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The curtains close, and the stage lights dim as everyone hugs and congratulates each other on the successful run of a beautiful show. But I’m going to hyperventilate if I don’t get out of here.
Chatter starts immediately. Discussions about everyone’s plans for their week off. But my vision darkens. Adrenaline still courses through everyone’s veins as I bump into members of the corps, trying desperately to get back to the quiet dressing room before the tears that are threatening fall without my permission.
And I almost make it too.
“Ms. Sinclair,” our stage manager, June, stops me just as I put my hand on the doorknob. Well she tries to, but I keepmoving on autopilot, desperately needing to get out of here. “Excuse me, Ms. Sinclair.”
Damn it.
Manners bred into me my entire life insist I turn around.
With a practiced smile in place, I turn to face her. Only something...someonecatches my eye at the end of the hall.
Is that?—?
I think my heart might actually skip a beat when his smile spreads across that handsome face.
“There’s someone here asking to see you, Ms. Sinclair. He says?—”
I don’t wait for June to finish before I move.
“Ares?”
He slides past the security guard in time to catch me as I leap for him, and the first tear finally falls.
Two strong arms wrap around me like a vice grip, and my feet dangle in the air as I bury my face in his neck and try not to cry. “What are you doing here?”
“I promised you I’d see you dance in this show, and I don’t break my promises.” His arms tighten around me, and I feel it right away. “I missed you so damn much, Grace.”
The comfort.
The relief.
It feels like . . .
Home.
I hang on for dear life because that’s what he is right now. A lifeline. “I can’t believe you came,” I whisper through the tears that won’t stop now that they’ve started.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” He lowers me to my feet and picks up a beautiful bouquet of wildflowers he must have dropped when I launched myself at him.
Oh well.
“Come with me.” I lace my fingers with his and tug him behind me into the dressing room. Dancers stop us every few steps, congratulating me on the performance, before we make it to the dressing room for the principal dancers.
I guide him next to my mirror and just stare for a minute. “I can’t believe you’re really here...”
This man... standing in front of me in a custom-fitted navy-blue suit with a crisp white shirt, the first few buttons unbuttoned.My goodness... I run my hand down his lapel and realize this is the first time in weeks I’ve felt anything at all.
“Let me take you out to dinner tonight.” He crosses his thick arms over his chest, and I just stare stupidly for a beat until he clears his throat. “Come on, good twin. I flew all day to see you. Don’t make me beg.”
“My flat is a ten-minute walk from here, and my roommate is leaving right from here for a week with her parents at their country house. There’s a pub beneath my place with pretty shitty food, but it makes for pretty easy takeout. You willing to stay in instead, god of war?”
“You had me atyour flat.”
ARES
Ifollow Grace through a creaky back door into the alley behind the theater as I shoulder my bag and hers. “I need to stop by the hotel and check in first.”
