Page 190 of Lovers' Dance

I grinned and got comfortable, well as much as was physically possible on the awful sofa, and I bet it cost him a fortune. Matt resumed the movie, but I didn’t pay attention to it. All I could think about were his words earlier this morning, about me not proving my love to him.

“Do you want to go home with me, Matt?” I asked softly.

Matt was close to the edge of the seat, peering at the ridiculously large TV. “Poppet, I don’t want to drive to Greenwich today. I thought you wanted to stay here.”

I nudged him with my foot. “Not there. I meanthomehome. For Thanksgiving. Do you want to come with me? You don’t have to. It’s not like you have to come. I mean, it’s just that I’ve met your family and maybe you should meet mine. You’ll probably be away on business, anyway. Forget I said anything,” I rambled and scratched my ear in embarrassment.

Matt paused the movie, put down the remote and twisted on the sofa so we faced each other. “I’d love to go with you.”

I scrambled over to wrap my arms around his neck and press a kiss to his soft lips.

Matt suddenly gave me a devious look. “In fact, I think you should call your aunt back right now and give her the good news. Tell her I’m quivering with excitement at the prospect of meeting her. And tell her I’m really, really pale.”

I shook my head and sat back down properly. “Start the movie, Matt, before I suck your soul out of you.”

Matt slung an arm around me and pulled me into the warmth of his body. “You can have my soul anytime you want it, poppet.”

“That’s blasphemous. Your soul should belong to Jesus, but I’ll take dibs on your ass.”

Watching a scary movie with my boyfriend was my new bliss. Things were fine. I was fine, and I had seven weeks of intense supplication to the Lord Almighty that my family would be welcoming to Matt. I hoped God didn’t hold my previous lack of communication against me, because only divine intervention could make it an incident-free visit. My eyes went upwards. Best to start praying.

NINETEEN

LIFE WAS GREAT. Fantabulous, actually. The artistic director in my employment was a dream to work with. His professional expertise helped us tweak the troublesome parts ofThe Ice Queen and Princess, and we changed a few things. That was unexpected, to say the least. I was surprised Dante hadn’t lost his rag. He had listened to what Francois had to say, run through the steps, then agreed with him. I thought my friend had been replaced by a pod person.

My relationship with Matt had settled into a nice routine. A tiring, but definitely nice routine, where I was spending more and more time over at his place in Kensington while he spent less and less time at mine. Sometimes we barely saw each other, which always made me laugh seeing as we were in the same place. I would drive over to his place late at night to find him in bed, then he would leave early in the morning while I drooled over his pillows. Or he would come home from a long day at the office, and I would be fast asleep in the studio, wrapped up in duvets and pillows on the floor. He didn’t like that, had scolded me about it, too.

The media was still a problem. I doubted I could ever get used to their intrusion in our lives. A few days ago, I had been in Tesco picking up bottled water for the canteen and toilet paper for the loos at work when I spotted a magazine with a picture of me and Matt on the cover. The caption read: ‘The elusive Matthew Bradley tamed at last?’

The fuckers. I bought it though and the checkout girl had glanced at it as she passed it over the machine, then glanced at me, before her mouth fell open. I had smiled politely at her and pointed to the toilet paper. She ran those over the machine, goggling at me. This picture was an okay one. I swear those darned photographers went out of their way to catch me on every single bad hair day I had.

But I was happy. Matt was happy I was happy. Although there had been two incidents that had put a damper on my current bliss. The first was ‘the ambush’. It was a little over a week after my birthday and Matt had requested my presence at his place—well, ordered more like it. Being the great girlfriend that I was, I had left work early to acquiesce to his request. Big mistake.

George had met me at the door, taken my bag, then informed me to go to Matt’s office at once. His behaviour had seemed a bit cloak and dagger, and I foolishly wondered if Matt had gotten me a new expensive surprise. He had, but not the nice kind. On my entry to Matt’s office, I was met with the sight of a well-dressed, middle-aged white woman seated in front his desk drinking tea. Matt had walked over to kiss me hello and closed the door behind me. Then, he made the introductions: Dr Yvonne Brown, Psy.D. My new psychotherapist.

There had been five awkward minutes of silence with Matt standing conveniently in front of the door and blocking my immediate escape. I had a moment of pure panic before I politely laid into Matt. I reminded him this was supposed to be done my way, when I was ready. He countered by saying she was the best in the field and came highly recommended. I had sweetly retorted he said I could do my own research into it, and how was he sure she was the best. At that point, I had stalked over to his desk giving her a wide berth, of course, and Googled her ass. She was the best, it seemed. But I wasn’t going to take this ambush lying down.

