Page 47 of Souls and Sorrows

I let go of the end of my braid and give him a small grin. “I haven’t danced with you all in ages. They wouldn’t even let me in.”

“Please.” Emile rolls his eyes. “You had more talent in your pinkie toe than most dancers can even dream of. They’d let you attend the party and then probably spend the entire night begging you to come back.”

His words soothe a repressed ache in the pit of my soul, but I don’t let them bounce around my head for too long. I quit for a reason, and the burnout has yet to subside even years later.

Sometimes, I’m afraid it’ll never go away, and the only way I’ll be able to enjoy ballet like I used to is if I continue on in complete solitude, hiding my passion like some dirty little secret.

But I can’t tell Emile that. He wouldn’t understand.

Burnout doesn’t make sense to people who haven’t experienced it.

Instead, I shake my head and move back a step, aware that Cash could come home at any second. After the way I ended our phone call earlier, I don’t really want to deal with him thinking I’ve actually gone and fucked someone in the meantime.

“Maybe next time,” I tell him, wrapping my hand around the strap of my bag.

He gives me a look, like he knows I’m full of shit, but doesn’t call me on it. Gratitude flashes in my chest like a sudden strike of lightning as I’m reminded of how Emile was always kind to me when no one else was.

I almost feel guilty for using him right now. If not for the ominous text message I received when leaving the theater a half hour ago, which led to me entering a busy coffee shop and bumping into him, I wouldn’t have even given him a second thought.

Plus, maybe I liked the idea of Cash coming home and watching me with another man. Maybe I’m more fucked in the head than I realize.

“I’m holding you to that,” Emile says, pointing a long finger at me. He flicks beneath my chin, then takes off, jogging to his Vespa parked down the street.

I stare after him for several seconds, then make my way into the building with the key card I swiped from Cash’s dresser this morning. In the elevator, I pull my phone out and turn it back on, scanning the screen for messages.

There’s one from Elena, saying she saw Vitus out with Vincenza last night, and she wants to know what’s going on. I ignore it, moving on to the text below hers that I got as I was leaving the theater.

We know where they’re hidden.

Gnawing on the corner of my mouth, I debate on replying, but I don’t want the sender to know they’re getting under my skin or that they’ve reached someone on the other end. Better to pretend I’m not seeing their texts and delete the message as I push it from my mind.

Besides, what they’re talking about simply isn’t possible.

I don’t hide. I erase.

The sound of a faucet running drifts through the apartment when I reach the top floor, but I don’t think anything of it as I make my way to the powder room off the foyer, rinsing Mikey P.’s blood from underneath my fingernails and watching the brown-stained water circle the drain.

After drying my hands, I toss my bag onto the chaise lounge in the living room and make my way to the kitchen, hoping I might get a second alone with whom I assume is Cash’s housekeeper, and probably the person who does his personal shopping.

But it’s not a housekeeper I find in the kitchen.

It’shim.

My pulse swells my throat, momentarily cutting off my oxygen supply.

Cash’s broad shoulders stretch the fabric of a thin red sweater, the sleeves rolled partway up, and the veins in his forearms flex as he dices a white onion. The dark jeans he has on highlight his ass in a way I didn’t realize I appreciated, but as he continues working with his back to me, I can’t help but stare.

It’s also the first time I’ve seen him look so…domestic. After growing up in a family that spent every waking second prepared for a fucking photo shoot, the casualwear throws me.

Standing there, I spend a few seconds taking in the slope of his shoulders and the taut tendons in his neck, trying to gauge his level of upset. It’s one thing if he’s mad because of our phone call, but another entirely if he saw me outside with Emile.

Then again, if I didn’t see him come in, maybe he’s just been here longer than me and is completely oblivious to the fact that I was talking to another man entirely.

With that flurry of hope in my stomach, I step inside the kitchen. “I didn’t realize you’d gotten back.”

He doesn’t turn toward me, singularly focused on his cutting. “Probably hard to notice your husband’s return when you’re busy making googly eyes at strangers outside.”

Shit.

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