by JJ Knight
The little girl whizzes across the room. “No way! This is the best!”
She whirls in circles as Blitz starts a new song. We let her lead a little conga line with me and Blitz behind her, then Blitz gives her a ribbon stick to practice with.
I take a step back to watch them. Blitz is wearing sleek black jazz pants and a tight gray dance shirt. He takes my breath away. His hair has grown out a little and falls in a black wave across his head. Despite living with him for over a month, I still don’t know how he manages to keep his sexy stubble at precisely the same length all the time.
He catches me watching him and winks, showing Gabriella how to make a rapid cascade with the ribbon. Seeing them together never fails to fill my heart with unabashed joy.
The lights flicker, signaling that the hour is ending. Another group will use this room next.
Blitz takes Gabriella’s ribbon stick and rolls it up. She speeds across the room to make a circle around me. Her chair is good, light and nimble. There is a lot she will be able to do.
Gwen opens the door and peeks inside. “All done?” she asks.
She looks happier now that she’s made it through the holidays. It’s not the first one without her husband, but I imagine it’s not much better yet. It will probably never be easy for her. She approaches Gabriella with a hot-pink coat.
“Thank you guys so much for doing this,” she says. “Gabby, you looked so good. Was it fun?”
Gabriella sticks her arms in the coat. “It was!” She tries to zip it up herself, but like many four-year-olds, she’s not agile enough. Gwen leans over to fasten it for her, one of a million small acts of mothering I will never get to do.
“I will see you on Tuesday for the big class,” I tell her, leaning down for a hug. She smells like strawberry shampoo. It’s hard to let her go, and especially to hide how I’m feeling, but I straighten and keep my expression friendly and light.
“Bye, Livia!” Gabriella calls. “Bye, Benjamin!”
Gwen waves to us and follows Gabriella out of the room.
I bite my lip to stay in control and turn to Blitz. “I should probably call you Benjamin too,” I say. “It’s the rest of the world who knows you as Blitz.”
He walks up and wraps his arms around me, resting his chin on my head. “You can call me anything you want.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I say with a laugh. “I can come up with all manner of depraved nicknames.”
He pulls back and presses a light kiss on my mouth. Then he says, “I like it when you’re depraved.”
He spins me out in a whirl, his hand and body communicating where I should go. For a few dizzying seconds, we dance together in dramatic turns, the world a blur. Then he pulls me against him, our bodies flush against each other.
A lot of our conversations end like this.
“Lunch?” I ask him, breathing hard.
He laughs. “Absolutely.”
I head to the corner where I’ve stashed my coat and a bag with normal shoes.
He heads for the sound equipment. “Make sure you save room for dinner, though. Mom will expect you to eat!”
My stomach flutters. Tonight I’ll be meeting Blitz’s parents for the first time. We would have done it before now, but they spent Christmas and early January in Colorado, so they’ve just now gotten back and settled down enough to have visitors.
Blitz shuts down the music as Aurora arrives to set up for her toddler class. She has a little girl with her, Cassandra, her boyfriend’s daughter.
“You have a helper!” I say to Aurora.
“No school today,” Aurora says. “I’m watching her while Samuel works.” Her eyes flit over to Blitz. Even though he volunteered here for a few weeks around Thanksgiving last year, everyone is still a little starstruck when they see him.
It’s been worse since the live finale of his show, which went completely viral and has been the highest-rated reality show episode of all time. My face still flushes when I think of how bold I was to march on that stage and demand he dance with me instead of the contestants.
Sometimes my friend Mindy sends me memes of a screenshot from the broadcast. It shows me crossing in front of the three finalists in their sparkly dresses. I look grim and determined. The captions are always changing.
What a hostile takeover looks like.
When you ain’t gonna let no ho dance with your man.
I try to ignore all the fuss. Blitz and I want to live as quietly as we can for as long as possible, at least until we can figure out what’s next. I know the finalists from his show feel robbed and angry. One of them, Mariah, has sued the producers, since she was supposedly slated to be the actual winner. She lost out on a lot of publicity and fame because of me.
