Star Promise (28 page)

Olivia noticed too and praised her. “Wonderful, Bridget.”

She’d singled her out, but not in the way Charli was worried about. I couldn’t deny that it felt good, but I didn’t entirely trust it.

As the other girls filed out at the end of class, Olivia approached. Bridget was sitting on the floor taking her shoes off.

“I have a present for you,” said Olivia, crouching down beside her. Whatever it was was hidden behind her back.

“I just love presents,” beamed Bridget.

Olivia brought her hand to her front, presenting her with a pair of little satin ballet slippers. “They’re much better than the ones you have,” she explained. “Kinder to your feet.” She looked up at me. “They’re softer. She’s not used to wearing them so they’ll help her adjust.”

Bridget didn’t give a damn about comfort. The thing she was most impressed by was the colour. “They’re purple!” she announced, excitedly waving them at me. “Not pink ones.”

In a fluid move only a dancer could make, Olivia stood. “I thought it might be nice to retain a little individuality. I know it’s important to her mother.”

“Thank you.” The smile I gave her felt completely false. “It’s appreciated.”

That was the moment she struck – with the unerring accuracy of a cobra. I didn’t even see it coming, and I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be aimed at Charli.

“Bridget performs much better when her mother isn’t here, Adam,” she declared. “Charli holds her back.”

It might not have angered me as much if she’d said it in private, but Bridget was hanging on every word, which I suspect was her intention. “We can talk about this later.” My voice was quiet but forceful. “Now isn’t the time.” I quickly helped Bridget pull on her boots. Her slippers were roughly shoved into her backpack and I grabbed her hand.

Olivia continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Charli should be encouraging Bridget to be independent, not strange and antisocial.”

“Let’s go, baby,” I told my daughter.

I had a hundred things to say, and couldn’t mention a single one. The presence of Bridget forced me to keep my mouth shut – at least for the time being.

We were halfway across the room when Olivia delivered her final blow. I ignored her when she called to Bridget, keeping a firm hold on her hand as we walked toward the door, but Bridget turned her head at the sound of her name.

“Don’t do anything silly – like leave my class.” Olivia’s voice was sickly sweet. “It would be a terrible shame if you missed out on wearing one of those pretty costumes at the concert.”

Pushed by pure loathing, I dropped my hold on Bridget’s hand and took a few steps back toward Olivia. “What is your game, lady?”

“Teaching ballet.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Because those who can’t do, teach, right?”

It was as close as I could come to mentioning her phony credentials without inciting war, but it wasn’t enough to rattle her.

“You pay me to teach.”

“An oversight on my part,” I replied. “I’d pay you to go away now. It might be cheaper in the long run.”

“I’ll go when I’m ready, Adam.” The only thing colder than her words was her expression.

There was no way of censoring what I wanted to say. I walked back to Bridget, grabbed her hand and got the hell out of there.

I could only assume that Bridget knew her ballet career was over. As soon as we got outside, she burst into tears. I scooped her up but didn’t slow my walk, determined to put distance between us and the bitch ballerina.

“Don’t cry, Bridge.” I kissed the top of her head. “We’re done. You’re not going back there.”

“No!” she wailed, clinging to my shirt. “Please let me go some more. I want to go to the concert,” she said desperately. “Please Daddy.”

Bridget was completely distraught for all the wrong reasons. She didn’t have a clue that Olivia was toying with us. All she was worried about was that I wasn’t going to let her go back to class. I could barely think straight, so I didn’t give her an answer. I told her we’d work it out later, which was encouraging enough to calm her down.

Nothing was going to calm me down. I had no idea how we were supposed to handle things from there. All I knew for certain was that Olivia was rotten to the core, and one way or another I was going to shut her down.

Bridget was a different kid when I arrived home that night. She was happy, calm and pleased to see me. Her mother was pleased to see me too. That could only mean that Bridget hadn’t told her about the drama that went down at ballet.

We had dinner together, which had become a rare treat lately. Bridget told us all about her afternoon with Ryan, and Charli shared the news that she’d had lunch with my mother.

“Cucumber sandwiches.” She pulled a face, making Bridget giggle.

