Page 168 of Captivated

That had never crossed her mind.

But now that it was there …

“And you could always see ballet like this,” Cara said, smiling in that way of hers, “maybe Rich didn’t take something away from you as much as he gave you the chance to find something different when you might not have gone to look for it yourself.”

Cara leaned forward, and pointed a finger at Liliana, adding, “But don’t even thank him for it, though. He gets nothing, now—not your fear, your pain, or even your success. He gets nothing. Not even in death.”

Yeah.

Liliana would make sure of it.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” Cella asked.

Liliana set her napkin down on the empty plate, and nodded. “For the most part, yeah.”

“Nervous?” Catherine asked from two seats down.

“Not really.” Liliana shrugged. “My foot is good—everything is healed. The doctor gave his okay a month ago, and I haven’t really had any pain but for the usual blisters and bruising from just dancing.”

“Reason number fifty-two why Cella never stayed in ballet,” her sister muttered.

Liliana laughed. “Hazard of the job?”

“Listen, nothing about feet is very fucking pretty to begin with, Liliana. But I am not going to go about helping it along with something like ballet.”

“Truth,” Catherine agreed.

“Did you see Cara when she was here today?” Liliana asked her cousin.

Catherine glanced over. “I did, yeah.”

She hadn’t known that the same therapist helping her was also helping her cousin for an entirely different set of reasons. It wasn’t something they talked about because frankly, they didn’t want or need to. Everybody deserved their privacy, too. She knew now that Cara worked with her cousin, though.

“Shouldn’t swear at the table,” Lucia said with all the attitude she could muster.

The girls grinned, giggled, and went back to their plates. It probably wasn’t the swearing that bothered her little sister as much as it was the fact nobody was talking to her. Lucia was pretty obvious in that way even if she wouldn’t admit it.

The clang of metal hitting crystal quieted the family filling the long Marcello dining table. All of her family was there—apparently, they needed to gather and celebrate her show tomorrow as a unit.

She loved them all for it, really.

All her uncles and aunts, cousins, grandparents, and her own mother, father, and siblings. Cella sat on one side of Liliana, and little Lucia—although, being a teenager, she wasn’t so little anymore—sat on the other side of her. Her brother, mother, and father sat across from her at the table while everyone else was spread out the rest of the way.

Still, they felt close.

It was kind of strange how that worked sometimes. They were always there when she needed them, and never too far away. Yet, they didn’t smother her or drive her crazy. They never voiced opinions on her choices after what happened, and they let her live.

If that wasn’t love, what was?

She had been so busy for the last month desperately trying to get up to par for her role in the show—not the lead, but the second, which was good enough for her—that she had kind of let her family fall to the wayside.

Not intentionally, of course.

They hadn’t said a thing about her doing it, either, but she knew they had to be wondering. Was she doing okay? Was she overworking herself? Was she lonely when she came home to her studio apartment night after night with no one to greet her but her thoughts?

She wished they wouldn’t worry at all, but trying to tell them not to was pointless. It was just what family did.

Liliana hadn’t realized she needed this—a moment to get away from everything else in her life, and just spend time with her family. They were her happy place, if she ever had one.