a naïve ingenue or a Mafia princess. I can’t be both at the same time.”

  He set the wooden fork on the skillet and turned around. “Sure you can. Being with Goretti brings you in closer than you ever were with Uncle Mel. Your uncle is a nobody, right? Your new boyfriend practically runs a family.
”

  “Uncle Mel is not a nobody. People respect him. He’s a good earner.”

  Julian laughed. “Okay, your highness. But did you ever need armed guards around the clock because your uncle is in your life?”

  “The answer to that is I don’t know. The Romanos wouldn’t have put security on his family in any case. He’s a soldier. Donnie is high enough that I get protected. So that makes me safer. I need you to let up on him, Julian. Respect my choice. Let me be happy.”

  “You really like this guy, don’t you?”

  Love. She loved him. But those words weren’t ripe yet. “Yes.” She went to the counter and picked up his work on the salad, slicing tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs, and scattering the pieces over the bed of fresh lettuce and spinach. Protein and vegetables: the mainstays of the dancer’s diet.

  “Tess isn’t coming over?”

  “She has to work tonight, too.”

  Ari threw a sidelong smirk at her friend. “What work does a hairdresser do in the dark?”

  “She works at the homeless shelter downcity a few nights a month, giving free shampoos and haircuts to people trying to get jobs.”

  “Oh. Wow. That’s ... impressive.”

  “Yes.” He took the skillet off the burner. “She’s impressive.”

  “You’re serious about her.” When he dumped the chicken into the salad, she added some cheese and a bit of oil and vinegar, and used the tongs to toss it all together.

  “I am. She’s smart, and pretty, and she likes what I do but isn’t obsessed with it. She’s fun and funny. She’s a good person. And the sex is great.”

  Ari had spent a little bit of time with Tess, mostly in the mornings after she spent the night with Julian. Though their conversations hadn’t been deep enough for Ari to agree wholeheartedly with Julian’s assessment, she’d seen enough to believe in it. And she’d heard plenty enough to know the sex was good. Julian was loud. So was Tess.

  She rocked her hip into his thigh. “I like you smitten. You get blushy and deep.”

  He rocked back into her. “Shut up.”

  They set their dinner at the bar and sat side by side on the cheap black bar stools that had been their first purchase when they’d moved in together. Ari poured wine while Julian served salad onto their plates.

  “You and Baxter seem to have worked things out. When he gave Clara to Jessi, I expected a different reaction from you. I thought I’d spend the night being your shoulder.”

  “I don’t know if he was just letting me down easy, but the way he told me made it okay. He was okay today.”

  “How’d he tell you?”

  “Basically, he said he needed his best dancer dancing SPF. He made it sound like Clara is beneath me. That made it a lot easier to take.” That and telling her she’d be the next prima ballerina.

  “It is beneath you.”

  Ari stopped in mid-chew and frowned at him. “It’s the lead.”

  Julian shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s not that hard to dance. SPF needs the stronger dancer.” He shrugged again and had some wine. “I want for you what you want for yourself, but you’re a spectacular SPF, and you rock the house every year. You’ve been the one people remember since you first danced SPF. It’s your part.”

  “But Devonny danced Clara.”

  “Ari, love—you’re a stronger dancer than Devonny. She’s ... lovely, and an excellent dancer, but what she has on you is her acting. She could be Clara at almost forty because she’s so little, and because she becomes a twelve-year-old when she dances that part. You’re always ... you.”

  She was Arianna, dancing.

  “I wish that wasn’t a weakness.”

  “I don’t think it is. You’re a different kind of dancer—you ... explode on the stage. But when you do get into a part, into the acting—love, you’re magnificent. That first performance of Phantom—you stole everyone’s breath. Whatever caught you that night, it made you great.”

  Donnie had been watching her that night. She’d been thinking of him, of meeting him later, wondering about her note, then thinking of that moment of connection, him in his box, her on the stage. She’d been thinking of Donnie.

  She’d been dancing for him.

  ~ 19 ~

  Nick’s office door was pushed to, but not latched. When it was latched, even a knock would be unwelcome, but pushed to meant ‘knock and lean in.’ Donnie was the man closest to him, in business and friendship, but even he couldn’t simply walk into the don’s office when he wished. So he knocked and leaned in.

  The don was at his desk, leaning back in his chair, reading his tablet. He looked up and took off his reading glasses. “Donnie.”

  “Can we talk?”

  “Come in.” Nick set the tablet aside. “Trouble?”