It’s a mess.
Blitz takes my hand as I stand up from putting on my shoes. We head down the hall of Dreamcatcher Dance Academy, which is filling with moms and little girls for their classes. There’s more kids here today with school out, siblings of the tiny ones who usually attend alone. The mothers seem more harried than usual.
We cross the foyer, waving at Suze, who sits at the front desk. A few moms stop talking to point at Blitz. He smiles and is friendly, but doesn’t pause, his hand on my back as we head for the doors.
I’m on the steps when my brain stutters. My attention fixes on a man on the sidewalk, looking up, his cheeks ruddy from the cold as if he’s stood there a while.
My body gets some message from my brain before I can comprehend exactly what is happening, why I’m feeling a threat. My feet are rooted to the concrete, my chest buzzing with alarm.
Blitz stops with me. “You okay, Livia?” he asks.
His words are what bring the moment into focus. This man in front of me wears a black leather jacket, his layered brown hair flying in the wind.
It’s him.
God.
It’s him.
Denham Young.
Kicked out of my life when I was fifteen. Gone for good. Lost to me.
My great love. My shame.
Gabriella’s father.
He’s found me.
CHAPTER TWO
Denham takes a step toward me, then sees Blitz and stops. “Livia, it’s really you.”
I want to shrink into the ground, let it swallow me up. I can’t let Blitz meet him. I can’t let Denham say who he is. If Blitz knew, that would be it. He would be horrified. He wouldn’t want me anymore. And the press. I’m famous now. If they knew. God. Everyone would know. It would be huge news.
And Denham…he doesn’t know about Gabriella. At least I don’t think so. My father kicked him out before I found out I was pregnant. We didn’t see him again.
I look wildly across the parking lot. Thankfully Gwen has already gone.
Why is this happening?
“Livia?” Denham says.
“Go away!” I cry out. “Stay back!”
With that, Blitz pulls me close to him. “Who is this guy, Livia? You want me to take his ass out?”
“No!” I say. “Just get me out of here.”
“Livia, please, there is something I have to tell you!” Denham says. He holds his arms out in a pleading gesture. His face, God, that face, one I knew as well as my own, is contorted in anguish.
“No!” I say. “I don’t want to hear it! Please, stay away!”
Blitz hurries us toward his car on the far side of the building.
But Denham follows. “I couldn’t find you, Livia, or I would have told you sooner. I looked everywhere! I didn’t know where you had gone until I saw you on television!”
Blitz stops beside his car and whirls around, pushing me behind him. “Look, pal, get out of here before your face is part of the pavement. Livia doesn’t want to talk to you. Just because she was on the show doesn’t mean you have the right to stalk her.”
Blitz jerks his keys from his pocket and unlocks the door. “Get in, Livia,” he says.
But my feet are stuck. Denham looks so stricken. He’s older no
w, and so am I. We’re grown. He isn’t that fresh-faced sixteen-year-old. But his eyes are the same. I’d been lost in them once. Lost enough to forget to be careful. I didn’t guard myself.
But he lied. He led me to my shame.
This gets me.
I manage to turn away and jerk open the door to Blitz’s red Ferrari. The wind tears at my coat and my hair swirls around my face.
“Livia,” Denham says. “Just let me say one thing.”
I pause by the door and look back. Blitz is still next to him, looking threatening and angry. I’ve seen Blitz take down a stranger with a single punch. I have no doubt he’d do it again.
“Please,” I say. “Please don’t come into my life now. I can’t bear it.”
Denham’s face is contorted with emotion. “I won’t. I see you’ve got a good thing going.” He glances at Blitz. “I wouldn’t mess that up. I promise. I would never hurt you. I loved you more than anyone else in the world. More than I will ever love anybody again.”
