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What’s the point of telling me? she wanted to scream.
She bared her teeth at him in a false smile. ‘Great. I hope you find what you’re looking for.’
‘Thank you. I have no doubt that I will,’ he replied. It might have sounded like a coolly cordial response, but his eyes told a very different story.
Xandro Christofides was far from done with her.
To achieve that, though, he would need her cooperation on some level. And she wasn’t about to give him that. She was done with being manipulated.
She muttered a half-hearted response and quickly left the room. The nineteen other dancers gathered in the large reception room next to the ballroom would be expecting her to return and report on what had transpired next door. That was the frenzied nature of auditions. Michael especially, who’d also made the trip to the island, would be dying to dissect every word a thousand different ways.
Sage couldn’t face it. Not when she knew in her bones that her brother’s boss had staged every second of her auditions.
* * *
Once in the dressing room of her bedroom suite, she gathered her belongings. She was stuffing them into her small case when she heard a knock. She grimaced and held her breath, hoping whoever it was would give up and go away.
After a minute, the knock came again, firmer this time.
She dragged her suitcase into the bedroom and tossed it on the bed. ‘Come in,’ she called out half-heartedly.
She was reaching up to untie the knot she’d put her hair into for her audition when the door opened and her breath was knocked out of her lungs.
The man filling the doorway with his broad shoulders and overpowering personality was the last person she wanted to see.
Her hand dropped like a stone to her side as Xandro Christofides sauntered into the room, one side of his sensual, mocking mouth lifting in a parody of a smile at what must have been a comical expression on her face.
She unfroze when he was halfway across the room. ‘What are you doing here?’ she blurted, as she’d done downstairs.
‘You don’t recall inviting me in a second ago?’ he drawled.
‘You know what I mean!’
‘Do I?’ He shrugged. ‘I think I know what you mean, but I also know that specificity when it comes to important matters is paramount. So let me try to answer your question as broadly as I can. I’m in this room because you invited me in. I’m in this villa because I own it. I’m on this island because I own that too.’
‘Believe it or not, I had worked that out for myself. I meant: what do you want with me, here, right now? We covered everything we needed to cover downstairs.’
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we didn’t even come close.’
‘Right, you need more time to gloat? Well, get it out of your system quickly. I won’t be gracing you with my presence for much longer.’
She had to accept, no matter how painfully, that Hunter was off her list. But there were other dance companies out there. Several in New York that she could audition for. She’d been through worse setbacks. Her high school torturers had literally tried to break her. Her parents’ lack of support had nearly broken her spirit. Sage knew she hadn’t come out completely unscathed—the occasional pain in her wrist and the bruise she carried in her soul would always be a reminder of what she’d sacrificed for her dancing.
But she wasn’t going to give up.
For a tall and impressively built man, Xandro Christofides could freeze in place with the stillness that a performer like her could envy. If she wasn’t busy shoving the last of her belongings in her bag and wishing him to hell at the same time.
‘Are you going somewhere?’ he asked with a definite chill in his voice.
She gave a small bark of laughter. ‘Of course I am. Isn’t it obvious?’ She stopped for a few seconds, the anguish of dreams dashed momentarily lancing her hard enough to rob her of breath. She fought to regroup and tugged one strap of her rucksack over her shoulder. ‘Congratulations, though. I guessed something was up, but I didn’t quite see this coming.’
‘By this you mean...?’
She let loose the glare she’d withheld downstairs. ‘Oh, don’t play the innocent with me. Are you going to deny that you manipulated me into coming here? That it wasn’t your intention all along to dangle the promise of a position at Hunter’s in front of me, watch me kill myself to get it, and laugh yourself silly before yanking it away from me? Well, I’m not going to stay here and give you the sordid pleasure. I hate being controlled, Mr Christofides, so yes, I’m leaving. Right now.’
He barely flinched at her accusation. ‘You haven’t got the position yet. But if you insist on leaving before the auditions are over, then so be it. I look forward to receiving your cheque before you leave.’
Her grip tightened convulsively on her suitcase. ‘My c
