The Billionaire's Ballet: A Contemporary Billionaire Friends to Lovers Romance (Friends with Benefits) (19 page)

He laughed. “You want me to take over this one?”

I pushed on his chest. “And kick out all the neighbors we just annoyed?”

He pulled me close. “Let them be annoyed.”

I lifted a leg to show off my silver shoes. “I just had sex with slippers on.”

“That’s one way to break them in,” Bennett said.

I snuggled into his neck. “How did this happen?” I asked.

His voice was low and heavy with emotion. “It was so damn hard watching you dance up there. I wanted to join you onstage. I wanted to be the one to hold your hand and turn you in a circle.”

I remembered our dance in my mother’s studio. How I had fulfilled his wish. It had been a perfect moment. There weren’t many perfect moments in the world.

I sat up. “So why don’t you, then?”

I stood and tugged on his arms until he was up with me. We were naked, other than my shoes. And we had no music. There was no beat, no rhythm, no sounds to guide us.

But when Bennett took his first step on the soft carpet of the hotel room, I knew exactly how my movements would fit against his.
 

And we danced. Silent other than the whisper of our feet and the gentle rush of our breath.

A waltz. And as we moved, I knew which one ran through both our heads, how we fit so perfectly together. The “Dreamcatcher Waltz.” And if fate had put us exactly where I knew it should, the music that led us would never, ever fade.

Epilogue

Four months later

When Bennett and I pulled up before the new dance academy, Mom stood in front of the double doors with the biggest smile I’d ever seen. With several months of growth, her hair had that edgy Annie Lennox look, especially since she’d tipped the edges with blue. She could easily pass for thirty.

A smattering of photographers waited on the sidewalk. Normally I wouldn’t have expected coverage of the opening of a small business like this, but the Claremont name always garnered attention.

Plus, there was the charity angle. Bennett had divided a portion of the estate for the first Claremont baby, who had survived only seven minutes after his birth. He created a fund that would support the functions of the academy that provided free dance lessons for children in families affected by cancer. Mom was going to handle those classes herself.

“We should probably get out there,” Bennett said.

I opened the door. Mom spotted me and waved. When the photographers realized Bennett was here, they trained their cameras our way. He didn’t smile or address them like Quinn would have, but put his arm around my waist and led us to the base of the steps.

I thought about the footage I’d seen of Quinn before I shut off my Google alert on his name, leading Margie to the premiere of one of her movies. They were engaged again, and I was glad. He’d realized something on that trip to California, just like I guessed. I wasn’t his heartbreak after all.

“Are you coming up here?” Mom called.

“This is your spotlight,” Bennett said.

A muscled dark-skinned man in a black silk shirt and slim pants handed Mom an oversized pair of scissors to cut the ribbon tied across the doors. This must be Jacob, the first instructor Mom had hired. He was a dancer who specialized in jazz. I looked forward to meeting him.

Another dancer in a pink leotard and long sheer skirt waited on the side to pull the banner that would reveal the name of the studio. Mom had kept this bit of information even from me, but said Bennett had been in on it.

Mom snapped the wide pink ribbon and it fell to the ground.
 

The girl in pink released the banner and it fluttered to one side.

My breath caught as I read the name.

Dreamcatcher Dance Academy.

The waltz I first danced with Bennett.

I squeezed his hand. “I love it,” I whispered.

Flashes popped. Mom waved everyone inside and disappeared through the doors.

“Let’s let them all get through,” Bennett said.

We hesitated on the bottom step, letting the reporters and Mom’s dance friends push ahead. A woman in an electric wheelchair rolled up the ramp on the right side.

After a moment, the front was quiet.

We climbed the steps slowly. The bright white words on the stone façade overhead warmed my heart. Dreamcatcher. We would never forget that moment now.

By the time we got inside the foyer, Mom and the small crowd had moved on to one of the studios. The dancer who had dropped the banner sat behind a big round counter where students would one day check in.

“They’ve all gone into the Claremont Memorial Studio if you’d like to catch up,” she said cheerily.

“Which one is last on their agenda?” Bennett asked.

“I think Danika planned to save the Dance of the Shades Room for last, since it has the wraparound image of her daughter in the production.”

“This is Danika’s daughter,” Bennett said.

“Oh!” The girl stood up. “I didn’t recognize you with your hair down!”