This makes Blitz relax his stance. He looks back at me. “Livia, who is this?” he asks.
My panic rises. “I’ll tell you in the car,” I say. But I don’t get in. I can’t leave Denham and Blitz alone, even for a second. In fact, I need Blitz away from this situation, as fast as possible, before Denham can say anything more.
“Can we go now?” I ask him, my voice quavering.
If Denham says who he is, this is over. My life is over. I will tell Blitz that Denham is Gabriella’s father. I don’t care about that.
It’s the rest. Who he is to me. To my family.
But Blitz waits, looking back and forth between me and Denham.
I close my eyes to the wind, trying to stay calm, not to scream and run. This is it. This is where my past catches up to me.
“I’m leaving,” I say to Denham one last time. “Blitz, please, let’s drive away.”
This time, Blitz moves. He comes around to the driver’s side of the car and opens the door, his eyes still on Denham.
But Denham is determined to say something. And so he does. And the words are something I never thought I’d hear.
“Livia, I’m not your brother. I never was.”
CHAPTER THREE
I clutch the top of Blitz’s car. The wind is fierce. Surely I didn’t hear that right.
“What?” Blitz says. “You’re her brother?”
Denham steps closer. “No, I said I’m not her brother. She thought I was. Hell, I thought I was. I lived with her family. But I’m not part of it.”
I can’t look at him. My world is spinning, black spots in my vision.
He takes yet another step. He’s only a couple feet away now. My head is down because I can’t look anybody in the eye right now. His boots are scuffed and worn, a chain across the side. He still dresses with an attitude, now the same as then.
“Livia?” Blitz’s voice is laced with concern. He comes back around the car. “You lived with this guy?”
“Not here in San Antonio,” Denham says. “Back in Houston. I didn’t know she was here. I had no idea where she was until the show.”
Blitz’s arms come around me. His voice is gentle. “Hey, what’s getting you? Did this guy do something to you when you lived with him?”
I shake my head no, then yes, then no again. Blitz’s arms are like a tether to the world. I finally lift my face.
Denham’s arms are out again, like he’s begging. His eyes are soft. “I’m not your brother,” he says again. “After your father kicked me out, I went into foster care. I ran away, but they had already DNA-swabbed me to hand me over to some other guy they found. I never went back, so I didn’t see the results. I saw the papers a year ago, when Aunt Didi died. Your dad isn’t my dad. But I couldn’t find you to tell you. That we were okay. That it wasn’t anything horrible after all.”
Now I’m feeling faint. He has to stop. “Please take me home,” I say to Blitz. “Now.”
Blitz nods and steps between me and Denham, blocking his view of me as I sit on the seat. I’ve heard all I need to know. I just need to think. And I need to get away before the last piece of the story falls into place for both of them.
But this isn’t my scene. It’s Denham’s. And he is going to say what he wants.
“I always loved you, Livia,” Denham goes on. “And I never regretted what happened between us. I wanted you to be able to stop regretting it too.”
Blitz still stands by my open door. His face is lowered, but I can see him thinking. “Is this the guy?” he asks me. “The one who got you pregnant?”
My head snaps around to look at Denham.
His eyes get wide. “What?” Denham asks. “What is he saying?”
Blitz realizes the situation and tries to close the door.
But Denham steps forward and grabs it. “Livia? Did you get pregnant?”
I want the car to collapse around me, crush me into a cube to be tossed into a pit. This moment must end. It’s all come together. Blitz. Denham. Gabriella. My brother who isn’t my brother after all.
“Let me get this straight,” Blitz says. “You,” he says, pointing at Denham, “were her brother but now you’re not.”
“Half-brother,” Denham says. He’s still trying to get past Blitz to me. “And she didn’t know. I moved in when I was sixteen.”
Blitz’s voice is low and menacing. “She knew at some point, or you wouldn’t be telling her the truth now.”
Denham looks at Blitz. “Her dad made me keep the secret or I couldn’t move in. If I told, then Livia’s mother would know he had been unfaithful.”