“Mamie is not a good cook,” said Bridget waving her fork in the air. “I just hate it all.”

It wasn’t exactly riveting conversation, but it was light and happy – right up until Charli asked her about ballet. Our kid looked across at me, paused for thought and then burst into tears again. It was a dizzying shift, and a reminder of what an ordeal the whole saga was for her.

Charli wrapped her up in a hug. “What’s the matter?”

Bridget’s answer wasn’t exactly detailed. In a staccato rasp, she begged Charli to let her go back to ballet classes. “I want to go to the concert,” she pleaded.

Charlotte glared at me.

“Don’t look at me.” I put both hands in the air. “It’s your call.”

“What happened?” she asked.

Everything hinged on my answer. I could either tell the truth or lie, and neither option was particularly appealing. The devastated look on my daughter’s face tipped the scale in favour of lying.

“Nothing,” I muttered unwillingly. “It went well. Olivia was full of praise for Bridget.”

Charli loosened her hold on Bridget to look at her. “She was?”

“And she gave me some purple shoes,” said Bridget, pulling in a few shallow breaths between words. “I really love them.”

Charli swept her hair off her forehead. “You like Olivia’s class, don’t you?”

Bridget nodded. “Yes I do.”

When Charli looked across at me, I could almost read her thoughts – possibly because they matched my own. As long as Bridget had her heart set on attending the wicked witch’s classes, we were stuck.

I managed not to ask another Olivia-related question until we went to bed, and the speed with which Adam answered me led me to think he’d been using the three hours since dinner to prepare for it.

“I don’t like her, Charli,” he grumbled, throwing back the covers on his side. “I’m sorry. I think she’s nasty and I don’t want anything to do with her.”

I didn’t ask why because I was afraid of the answer. If his ballet experience had been anything like mine, his reasons were more than valid.

As soon as he lay down, I laid my head on his shoulder. “You told Bridget she wasn’t going back, didn’t you?” I asked bleakly. “That’s why she’s freaking out.”

“Yes. She didn’t take it well.”

“I told her the same thing the other day,” I replied. “That’s why she wanted you to take her.”

His arm curled around me. “So what do we do about it?”

I didn’t think we had a choice. For reasons I’d probably never understand, Bridget loved Olivia’s class. Neither of us would be forgiven if we pulled the pin.

“I think we have to let her stay.” The words were so impossibly hard to say. “What do you think?”

His hold on me tightened. “I think it’s time that I had a little chat with your mother.”

As loaded as his words were, I couldn’t deny that I felt an element of relief. I couldn’t handle Olivia on my best day. There was a cutting side to her personality that was far beyond the scope of anything I could deal with, but I still felt like I needed to try. If Adam could get through to her, maybe she’d change her ways.

I wasn’t ready to give up on her. She was my mother – a woman who was once so loved by Alex that he made a baby with her. I had to believe it counted for something.

We put a quick end to Bridget’s panic the next morning. Over cereal and toast, Adam assured her that we wouldn’t pull her from Olivia’s class.

“I’ll come with you,” he promised.

“Every day?” she asked hopefully.

“Three days a week.” He managed to reply without grimacing. “Mrs Brown will drop you at my office, we’ll go to ballet, and Ryan will pick you up from my office. Okay?”

The nervous tension she’d been plagued by disappeared in an instant. “Yes!” she squealed. “I love that deal.”

“Good.” Adam kissed the top of her head. “Because we love you and we want you to be happy.”

It was a plan we hadn’t discussed, and it was far more one-sided than I expected. He barely got a lunchbreak most days. Committing to three days a week of ballet was ludicrous. “I can take her,” I offered.

Adam stood up and carried his bowl to the sink. “No,” he replied. “I’ve got this.”

My propensity for overlooking Olivia’s bad behaviour wasn’t something Adam understood, but he never interfered. Such a lax approach was never going to apply to Bridget. The only way he was ever going to be able to deal with her being in Olivia’s class was if he was there to keep an eye on her.

He knew it and I knew it. We didn’t need to talk about it.

When it came to juggling my hectic schedule, spending time at Billet-doux was on the bottom of my list. According to Ryan, the longer I stayed away, the better business partner I became.

