The Saint of Petersburg (Dancing Dream #3) Read online

  Damian’s words of assurance didn’t ease the uneasiness that had developed in the pit of my stomach. In my heart, I knew I loved both of these men, but I had only made a vow to one of them.

  I stood up from the bed, clutching the sheet to cover up my nudity as if Damian had not just touched and kissed every inch of my body. He looked disappointed.

  “You are leaving?”

  “I have to. Will is due back in an hour.”

  Damian reached up, grabbed my hand, kissed each finger and said, “Thank you for letting me love you.” My heart melted. Why did he have to be charming and sexy all of a sudden? I slid back into bed with him and started kissing him passionately. He pulled the sheet away, revealing my nakedness as he stroked and caressed my most intimate curves. “I love you,” he said breathlessly between his hungry kisses. “Leave him. Stay with me.”

  Oh God. He wanted me to end my marriage? I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave Will. Even with all his faults, I knew I belonged with Will. I knew we would always end up together. Being with Damian was a mistake. What was I doing being touched and caressed by another man’s hands? I had to get out of there and make it clear to Damian that this would never happen again.

  “Damian, this was wrong,” I said as I pulled away from him. “I’m married. I love Will. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” And I didn’t. It was a heat of the moment type of thing. I just came to Damian’s hotel room to ask about the phone calls again. I wanted to make sure he was telling the truth about them.

  Damian fell back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Fine, go,” he said dejectedly. I was so torn. I wanted to stay and help him. He needed me. But I was another man’s wife. Tears were burning down my cheeks as I frantically searched the room for my clothes that had been thrown about the room in the heat of passion.

  I found my white spring dress and slid it over my head without even putting on my underwear. I just needed to get out of that room as fast as I could. I found my panties and stuffed them down into my purse as I scanned the room for my shoes. I could feel Damian staring at me, but I refused to turn and meet his gaze. If I did, I might never leave.

  Will had been in England for five days. It was his first trip away since we had been married. He was shooting a commercial for his new line of Converse All-Stars that was coming out this summer.

  When I got home, I was so distraught. I just crawled into bed and started bawling. I guess I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew someone was kissing me.

  “Will?” I said groggily. “You’re back?”

  “What are you talking about?” he said as he kissed my forehead, my cheeks, and my eyelids.

  “You’re back from England? I wanted to make you dinner.”

  Will smiled his sweet smile and said, “I leave for England today, babe. You were having a bad dream.” I sat up in bed and tried to collect my thoughts. I looked down and noticed I wasn’t wearing the white spring dress I remembered last, even though I didn’t think I even owned a white spring dress. Instead, I had on Will’s favorite white negligee. He always said I looked like an angel in it. I sure didn’t feel like an angel. What was going on?

  “You were crying again in your sleep,” Will said. “Were you dreaming of Sasha?”

  It was just a dream? It was just a dream! Thank God! I hadn’t cheated on my husband. But still, I was dreaming of another man.

  “Yeah, Sasha right, I was dreaming of Sasha.” Will hugged me tightly, mistaking my incompetent lying skills for distress over my sister.

  “I’m sorry your sister is such an asshole. But you have me. I’m your family now and you’re mine.” Will kissed the top of my head. “I have to go catch my plane now. I’ll see you in five days, Mrs. Maddox.” Will called me Mrs. Maddox every chance he got. He was so excited that we were married.

  I sat there on the bed trying to decipher what was real and what my mind had concocted for that extremely realistic dream. Then it all came back to me. After shopping with Anna Marie and Raffaele, I remembered going to Damian’s hotel room to find out if he was telling the truth, but he wasn’t there. My next encounter with Damian would be in the rehearsal hall of the DiRisio Academy. Though confused about my feelings for Will and Damian, there was one thing I wasn’t confused about. Will was my husband. I had taken a vow. And I was determined to honor that vow. No matter what. At least I hoped.

