A Dance For Two
Colette Davison
A Dance For Two
Copyright © 2018 Colette Davison
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Cover Design: Colette Davison
Edited by: Charlotte L R Kane & Sarah Chorn
Proofread by: Kristina Simkins
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorised duplication is prohibited.
The images used in the cover design were licensed from Shutterstock.
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Luc
Chapter Two: Adam
Chapter Three: Luc
Chapter Four: Adam
Chapter Five: Luc
Chapter Six: Adam
Chapter Seven: Luc
Chapter Eight: Adam
Chapter Nine: Luc
Chapter Ten: Adam
Chapter Eleven: Luc
Chapter Twelve: Adam
Chapter Thirteen: Luc
Chapter Fourteen: Adam
Chapter Fifteen: Adam
Chapter Sixteen: Luc
Chapter Seventeen: Adam
Chapter Eighteen: Luc
Chapter Nineteen: Adam
Chapter Twenty: Luc
Chapter Twenty-One: Adam
Chapter Twenty-Two: Luc
Chapter Twenty-Three: Adam
Chapter Twenty-Four: Luc
Chapter Twenty-Five: Adam
Chapter Twenty-Six: Luc
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Adam
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Luc
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Adam
Chapter Thirty: Adam
Chapter Thirty-One: Luc
Chapter Thirty-Two: Luc
About Colette
For Katy, T.N. Nova & Charlotte;
Thank you for being there.
Chapter One
Luc
It was 10pm, but Luc was still at the office. It wasn't an unusual event, especially on the day the new season's collection was released. He needed to be on hand to check the website stats, sales figures, and do real-time promotion on all of the social media sites. Nearly everyone else had gone for the day, including the grumpy cleaner who had grumbled as he'd tried to dust, hoover, and polish around Luc. The only other person mad enough to still be around was Luc's boss, Adrianna Temple. It was her design label he was promoting; her clothes he was trying to sell.
"How are we doing, Luc?" Adrianna asked, as she waltzed into his office and sat on the edge of his desk. She looked like she was ready to leave, as she was wearing an ankle length coat with faux fur trim and held a clutch purse in one hand.
"Good. We're up on last season's first day sales by thirteen percent."
"Only thirteen percent?"
Luc looked up from the screen, his heart thudding until he met her clear green gaze. Her eyes were sparkling, her ruby lips upturned.
"I'm kidding, Luc. You need to loosen up. Thirteen percent is great." She stood, clutching her purse to her chest. "I'm going to join the others at the wine bar, are you coming?"
Luc shook his head. "Potential customers are still going wild on social media about the new collection. I want to be able to reply to any questions they have."
Adrianna sighed. "You work too hard."
"So you keep telling me." He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back in his comfortable office chair. "I just want today to be as successful as possible for you."
"You just want a bonus."
Luc grinned at her. "Or a pay rise," he said with a wink.
She pursed her lips. "And what would you spend a pay rise on? I'm pretty sure you sleep in the office. You don't have a girlfriend—"
"Boyfriend," he interjected.
She lifted her eyebrows. "Shame. Anyway, as I was saying... you don't have a boyfriend and you never go out. You didn't even take all your holiday allowance last year. Face it, Luc, you're chained to the desk. You don't need a pay raise, you need a life."
"That doesn't mean I don't deserve more money."
She nodded her head thoughtfully. "I'll think about it. So, are you coming out to celebrate a fabulous new season launch? The first few drinks are on me."
Luc considered her offer for about half a second before shaking his head. "Nah. I really want to be here. The personal touch could tip someone off the fence and into making a purchase. You want to improve on thirteen percent, right?" Going out and getting drunk wasn't really his thing; he didn't want to make a fool of himself in front of his colleagues.
"Fine." Adrianna sighed dramatically. "But next time, I'm not going to take 'no' for an answer. You can lock up, right?"
Luc pulled his top drawer open, lifted out the bunch of keys that sat inside and jangled them in front of Adrianna. "I do most nights."
"Because you're boring," she said, flouncing towards the office door.
"Because I'm committed," he retorted. "I'm driven."
"You're boring." She waved her hand without turning round to face him and then was gone, shutting the door behind her with a bang.
Luc scrunched up his nose as he went back to checking the company Twitter feed. He began replying to tweets with sassy comments or answering the questions that had been asked. One that cropped up a lot was whether or not the fur trim used on several of the new clothes was really fake. He'd lost count of the amount of times he'd assured people it was and told them exactly what it was made of.
As he answered the latest slew of questions, he turned Adrianna's accusation over in his mind. Was he boring? Maybe. A little bit. But he was also on a higher salary than most guys his age and could afford a really sweet studio apartment slap bang in the city centre. He hadn't got where he was by going out and getting hammered. He'd got there by working hard, putting in more hours than he was paid to, and by producing results. He was good at his job. If being boring was a side effect of that, so be it.
