Page 25 of Pas de Don't
Instead, she changed hastily back into her street clothes.Stupid, stupid, the icy voice hissed in her ear as she pulled on her jeans.Are you trying to get fired? Are you trying to get him fired? He only kissed you out of pity, anyway, Stage Face.
She had to be the world’s biggest idiot. She had thrown herself at her coworker, basically launched herself at him in a confined space he couldn’t escape, when just a day earlier he’d told her about the consequences of that kind of behavior. Heather took a deep, steadying breath, and then looked back at her reflection. They couldn’t do that again. She couldn’t do that again. No matter how badly she wanted to.
She collected the skirt, making sure to straighten out any incriminating crumples of tulle before she escaped the fitting room.
Chapter 7
Shopping bags in hand, they rode the escalator down to street level in prickling silence. Heather avoided his eyes, staring into the shopping bag and, as far as Marcus could tell, hardly breathing. She hadn’t said a word to him since she’d emerged from the changing room, fully dressed and with the treacherous tutu pinned under one arm. She’d avoided his gaze as Izzy ran her card, and as Izzy asked for a hug—then a handshake, then another hug—before they left.
Marcus couldn’t keep himself from looking at her, trying to catch her eye. He needed to know if she was as shaken as he was. He hadn’t kissed anyone in a while. Well over a year. But he was fairly sure he’d remember if he’d ever been kissed like that in his life.
When they reached the bottom of the escalator, they entered a street teeming with people in suits rushing from their offices to the food courts and back again. Marcus stared at the crowds for a moment, surprised to see the lunch rush was still out. They’d only been in the dancewear shop for an hour, but that hour seemed to change everything. He’d gone in with a plan: they’d grab a fewleotards, then go to the zoo, see a koala, eat an overpriced ice block, and go their separate ways. Making out in the dressing room, feeling the muscles of Heather’s upper back undulate beneath her skin, and extricating himself with what he hoped was not a visible hard-on had definitely not been on the agenda.
He’d known, even as he was pulling her into his arms, that it wasn’t a good idea, for so many reasons. She was fresh off a very public breakup with ballet royalty, and even if she weren’t, this wasn’t a risk either of them could afford to take. He’d spent the last year working with Sharon to get his strength back so he could do his job, and he’d have to be an idiot to jeopardize that by kissing her.
But he also would’ve been an idiotnotto kiss her, not when she was so close and smelled so sweet, and her waist fit so perfectly in his hands. The sight of her face, with its unmistakable mix of nervousness and determination, had overpowered all his objections. And then her lips had touched his, and something in him had broken open in relief and recognition. All the reasons he’d spent the last few days repeating to himself had vanished from his mind.
Now, though, they were out here in the bright sunlight, and even if he couldn’t bring himself to regret what they’d done, he knew it couldn’t happen again.
Marcus glanced back at Heather and caught her looking at him, finally meeting his eyes. A shallow line gathered between her eyebrows, and it looked like every single one of her muscles was tensed. He took a breath to speak, but she beat him to it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was wrong of me.”
“You’re right,” he said, with a solemn nod. “You should have gotten Izzy to give me a free dance belt.”
Heather stared at him for a moment, looking baffled, then her face cracked into a smile. God, she was beautiful with her face lit up like that. It was thrilling to think he, of all people, could make her light up. But as quickly as it had appeared, the smile slipped away, and the crease between her eyebrows returned.
“You know what I mean. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Well, we both did it,” he replied. And if it wouldn’t cost both of them their jobs, he thought, he’d happily do it again. Probably several times. Ideally without forty-seven layers of tulle in the way.
“Still, I started it,” she said to his collar, shaking her head as though she was annoyed with herself. Or with him? Had she not enjoyed it, at least? It had certainly seemed like she’d been into it, but maybe he’d misread the situation. She pulled her gaze up to his. “I started it, and I’m sorry,” she repeated firmly.
“Heather, it’s okay, it was ...” What was he going to say, exactly? Hot? Breathtaking? The sweetest, most intense kiss he could remember? Marcus groped around his brain for the right words, but she interrupted his thoughts before he could find them.
“It was a mistake,” she said. “We just got caught up, and...and it won’t happen again. It can’t happen again.”
A cloud slid over the little patch of sunlight that had bloomed in his chest at the sight of her smile, and he drew himself up a little straighter, taking a step backwards. A mistake. Of course. Marcus fidgeted with the hem of his sweatshirt. Of course it hadn’t been real. Of course she regretted it and couldn’t imagine it happening again. And even if she wanted it to happen, he reminded himself yet again, she was right: it couldn’t. His pride was a little bit stung, but it was for the best.
She was watching him closely, waiting for him to speak, he realised. He cleared his throat.
“Well, um, it’s probably a bit late to go to the zoo now,” he lied, “so why don’t we call it a day?”
“Sure,” she nodded, sounding disappointed. She looked up and down the crowded street. “Is there a bus we can take? Isn’t there a train station nearby?”
He led the way through the crowd of the city’s central business district. Disappointment throbbed in his chest, but he tried to focus on the positive. He was moving faster than he had the previous day, which was lucky, because the roving packs of private school boysout for their lunch breaks were too busy joking and giving each other shit to notice him until it was nearly too late.
“Sorry, mate!” one of them yelled over his shoulder after Marcus dodged out of his way and wobbled perilously.
“Are you okay?” Heather asked, grabbing his free arm to steady him. A pleasant heat shot through him at her touch and lingered when she pulled away.
“Yeah, I’m right,” Marcus said, shaking his head and looking down at the cane. “I’ll just be glad to be shot of this thing.”
“What did Sharon—er,Shaz—say today?”
“She said I can go back to class next week, if I’m careful about it,” Marcus replied as they headed towards Wynyard Station, where a dozen buses would be lined up to take people over the Bridge and out to Sydney’s sprawling northern suburbs. “Just barrework, and not too much of it.”
“That’s great, though,” Heather encouraged.