  Chapter 4

  Adulterous

  I kind of remembered reading The Scarlett Letter when I was in the tenth grade or something. Mostly, I remember watching the Demi Moore movie the night before the test. In any case, I felt just like Demi Moore’s character as I walked into the DiRisio dance studio the next day. I felt like everyone was staring at a bright red “A” on my chest for adultery or adulterer or whatever it stood for. And I hadn’t even cheated! Not yet anyway. I knew I could never actually go through with it. I would die of shame. Not to mention the idea of hurting Will that way made it hard to breathe. I think I would suffocate and die if I ever actually cheated.

  But when your husband was a major local celebrity, sometimes the truth didn’t matter. Before, during and after our wedding, there were still false stories and rumors about extramarital love interests on both our parts. I wasn’t worried about Will cheating on me again. He made it perfectly clear day in and day out that I was the only woman for him for the rest of his life. I honestly felt like he would die before having another woman in his bed. I tried to make him feel just as secure about my feelings for him, but I wasn’t sure I was as convincing.

  Sitting in front of the mirror of the rehearsal room, I strapped on my pointe shoes and tried to figure out a way to get through these next six performances. Six performances! I had to get on stage and dance with Damian Karl six more times, not to mention the countless rehearsals we’d have to have to get ready for those performances. But after that, I would never have to see him again, right?

  In exchange for giving me two months off for my ankle and anorexia treatment, the DiRisio Academy of Dance had contracted Damian and me for six exclusive performances. That’s just how magical we were together. Once the company saw me perform with him, I was practically guaranteed a spot. Though I would be perfectly happy dancing in Rome for DiRisio for the rest of my life, deep down I was still holding out for Russia. My life’s dream was to dance with the Russian Ballet of St. Petersburg. I just wasn’t sure how my dreams fit in with Will’s plans for the future.

  “Have you seen him yet?” Anna Marie asked as we were warming up at the bar before rehearsal started. Anna Marie Thompson, my best friend and former roommate, knew the whole story between me, Will, and Damian. She had witnessed it unfold. She saw how Will had proposed to me twenty-eight times before I said yes. She was there when I found out Will had cheated on me. She was there when Will tried to carve Damian a new face with his fist. And she even helped me plan the surprise wedding I threw for Will four weeks ago.

  “No, I haven’t seen him.” Well, not face to face anyway. But he sure did make frequent appearances in my dreams. “Have you seen him?” I asked Anna Marie. She shook her head, showing off her amazing red hair that her boyfriend Rafael had recently highlighted and trimmed. She looked incredible.

  “I heard he shaved his head.”

  “What?” I said, stopping in mid-plié and clutching the bar for support. I felt faint.

  Anna Marie looked me up and down. “What’s the matter with you? Do you have a cramp?”

  “No, I’m fine.” I straightened up and turned to her. “He shaved his head?”

  “Yeah, can you believe it? His afro was like his trademark. What would make him part with it?”

  I started to have trouble breathing. I thought I was going to hyperventilate.

  “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

  “Last night I dreamed that he shaved his head.”

  “So, what? It’s a little weird but no big deal.”

  “But if that part of the dream come
s true, what if other things in the dream come true?”

  “Oh ... oh!” she said, her eyes expanding as she began to fully understand what I meant by “other things.”

  Just then Damian Karl entered the studio. A bald Damian Karl. He looked exactly the way he did in my dream. How was that possible? He wasn’t completely bald, just extremely close shaven. I imagined it would feel like touching silk to run my fingers over his smooth scalp. He looked even sexier than before. I didn’t think that was possible, but apparently it was. Damian always exuded sex appeal. Women were drawn to him like no other. He knew how attractive he was and he usually flaunted it. But not today. Today he seemed strangely subdued. He scanned the room, locked eyes with me, and then looked down.

