Page 66 of Lovers' Dance

The soft sound of classical music filled the room and snuck out the open door. Matt made himself as comfortable as possible in the seat and watched his beauty dance.

“Too rigid, Lis,” I chastised, frowning at my friend in the mirror. She grimaced as Gerrard loosened his grip on her waist.

“I’m not,” she retorted.

“Yes, you are,” I replied, then did my bout of spins before feeling Dante’s hands reaching for me. He pulled me into his arms as I curved my body downward.

We’d been dancing for three hours and needed a break.

“Take five,” I murmured once upright. Dante nodded, letting go off me and rolling his head around his shoulders.

“All right, everyone. Twenty minutes, then we start again.”

Our top dancers groaned before filing out the fish bowl. Dante and I stood facing each other.

“Something’s missing,” he mused as I bent down to touch my toes, keeping my legs straight. He smacked me hard on the butt and I yelped, straightening up to rub my smarting ass.

“What the hell, Dante?”

“That’s for keeping secrets and getting me into trouble with your crazy aunt,” he said with a grin. “But, seriously, I don’t like the choreography for the second act, Madi.”

“Mmm, you’re right. Have you heard back from that artistic director about the job post? I think we’re too close to it. We need fresh eyes and new ideas. I mean, how much can we do? We’re owners, de facto artistic directors and dancers.”

Dante let out a weary sigh, pulling us both down to the ground. There was a light sheen of sweat on his smooth dark skin. I wiped my hand over his forehead and he smiled a thank you.

“Nah, he hasn’t called back. I doubt he’s interested. We’re nobody. Who wants to work for a small dance company like ours?”

I chewed my lips. It wasn’t like Dante to be this negative, but I understood. We were understaffed. Taking up the majority of the responsibilities had been hard going the past eighteen months.

“I got an email from that lady, the ballet mistress who left Birmingham Royal Ballet,” I muttered. “She declined our offer, was quite nice about it. From what I’ve heard, she’s going to the London Ballet Company.”

“Damn.” Dante rested his head on his knees. “We can’t compete with them, Madi.”

“But we’ve got our classes. That’s a major plus. These kids are getting trained by our instructors—”

“Yeah, the classes aren’t a problem. It’s our principals. I suspect Eddie and Bri are thinking about leaving us.”

“What?” I cried in dismay. Bri was one of our top principals and Eddie was almost as good as Dante. “They wouldn’t. They’ve been with us from the start. They wouldn’t leave.”

“They might,” Dante warned. “Eddie has a friend in the corps at the English National Ballet School, and she’s been telling him to try out with them.”

“How do you know this?” I asked, feeling sick to the stomach. If we lost Eddie to another dance company—well—once one leaves, the others soon follow.

“Shannon told me. You know those two have been hooking up since February.”

I nodded, feeling queasy at the possibility of losing our dancers. “Our latest production is good, Dante. All we need is to make a name for ourselves.”

“I know,” he muttered, head rising slowly. “Do you think about it? About what we left behind?”

I averted my gaze, unable to meet his eyes, fearing what I would see shining from their brown depths. “I’m sorry. You left because of me.” I got up and started for the door. Dante leapt to his feet and caught up to me.

“Hey, don’t do that.” He picked me up and spun me around until we fell laughing and dizzy to the floor. “I left because I wanted to, and you were loaded back then.”

“Shut up.” I laughed as we picked ourselves up. “We’ll make it, Dante. I know we will.”

Playfully pushing each other, we walked out the room. Dante came to a standstill, and I looked over to where he was staring.

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