Ruthless: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (8 page)

A
fter Luisa called
and explained a little bit about the stress that Dante had been under, things did smooth over between us, although I found myself hesitant to open myself up to him the way I had that night after the Pie Bar. Still, we enjoyed our lessons together, and I found that I came to look forward to them even more than my other lessons.

Part of the reason was that Dante was such a quick learner. He was more intelligent than I thought he was, especially in visual learning. He picked up steps almost by watching them, and I rarely found myself having to get my feet out of the way of errant feet. And I couldn’t help but notice his body getting more and more chiseled from the routine that Tomasso and Luisa were putting him through.

"So, are you ready to try something different?" I asked one morning when Dante came in, his dancing dress shoes dangling from his forearm. He'd gone out and bought his own pair, similar in outer appearance to his work shoes for the Bertolis, but different in the tightness and support the shoes gave. These were hard-soled dance shoes that slid and gripped the way ballroom dance shoes were supposed to, not the rubber-soled athletic shoes in disguise that Tomasso and his crew wore. "You know, bring the music out of the nineteenth century?"

Dante grinned and sat down in the chair on the edge of the dance area, undoing his Nikes. "Sounds great. By the way, I've got breakfast for you. Don't be offended. I'm not making fun of your Mexican heritage, but I put together some
carrillada
breakfast burritos. Well, one's breakfast, but the other could be lunch too. It's got rice and beans in it instead of the eggs."

I smiled, taking the bag from him and sniffing. I don't know where he learned to cook, but he'd have made my abuela kiss him, he was that good. It was actually a shame of mine that I could barely cook tolerable food. "These smell amazing," I said as I took the bag toward the back. "I'll try to resist, but I may just end up stuffing myself with both of them before lunch. How'd you do it?"

"Organic herbs, some good beef cheeks that I marinated in a decent Chilean red wine, and a rice cooker," Dante said, smiling. "It's my new toy. I got one as a gift from some Chinese businesses that Tomasso has me working with. They went on a trip back home, and they stopped in Tokyo, of all places, on the way back, picking up a half-dozen for back here. I got one of them. It's cool, like a crock pot all grown up with a master's degree. I have three more of my own wrapped up in the car."

"Three?" I asked, surprised. The two in the bag that Dante had given me had to weigh close to a pound apiece. "How in the hell are you eating that much and not gaining weight?"

“If you saw the things Luisa and Tomasso have me doing, you’d understand,” he said, smiling. “I'm supposed to be going out to dinner with them and the rest of the crew later.”

"How's that coming along?" I asked, not expecting details. Dante always had great operational security, but we were both comfortable with that. I knew he did things that I wouldn't want to be a part of, but it didn't matter to me.

"Pretty good overall. Gene's not quite getting the hang of things. I think Tomasso's going to rotate him out if he doesn't get his act together soon," he said as he put on his dance shoes, "but Nick's a good enough guy. At least, we get along together, even if our work puts us out and about at different times and places. So what's the new dance you want to work on?"

"Well, we've covered most of the classic dances, what you'd call the ballroom dances, but there's a few of the more modern variations, what some people call the rhythm dances, that we can still go over. They're different in that they tend to be faster, and there's more separation moves in them. They've become popular as more modern music is incorporated into ballroom music. So they're challenging, but that also makes them more fun, because we can start to do more of the dance lifts, twirls, and just make stuff up as we go. What do you say?"

"Sounds like fun. I assume with all this it means I'm still going to sweat my shirt through?" Dante said with a smirk. "Unless you plan on turning on the air conditioner and cranking it again."

"Hey, I only did that once, and that was because I fell asleep after spending the whole day out by the pool," I said, recalling an incident two weeks prior. I'd woken up after a nap with a bad sunburn and had gone to sleep that night with the air conditioner, a rare luxury that was not often needed in Seattle, going full blast on my skin. Of course, I'd woken up the next day with the entire studio feeling like a refrigerator, even after I shut off the AC, and had the sniffles for three days to boot. "Besides, we still got a sweat worked up, if I remember right."