  “Let us all gather around for a moment,” he said in a thick Brazilian accent after clearing his throat. Damian spoke so many languages that often his accent was muddled, but after spending two months in Brazil, I guess that was what was coming out the most. All the company members came and sat in the middle of the floor and stared up at Damian, waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t. He seemed lost in thought. Almost as if he was in pain.

  Damian licked his full, perfectly chiseled lips, opened his mouth to speak then closed it again. He looked down at the ground and rubbed the back of his clean shaven head. All the dancers started to look at each other and whisper. This was not normal Damian behavior. Everyone was so confused. Some of the current company members were former academy students and were in the hip hop class he taught. He was always lively, charming and confident. Actually, he was usually an arrogant bastard most of the time. But he was so sexy and talented, everyone not only put up with him, they revered him. But right now, he seemed insecure to the point of paralysis. Was he sick or something?

  “Hey, Damian, why did you shave your head?” Sebastien asked jokingly in French, trying to lighten the mood. I spoke fluent Italian and Spanish and had recently decided to make French my fourth language so I understood him.

  Damian looked up and flashed his turquoise eyes at Sebastien. He had a faraway look in his eyes as he said bitterly, “The woman I love just married another man. I thought it was time for a new start.” I thought my heart stopped. That’s almost exactly what he said in my dream. But it was just a coincidence, right? It didn’t mean anything, right?

  Clueless about what was said, Anna Marie started slapping my arm asking me to translate. She was not good with languages and had no idea what Sebastien had asked or what Damian had responded. I was glad for that. I was hoping that the other dancers didn’t understand French either, but as I looked around the room I noticed that most of them knew exactly what he said and they were now whispering to each other and pointing at me.

  My face flushed. I had to get out of there. I didn’t know what made me think I could do six performances with him. I bet he was doing this on purpose. This whole tragic lost love act. He was going to make this situation as difficult as possible. I stood up to leave and Damian followed. The entire room buzzed with gossip and speculation. I heard Anna Marie yell, “Okay, who speaks English here?”

  “I am sorry to embarrass you,” Damian said once we were in the hall.

  “Damian, how could you say that? What will everyone think?”

  “I do not care what people think. I love you. What is wrong with that?”

  “What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with that!” I exclaimed. “I’m married!”

  “But I’m not. I can love who I want.” Well, he had a point there. But still it was embarrassing. Damian stared at me. I hated when he did that. I always felt like his intense turquoise eyes could penetrate my soul. Damian stepped closer to me and tried to grab my hand. I snatched away quickly. “I’m just taking you back to the studio. We have a performance to get ready for.” He smiled innocently as I let him take my hand and lead me back to the room.

  “Okay,” he said loudly and confidently as we came back. “We only have a week to set this ballet. Alejandro has given me complete artistic license for these shows so we are going to do my kind of ballet. Passionate, exciting, and intense.” I thought he would go change since he was wearing a leather jacket and jeans but he didn’t. He just started showing us the choreography in jeans. Who danced ballet in jeans?

  I had forgotten what an amazing choreographer he was. I could tell he didn’t have any movements planned ahead of time, but that didn’t stop him from creating a gorgeous routine. Whenever I did choreography, I would spend hours by myself in front of a mirror with a pencil and paper writing down each step as it came to me so that I wouldn’t forget. With Damian, everything just flowed out of him naturally as if he were this walking geyser of creative genius waiting to explode.

  Sometimes, he didn’t even need to hear the music. He would create the combination and then play the music, and somehow it worked perfectly.

  “You okay?” Anna Marie asked while we were on a break.

  I chugged a bottle of water then said, “Yeah, fine. Why?”

  “Well, besides the obvious,” she said, gesturing towards Damian like Vanna White. “You seem tired.”

  “Of course I’m tired. I spent two months lying on my butt getting fat instead of working out and dancing. Now I have to perform on a world stage after just a few days of rehearsal.” Part of the reason we only had a week to get ready for the first show was that the Academy wanted to give me a couple of extra weeks to get back into shape. These shows were getting a ton of press and I had to be at my best.

