A thrill shot through Olivia. “I’m so glad, because I have news.” She told her about the Atlanta Ballet. “And The Joffrey is interested in seeing her, plus I’m working on a couple more companies.” At the light in Candy’s eyes, Olivia held up a hand and continued. “No promises. She still has to audition, but it’s a start.”
Tears filled Candy’s eyes, but a smile lit her face as she nodded. “It’s a wonderful start.”
Zach searched for Olivia’s beautiful dark hair in the throng of dancers, proud parents, and volunteer crew. He finally spotted her surrounded by adoring students, all giving her hugs and high fives.
His heart swelled with pride. Her direction and outwardly calm demeanor—he knew inside she was a quivering mass of Jell-O—over the last three days had been impressive to watch. She’d pulled off her first production, and while it had only been a hometown recital, he’d seen how much work it had been. Add to it the issues she’d been dealing with, from her mother’s death and her own injury to asswipe’s criminal activity and her own near-death, and she deserved a medal.
He might not be able to give her that medal, but he could give her some much-needed down time. He’d been thinking about a little trip somewhere—lying on a Caribbean beach with a fruity drink in his hand sounded like just the thing.
She glanced up, and their eyes caught. He smiled, a broad grin that stretched his face to its limits.
Returning his smile, she disentangled herself from the horde of dancers and approached him. She looked so different in the heavy stage makeup, resplendent in the lavender-and-silver tutu on loan from The Joffrey. He longed to pull the pins from her snug ballerina bun. He chuckled to himself. Some things never changed.
Not only had the show blown him away, but her performance had as well. He knew she would criticize her inability to perform certain steps or to dance en pointe, but from where he sat, it had been brilliant.
“The show was amazing! Your mother would be so proud. I know I am!” He handed her a massive bouquet of pink roses, to go along with all the other flowers she’d received, then kissed her. He tasted the salt of her upper lip on his own lips.
“Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you and all these amazing people.” She lifted her hand to indicate the volunteers who swarmed the stage like busy ants, clearing away props, smaller pieces of scenery, and the general detritus of the production. “My head is swimming with all the things I would have done differently, but overall, everything went well, and those things that didn’t weren’t noticeable to the audience.” She touched his arm. “Are you coming to the cast party?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“First, I need to get out of this costume and makeup and take a shower.”
He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “I think I can help with that.”
She shivered. “I bet you can. Give me ten minutes. The party starts in an hour.”
“Plenty of time for our own private party first.”
Music drifted from speakers, and nonalcoholic punch flowed as the cast reveled in their accomplishments. The adrenaline coursing through the room, out onto the porches, and into the backyard was contagious, as Zach made his way over to the spread of food in the kitchen.
Logan leaned against the island, a brimming plate in his hand.
“I thought dancers had to watch what they ate?” Zach asked, eyeing the food and filling his own plate.
Logan snorted. “I’m seven feet tall and I dance almost eight hours a day, six or seven days a week. I burn it, I don’t store it.”
Zach chuckled. “Got it.” He stuffed a meatball in his mouth, as he perused the rest of the selection.
“Hey! Great news about Olivia’s prospects, huh?” Logan paused, gulping punch from his cup.
The meatball hit Zach’s stomach with a thud. “What?”
“The interviews. You know—the San Fran Ballet and The Joffrey.” The smile on Logan’s face froze when he caught Zach’s own expression. “Uh-oh. She hadn’t told you. Shit.” He set his plate down. “Man. I’m sorry. Look, maybe I heard wrong, maybe—”
“Save it.” Zach strode through the kitchen, dumping his plate of food in the garbage on the way out.
Fuming, he scanned the crowd. When had she gotten the call? How long had she known?
After a very steamy shower, they’d made love upstairs in her room. She’d told him she loved him, for fuck’s sake. Had she lied? She hadn’t told him she wasn’t leaving, but neither had she told him she was.
Spotting her dark head out on the back porch, he pushed through the throng and, taking her by the upper arm, pulled her along with him. “We need to talk. Now.”
“O-okay.” She gave him a quizzical look, her brow furrowed.
He led her to a dark corner of the backyard.
“Zach? What’s going on?”
“You want to tell me about San Francisco?” He barely held his temper in check, as he folded his arms across his chest.
In the light cast by the tiki torches, he saw the color drain from her face.
Anger and hurt radiated off Zach like the heat from the nearby tiki torch. A muscle twitched along his jaw, and he fairly hummed with negative energy. How had he found out about the calls? She’d told no one.
“The San Francisco Ballet has an opening for a ballet mistress.”
“San Francisco!” He threw up his hands. “It might as well be Timbuktu.”
She glanced behind her at the people milling about the backyard, now looking their way. “Please keep your voice down.” This was not where, or how, she’d planned to break the news. Before she could share with him her thoughts on the offers, he cut her off.
“You lied to me!”
Bristling at his accusation, she shifted toward him. “I did not lie to you! You knew I was looking for a job.”
“I had hoped maybe you would come to your senses and realize you could be happy here in Northridge, with me, and the rest of the townspeople. The townspeople who stepped up when you needed them.”