"Yeah, a painful one because of the way you insist I work on my flexibility," Dante joked, finishing his shoes before going over to the barre, starting his warmup movements. "I think you like trying to shove my knee into my nose."

"Considering you did just that by yourself last week, I'd say I've done pretty well," I teased, watching as he went through his warmup stretches and movements.

"Okay," Dante said after a few minutes. My pulse was a bit quicker than when he stepped in the door, and I shook my head. This wasn't the time. "So what's the dance called?"

"I was thinking of starting with the swing dances," I said, going over and starting up some music. It was jazzy, with an early rock n' roll vibe to it, a good piece to introduce swing with. "There's a lot of variations, but I figured we'd start with a basic jive, which is the type used in competitions. Most of the others are based on it, so I like it."

We had a great practice, and by the end, I wasn't so much teaching as just dancing with a partner that I enjoyed dancing with. We seemed to fall into a place where we knew exactly where to go and what to do next, so that as the last song ended, we were both dripping with sweat, grinning like fools, and at least in my case, more than aware of the strength and attractiveness of my partner. "Wow, great work," I said, wiping at my forehead. "We keep this up, and I may need you to bring in three burritos next time."

"No problem," Dante said, lowering himself to the floor and pulling his left shoe off. “Might need a raincheck if you’re trying to do it anytime soon though.”

"What is it?" I asked, concerned. "A blister?"

"No," he said, groaning. "Cramp in the arch of my foot. I didn't mention it, but I was doing heavy leg work yesterday. I guess I tweaked a muscle or something. It wasn't bad right up until that last twirl lift we did, then it just seized up."

"Yet you kept going for another thirty seconds," I admonished, sitting down. "Why?"

"The music was still playing. The dance wasn't over." Dante smirked, stopping when I grabbed his ankle. "What are you doing?"

“What’s it look like I’m doing? Let me see what I can do,” I said, pulling his sock off.

I started stretching out his arch, rubbing the sole of his foot with my thumbs, hard enough not to tickle but gently enough so as not to cause pain to the already sensitive area. I could both feel and see the tension drain out as I worked, and in about three or four minutes, he leaned back, sighing, this time not in pain but in pleasure. "You're a witch, you know that?"

"Just a normal lapsed Catholic girl here, not a
bruja
at all. What about you?"

"Lapsed I have no clue," Dante said, sitting up. "I think my mother took me to about a half-dozen different churches when I was younger, but I can't recall the last one I went to or what it called itself."

"That's fine. Listen, you should give that foot a rest for the rest of today. You may have done more than just tweak a muscle in there the other day, and you should take at least two days to rest it."

"I'll see what I can do," he said, pulling his sock back on. "Thanks, Carmen. I really mean it."

"I know," I said with a smile. Dante got up, dusting off his hands on his pants. "And really, I want you to give me a call tonight about it. If it's still giving you problems, come in tomorrow after six thirty in the evening. Let me get you my cell number."

"You have a cell still?" Dante asked, surprised. "I figured you would have given that up as soon as you could have."

"And I would have too, except that I still have seven months on my contract for the thing, and the cancellation fees are a bitch." I laughed, going to the counter and writing down my cell number and my email just in case. "Here. Enjoy your dinner tonight."

"I will. Thanks again, Carmen."

Dante left, getting into the black Bertoli-owned coupe that he'd been driving instead of his car for the past month, a company car, as he called it, and I retreated to the back of the studio, starting a pot of water on my hotplate to take a quick sponge bath. They weren't perfect, but they helped, and I’d made arrangements to use the staff bathroom at the senior center where I taught twice a month, as well as whenever I went over to anybody's house. Now that the Bertolis knew about my situation and we were open about it, it wasn't so bad, although I still tried to limit my crashing in for a shower as much as I could.

