Dance for Me (Fenbrook Academy #1) - New Adult Romance (15 page)

I ran for the elevator.

***

Five minutes later, after the shortest shower in history, I exploded out of the front door of the mansion in just my jockey shorts. The driver was waiting patiently in the car—he would have waited all night, if he’d had to. I wrenched open the rear door and threw the armful of clothes I was carrying inside and then dived in after it.

I gave the driver the address of the bar and told him there was an extra hundred in it for him if he got us there before nine. As we sped down the highway, I tried to pull my pants on with one hand while I scrambled for my phone to call Natasha. Why hadn’t she called me? She must have been livid....

My heart sank as I saw the black screen of my phone and remembered turning it off. When I fired it up, I had three missed calls, all from Natasha.

Chapter Seventeen

Natasha

I staggered into the restroom, glimpsing slate tiles and soft, subdued lighting before I crashed into a stall and slammed the door. I pulled the dress up around my hips and sat down, my breath coming in quick, high gasps. The scars were so old, so well-healed, and that only made it worse. I hadn’t cut in six days, the longest I’d managed in a year or more, and I was about to destroy it all.

My hands were shaking so much I dropped the first blade. I pulled out the second and held it against my thigh. For a second, I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in its shining surface, saw my red eyes and mascara tears. I hadn’t even realized I’d started to cry.

The edge of the blade caught my thigh. A slight friction and the soft compression of my pale skin—

My phone rang.

I grabbed it with my free hand. The screen told me it was Darrell calling, but I didn’t answer, just sat there frozen, blade in one hand and phone in the other. Two rings. Three. Hot tears dripped onto my bare legs. The blade changed from cold to warm as it nestled against my skin.

I looked between my hands. I needed something to cling onto. Something real.

I pressed the button.

“Natasha! I am so, so sorry! Natasha?”

I swallowed, tasting saltwater. “Yes,” I whispered.

His voice changed immediately. “Are you okay?”

I sniffed loudly and I could hear the pain in his voice when he spoke again. “Natasha I am
so
sorry. I’m coming, I’ll be there in no time at all!”

I took a shuddering breath. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

He stayed on the line, offering reassurance and apologies, and I wanted to be okay for him, to dry my tears and laugh and joke, but I just couldn’t. And he knew I couldn’t—I could hear the fear in his voice.

And then suddenly I could hear his voice through the door, and I gasped and sniffed and stuffed the blades into the cigarette case and then I was opening the door and he was clasping me close to his chest as I sobbed into his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he told me, and he repeated it over and over until it was.

I thought of the people outside, the crowd who’d seen me stagger into the restroom. “I don’t want to stay here,” I told him.

He nodded immediately and, slipping an arm around my waist, led me out of the restroom and towards the door. I kept my head down, my cheeks still shining with tears.

A man in a suit loomed ahead of us. Blond hair. Rick.

“Good luck, man,” he said as we passed. “She’s a fuckin’ psycho.”

Darrell whirled and slugged the guy, drawing a scream from a woman nearby. The man careened backwards, knocking over two of his friends. He didn’t get up.

Darrell gently escorted me outside. There was a Mercedes there, with the engine running and the door already open.

“Will you let me take you somewhere else?” he asked.

I stared at him for a long moment, and then nodded.

***

We sped past two blocks before anyone spoke. The car was so thickly insulated the city outside barely existed—just a fantasy, a movie projected onto the windows.

The driver discreetly asked a question and Darrell told him, “Just drive around.”

He sat sideways on the cream leather so he could look at me. I knew I looked a complete mess, but just having him close was already calming me. My worst fears were being pushed back. He didn’t know. Of course he didn’t know. He couldn’t know, or he wouldn’t still want me in his life. There was still hope.

Except...now he must think I was a complete psycho, just like that guy had said.

“I’m really sorry,” he told me.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Please, Natasha. Talk to me.”

You mean explain why you completely freaked out, just because I was late.

“Where were you?” I said at last. I didn’t mean it as an accusation, but immediately I could see the guilt on his face. I’m good at recognizing guilt, because I’m so good at hiding it. “What?” He closed his eyes. “What? What happened?”

He still had his eyes closed. I could tell he was fighting with himself, wanting to tell me the truth despite what the consequences would be. “I...forgot.”

“You...
forgot?”

I’d run through all sorts of scenarios while I’d been sitting in the bar. A flat tire. An accident on the highway. A dying grandmother. He
forgot?
I was that unimportant to him?

He opened his eyes and looked straight at me, his hands in the air, trying to tame the outburst he could see was coming. “I get...kind of...
into
my work, sometimes. Sort of obsessed. I forgot the time.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was less important than his work? “But...your phone was off.”

He closed his eyes as he said it, wincing, “...I didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“I was calling you,” I said, my voice lifeless and dull. “I was calling you and calling you. We were meant to be on a
date—”

“I know—”

“But you didn’t want to be
disturbed?”

“Natasha, I know. I’m sorry.” He grabbed my hand and held it, the warmth from his huge palms slowly soaking into me. “I messed up. I
really
messed up and, look—” He locked eyes with me. “It will never. Happen. Again. I swear.” And those eyes, those beautiful calm blue pools that took away all my fear...they allowed me to hope. I still didn’t understand how he could have put his work before me, if he really liked me. It still hurt. But the connection, the magic between us...that was back.