But the long hours were starting to take their toll. Recently, he always seemed to be tired. He couldn't remember the last time he'd taken any holiday allowance—or done anything with it, except spend a few days in his apartment, catching up on sleep. Once the initial buzz of the new collection died down, he'd take a few days and go somewhere. He pulled out his phone and set himself a reminder to drop by a travel agent on his lunch break the next day, to pick up some short break brochures; if he bothered to take a lunch break the next day. Normally, he worked straight through it, despite protests from personnel that he was causing legal issues by not taking all of his breaks.
He worked for another hour. The time passed quickly. It never ceased to amaze him that people actually wanted to shop online late at night. An alarm on his phone jerked him out of the hypnotic haze of staring at social media sites.
—You should probably go home now, loser.
Past Luc had obviously been in a foul mood when he'd set that sarcastic message. Either that, or he'd imagined that future Luc would be amused by it. Luc wasn't. After his conversation with Adrianna, he didn't need reminding that he was, indeed, a boring loser. He was married to his job and had no room in his life for anything else; he was content with the way things were.
Sighing, he rubbed his hands over his face to try and stimulate the blood flow. He was tired. His eyelids were heavy. It would be a good time to go home and catch some sleep. He could always set an early alarm and make sure he was in by seven.
***
It was a good thing he lived so close to work. By the time he got up to his apartment, he was ready to drop into bed without even bothering to take his clothes off.
He could shower in the morning and the clothes were only destined for the laundry anyway. He took his phone out of his pocket to set an earlier than usual alarm, frowning as he noticed a couple of missed calls and a text message from his mum. Had he really been so tired that he hadn't heard them come in? Obviously, he had.
—Luc, please call. It doesn't matter how late.
Luc's mouth went dry. He barely spoke to his mum anymore. If she was trying to call him and text him, it meant that something awful must have happened. He dialled her number and held the phone to his ear, trying not to let panic rise within him as he waited for her to answer.
"Luc?" Her voice sounded sleepy.
"Your message sounded urgent. What's up?"
"One minute."
He listened to the muffled sounds of his mum walking through the house and of doors closing. Whilst he waited for her to start talking again, he poured himself a glass of water. He sipped it, leaning against the kitchen worktop.
"I didn't think you'd call back tonight," she said.
"You said it didn't matter what time I called. What's wrong? Has something happened to Dad, or Adam?" His chest clenched tightly.
"No," his mum replied. "It's nothing like that. I was just trying to get your attention."
"Get my—" Luc shook his head. The tightness in his chest eased but was replaced by anger. "What do you want?"
"There's no need to snap," she said, her voice just as tetchy as his had been. She sighed. "I'm sorry. I was annoyed that you weren't picking up your phone. I should have phrased my text differently. I didn't mean to make you worried."
"I was working," Luc said. He put the glass down and wandered over to the sofa. "I'm sorry too."
Pretty much every conversation they'd had recently had ended up in them both apologising. Things had been difficult between them for a long time. What hurt the most wasn't the loss of the close bond he'd shared with his family when he was younger, but that he was solely responsible for the distance he'd put between them.
"Luc, I called to ask for your help."
Luc's eyes widened. "My... help?" He couldn't imagine there was anything he could do for his family.
"Things are really rough with the business right now."
"Rough how?"
When he'd left home, his parents' dance school had been doing really well. They had full classes and had been in the process of hiring a couple of new teachers, so they could hold more.
"There's more competition than there was," his mum said. "Three more dance schools have popped up in the area in the last couple of years. Plus, the rent on the studio has gone up. That means we've got fewer students and bigger overheads. We've had to let most of the teachers go just to make ends meet."
Luc rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, as he let his mum's words sink in.
"It's pretty much just me, your dad and Adam doing the teaching now," she went on.
"How can I help?"
He knew how much the dance school meant to his parents and not just financially. They'd poured everything into it: time, energy, enthusiasm and yes, money.
"You're a marketing whizz," his mum said. "If anyone can help us turn things around and attract new students, you can."
Luc felt a lump form in his throat. "I'm not sure how much I'd be able to do long distance."
"Come home?" There was so much hope in his mum's voice, that it made Luc tremble as anxiety gripped him.
He wanted to go home, but there were so many reasons not to. Or maybe there was only one really fucking good one.
"Is that..." he cleared his throat. "Is that what Dad and Adam want?"
Silence responded to his question.
"They don't even know you're talking to me about this, do they?"
"No," his mum said after another pause. "But they'll be grateful for the help. Your dad will be grateful." She paused again. "Adam doesn't know how bad things are."
"Mum!" Luc snapped.
He hadn't meant to sound so pissed off. What right did he have to chastise his own mother? But at the same time, he couldn't be anything less than angry that she was keeping things from his dad and Adam. That both his parents were hiding the state of the business from his stepbrother.
"I can't just drop everything and come home," he said.