She had remained completely calm sipping her tea and observing Matt’s and mine interaction. I worried that she was making mental notes about me.

I told Matt to stop pushing me. He calmly said I was using delaying tactics as I had made no attempt to do anything about the issue and a resolution to my problems were long overdue. He and Dr Brown had had a long discussion about the next steps forward.

Dr Yvonne Brown had finished her cup of tea and poured herself another, still silently observing us.

Matt politely asked me to come outside the office for a moment. It was the most polite argument we had ever had.

He had reminded me in his deep, sincere voice that I had agreed to prove my love by doing this for us, and he wanted me to have the very best. Her fees were upwards of £350 per hour, not factoring she was here outside her normal work hours. I had asked how long she’d been there and Matt said an hour and a half. Matt was right. I didn’t appreciate the ambush, mind you, but he knew I was secretly trying to weasel my way out of getting help. Damn. I thought I had more time. I relented, promising some form of payback, and that I would be cured in the cheapest amount of time possible. Three hundred and fifty pounds and upwards? Per hour? Hell, I would be cured by the time she left here.

Matt had called Dr Brown out and led us to the studio where there were two fancy chairs and a table laden with goodies and tea. He had said to her I felt the most at ease in my studio, and it was probably the best place for us to get to know one another. He left us to it.

Bloody man.

She was nice though. Very professional. When I had walked her to the front door an hour later, I told her I felt better and probably wouldn’t need to see her again. Dr Brown had laughed and said our discussion about theNutcracker, although pleasant, would not be the last one we would have.

Once I had closed the door behind me and searched out Matt—it had taken me twenty minutes to find where he was ensconced—I had promptly kneed him in the nuts and called him a tyrant. Then I kneed him again.

The second incident had been at my place. Matt had surprised me one night by stopping by. I had been sorting through my paperwork and seeing him was a welcome break. After I had fed him, he offered to help me organize the mountain of papers stacked around my living room floor. Everything was going fine until he happened across my most recent documents from Geoffrey. He had asked me what it was, and I had shrugged, giving a brief explanation of the way we sometimes worked with Geoffrey. Matt had looked ill. He demanded to see every single document from Kincaid I had signed, which I found irritating. When I asked him what the big issue was, he had ignored me and diligently searched through every piece of paper on my floor until he had a neat pile of documents from Kincaid in his hand. I was not happy with that, told him to stop minding my business then attempted to reclaim the documents. Humph. Matt, being much stronger, easily evaded my attack then he strode off to the kitchen and locked the door, leaving me to continue sorting through my paperwork. I didn’t know why he was acting strangely, and it was obvious he didn’t want to explain his actions to me. When he rejoined me a little while after, he had coldly asked if I was fully aware of what I had signed my name to. I had explained my relationship with Geoffrey, and Matt had ordered me to never sign another legal document like the ones he’d been going through unless his solicitors okayed it. He completed ignored the fact I told him I already had a legal third party who went over the documents before I signed them. His attitude towards my relationship with Geoffrey was not only perplexing but uncalled for. He didn’t even know the man. Then he called his secretary, I think her name was Rachel, and instructed her to ensure a charitable donation of two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds was made to my dance company the following morning.

Outraged couldn’t begin to describe how I felt. Matt had brushed my feelings aside, saying he had planned to donate funds to my company months ago, before we had gone to Venice, and donations were a tax write-off for his company, anyway. I had calmly explained he had, by that single action, turned me into his whore. He had told me to stop being foolish and wouldn’t listen to why I felt so strongly about what he had done. Needless to say, he hadn’t stayed the night. I felt awful, dirty, a kept woman. I had called him the next morning, imploring him to cancel the donation and, when he said he wouldn’t, I reminded him how the media would portray it if they found out. Matt had an answer for that. Simply put, I would be doing him a favour by accepting the donation as it would be good press for his company to be involved in another programme of the arts. He went on to say he had arranged a press release, and there was a function I would be required to attend with three members of my staff. Bradley Industries held yearly functions for the charities of their choosing, attendance was non-negotiable. When I told Dante what Matt had done, he had shrugged and said we needed all the donations we could get. Plus, Matt was sexing me so he should pay for the privilege. He was teasing, but I punched him for his cheek.I knew the donation would look suspect.It felt wrong. I don’t know why, it just did. My ballet company was my baby; created with blood, sweat and tears. It was mine. I didn’t want to feel as if I owed Matt.

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