Save the Last Dance (3 page)

Had she done badly tonight? Had she let them all down? The thought made the panic racing inside her torso double its speed. And that internal momentum had a strange effect: just as she was on the verge of stepping into the circle of their conversation, a gap opened up to her right and, instead of ploughing forward and greeting her father, she took it.

Bizarrely, she found that once she'd started going in that direction she couldn't stop. Not until she'd left the crush of the party far behind, not until she'd run down the minimalist wooden staircase at full pelt, leaving her warm champagne glass on the flat banister at the top, not until she was standing in the foyer. She rushed past the cloakrooms to the large revolving door and moments later she was amidst the pillars and cobbles of Covent Garden, the cold night air soothing her lungs.

But she didn't run any further; she stood there, blinking.

What was she doing?

She couldn't leave yet. She couldn't escape.

Her father would be waiting for her. There were senior staff and investors and a minor Royal waiting to greet her.

No,
her body said.
Enough.
And she was inclined to agree with it.

Now that the adrenalin high from the performance had evaporated, she ached all over. She'd been up since six, had done class this morning and then had spent most of the afternoon making last-minute changes to a pas de deux with her partner, Stephen, that the choreographer had insisted were essential. And the performance that had seemed so light and ethereal on the outside had been gruelling beyond belief.

She stood still for a few seconds, closed her eyes.
Trap the breath then let it out slowly…smoothly.

Unfortunately, a sense of duty was hardwired into a dancer's psyche.

When she had finished pushing the carbon dioxide out through her clenched teeth she opened her lids again.

And then the ballerina turned, with all the grace expected of her, and let the revolving door coax her back inside, let its momentum almost propel her back up the stairs and into the crowded bar. Her glass, full of warm and flat champagne, was waiting for her on the banister and she retrieved it before pulling herself up tall and losing herself in the tangle of bodies.

Allegra cranked open an eyelid and focused half-heartedly on the digital clock by her bedside. Definitely way too late still to be awake. Or should that be way too early to get up?

Ugh. Who cared?

She always got this way after an opening night—too tired, too excited, too aware of the reviews only hours away now in the morning editions.

Knowing she'd only get even more grumpy if she lay there in the dark chasing sleep, she fumbled on the bedside cabinet for the TV remote and then pointed it into the darkness. A bluish light flooded the room. She squinted and drummed repeatedly on the volume button, hushing the garish advert for oven cleaner. She didn't want to wake her father.

She changed the channel a dozen times. And then a dozen times more.

There really was nothing on at this time in the morning, was there? Unless you counted infomercials, ‘channel off-air' graphics and lengthy documentaries about long-forgotten prog rock bands. She carried on changing channels until she lost count, and she was just about to give up and turn the TV set off when the image replacing the previous one caused her thumb to freeze above the button.

A pair of crinkling brown masculine eyes. And a killer smile to match.

She held her breath. Then she looked towards her bedroom door and quickly back again to the television. Without tearing her eyes from the screen, she pressed down hard on the volume button until the noise from the set was only just audible, turning the subtitles onto compensate. And then, finally, she let out the air she'd been holding captive in her mouth.

Finn McLeod. My, he was gorgeous!

All rugged male energy, with a glint of adventure in his eyes.

His dark hair, that never seemed to sit quite right, flopped over one side of his forehead and a smile stretched his stubble-studded jaw. She'd had no idea they were showing late-night reruns of
Fearless Finn.
Just as well, really, because if she'd known she could have watched him jumping into rapids and hanging off mountains by his fingertips all night long, she might have done just that. Unfortunately, a sleep-deprived ballerina at the Royal Opera House would not have gone down well.

Sometimes, she thought, as she tugged an extra pillow from beside her and stuffed it behind her shoulders, she felt so old. That wasn't right at twenty-three, was it? But she felt as if she'd been riding the same unrelenting merry-go-round of classes, rehearsals and performances for so long that her life had sped up, and she'd aged faster than she should have done. It was hardly surprising that, deep down, she longed for something fresh, something new.

Her gaze returned to the screen, where Finn McLeod, in his gorgeous, rolling Scottish accent, was explaining how to find food if one was unlucky enough to be stranded in the mountains.

She smiled. Really grinned. See? She'd never realised there were tiny little seeds inside pine cones that could be prised out and eaten.

Or had she?

She supposed she had. She had pine nuts on her pasta all the time. It was just that she'd never connected the tree on the mountainside with the tiny packet on the supermarket shelf, never thought about what bit of the tree the nut came from or how it could be harvested.

And that was why she loved watching
Fearless Finn.
It reminded her she was
young,
that there was so much of the world she had yet to see, so much to learn about life. The feeling would well up inside her until she wished she could literally climb inside the flickering rectangle on the wall and run down that hillside with him, or taste that pine nut fresh from the cone for herself.

Finn turned to the camera and grinned, getting right up close to the lens, before flinging himself off a rocky riverbank and into the fast-flowing water.

Okay, maybe education about the planet wasn't the
only
reason she watched this show. But he was so…so…

She didn't really know what he was, or exactly how he made her feel, only that she felt alive watching him, that she believed she could sprout wings and fly away when he was on the screen.

Another symptom of the narrow, ultra-focused life one had to live if one was going to get to the top in her profession. Ballet had to be
everything.
So, just as she felt she didn't know much about the big wide world beyond the ballet studio, she didn't really have a lot of experience with men, either.

