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“Mum was a dancer,” Nadia finally answered, staring at the remote as if it held the answer to life, the universe and everything. “And should therefore probably have been my cautionary tale. Alas, I caught the bug and that was the end for me.”
With the alpha roar hampering his thought processes, Ryder slowly caught up. Something had definitely happened. In the hours since he’d seen her last, something had knocked her back into the darkness. Something that had made her bring Sam along as a shield. Ryder took a step her way, but whether by accident or design Sam bounced smack bang in front of him.
“Well, you’re in the right city for it now,” said Sam. “Melbourne is one of the most culturally rich cities in the world. There must be more work for a talent like you than you can bat away with a stick!”
Which was the moment Ryder realised he’d been the only oblivious one in the room.
His urge was now to drag Sam into a corner to ask her to explain herself. But Nadia’s gaze had already zeroed in on his sister; his sensitive sister who didn’t cope well with change, but who was also struggling with self-determination. Was that why she was doing her all to get him and Nadia together? Nadia who was in turn using Sam as a blockade.
And as the two women in his life stared one another down, hearts on their sleeves, his feet turned to lead. As for the first time in memory he didn’t know what to do.
Nadia didn’t have the same problem. She walked over to Sam, took her by the hips and spun her to face the windows; using one as a mirror, she pressed Sam’s shoulders back and lifted her arms into a dance hold. “I’m going to miss you like crazy too, Sammy Sam. But I can’t stay here. Even if I don’t get the Sky High job, there’ll be another. And it will be somewhere else other than here.”
“Why?” Sam asked, tears springing into her eyes.
Nadia leant her chin on Sam’s shoulder. “Because while this has been lovely, and wonderful, and curative, it’s time for me to get back to my real life.”
Sam’s mouth twisted as she looked at Nadia’s eyes in the reflection. Then Nadia gave her a squeezing hug from behind and said, “Okay?”
Which unbelievably made Sam laugh and say, “Okay.”
While all Ryder could think was, She’s leaving. She’s really leaving. And she’s started saying goodbye.
* * *
Nadia sat perched on the edge of the pink velvet chaise and simply breathed.
It had taken a good half-hour before things finally settled into the groove she’d been desperate for when she’d called Sam that afternoon and all but begged her to come. A conversation she’d had about fifteen minutes after getting off the phone with her mum.
Determination giving her wings, she’d called to tell her mother about the awesome audition. She’d couched it in wanting Claudia to know she might be leaving the country soon, in case she, you know, actually cared. When that had made little discernible impression on the woman Nadia had turned into a babbling idiot—they loved me, they really loved me! And it had only gone downhill from there.
Nadia dropped her head into her hands and groaned under her breath. She was a lost-effing-cause. She could dance without her mother’s acceptance; Ryder had been right about that. But it seemed she still couldn’t live without it.
Sky High or no Sky High, the only way she could see to cut herself off from the passive-aggressive abuse for good was to go away, far away, and this time to stay.
And no matter how appealing, how enticing the possibilities that had barreled through her after Ryder had come to her after the audition, all the glowing what-ifs in the world couldn’t stand up to that one great truth.
Laughter spilled from the centre of the room, cutting through the dulcet sound of Norah Jones. Nadia followed the sound to where Sam was in Ryder’s arms, their dark heads tilted towards one another. They laughed softly as they danced, Sam instructing, Ryder telling her to shut the hell up and let him lead, eyes mostly on one another’s feet.
Not a subtle bone in that girl’s body, Nadia thought, her heart giving a little squeeze. Sweet though, what she’d been trying to do. Bittersweet. As for her brother...
Nadia’s breath lodged in her throat as Ryder’s eyes found hers, and not for the first time. As he moved confidently through the steps, he couldn’t seem to keep from looking her way. Every glance forcing her to add a new brick to the wall she was rebuilding around her heart. Because he’d taken a piece of it the other day, turning up after her audition as he had.
But she couldn’t hope to really make the very most of this next phase of her life clinging to the previous. She knew better than anyone.
