The Billionaire's Ballet: A Contemporary Billionaire Friends to Lovers Romance (Friends with Benefits) (3 page)

I turned around, trying to decide if I should admit who I was or just let it happen.

But the driver was Bennett, Quinn’s older brother.

“Oh, it’s the boring brother,” Quinn said. “Let’s hurry before he spoils all the fun. I’ll tell you straight out, he was not thrilled about my idea of bringing a tennis pro out full-time.”

Quinn had always disparaged Bennett’s seriousness, but back then it was always playful. Now his words had an edge to them.

My voice didn’t want to work, and the explanation about who I was stuck in my throat. The moments hurtled by as Bennett stepped out of the car.

Quinn moved from the doorway to stand beside me. I turned to him, thinking surely now that he was close he would see who I was.

“I’m happy to walk you to your cottage myself,” he said. When his hand touched my elbow, I positively glowed.

If only I could keep up this ruse a little longer!

Bennett headed up the steps. He nodded to the butler. “Hello, Adams,” he said to him. He glanced at me. “Hello, Juliet. Nice to have you back.”

Then he went inside.

My face blasted hot. He knew me! Now what would happen?

Quinn’s head snapped around. “Juliet?”

I forced a smile. “In the flesh!”

God, had I really said that? Like I was twelve?

Quinn stared hard at my face. “This is unreal! It’s like you’re somebody else.”

“Still me!” I said. I reached forward to take one of my suitcases from the butler’s assistant, who stood waiting for me to tell him what to do. “I’ll handle this. I have to go around the wall.”

The butler still looked quizzically at me. He had resumed a more formal position now that the crisis seemed to be over.

“I’m Danika’s daughter,” I told him.

His eyebrows raised as he realized the situation.

I couldn’t stand any of this one moment more. Despite the smart suit, the high heels, the perfect hair, I was still the hired help’s daughter. I snatched my luggage away and took off down the side path that led around the wall.

I heard Quinn say, “Wait!” but there wasn’t enough conviction in it for me. He was the one who didn’t respond to my emails in the first months I was gone.

I was the one who saw picture after picture of the women he’d been with during all these years.

I was so stupid. So stupid.

I ran faster, the wheels on the luggage bouncing as I dragged them down the path.

Only when I had turned the corner past the wall did I stop to take a breath. My feet were used to taking a beating, but the pounding of my heart had nothing to do with the run.

I peeked back around the wall.

Quinn and the butler were heading inside. Quinn tapped his racket on the ground as he walked, as if agitated.

I leaned against the stone. Despite six years of accomplished dance, my acceptance into a ballet troupe that traveled internationally, and my advancement from the chorus to minor roles, I had gotten nowhere.

I was still the girl peering at the party from behind the wall.

Chapter 4

The path to Mother’s guesthouse had never felt longer. I had no chance to enjoy getting reacquainted with the paths and trees that were my playground as a child.

I wanted to hide.

Not that Quinn was going to come looking for me. He was obviously expecting some fresh female tennis instructor. A live-in, no less. Now that I thought about it, his hand on my elbow was more creepy than titillating. Did he hit on everyone that way? Had he always? He obviously didn’t know the woman or he would have realized I wasn’t her.

By the time I arrived at the front door, the estate cook was already heading my way, her short legs a blur beneath her ample body in a blue dress and white apron. “Juliet?” she called. “Is that you?”

I arranged my luggage on the porch and waited for her, delighted to see the tiny woman who had worked here since before any of the Claremont children were born. “Yes, Amelia. So good to see you!”

Amelia was small and round and smelled of flour and vanilla, like a walking pastry. She pressed her palms to my cheeks. “You look so different! All grown up! And beautiful!”

“Thank you,” I said. “Is Mother at the dance studio?”

“No, I believe she is out.” A concerned emotion flitted across Amelia’s face.

“I’m sure her schedule has changed. Rose is gone, right? To college? Only Pearl would still be here.”

Amelia’s smile was more forced now. “Miss Rose is in Europe traveling. Miss Pearl has little interest in dance these days.”

“Oh.” I worried that Mother’s job was in jeopardy. Maybe that’s why she didn’t make it to New York. Saving her money.