But seeing that six foot hunk of testosterone and adventure, with his unruly dark hair and even unrulier dark eyes, made her want to learn a little more about
both.

She blushed hard and bit her lip. It seemed her first teenage crush had finally arrived after a rather lengthy, ballet-related delay.

Well, so what? Everyone had their guilty pleasures, didn't they? Finn McLeod was hers. And until the milk floats began to moan through Notting Hill, outside her father's tall white house, she was going to forget all about ballet and mermaids and morning editions, and lose herself in a pair of captivating brown eyes.

Watching dawn break from the top of a glacier was
definitely
the way Finn McLeod liked to start his day. The horizon had been the clearest, purest cobalt but now as the sun pushed upward it slowly turned an icy, pale blue.

‘Wow,' the A-list Hollywood actor who stood beside him said.

Wow, indeed.

‘This is, like, perfect,' the guy said, nodding gently.

‘Yup,' said Finn. It didn't get much better than this.

He and Tobias Thornton, action movie god, stood there, silent, staring at the awesome display Creation was putting on for them, better than any celluloid car chase or exploding building.

Finn glanced across at the backpacks that were sitting a few feet away on the ice. ‘The helicopter will be here shortly,' he said, his gaze drawn inevitably back towards the sunrise. It was swiftly blocked out by six and a half feet of movie star. Finn discovered that was because Toby was intent on crushing the life out of him in a bear hug. Not part of the plan, really, since they'd spent the better part of a week trying to
survive
this frozen wasteland.

‘Thanks, man,' Toby said, thumping Finn on the back.

‘No problem,' Finn replied, wheezing slightly.

The actor released him and stood back. ‘This has been life-changing, Finn. I mean it.' He turned to face the sunrise once again, but carried on talking. ‘I feel as if I've stripped away all the garbage from my life and discovered who I really am.'

Finn just nodded. That was what spending a significant chunk of time in the wilderness would do for a man. It was why he loved it here. Or any place a man-made structure, or a power line, or even a mobile phone signal were many, many miles away. It made him feel alive.
Connected
to something indefinable, something bigger than himself.

‘I'm never going to be the same, man…'

Finn frowned. Of course, normally he travelled to places like this on his own. He'd planned to enjoy the silence. Not much chance of that now, as his actor friend continued to gush.

But this was what the TV company had wanted. Having a tag-along celebrity for the fifth series of the show hadn't been his idea; he'd been quite happy with the previous format, where he'd spend a week in various remote locations showing the audience not only how to fend for themselves in that environment, but giving them a taste of a rarely seen gem of a place.

But that hadn't been enough for the TV execs. He was too competent, apparently. He grunted out loud at that thought. What rubbish. Being competent at this stuff was why he'd got the job in the first place. Unfortunately, the suits thought the viewing public had got that message now, and were going to get bored with more of the same, so they'd come up with a plan to saddle him with a novice so he could pass on his expertise. And, of course, people loved watching celebs thrown out of their glitzy worlds and into the deep end. What could go wrong? the TV company had said.

Finn sighed. He supposed it hadn't been that awful. The guy standing beside him had been okay company, and it had been fun to watch him build his confidence over the last week. Whether the experience would produce a lasting change in the well-known bad boy and womaniser was another matter altogether.

‘So who's your next victim?' the actor said, turning to him.

Finn smiled to himself. ‘Anya Pirelli.'

The actor let out a low whistle. ‘The tennis player?'

Finn nodded.

Toby slapped him on the back. ‘Lucky dog.'

‘Just don't tell my fiancée,' he said, grinning.

‘You have a fiancée?' Toby pulled a face. ‘Too bad, man.'

‘Oh, I don't think I'm doing too badly—she's Natalie Cross.'

‘The chick who does the nature documentaries?'

Finn nodded, and Toby whistled again. ‘Definitely not doing too badly, mate!' and then he frowned. ‘But spending a week stranded with Anya Pirelli… She's not the jealous type, is she, your fiancée?'

Finn laughed and shook his head. He'd been joking. Neither of them were jealous types. That was what made them the perfect match. They both liked their freedom and, even though they were committed to each other, they both understood how destructive the urge to pin someone down and keep them for yourself could be.

‘When's the wedding?' Toby asked, and Finn stopped smiling.

He shrugged. ‘When we get around to it.' They'd been engaged for two years, which seemed a long time to some people, but he and Nat travelled so much for their jobs theirs was almost a long-distance relationship. They'd find a date they could both manage eventually. Just the knowledge they'd agreed to do it some time in the future was enough for now.

‘No… Nat will be fine about it,' Finn added.

Toby's eyes glittered wickedly. ‘Still, you'll be stuck alone with Anya in the jungle somewhere or up a mountain. Who's to tell?'

Finn gestured over his shoulder to the camera operator who was standing a little way down the slope. ‘Who d'you think?'

Toby slapped himself on the forehead. ‘I've got so used to them being there, I kind of forgot we weren't on our own.'

Finn shrugged. It was easy enough to do. Sometimes he threw himself headlong into risky situations while filming, completely forgetting he wasn't on his own and that a camera, a producer and possibly a safety expert were trailing along behind him.

He took a few paces away from Toby, tried to create a little bubble of space and silence where he could let all this grandeur and beauty seep into him so it could mingle with all the other memories and experiences he collected on his travels. However, as mind-blowing as each location was, he always felt there was room for more, that a little piece of him ached for the ultimate destination, the ultimate adventure. That was what kept him moving, kept him searching.