Noelle, the front of house manager, also preferred it when I wasn’t there. “You shouldn’t be in Ryan’s office when he’s not around,” she scolded.

I didn’t even slow my walk. “It’s my office too, Noelle.”

Like a snippy little Chihuahua, she chased me. “Why are you even here?”

I stopped walking and turned around. Noelle skidded to a stop. “Performance appraisals,” I lied. “How’d you do this month?”

Her expression was strange, as if she’d managed to take offense and panic at the same time. “I work super hard all the time,” she snapped in her trademark high pitched voice. “Always.”

Noelle took her job very seriously. She also took Ryan very seriously, but nippy Chihuahuas had never been his type. She was an exemplary employee and Ryan paid her accordingly – just not in the way she wanted him to.

“Then you have nothing to worry about,” I said, opening the office door.

“Ryan will be here any minute,” she warned.

“Fabulous.” I inched the door shut. “When he gets here, show him to my office.”

“It’s Ryan’s office,” she squeaked through the door.

Ryan’s office was nothing like Adam’s. Adam’s was like a fancy hotel room with a glorious cityscape view. Everything was perfectly co-ordinated and chic to match the job description of a hard-arse lawyer.

Ryan’s office was more like a dungeon. His desk was covered with junk and the drawers of the old filing cabinet were rusted shut. The one and only time I’d ever seen a hint of nostalgia from the man was when I suggested that we get rid of it. “It came with the building,” he protested. “Imagine the stories that thing could tell.”

Despite the mayhem caused by the overload of paperwork, he knew where every single thing was. Ryan could always tell when I’d been in there, so Noelle’s threat of telling him was a waste of time.

I’d only been at the desk for a few minutes when the door flew open. “Good morning, fairy pants,” he drawled. “Get off my chair.”

“Good morning Ryan,” I replied. “It’s my chair too.”

Perhaps he knew I wasn’t going to move. He sat on the other chair. “I have stuff to do.”

“Do you really?” I asked sceptically.

“No,” he confessed. “I’m just hiding from Noelle until it’s time to pick Bridget up.” His expression remained completely stone-faced. “How about you?”

I shrugged. “Well, I’m supposed to be at work but Bronson told me to get out and enjoy the sunshine.”

Ryan looked confused. “Why?”

I could feel the smile creeping across my face. “Because winter is coming.”

He shook his head as if trying to dislodge the illogical workings of my boss’s mind. It was a pointless exercise. Not even I could work Bronson out. “So we’re both free for a few hours?”

“I told him I’d go back to the gallery at twelve.” I glanced at the time on the computer screen. “When my vitamin D levels were acceptable.”

Ryan chuckled blackly. “Maybe you could spend the morning with me.”

My eyes darted around the dungeon. “Here?” I inquired. “We’d kill each other.”

“Not here,” he replied. “I’ve got to go and buy a suit.”

“Why? The six hundred you already have aren’t obnoxious enough?”

“A suit to get married in,” he clarified. “I’d like your opinion.”

Never before had Ryan sought my opinion on anything. “Really?” I sounded far too excited. “You want my advice?”

He flashed me his usual superior smile. “No, Tinker Bell. You can just stand there and tell me how good I look.”

My day started off perfectly. I got out of the cab a few blocks early, grabbed coffee along the way and still made it to work on time. Then I stepped out of the elevator on the forty-third floor and everything went to hell.

Olivia was sitting in the reception area, presumably waiting for me.

“I told her to make an appointment,” whispered Tennille as I passed the reception desk.

Olivia swanned toward me with poise. “I told her you’d make an exception.”

Coffee in hand, I pointed toward my office. “I make a lot of exceptions for you, Olivia.”

The woman sauntered down the corridor as if she knew where she was going. I turned to Tennille. “Can you hold my calls please?”

She looked as if she’d just tasted something sour. “If you’re not out in an hour, I’ll presume she’s beaten you up and left you for dead.”

I couldn’t help grinning at her. “Pleasant, huh?”

Her long nails began tapping away at her keyboard. “I’ve dealt with worse,” she muttered.

I took my time walking to my office, realising the only joy I was going to have that morning was leaving Olivia standing without purpose in the corridor while I leisurely finished my coffee.