Page 37 of Ice Dance

“Navarro?”

He stopped dead.

I’d raised my voice, and he’d responded like a dancer to the beat. Perfectly on point.

He kept his back to me. Didn’t look. Whatever I said next would either make him stay or leave.

“You’re right,” I said.

His shoulders dropped an inch.

“You don’t need me. You never did. But . . .” I wet my lips and swallowed, because my voice was wobbling and I couldn’t let him hear what this was doing to me. “You were also right, in that you created a routine we can win with. The battle. I want to dance it with you in the gender open.”

It cost me to admit that, cost more than he’d ever know. It was my surrender. He was my surrender.

My palms sweated. Tension made my neck ache.

I couldn’t control Navarro, or my feelings around him. But I couldn’t let him go either. And that terrified me. He terrified me. All of this was terrifying.

But god, I wanted to dance with him.

Wanted it more than I’d wanted anything in my life.

That’s what Dylan had seen, that night when we’d finally surrendered to each other. Albeit briefly. That’s what her instincts had told her we had together. That something she’d told me to hold onto. And the next day, I’d dropped him for Alisha.

His head turned, his face in profile.

He wasn’t with me, not yet.

I swallowed, and said, “I’m sorry.”

SIXTEEN

CAMDEN

I’d told myself, if he didn’t say the words, then it wouldn’t happen. It was a simple thing, to say you’re sorry. Most people wouldn’t have a problem with it. You screw up, you apologize. But Hasegawa wasn’t most people. He never put a step wrong. He was perfection personified, except he was riddled with flaws that he refused to see or acknowledge.

I’d been so close to leaving. Then my name on his lips, barked at me like a dog, and I’d damn well stopped like one. I should have waked away then. But he’d followed it up with the only words that could make me stay.

He needed me.

He was sorry.

And now I couldn’t walk away.

I sighed hard. All the tension that had gathered on seeing him standing outside the rink fell off me. The anger had been building since then, since he’d walked back into my life like he had every right to be here. He was an asshole. A selfish, emotionally closed off, absolute asshole. But damn, he could dance. Which was lucky, because so could I. And together, we just might win the Meridian.

Nothing easy was worth fighting for.

I turned again, and frowned. He stood there in a long woolen duster coat, collar up, hair all dark and perfectly styled without a single lock out of place. Hands at his sides, fingers trembling. His eyes were the only parts of him where his passion showed. Sultry eyes, just like Saga had said. Goddamn.

I was going to regret this. A lot. Every day for eight months, probably.

“Did you bring Dylan? Because if I have to dance with you without her, we’re fucked.” I needed her to stop me from swinging for him. She made his whole abrasive personality tolerable.

“No.” His lips twitched around something that couldn’t possibly be a smile. “But she’ll come.”

“Alright.” My voice cracked a little. He probably didn’t notice. “Then we’d better get on with it.” I turned away and pushed through the door. “I’ll text you an address, be there for eight.”