She winced. Nice.
“How long have you known about this?”
“Zach—” she tried again to explain.
“How long?”
Fine. That’s the way he wanted to do this. “San Francisco called a week and a half ago, and Raoul called earlier today about The Joffrey.”
“So, you’ve known about the position in San Francisco for what, ten days, and I had to find out from Logan.” He jerked his thumb toward the house where the cast partied, oblivious to the personal drama playing out here in the backyard.
“Logan?” How did Logan know about the offers? “Zach, if you’d only let me explain—”
“You saw fit to tell Logan but not me. Who else knows? Who else is laughing behind my back at my gullibility?”
“No one knows, Zach.” He cast a dubious glance at her. “I’ve told no one.”
He scoffed.
“Both of these jobs are a retired dancer’s dream. I owed it to myself to at least listen to what they had to say. To consider—”
“I thought this time would be different.” He gave a rueful laugh, looking down at his feet. “I thought this time you’d stay. I’m such an idiot,” he muttered to himself then lifted his head to pin her with his gaze. “I won’t do this again.”
“What do you mean?” She wrapped her arms around her middle, feeling sick.
“I won’t watch you walk away again.”
She reached out a hand to touch his arm, but he flinched away from her. “Don’t. You have to do what you think is best. I didn’t stand in your way seventeen years ago, and I’m not going to stand in your way now. But understand this,” he held up a finger, “I won’t sit around and wait for you forever. I’ve already waited too long.” He spun on his heel and strode away, his retreating back blurred by her tears.
Without even asking, Tyler set a frosty mug of beer in front of Zach, which he gratefully lifted to his lips for a hearty gulp. He’d like to get good and drunk
right now. Maybe it would ease the tightness in his chest, the feeling that he would never be able to draw a full breath again.
He’d been through this before. He should remember how it felt. But this time seemed worse—like his diaphragm had lost its ability—or its will—to draw air in and expel air out of his lungs.
An hour past closing, the taproom was empty. Unsure where to go or what to do, he’d found himself outside Tyler’s door, banging on it until Tyler had let him in.
Taking another gulp of beer, he sat forward, leaning his elbows on the bar, unable to bear the weight that threatened to crumple him.
Tyler took a seat next to him but didn’t speak. He appreciated his friendship, but he appreciated his silence even more at the moment. He didn’t want to talk about his feelings. He didn’t want to hear any platitudes. And he sure as hell didn’t want to hear ‘I told you so.’ He’d told himself that enough times in the last hour.
What had he expected? She had fully intended to leave Northridge as soon as her obligations were met. Produce recital. Check. Now she could sell her mother’s business and get on with her life. Without him.
Got it this time. Loud and clear.
Glancing at the now-empty mug, the hurt and rage swelled. Before he thought twice about it, he launched the heavy mug against the brick wall, where it hit with a satisfying thunk and shattered into so many pieces, just like his heart.
“Okay, then,” Tyler muttered. “After you clean up the mess you made, whadya say we switch to plastic for the next beer?”
He didn’t want another beer. Alcohol wasn’t going to heal his broken heart. There was only one thing that would. Time. And with Olivia leaving Northridge, he’d have plenty of that.
Too keyed up to sleep, Olivia sat at the kitchen table amid the after-party debris, her phone at her elbow and a cup of tea in her hands. Although she knew better, she’d hoped for a text from Zach. When her phone buzzed, she snatched it off the table. Not a text. An email. Absentmindedly, she tapped on her email app, and the name Alexandra Romano-Ellis caught her eye. Holy shit. This was it.
Now that it had come, she hesitated to open it. What if Alex basically said ‘get lost’? She didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to handle another gut-wrenching disappointment.
Drawing in a deep calming breath as she did before stepping onto the stage, she opened the email to see a long message. Either Alex was telling her off, or, at the very least, hadn’t just told her to fuck off.
Olivia,
I must admit to being shocked when I received your message. I have not been a faithful user of this service. I submitted my DNA several years ago when I began researching my family tree, but life intervened, as it often does, and my research fell by the wayside.
As I’m sure you’ve gathered from your own research, given the level of our match, we are very closely related. Based on my own research, I can assure you I am not your grandmother, and I am certain of this fact, because I am only forty-two years old, and my children are not old enough to have kids. I can also assure you I am not your aunt, because I have but one other full sibling and she does not have children.
That leaves only three other possibilities. Since I don’t know your age, you could be either my grandmother or my aunt. However, this seems highly unlikely, as I knew both sets of grandparents and they are deceased. Likewise, my mother is an only child, and my father’s brother died when he was a boy.
The third and remaining possibility is the one which caused me (and my sister) some level of pause. You are our half-sister.
Olivia’s heart thudded heavily in her chest, and she closed her eyes. Half-sister. Opening her eyes, she continued reading.
If you are our half-sister, that means either my mother had you before she met my father, or our father had an affair. As I’m sure you can understand, either possibility upset both me and my sister and was the reason for my hesitation in replying to this message.