Blitz lets out a rush of air. “So Livia, MY Livia, was seduced by you, when you were living there as her brother.”
Denham tries to look around Blitz again. “When I thought I was. But I’m not. Livia, tell me about the baby.”
Blitz won’t let it go. “And you didn’t think to tell her that little detail? When you were sleeping with her?” He looks like he might punch Denham after all.
Denham gets increasingly agitated. “I loved her. I just wanted to protect her from what people would think.”
Blitz grips the door frame so hard his knuckles are white.
“I think,” Blitz says, then pauses. “No, I know, that you seduced a very young girl living in your house, by all accounts your half-sister. And you didn’t even prevent her from getting pregnant.”
“That is past,” Denham says. He’s done with Blitz. I can hear it in his voice. He tries to shoulder Blitz out of the way.
“Where is our baby, Livia?” Denham asks. “You’re Catholic, so I know you had it.” He leans down to get closer to my face. “WHERE IS OUR BABY?”
And that’s when Blitz slams his elbow against the back of Denham’s neck.
Denham crumples to the ground.
Bonus Chapter by Blitz
You’ve read the entire book from Livia’s point of view. Here’s a bonus scene where Blitz shows us how he’s feeling in a key moment of their relationship: the consummation in the hotel. Enjoy.
____________
Damn, it’s cold outside tonight.
I ease my foot off the accelerator, allowing the Ferrari to roll along the curb in front of the park where I met Livia last time. She’s told me she’ll get here as soon as she can.
It’s late for this neighborhood. The houses are all dark, the occasional flash of a TV screen the only light in any of the windows.
Leaves circle in front of me like a mini-cyclone, and I see someone hurrying down the sidewalk, head down in the wind.
It’s her.
I inch forward, watching her huddle in on herself in the cold. Her hair streams behind her. When the Ferrari gets to her, I reach over to open the door from the inside.
“Oh, Princess, it’s way too cold for royalty to be out in this weather,” I say.
Her teeth chatter. “I’m fine,” she says.
I’m surprised she can talk, she’s shivering so hard. I crank the heater. Her bare legs ha
ve to be freezing in that skirt. I swear I’m going to buy her an entire wardrobe when I get the chance. I don’t know what the hell her parents have done to her, but she’s obviously been through enough.
I ask her if it’s okay if we go to my hotel. I don’t want her to think I’m trying to lure her somewhere. Even after the movie theater, she seems so innocent. I don’t want to push her too fast. I sense somebody did that already.
But she says, “That sounds perfect.” And from the tone of her voice, I believe her.
The fog is crazy. She asks me about my parents, and the tough times after my stupid Tweet went viral. I give her the basics, only half paying attention to my own voice, focused on getting her warm.
Then she says something about her bra size, and my brain fires off an alarm. Just like that, I’m back to her body, her innocence. I think she just needs an escape.
“Princess,” I say. “You’re tempting me sorely, and my intentions are strictly honorable tonight.”
She gets quiet after that, and it’s like I figured. She’s scared. I don’t want her scared. I want her to feel safe with me.
We get to the hotel and head up to the suite while I try to figure out how to keep her feeling comfortable, not like she’s been lured into a trap.
Livia’s adorably naive about the secure floors and how the elevators work. I step back while she plays with the screen inside, even though just the sight of her so close to my private room makes my blood beat.
She’s definitely not safe with me.
I’m trying to figure out how to cool my jets when we arrive on our floor.
I pay zero attention to the bartender in the private lounge until Livia whispers, “I’m underage.”
“Nothing right now, thank you,” I tell the guy. Livia has this fresh-faced youthfulness about her, all loose hair and no makeup. But she’s old enough. I checked. I can’t seem to stay away from her, even if I wanted to.
I’ve gotten jaded about fancy hotels, but Livia’s reaction to it reminds me how rare it is for people to stay in a place like this.