Except that wasn't true. He had plenty of holiday time he could take. There was no reason he couldn't go home. Only he didn't want to. He wanted to help his parents, but he didn't want to be around Adam. He couldn't be near Adam. Even after all these years, the thought of his stepbrother stirred something he didn't dare name inside him.
"I wouldn't be asking if we weren't desperate," his mum said. "I know you've got your own life, but I don't know what else to do, Luc. If we lose the business, we lose everything."
Luc could hear the tremor in her voice. Was she trying not to cry?
"Are things really that bad?"
"Yes," she sniffed. "Your dad thinks we might have to close the school down by the end of the year if business doesn't pick up. Luc... we re-mortgaged the house last year to keep the business afloat. We really thought we'd just hit a rough patch and that we were going to come out the other side. But we haven't and we don't see it happening any time soon."
Luc dropped his head into his hand. "Okay," he breathed.
"Okay? You'll help us out?"
"Yeah." He couldn't let his parents' business fail just because he was too chicken to face his stepbrother. "I'll need to talk to my boss to arrange some time off."
"You're going to come here?" Disbelief dripped from his mum's voice.
He didn’t blame her for being incredulous. It wasn’t as if he’d made much of an effort over the past four years; any effort, if he was being completely honest, which made him feel a deep sense of shame. He’d been a pretty crappy son of late, but now he had a chance to make it up to his parents.
"I told you, there's not much I can do from here. I need to get a feel for the business again and the local community. I need to know why people are choosing the other, newer dance schools over you. I need to know what you guys can offer that no one else can."
"Thank you," his mum breathed. "You don't know how much this means to me. How much it'll mean to your dad."
"Yeah... about that." Luc breathed in slowly. "You need to tell Dad and Adam that I'm coming. If I turn up and they're shocked to see me, I'll head straight home again. Is that clear?"
"Yes."
Seeing his stepbrother again was going to be hard enough for both of them. But things would be a hundred times worse if Adam didn't know he was coming.
Chapter Two
Adam
For Adam, dancing was like breathing: it was something he couldn't live without; couldn't imagine himself not doing. He was alone in the studio. The class he had been teaching had finished almost an hour earlier, but he had remained behind, dancing. He'd worked up a sweat as he moved around the studio. The collection of music he'd selected loaned itself to dancing in allegro, which had jacked his heart rate up and really got his blood pumping.
He was tired, exhausted even, but he kept dancing because it made him feel alive. But he also knew his limits. Knew that he was reaching them and that soon he'd need to stop and cool down or risk serious injury. As that thought entered his mind, the music reached a loud crescendo. He grinned, slid his feet into fifth position and dipped into a demi-plié. He glided forward into glissade en avant, which he used to transition into a series of jetés en manège, travelling around the room as he leapt. With each leap, he threw his legs at ninety degrees to his body, one forward, the other back, his arms stretched wide to mirror them.
By the time he stopped, his breathing was laboured. He paused, resting forward onto his knees as he caught his breath.
The sound of clapping from the doorway jerked his attention up and round, his heart hammering even more loudly in his chest.
"Dad." Adam rolled his eyes. "Don't do that. You almost scared the crap out of me."
"
Sorry. I thought you'd realised I was here."
Adam shook his head. He was rarely aware of much beyond the music and the movements of his body when he was dancing.
"Good classes today?" His dad asked.
Adam grabbed his water bottle from beside the CD player and took a couple of long gulps. "Yes. They all worked hard." He wiped his mouth and then, still carrying the bottle, moved to the centre of the room where he sat and began to stretch out his legs to stop them from cramping. "I don't think Jess is ready for exams this time round, though."
His dad nodded thoughtfully. "Even with extra coaching lessons?"
Adam paused, leaning forward over his legs. "That depends on how much effort she's willing to put in. She has a defeatist attitude and tends to get upset when she can't do something immediately, rather than pushing on and trying again." He stretched further forward, reaching his toes with ease. He could feel the pull in his lower back as he stretched a little further.
"I'll speak to her." His dad hovered in the doorway, tapping the doorframe with one hand.
"Is... everything okay?" Adam asked.
"Luc's coming to stay for a while."
Adam froze. "What? Why?" He didn't try to hide the venom in his voice.
When Luc had decided not to come back after university, Adam had been glad he’d stayed away.
"We're struggling, Adam," his dad said softly. "Your mum thought Luc might be able to help us drum up more business."
Adam stood and strode to the towel he'd thrown over one of the barres. "We don't need Luc's help."
"I don't think you realise how bad the situation is."
Adam rubbed the towel over his face and hair, which was damp with sweat. "Maybe because you haven't told me?" He hunched his shoulders and half turned to face his dad. "Why don't you fill me in?"
"We're not bringing in enough to cover all our outgoings. Not by a long shot. We re-mortgaged the house, but that money is running out too." He sounded defeated, which made Adam's blood run cold.
Adam gaped at him, hating himself for not knowing how bad things had gotten.
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