I was just finishing wiping out my underarms when I heard the mail slot on the door open and flap closed, and I pulled a shirt on, heading out to the reception area to read my mail and to indulge in one of the burritos Dante had brought me. It was hard to put the other one away, but I made a promise to myself to resist the urge, even as delicious as it smelled.

I'd gotten four pieces of mail—the electric bill, which I set aside later when I could be assured I could look at the amount without cursing too badly, two pieces of junk mail, and an envelope from something called the
American Association of Professional Dancers.
"Great," I muttered as I opened the envelope, figuring it for another piece of junk mail. "Pay a hundred bucks a year, get four issues of a crappy magazine. Oh, and a listing on a website that nobody except dance professionals go to."

I pulled out the packet of papers inside and started to read.

Dear Studio Owner,
it began, not the best opening I'd read, and sighed. You'd think if they were going to make a sales pitch, they'd at least take the time to look up the name of the owner. With modern computers, it wasn't like that level of personalization was difficult.
Please take a moment to allow us to introduce ourselves. My name is Vincent Morricone, and I am the director and CEO of . . .

The letter continued, certain parts sticking out to me. The AAPD wasn't your normal professional organization. They wanted no annual fees, no joining, or anything like that. Instead, they were being fronted by a combination of donations from various artistic charities, a television program, and dancewear manufacturers. The big hook, for them, was that they were hosting an open call for dance couples from all over the United States, with the regional winners going on to a national competition in New York, the finals of which would be recorded for television broadcast on a new cable network. The AAPD thought that with the popularity of shows like
Dancing with The Stars, SYTYCD
and other programs such as the world championships shown on PBS, that a whole series could be built around dance and that it could be partnered with other arts programs to make the core of a new Internet network.

It was supposedly a win-win for all involved. The charities got to promote the arts, the Internet people could start a new network, and the dancewear manufacturers got lots of advertising. I was certain that the winners of the competition would be signed to a sponsorship deal that gave the winners peanuts, but big publicity to the dancewear company.

One of the keys to our program is that we are truly looking for the next great pair, one that the world has never seen before. The AAPD Championships is open
only
to dancers who have never won a national level contest before or been part of a professional dance troupe. You can see the list of ineligible competitions and activities on page five of the entrance booklet, but the gist is this. We want the fresh and the new, faces we can introduce to the American dance community and to the world at large and say with pride that . . .

I blinked, re-reading the cover letter twice. Here it was, my chance. I read the rest of the packet from cover to cover, forgetting about the burrito on the plate next to me until I bumped the plate with my elbow, almost knocking it to the floor. It was perfect, in so many ways. As a new group, the AAPD would not get a ton of contestants, as so many other groups already had their members on lockdown. That, combined with the eligibility requirements, meant that I wouldn't be going up against the professionals that you could see on TV. The prize money was nice, ten thousand dollars, but more importantly was the fact that the finalists would be televised on cable TV. I couldn't buy that sort of publicity for Dreamstyle even if I had a million dollars.

There was only one problem. The competition was a partnered format. There were four different categories of competition: hip-hop, ballet, jazz, and American ballroom. In each, two contestants, one male and one female, would dance three different dances, a compulsory dance, a wildcard dance, and a showcase dance, where the team would dance individually in front of the judges. The top three from each of the six regional competitions would be eligible for the nationals in New York.

The categories weren't a problem. Hell, I taught classes in all four. But I didn't have a partner. I chewed my burrito as I thought about it, for some reason, the competition just wasn’t letting go of my head. Finally, after thinking until nearly eleven o'clock, I decided I needed an outside sounding board and gave Adriana a call. She was usually available at that time. "Hey, Ade?"

"How're you doing?" Adriana asked. "Oh, if you hear me whispering, it’s because Johnny's taking a nap."

"Oh no, what's wrong?" I asked, knowing my godson was one of those kids who hated to take naps. "Is he sick?"

"Maybe," Adriana said, "but it's nothing bad, I don’t think . . . nothing a little rest and vitamin C won’t fix. He's so like his father that way. He shrugs off illness so quickly. So how about you?"