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“Henry,” she began, walking up to where he waited by the private elevator. “I think we should talk.”
“Of course, but not now. I really do have meetings.” He flashed her a quick smile as he ushered her into the elevator, but it was a shallow one. Flashy and handsome, but not real.
She crossed her arms, eyes narrowing. “Last night—”
“I agree. It was amazing,” he interrupted. “Better than I imagined. And I did imagine a lot, Sophie. You are a talented woman.” The smile he gave her at that moment was more genuine, with a bit of dimple and a brief glance from his hot black eyes. Sophie felt the blood in her cheeks and ground her teeth. She was trying to talk seriously and he was making her blush. It threw her off balance.
“Uh, thank you, but—” The elevator doors slid open. The ride up yesterday had been interminable, but this morning barely a minute seemed to have passed. Sophie blinked and stepped out of the elevator car. Henry held the door, but remained inside.
“Maurice!” he called, raising his hand to the doorman who stood at attention across the lobby. Maurice looked up, nodding courteously.
“Morning, Mr. Medina.”
“Call Sophie a cab, would you please?”
Maurice was already opening the door. “Of course, Mr. Medina!”
Sophie stared up at Henry, heart crawling up into her throat. He finally met her gaze. The look in his eyes was unreadable. His left hand rose and touched her cheek softly.
She turned into the caress, seeking his warmth. For a moment, it seemed he was going to kiss her. His head bent slightly and that odd flat look in his eyes softened. But then he froze and thrust something into her hand. “Here,” he said,“for the dance last night. And the first one.” Henry stepped back quickly and the elevator doors closed, as if in collusion with him on his swift escape, leaving her alone in the palatial lobby.
Her heart squeezed like a fist in her chest and tears stung her eyes. She glanced down at the envelope he’d shoved at her. It wasn’t sealed.
Inside was a thick sheaf of green bills. Sophie swallowed hard, thumbing through them. They were hundred dollar bills. The tears that had been threatening filled her eyes, spilling out over her lower lashes and dripping onto the envelope.
This was far more than he’d offered her for her time. What was the extra money for? Unless...
Unless, he was paying her off, like she was some whore. That cauldron of anger that had been heating in her belly cracked, spilling fury into her veins. Beneath the molten anger was the acid sting of hurt and a curl of smoking shame. She knew this melange of negative emotions well. She’d last felt them when Christian had left her on the rehearsal room floor, walking away from her.
Who does this? Why the hell would this man go through so much trouble just to humiliate her? She thought of an old joke she’d heard in college: you don’t pay whores for sex, you pay them to leave. And here she was, walking out the door as Henry went back up to his penthouse for “meetings” and whatever else he had to do. It didn’t really matter; she had to get out of this man’s life and not come back.
She flung the envelope at the elevator doors, heedless of the thousands of dollars spilling from it, and spun on her heel, the swish of the dress’ skirt around her knees only fanning the flames of her wounded emotions. If only she could tear it off and toss it after the envelope. She wished she had something else, anything else, to wear.
Get home. That’s what she had to do. She strode toward the front doors quickly, trying to hold back the tears that insisted on sliding down her cheeks. She shouldered the door open roughly.
Maurice looked around in surprise. “I’ll have a cab for you in a second, ma’am. They’re—”
“Don’t bother. I can walk.” It was more than thirty blocks and the sky was darkening with the threat of rain, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to spend one more second standing in front of this man’s building. The doorman was still talking but Sophie ignored him, wrapping her arms around herself against the chill in the air and turning her face toward home.
The walk was long, and full of time to think. She had horrible taste in men, clearly. First Christian, and now Henry. She’d thought he was different. He hadn’t been turned off by her scar or her inability to dance gracefully all the time. They’d talked, really talked. But he had given her very little in the way of personal information, she realized now. He was always vague.
She’d overlooked it because he made her feel desirable again. He’d danced with her, and that had been good. She’d let herself fall into bed with him because he was gorgeous and commanding and her body responded to him in a way it had never responded to anyone else. She’d known it was too fast, that she knew too little about the kind of man he was, but she’d let herself ignore it.
She was almost grateful when the clouds opened up and it began to pour. At least the cool rain bathed her heated cheeks, washing away her tears. She wished it could wash away her memory of Henry Medina instead.
Chapter Eight
Sophie counted through the box of homemade tie-on taps she used for the children’s intro tap class, making sure there were no strays. Many of the children couldn’t afford a pair of shoes just for dance, so these came in handy. She had them all wear regular shoes and then tied painted bottle caps around them. They weren’t really the same, but the younger students had enjoyed making them, and at their age it was mostly about exposing them to dance. They could get real tap shoes when they got older, if they were serious about it.
She was avoiding looking in any one of the studio’s myriad mirrors this morning. She knew she looked terrible. She’d looked terrible yesterday when she finally got back to her apartment, soaked to the skin with a runny nose and red-rimmed eyes. And that was before she’d cried herself to sleep. They’d been tears of anguish and betrayal. Some of them weren’t even for Henry. The whole ordeal recalled memories of the end of her relationship with Christian, and then she trotted out every rejection, mistake and deception she’d seemingly ever experienced and piled them all on top.
When she’d woken early this morning her eyes were puffy and her throat raw. She’d managed to reduce the swelling around her eyes with a judicious application of cold water and hemorrhoid cream (a trick from her dancing days), but she could do little about how bloodshot they were. And the sore throat remained even in the wake of aspirin and warm tea.
Her knee ached abominably, too. She shouldn’t have walked all the way home. Especially after the flare up the previous day. But she’d been so wrapped up in her volatile emotions that she’d needed to move, and a walk seemed like just the thing. She would have gone mad sitting in a cab through the morning traffic of New York City.
Sophie leaned on her cane heavily, glad no one else was around. She’d been up at first light and had been into the studio hours before Darren was meant to come in. So far she’d organized the front desk, rewritten the ad for next Sunday’s paper, balanced the checkbook (both hers and the business’s) and color coordinated the scarves she used with the children during Fr
ee Dance classes. Now she was working on the taps.