  “No.” Nothing more than Nick already knew, at any rate. In the days since their attack on the Bondaruk advance team base, there hadn’t been any unexpected developments. The Honcharenko boy had been found and identified. Nick had called in one of his preciously held favors with the Domenico Family in New Jersey to direct law-enforcement interest in the boy’s death, and anything related, away from family business. It was an extremely valuable favor to call in, one Nick had wanted saved for something more important. A total recalibration of La Cosa Nostra, for example.

  The shift of legal blame meant nothing in the underworld, of course. In their world, everyone knew that Nick Pagano had erased another Bondaruk crew, and this time had killed a child as well.

  Yuri Bondaruk hadn’t yet responded to the loss of eight of his made men, two hangarounds, and one small child, but there was no doubt he would. Though the child hadn’t been significant to him before, maybe hadn’t even been known to him, he would claim the Honcharenkos as family now, to feed his case for retaliation.

  Meanwhile, the Paganos were left to wait and prepare for a war with a bratva that hadn’t even gotten a good foothold in the States yet. Whatever their power in Ukraine—Calvin’s research indicated that they were significant players on their home turf, and had risen to power with unusual speed—they’d been unable to establish a strong base in the US.

  And that was almost entirely because of Nick Pagano. They’d crossed him, and he’d obliterated their stateside operations. Twice.

  Eventually, Bondaruk would stop sending recon teams and mobilize his army instead. Probably next. So the Paganos waited and prepared, and Nick seethed.

  He’d calmed from his initial fury enough to keep Angie and Donnie in his inner circle, but they’d both felt a chill between them and their don these past few days. Donnie had never been so uncomfortable in the presence of his don and best friend.

  He sat in his customary chair before Nick’s desk. “It’s personal. I need to tell you about Arianna.”

  “The dancer?”

  “Ballerina.” ‘Dancer’ was too vague, and vaguely sordid, for the artist she was. “Yes.”

  “You’ve got security on her still. Are you making her your comare?”

  An uneasiness filled his chest, not far different from the tight queasiness he’d felt preparing to attack the Bondaruks, or any time he knew he’d face gunfire. What he felt for Arianna was just as deadly. Feelings he’d locked away, in a steel cage apparently, to save himself. Rules he’d made. Arrangements. All so he could survive in the world he lived in. As the monster under the stage.

  He was The Face. No one had dared call him that directly in years, but it was how he was known. Who he was.

  But with Arianna, he was Donnie. She saw him, and she wanted him. He believed her. If he was wrong, if she was false, he didn’t know how he’d come back from that. Twenty years of repressed need had been unleashed, and if she wasn’t there beside him, he wouldn’t withstand the deluge.

  He wasn’t uneasy. He was terrified.

  “Donnie?”

  He cleared his throat and got back in this moment. “Not my comare, no.” A comare was a mistress. A woman on the side, of a marriage or simply a life. Clear boundari
es, limited connection. An arrangement.

  Nick regarded him quietly. “She’s more than that.”

  “Yes.”

  A smile ghosted up one side of Nick’s mouth. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Yes.” There was nothing more he could say. What he felt for Arianna was too new and tender to be anything but private. Besides, under the best of circumstances, he and Nick weren’t in the habit of exchanging deep secrets about romance.

  “Beverly will be thrilled. She’ll want you to bring her to the house for dinner. She’ll probably have champagne and fireworks.”

  Donnie relaxed and laughed. Bev would indeed be ecstatic and effusive to know he’d opened his heart; she’d been worried about him for decades. He hoped she’d draw the line somewhere before fireworks, however. “I’ll prepare Arianna for a celebration. But I’d like to hold it off for a while. She’s rehearsing for her next production, and I’m ... concerned to bring her in too close until we know the Ukrainians’ next move.”

  “She’d be safer close in. They already know she’s attached to you. Seems they knew how attached before you did.”

  “Lucky guess on their part. Unlucky timing on mine. If I bring her here, she’d be on the road back and forth every day. That’s too much exposure.”

  “So instead, you go back and forth to see her and expose yourself.”

  “Better me than her.”

  “She has no secrets to be dug out of her. I assume.”

  Donnie’s jaw went slack, and his stomach filled with acid. “No. She knows nothing. And there’s no depth anyone could dig in me to give you up, Nick.” Realizing his hand was rubbing his scarred cheek, he dropped it to the arm of the chair and gripped.

  Again, Nick regarded him quietly. Finally, he nodded once. “Io so. Mi dispiace.”

  At the apology, Donnie swallowed down the bile that had risen in his throat. Nick rarely apologized, because he rarely made mistakes or hurt someone without intention. When he acted, even in vengeance, it was a decision, not a reaction. When he lashed out, it was a wielded whip, not a reflex. But he’d had enough thought that Donnie could betray him to form the words, and enough anger to allow them to be said.