  “You weren’t getting fat, you were getting healthy,” she corrected me.

  “Tell that to my butt that’s spilling out of my leotard.”

  Anna Marie rolled her eyes and said, “I’ll talk to you when you decide to be logical again.”

  Damian had the entire ballet choreographed in a little over an hour. That wasn’t always a good thing with choreographers. I’d worked with some people who would set the entire ballet one day and then the next, change everything. So even though we were nearly done, I still didn’t know what to expect during this week of rehearsal. Nothing could have prepared me for what actually happened.

  Chapter 5

  The Garrison-Karl Experience

  I did my best to make my marriage work. Yes, Will and I had our problems. He was possessive and controlling. We were both paranoid and emotionally unstable at times. But we were married now, which meant that no matter what we had to make it work. I wanted the dream life. The perfect career, the perfect marriage, 2.5 kids with a dog and a picket fence. I wanted the opposite of what I had grown up with in Venton Heights, where my only pets were the cockroaches.

  My desire for that dream to have a perfect life was probably what caused me to avoid having a needed conversation with Will. I needed to find out if Will had really tampered with my cell phone in order to keep me away from Damian. But part of me didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know if he was capable of that. I didn’t know what it would mean for our new marriage.

  So for that entire week of rehearsal, I pretended as if it didn’t happen. I pushed it into the far dark recesses of my mind. Even when Will came back from England, I didn’t bring it up. I tried to be happy with Will. I tried to believe he was all I needed. But I wasn’t sure that was true. Especially when I danced with Damian. When I danced with him, I felt as if nothing else existed or mattered.

  I had to pretend I had two completely different parts of my life. When I was with Will, there was never any mention of Damian. And when I danced with Damian, Will couldn’t be further from my mind.

  “How is rehearsal going?” Will asked one evening over dinner.

  Our first performance was in two days and the closer it got, the more nervous I felt about being on stage with Damian. If passion was what the audience wanted, they were about to get tons of it between Damian and me. Sometimes I would have to step out of rehearsal just to get my head on straight and remind myself that I was married.

  “Fine. Everything is fine.” Well, that was ki
nd of a lie. But I couldn’t very well tell him how I felt being in constant contact with Damian again. I picked up a menu and started looking at the dessert menu. As if I would eat that fattening food when I had a show in two days. I just knew it always made Will happy when I ordered dessert even if I only took two bites of it.

  Will reached across the table and grabbed my hands. “I know this is stressful for you. But you’re going to be fabulous. This could really give your career a boost.” Now it was Will’s turn to take an awkward sip of water. “So, how is Damian?”

  “Fine. He’s fine.”

  “Is he … is he treating you right?” he asked. “Cause if not, I can go handle him for you.”

  “No, Will. He’s behaving. He’s fine.”

  Will stood and moved to my side of the booth. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and I rested my head on his chest. “I’m here for you okay? Anything you need, just ask.”

  I looked into his eyes. “All I need is you.”

  I didn’t know how long I could go on living with this separated life, but I thought it would work for a little while. At least a little longer than one stinkin’ week.

  As soon as I entered the studio the next day, I got the feeling like everyone was just talking about me. And from the way they all avoided eye contact with me, I knew I was right.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Anna Marie as I pulled her off to the side.

  She sighed. “You haven’t seen it, have you?” she asked as if she already knew the answer. Whatever it was she was talking about, I hadn’t seen it. I hadn’t seen anything. “You are so oblivious sometimes.” She reached into her dance bag and pulled out a piece of paper.

  When I looked at it, I gasped. It was a picture of Damian and me, on stage, and lip locked. It was from the performance we did together last year. The one when he filled in for Pierre and surprised me with a kiss. Looking at the picture now, I could completely understand why Will was so upset with me after that performance. Damian and I were suspended in a completely passionate embrace. The physical attraction between us pulsated even in this two dimensional photo. It was so hot I halfway expected the picture to burst into flames in my hand.