Romance: Dance with Me (California Belly Dance Romance Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

twice ever since.”
    Melanie shot up from her chair, tipping the half-filled can and spilling fizzy soda across the linoleum floor. She looked at it, but she didn’t move to clean it up. She grabbed her clutch and her keys instead. “It’s been great spending time with you, Ma. I gotta go.”
    Her mother sat up straight. “Don’t walk out when I’m talking to you, Melanie Jean. You get back in here.”
    But Melanie was already out the door and down the steps. Her hand was on the hot chrome door handle when she heard it. Her mother’s usual parting comment: “You’re worthless, you know. Absolutely worthless.”
    Melanie dropped into the seat behind the steering wheel, cranked the ignition, and drove.
    She drove down Harbor and down Newport Boulevard. Halfway between Newport Beach and Laguna on Coast Highway, she pulled into the cliff-side Shake Shack with her mother’s words still rattling in her head. Ginger was bitter. She was vengeful. At this point, she might even be psychotic.
    But she also had a point.
    What did Melanie have that was worth anything? A clerical job she tolerated. A crappy car. A string of ex-boyfriends.
    Dancing. That was all she really had. The only thing she cared about, anyway. Feeling herself in the music, feeling part of it, feeling it move through her. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t afford college and certainly never had the grades to get a scholarship. It didn’t matter that she didn’t have family connections to land a great job after squeaking through high school. What she had was dance, and somehow that was going to be her ticket to something better. She’d always known it. She talked about it. She expected it.
    It was no wonder Abby assumed she was going to try out for the Belly Dance Divas. Everyone assumed it. It wasn’t that she’d decided against it. She just hadn’t gotten around to the paperwork yet. There was still plenty of time for that. Plenty of time to put these nagging doubts to rest.
    But then Abby had tried to force her into that arrangement with Taz.
    She made it sound so simple. So easy. Like it was a sure thing. She’d never understand that if Melanie lost this dream, she’d have nothing.
    She couldn’t bear that. 
    But now it hardly mattered. She’d made a mess of everything. A mediocre job, a mediocre car, and let’s face it, a worse than mediocre life. Without even trying, she was sinking into the same abyss that had claimed her mother. In twenty years, she would be her mother, hating the world and everyone in it because she’d never had a chance for something better.
    Only, she did have a chance. Taz Roman was offering to help her get into the Divas. How could she turn that down?
    She couldn’t. Even if she was scared. Even if it all came to nothing. She had to try.
    She grabbed her phone before she lost her nerve and dialed.
    “Abby, it’s me. Do you have Taz’s number?”
    There was stunned silence for a fat second, then, “I can do better than that. He’s right here.”
    Melanie’s heart raced. Her cheeks flushed. Damn, why couldn’t she just leave this on his voicemail?
    “Hey, this is Taz.”
    She took a quick, deep breath. “It’s Melanie,” she said and clenched her fists, her eyes, her everything. “Is that offer still open?”

 
     
     
     
     
     
    | 5
     
    Melanie stared over her steering wheel into the tangerine glow sliding over the Pacific. The clear silhouette of Catalina Island was in the distance. “If I’m going to do this, there have to be some ground rules.”
    A pause stretched on the other end of the line, then Taz replied, “What’d you have in mind?”
    “For starters,” she said, “I want to know exactly what I get in this bargain.”
    “Fair enough. Let’s talk over dinner. I’m playing at the Tent tonight.”
    The Sultan’s Tent was a Middle Eastern restaurant and nightclub in Newport Beach that attracted the local rich and trendy crowd. Over-hyped and overpriced, it was also the most