I would have to adjust my plans. Base out of someplace less expensive than Manhattan. Find a studio that needed an instructor. Maybe we could buy her into one so she wasn’t just working hourly as an instructor, but getting a percentage of the profits.

My mind raced.

“Don’t you worry about anything,” Amelia said. She reached behind me to open Mother’s door with her enormous set of keys. “You settle yourself right in. Will you be here long?”

“About a month,” I said as I rolled the bags inside. “How did you know I was here?”

“Master Quinn,” she said with a grin. “He was carrying on about you.”

My heart sped up again. “What did he say?”

“Just that he’d seen you and that he couldn’t believe it was you!”

I bit my lip. “How has he been? I heard he was engaged.”

Amelia shook her head. “That boy. Engaged three times while you were gone! Three! Always asking. Then discarding. It’s all the talk.” She stuck her keys in her pocket. “You hungry? I can send a boy with something to eat.”

“Not now, thank you,” I said. The fact that she offered to send someone with food rather than have me come to the kitchen was not lost on me. Nothing had really changed at all. I was still meant to stay behind the wall.

“All right, honey. I will see you again real soon.” She pinched my cheek as though I were still five. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about anything.”

I went inside the darkened living room. It was like a cave. Interesting. Mother always liked things filled with light. I raised the blinds and pushed aside the curtains.

Most everything was the same as six years ago. The wicker furniture with padded cushions. The colorful pillows and bright tapestries on the walls. I felt a surge of happiness. Mom had surrounded me with cheer. She had tried. I had been such a mess. Mooning over Quinn. Rarely leaving the estate other than for school.

I headed back to my old bedroom with the window that faced the stone wall. Everything was as I had left it. The white ruffled bedspread. The desk with a mirror. My closet had some new boxes in it, but the clothes I’d left behind were still there.

I sat on the bed. As much as I wanted to think of Quinn as creepy or intolerable, I couldn’t. I remembered young Quinn, riding a horse beside me. Taking walks on the back lot of the estate. Brushing down Jezebelle.

Jezebelle!

I hurried for my bag to change out of the fancy clothes. I would go see my mare. A quick ride would certainly cheer me up.

The jeans I chose were soft and worn but well made. The summer heat meant a fitted tank top. I went with cherry red. I dug around in my closet and found my boots. Dried mud clung to the bottom and I brushed my fingers against it. The mud was six years old. Part of my life before.

I hauled the boots out to the porch and banged them on the ground. The dirt broke away and scattered.

I felt a lot better, like I’d shaken away some doubts. When the boots were on, I took off in a sprint for the barn. Running through the grass took me back, way before my angsty teen crush and into my childhood. I remembered when I first saw Jezebelle on a bright clear spring afternoon. When Quinn had kissed me and the whole world had split wide.

This was home after all.

The double doors at the end of the stable were propped open. Off in the round pen, a trainer I didn’t recognize was walking a yearling on a line. I should have asked Amelia who was still here that I would know. Mother sometimes mentioned the staff changes, but she always seemed leery of bringing up the estate, as if she didn’t want me asking about Quinn.

Most of the doors were open, as the horses were out in the field. I double-checked Jezebelle’s stall. Her bridle and bit hung in the back and the placard over the stall still bore her name.

My boots rang on the cement floor as I walked to the other end to head out into the pens to locate her. I’d bring her back to saddle her.

The door to the break room opened and Sawyer, the barn manager, came out, pushing his hat down on his head. His darkly tanned skin was a little more grizzled, and the hair at his temples included a lot more gray.

He glanced up at me, then paused, as if trying to decide if he knew me.

I helped him out. “Sawyer, it’s me! Juliet!”

With that, he broke out in a wide smile. “Jules! You’re not a tyke anymore!”

I stepped into his wiry embrace. He’d always been tall and lean. And a bachelor to the core, although a rumor had gone around when I was a teen that he was sweet on the florist who came every Tuesday. He managed the barn and often broke the new horses himself.

“Where’s my mare?” I asked.

“We just turned them all out,” he said. “You want me to have someone fetch her for you?”

