Chapter Twenty-Eight

“This lift is not working.” Anita rubbed her hip. The sting of falling never got any easier.

Patrick frowned and held out his hand to help her stand. “I know. It’s kind of at a crucial moment, though. I don’t think we can take it out.”

“We don’t have time.” She put some weight on the hip and winced but managed to stand. “The showcase is tonight. If we keep this up, I won’t be able to walk, let alone dance.”

Patrick looked about how she felt. “I could use a break.”

They moved off the dance floor to the folding chairs where they had stashed their water bottles. A junior couple across the room practiced a quickstep. They were about fifteen, the girl in a long blue dress with marabou across the bottom. She needed to pull up her elbow in her dance frame, but no one had asked Anita.

“Can I offer some unsolicited advice?”

The tension in her shoulders eased almost immediately when Nigel stepped out of the shadows. “Thank goodness.”

Maybe she wouldn’t be as tense if Patrick were being a little less sweet and attentive. It rankled like an itch she couldn’t scratch.

****

Nigel asked them to show him the lift, and they obliged. Patrick led Anita into slinky swivels, then lifted her while she bicycled her legs. When he tried to rotate her into the next move, though, their rhythm fell apart.

“Shit!” It would certainly be a fashion statement to show up with a giant ice pack taped to her ass.

She lifted her gaze to Nigel, who was rubbing his gold-tip-frosted hair contemplatively.

“You’re not going to like what I have to say,” he finally said.

Her heart sank.

“Well, we don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll just have to deal.”

“All right, come here.” Nigel gestured brusquely.

Great, now she was in trouble with the headmaster.

“Stand here.” Nigel moved Patrick behind Anita. “You need to put your hands here.” Nigel took Patrick’s hands and wrapped them underneath her breasts. A current of electricity and heat nearly stole her breath. “You were positioned too low before. Try it now.”

“Are you okay?” Patrick whispered.

Of course she wasn’t okay. She was suspended less than a foot from the ground, and he was about to flip her over, and all she could think about was how the heat from his hands—

And she did not fall.

The lift worked?

She caught his gaze, the fire of triumph burning in his eyes, the dimple winking back into existence. Something feral and wild coursed through her—lust? It had to be. Images flashed so quickly through her brain she wondered if she had indeed fallen and now was concussed. Images of her and Patrick. Laughing together, grooving to the Jackson Five, tossing pieces of popcorn into each other’s mouths. His body, pressed so firmly to hers that she could not tell where one left off and the other began.

“Great!” Nigel clapped his hands, and Anita staggered to her feet, trying to regain her composure. “Now do that fifteen times so you don’t muck it up tonight.”

****

Patrick excused himself half an hour later.

Thank God and all that was holy. She absolutely could not manage another moment with him without breaking into an ugly flop sweat and/or tearing off his clothes.

Neither seemed appropriate for the venue.

She winced and unbuckled her shoes from her ankles.

Nigel sank into the seat beside her, his posture unhurried.

“Go on, say it.” She rubbed at her feet, brushing over and massaging the calluses. “I know; it’s lacking. It’s—it’s too juvenile.”

“That’s not it, and you know it, Anita.”

Anita straightened her back. What did he know? She ached all over. She had barely slept for weeks now. As if she would have any rest knowing Patrick was sleeping just across a thin partition.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nigel leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I’ve known you since you were twelve. You would see a challenge, work hard, do well, repeat. I’m so proud of everything you’ve done. You’re one of the best students I’ve ever had.” Anita felt tears well up, but no. No, she would not cry in front of him. Not Nigel. “But I never understood how you chose your partners. None of them were good enough for you. I knew they would always let you down, and part of me sensed that you knew it, too.”

That seemed unnecessarily harsh. Her father had been right. She would never make it as a dancer.

Nigel wrapped a warm arm around her shoulders, and despite everything, she leaned into it. “Then I see you with Patrick. And now I know what it was, now I know why you were so bloody stubborn.” He smiled at her and put a comforting, paternal hand on her shoulder. “It frightens you. You worry he is going to leave or maybe that you don’t deserve him, which is bollocks. But when you find a partner like him, you need to commit and trust in him completely. Patrick will never break a promise, never let you down. Let your inhibitions go, and the two of you can be champions.”

Anita barked a laugh to cover her sob.

The junior couple had left finally, and she was immensely grateful for the privacy. “He won’t stay.” Anita examined a rent in the carpet. “This was temporary. He’s just doing me a favor.”

Nigel laughed, so long and so loud that she worried she had broken him. He wiped a stream of tears from his cheek. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. “You’re a smart woman, love. Don’t be daft. Now tell me, what’s your get up for the show dance?”

“I’m not sure. I gave back the original one. I have a gray one I thought I might wear.”

Nigel winked at her. “Keep it. I have just the thing.”