“That’s okay. I’m not exactly Julia Roberts or anything,” I said.

“You are around here!” The girl’s face flushed. “Do you want me to take you to your mom?”

“We’re fine,” Bennett said. “We’ll find our way.”

The girl sat down, her face still as pink as her outfit.

We walked down a hallway. Through the window, we could see Mom talking to the crowd in the first room.

“It’s a two-way mirror,” Bennett said. “They can’t see us.” He led us farther down the corridor. Each wall held two studios with a bench outside the door, and another one inside along the wall, so parents could watch from either place.

“It’s nice,” I said.

“Danika got it just the way she wanted it,” Bennett said.

We approached the last studio on the opposite side. Above the door read “Studio 4: Dance of the Shades.”

Bennett turned the handle and gestured for me to go inside.

One wall was all mirrors behind a barre. In one corner was a small rectangular bump-out with two doors. Storage, I assumed. And maybe a bathroom. Then the wall with the mirrored window and the bench.

The fourth wall was entirely covered with a gigantic image from
La Bayadère
. We were about one-third of the way through the Shades dance, where a number of dancers were already out, but squarely in the center of the image was me. We were all at the height of the arabesque, absolutely in sync, with perfect execution of the leg lift.

“Wow,” I said.

“If that isn’t inspiring, I don’t know what is,” Bennett said.

But when I turned to him, he wasn’t looking at the images.

He was looking at me.

My throat tightened. “This is an amazing space, Bennett. I’m so happy it’s been built. What a wonderful thing for my mother to be involved in.”

“It’s hers,” he said. “I’ll have my business manager check in with her every once in a while if she needs advice on the financial end.”

“Good idea,” I said. “She’s never run anything like it.”

“She’ll have help.”

Bennett squeezed my hand and let go.

I tilted my head. “You seem nervous. Do you hate reporters?”

He drew in a deep breath. “I do, but…”

His hand dipped into his suit jacket pocket. When he drew it out, he held a small black velvet box.

Then he got down on one knee.

My breath caught. “Bennett?”

He looked up at me, his face as uncertain as I’d ever seen it, a far cry from the Bennett who brokered business deals and dominated boardrooms.

The door to the studio opened and noise filled the room as Mom and the entire entourage flooded inside.

“Oh!” Mom said. “I didn’t realize!”

She moved as if she’d shepherd everyone out, but she was way too late. Bennett was down on one knee, holding the ring box open, and those cameras started popping like mad.

“So much for this being the last stop,” I said to Bennett. “We have an audience!”

“I guess you’re used to performing in front of people,” he said.

I laughed. “That I am.”

The reporters started shushing one another so they could hear.

“Have you asked her yet?” one called out. My mother smacked him on the arm.

“I was just waiting for you all,” Bennett said easily, and the room relaxed.

A couple dozen people crowded inside. Probably there were more in the hall on the other side of the mirrored window.

Mom waited expectantly, her face glowing, her hands clasped under her chin.

Bennett looked up at me. “Juliet Small, ballerina extraordinaire, strong, amazing woman, and love of my life, will you marry me?”

The ring winked at me from the cushion inside the box. My gaze moved from it to Bennett’s earnest face.

“Yes,” I said. “As long as you promise always to dance.”

“I do,” he said.

The spectators cheered. Bennett placed the ring on my finger and stood. He twirled me in a gentle circle that drew me into his body as the flashes fired nonstop.

And when he kissed me, I knew we had both found our way, beyond the hang-ups that had driven our past and the starry-eyed youthfulness that had kept us from seeing what was right before us all along.

And I knew our dance would never, ever end.

~*´`*~

Don’t miss the other six books in the
Friends with Benefits
series!
 

From authors Lacey Silks, Ember Casey, Gretchen Galway, Daisy Prescott, Rachel Schurig, and Blair Babylon come additional standalone romances on friendships that turn into love affairs.

See the other books at
http://bit.ly/FriendsToLoversSeries
.

~*´`*~

Watch for
Forbidden Dance
, the first book in the new
Lovers Dance
series set at Juliet’s Mom’s new Dreamcatcher Dance Academy.
 

Shy, innocent Livia will meet the most horrible, cockiest, jerkiest,
sexiest
dance show host ever.

And she will fall hard.

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