Funny how Sawyer was treating me like a guest when the others hadn’t. “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll go track her down.”

“Bennett’s been riding her for you,” he said. “She’s in fine shape.”

I headed out the back exit and climbed the gate rather than opening it. It felt good to be outside. My lungs expanded and I took in a great gulp of air. I could breathe again. In New York I spent almost all my time indoors at rehearsals.

The horses were gathered around a water trough. I could see Jezebelle nosing her way alongside the others. She was gray-blue in the bright light and hadn’t changed a bit.

I took a rope halter from a hook by the gate to bring her in. This was something I couldn’t do in the city. While I loved the bright lights and lifestyle, I had definitely missed the slower pace of Texas. You couldn’t just step outside to ride a horse in Chelsea.

I talked softly as I approached the trough. A black foal startled and spirited away with high anxious steps. The others looked at me with languid eyes.

“Jezebelle,” I said. “Come.”

Her ears twitched, as if she, too, wasn’t sure what to make of this oddly familiar stranger. Then she lifted her nose and whinnied. I ran my hand along her mane. “It’s just me, girl. Just Jules.”

She seemed mollified as I slid the halter on and led her back to the stable and through the gate. Sawyer waited inside with her gear. “How long are you here for?” he asked as we saddled her up.

“A month,” I said.

“I hear you’re doing pretty well up there in New York. A ballerina and all.”

I cinched the rigging and adjusted the stirrups. “It’s been fun. Mother has come up for several shows.”

“She sure is proud of you,” Sawyer said. He patted Jezebelle on the rump. “Glad to see you up on your horse. We wondered if you were going to be all citified.”
 

I laughed. “You can take the girl out of the country…,” I said.

“Glad to see they haven’t taken the country out of the girl.”

My boot fit nicely in the stirrup, and I swung my leg over Jezebelle’s back. “You ready, my lady?” I asked, rubbing her head.

She stepped lively as Sawyer walked ahead and opened the gate for us. “Take her out for a spell. Bennett likes to walk her on the trail.”

I nodded, urging Jezebelle forward.

He’d mentioned Bennett twice now. There were a lot of horses in the barn. Bennett had a powerful former racehorse that was technically his. Or at least he used to. I wondered why he rode mine.

As we trotted out across the open pen, I thought about that last night when Bennett caught me confessing my love for Quinn to my horse. He
had
promised me she would be taken care of.

I just hadn’t expected he would do it himself.

One of the horse handlers waved at me and jogged ahead to open the gate to the back lot. The trail through the mesquite trees and brush had been there since the estate had been a real ranch.

Prettying up the barn and cleaning up the grounds had transformed a working ranch into an estate. Maybe I’d hoped my clothes and poise would do the same for me.

But nobody was fooled. Least of all me.

Chapter 5

One thing about nature is that if nobody touches it, it doesn’t change.

As Jezebelle picked her way along the trail, my heart soared with the recognition of each detail I’d treasured when I was a girl.

“There’s the ghost tree,” I told my horse, pointing toward a great towering oak with a giant knot in the bark that looked like a screaming woman.

“And elephant rock!” The big gray stone had a deep smooth indentation along a curve, leaving the impression of an elephant trunk.

Jezebelle tossed her head as if feeling my energy. I nudged her into a trot and the breeze cooled my face as we moved faster along the trail.

I wanted to shout out loud. My soul felt very full. The emotion was rare for me. Sometimes I felt it when I nailed the perfect pirouette or during a ballet, when I became completely, almost supernaturally, in sync with a line of dancers.

But this was so much easier.

The very idea made me laugh. It was true. I had to work very hard for the happy moments in New York. The rehearsal and performance schedule was grueling. The relationships between the dancers vacillated wildly between best friends to cutthroat competition. The travel was exhausting and yet you had to perform no matter how you felt, jet-lagged or not sure about the foreign food or down with a cold.

This happiness was effortless. Jezebelle was doing all the work.

I ducked beneath a sprig of a tree branch that jutted out into the trail. When I lifted my head, Jezebelle suddenly slowed.

“What is it, girl?”

We rounded a curve and I saw him.

Face to face.

Horse to horse.