The Dance Off Read Online Free Page B

important. And as for the woman who’d stirred other parts of him, hooking into his darker nature, begging it be allowed out to play? All elements of the same slippery path.
    No. No matter how his life might be changing, his crusade had not. So he’d have to be more vigilant in harnessing his baser nature than ever.
    With that firmly fixed at the front of his mind, he went off in search of the project manager, foreman, head engineer, the council rep, union rep, and the jolly band of clients, perversely hoping for a problem he could really sink his teeth into.
    * * *
    It was nearing the end of a long day—Tiny Tots lessons all morning, Seniors Acrobatics after lunch, Intermediate Salsa in the evening, so Nadia happily took the chance for a break.
    She sat in the window seat of the dance studio, absent-mindedly running a heavy-duty hula hoop through her fingers. Rain sluiced down the window making the dark street below look prettier than usual, like something out of an old French film.
    Unfortunately, the day’s constant downpour hadn’t taken the edge off the lingering heat. Nadia’s clothes stuck to her skin, perspiration dripped down her back, and she could feel her hair curling at her neck.
    And it wasn’t doing much for her joints either. She stretched out her ankle, which had started giving her problems during her earlier weights training at the gym. It got the aches at times—when it was too hot, or too cold, or sometimes just because. As did her knees, her wrists, her hips. Not that it had ever stopped her. Her mother had famously been quoted as saying, “If a dancer doesn’t go home limping she hasn’t worked hard enough.”
    But it wasn’t her body that had spun her out of the dance world. That would have been way more impressive, tragic even—a sparkling young dancer cut down before her time by a body pushed to the edge...
    Looking back, she wished she’d handled things differently. That, after discovering her dance partner boyfriend had dumped her, hooked up with another dancer in the show and moved the girl into his apartment—leaving Nadia without an act, without a guy, and without a home all in one rough hit—she’d acted with grace and aplomb and simply gone on. Perhaps after kicking him where it hurt most. But whether it was embarrassment, or shock, or just plain mental and physical exhaustion, she’d fled.
    The only right decision she’d made was in going straight to her mother. Oh, Claudia’s gratification at finding her only kid tearful and dejected on her doorstep had been its usual version of total rubbish, but when her mother had told her to get over it and get back to work, it was exactly what Nadia had needed to hear.
    Nadia went to work on the other ankle with a groan that was half pleasure, half pain. It meant she was dancing again. Meant she was getting closer to rekindling her life’s dream.
    But for now, she had one more class to go before she could ice up—her duet with Ryder Fitzgerald. She figured it was about fifty-fifty he’d show up at all.
    And then, with a minute to spare, his curvaceous black car eased around the corner and into her rain-soaked view to pull to a neat stop a tidy foot from the gutter. Ryder stepped from the car, decked out once again in a debonair suit. Nice , she thought. He’d ignored her advice completely.
    And then he looked up.
    Nadia sank into the shadows. Dammit. Had she been quick enough? Last thing she needed was for Mr Testosterone to think she’d been waiting for him, all bated breath and trembling anticipation. She nudged forward an inch, then another, till through the rain-slicked window she saw he’d already disappeared inside.
    With a sigh she slid from the window seat and padded over to the door. She twirled the hoop away and back, caught it in one finger and tossed it in the air before turning a simple pirouette and catching the ring on the way down.
    She tossed it lazily onto the pile on the floor, plucked dance heels and a long