I am old enough to remember a time when things between my parents were not . . . good. Of course, as a child, I didn’t know exactly what the problem was. I just knew their relationship was strained. I must have been about seven or eight.
Olivia’s thudding heart kicked into overdrive.
It doesn’t take great deductive reasoning skills to reach a conclusion here, does it? You are my half-sister.
I won’t sugarcoat it. When I reached this uncomfortable conclusion, I resented you. How dare you disrupt our lives? How dare your mother try to take away our father?
Olivia’s face burned with shame, despite her lack of culpability. She supposed from this, that Alex wanted nothing to do with her. And might even withhold information on her father. Could Olivia really blame her?
I think my mother knew about my father and your mother. There were comments now and then. But my father stayed with us, took care of us. Loved us. And, if nothing else, cared for my mother, who died several years ago from breast cancer. He died a few years later in a car accident.
By the way, I Googled your name, and there is a ballet dancer by the same name who is from Georgia. I’m sure Olivia James is a fairly common name, so I don’t know if this is you or not.
Olivia laughed, a quiver in her throat. Bingo.
After my initial anger (and hurt), I wondered if you even knew who your father was, but decided that if you had, you might have already attempted to contact him, or us. I’m going to guess you have no idea. Likewise, I have no idea if you were adopted, or if your mother kept you and raised you. I have no idea if your mother married, and you thought her husband your father, and learned only recently he was not. Too much speculation.
But then I wondered, if you don’t know who your father was, how that must feel—only knowing half your story. Always questioning. So, after two weeks of angst and reflection, I decided I could tell the other half of your story, at least as far as I know it. From a purely selfish perspective, I am also curious. Do you look like our father? Will I see any gestures or habits in you that I saw in him? Will you and I share any likes and dislikes? So, if you want to meet, my sister Satira and I would be amenable.
Olivia’s breath caught in her throat. My God. Not just to know her father’s name but to meet her . . . sisters. Her vision blurred, and she blinked to clear the tears so she could continue reading.
In the meantime, my (our) father’s name was Raphael Alessandro Romano, Rafe for short. He was born in 1948 in Sicily. He is buried beside my mother in Greenwood Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia. My sister’s name is Satira Romano-Addison. When your mother met my father, he would have been an accountant, though I have no knowledge of how they met.
That’s a start. I can tell you more about our father when we meet, if that’s your wish. I will wait to hear from you.
Covering her mouth, Olivia began to sob, deep soul-wrenching moans wracking her body. The release after the show, the fight with Zach, and the answer to her prayers all in the same night proved too much for her. Losing Zach and finding her family, all in the same night. Emotions roiled inside her like molten lava, erupting in a powerful explosion.
“Olivia? What’s wrong?” Jennie stood in the kitchen, her voice holding a note of concern, but all Olivia could do was shake her head. The next thing she knew, Jennie was on her knees beside Olivia’s chair, her long, thin arms around her as she rocked Olivia to and fro. “Shh. It will be all right.”
Realizing that Jennie thought Olivia was sobbing for her mother, Olivia shook her head harder. “No,” she choked out. “I mean . . . yes, it will be all right.” At least she hoped it would. She hoped beyond anything that her half-sisters would accept her, maybe even come to love her, and that she could make things right with Zach.
When the sobbing subsided into hiccoughs, she withdrew from Jennie’s arms, still flabbergasted over the display of kindness and affection from the usually distant woman. Olivia swiped the tears from her face and wiped her nose on the back of her hand, casting a watery smile at Jennie, whose own face bore telltale signs
of tears.
“You okay now?” Jennie asked, brow furrowed as she sat back on her haunches.
Olivia nodded. “I think I’m more than okay.”
Chapter Thirty
The next morning, Olivia woke with a splitting headache, but the ache in her heart gave her headache a run for its money. She could still see the look on Zach’s face before he’d walked away. A knife to the gut couldn’t have hurt her any worse.
Then there was her newfound family, if that’s what Alex and Satira were, but all evidence pointed in that direction. She’d opened the envelope from Zach, confirming the information matched that from Alex. Reading the obit had triggered another crying jag, leaving her drained.
She’d lain awake most of the night after that, trying to figure out what to do. About Zach. About her half-sisters. What was the right thing? For her? For him? For them?
Could she be satisfied here in Northridge taking over her mother’s studio? But more importantly, was she capable of running her mother’s other businesses—her retail space, her dancewear shop? Unlike her mother, Olivia was no businesswoman. What if she failed? Not only herself but the people who relied on those businesses for their livelihood?
She rolled out of bed with a groan—her ankle, her muscles, and her heart all protesting the movement. She’d much rather have stayed in bed with the covers over her head.
But she had things to do. Calls to return, plans to set in action, and more importantly, apologies to make.
As the blessedly hot water soothed her aches and pains, her thoughts again turned to Zach. He said she’d lied to him. She hadn’t. But she hadn’t been honest with him either. She’d had three incredible months with him. She’d had his unwavering support, his protection, and most of all, his love. She should have told him about the job offers—after all, it was his heart and his future at stake too.
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