I nodded, and saw him relax just a little.

“I’m sorry I upset you.” He was looking at me with real worry in his eyes. I didn’t want to think about how I must look, or what I’d sounded like on the phone.

“It wasn’t....” I had to explain, somehow, without letting him know too much. I couldn’t let him think he was solely responsible. “It’s not all you,” I told him at last.

He nodded, and in his eyes, I saw that it was okay. And something else, too, something I wasn’t expecting. A sort of surprised understanding, as if my weirdness was the last thing he was expecting, but that it wasn’t totally unfamiliar. How could that be? He was everything I wasn’t: stable, rich and a goddamn genius. His only weirdness was that he was interested in me.

He leaned forward and gently rested his forehead against mine. It felt good.

“Some date, huh?” he murmured, and even though my eyes were still damp, I sort of laughed.

“I can drop you at your place,” he told me gently. “Or...if you want to...we could give this another go?”

I wanted to. But...“I don’t think I can face a restaurant,” I told him.

He nodded. “Me neither.” He took a deep breath. “Pizza?”

***

We stopped at some place he knew, not a franchise but a tiny brick building with a faded sign and an aging, Italian owner who came out to meet us. We waited in the car, my back snuggled into his chest, until the driver returned with a huge, steaming box that he slid onto the seat next to us, its warmth filling the car.

Back at the mansion, Darrell ordered me out of the dining room while he got it ready. “Let me at least try to make this back into a date,” he insisted.

I wanted to do something about my face, and went off to find a bathroom. It was the first time I’d seen the rest of the house. On the second floor alone, there were a bewildering number of doors, but as I pushed open one after another I found most of the rooms were unused, the beds not made up.

I figured I should use the bathroom in
his
bedroom, because that would have towels and things. It wasn’t just about satisfying my curiosity. At least, that’s what I told myself.

In the end, it wasn’t hard to work out which bedroom he slept in. It was the nearest one to the staircase—his male mind at work—and the only one that looked remotely lived in. There was a massive four-poster bed, a half-open closet and, in one corner, a mirror with some photos around the edge. Apart from the workshop, they seemed to be the only personal touch in the whole house.

I stepped closer. Was this invading his privacy? I glanced at the door, but I could hear him still busy downstairs....

Some of the photos were from his college days at MIT. I recognized Neil, long-haired and bearded even then. There were other drinking buddies, the rowing team and some sort of fraternity. The photos seemed to be in chronological order, from freshman to sophomore...and then there was an abrupt change. After that, there were only photos like the one Clarissa had shown me online, of Darrell shaking hands with people in suits. One woman—a worryingly pretty, dark-haired woman a good ten years older than me—seemed to be in every one of them. Even through the posed smiles, I could see the way she was looking at Darrell.

There was a noise from downstairs and I ran for the bathroom before I got caught. Standing at the sink, I repaired the worst of the damage and then gripped the cold porcelain for strength.
You can do this.

A moment later I walked lightly down the stairs and into the dining room...then stopped abruptly in the doorway.

A long table that would have seated twenty was set for just the two of us, and Darrell had gone all out. There were snow-white cloth napkins, crystal wine glasses and a bottle of champagne sweating in an ice bucket. And then, right in the middle, there was the still-steaming pizza box.

It was absurd, and perfect. Except...he’d added one more touch, in a bid to be romantic, and it had me paralyzed in the doorway.

He smiled at me, oblivious, and walked around to my side to pull my chair out for me.

I took a deep breath.
Just get through it.
I sat down.

“You look beautiful,” he told me as he sat down across from me, but his voice seemed to come from far away. I could feel myself sliding, as if my chair was plunging down towards the memories.

Focus.
Under the table, I dug my nails into my palms. I thanked him—I think—I honestly can’t remember what I said.

They were drawing my eyes. I tried to look at Darrell, to lose myself in those gorgeous blue pools, but it was as if I was hypnotized. My skin was crawling, my stomach churning. I couldn’t breathe.

Darrell’s mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear. There was a noise in my ears. Screaming. My screaming, from that night—

I stood up, my chair shrieking as it scraped across the floor.

Darrell rose slowly, confused. “Are you okay?”

I swallowed, feeling sick and terrified and completely humiliated. “Can we not have them?” I asked.

He looked blankly at me. His eyes were full of concern—he was desperately trying to understand. “What?”

Of course. They were so dominating my mind, it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d have no idea what was scaring me.
That’s because he’s normal and you’re a freak,
I thought bitterly.

“The candles,” I told him weakly.

He blinked a couple more times and then quickly blew them out. Then he picked up the candelabra and carried it out of the room.

When he returned, the fear was dying away and I was left shaky and hugely embarrassed.
Twice in one night.

“I’m sorry,” he told me.

“Not your fault.” I took a deep breath and tried to change the subject. Part of me wanted to tell him, then, but there was just no way I could. I liked him; I wanted him to like me. I managed to look him in the eye and he looked so worried that I cursed myself, while at the same time wanting to just leap across the table and hug him for being so patient and understanding. He was desperate to know what was going on with me, I realized, but he wouldn’t ask. The trust he had in me...it made me go weak.

Maybe, given time, if I could find the right way of telling him....

“Champagne?” he raised the bottle.

“God, yes.” I passed him my glass.