Page 47 of Daring to Love

11

Amelie

The dance studio is empty and quiet, exactly where I need to be right now. It’s the place where I can escape my thoughts and focus on my craft.

Tonight, I dance barefoot, something I rarely do, but I need to feel the firm floor beneath me…to feel it anchoring me as I move through the air and lose myself in the story I have to show with my dancing in only a matter of a couple of months.

I push Fin from my mind, compartmentalising him and what he’s come to mean to me the past month. My secret slashes at my insides, but the longer I stay silent about my heritage, the more it grows and fester in my soul. He’s not asked me about my biological parents again, seeming to let the subject rest until I’m ready to reveal more, and I love him for not pushing me, but at the same time, I know I must tell him.

I close my eyes and let my head fall back, my arms hanging loosely down my side.

I’m a mess, plain and simple. I haven’t thought about my birth mother for a long time even though her family is always on the front pages of the tabloids, but the truth is, I don’t know her and rarely even think of her as my mother.

I have the most amazing parents I could ever ask for, after all, and have never longed to learn more about my heritage. I’m grateful for having had a fairly normal upbringing despite the occasional journalist turning up at the doors, sniffing at our heels and no doubt hoping they could get the scoop of the century.

“You look so serious, Miss Winters.”

I jerk in fright, my head swimming as Aidan’s voice enters my sanctuary. I turn, twisting my body around as I look for him in the darkness, but I can’t find him.

“Why are you hiding?” I call out softly.

His laugh reaches my ears, and it makes my skin crawl. There’s something about this man that has me on guard, and the fact he’s lurking in the dark, watching me when I thought I was alone, gives me the creeps.

“I’m not hiding. I’m merely observing you.”

My head snaps to my left, and I take a few steps in the direction of the door to turn the switch, but as his form finally comes into view from behind one of the props, I fist my hands at my sides.

“Why are you watching me, Sir?”

He shrugs and doesn’t answer me. Instead, he starts to circle me the same way he did that day I got the part, and it unnerves me. I want to laugh at the paranoia, but I’ve always been able to trust my instincts, and right this second, they’re screaming at me to go.

“It’s my job to watch you, Miss Winters.”

He stops and licks his lips as he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt.

“Not while I’m training in private.”

I try to sound firm, annoyed at his intrusion even, but my nerves must be showing, and I sound broken…alone.

His lips pull back in a sardonic smile, and alarm bells ring loudly in my ears as my adrenaline spikes, because there’s some foreign emotion in his eyes that, despite its strangeness, doesn’t sit well with me.

“I think you forget who I am.”

“Pardon me?”

He sneers at me, and I suppress the trembling shutters battling to make me freeze to my spot.

“Ah, there she is…the innocent, untouched young woman who likes to tease men twice her age.”

I gasp as the insult rains over me. He walks closer to me again, the smirk back on his hard mouth, and I swallow the thickness in my throat.

“You’re trembling,” he chuckles darkly, making me retreat the further he closes the distance between us. “Good. I like that.”

Bile rises up in my mouth, and I move to the side to escape him, only he mirrors my moves all the while he slithers closer.

“But you’re no longer untouched, are you?” His mouth twists into a scowl, scaring me. “You have a boyfriend now, don’t you? He’s taken you from me. He’s taken what was rightfully mine.”

He’s mad! Completely and utterly crazy. I keep my eyes riveted on his, watching his every move as my back hits the wall behind me with a low thud, and I widen my steps. My fight or flight instincts kick in and I push to the balls of my feet.