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“Do you want me to spell it out? How long has he been hurting you, physically?” He spat angrily.
My eyes snapped open and I glared at him. “He hit me once,” I replied. I swallowed hard and shook my head as I took in the look of disbelief he was showing me.
“Bullshit! He’s had his hands on you more than once. The day you enrolled, you were trying to hide a bruise on your cheek, the first dance class you had faint bruises from fingers on your wrist. You have panic attacks, you’re nervous all the damn time, you have no self-confidence and I’ve seen it all, Raine with my own eyes. So, I’ll ask you again, how long has it been going on?”
I pulled my feet from his hands and stood up. “It’s nothing to do with you,” I snapped as I bent down to retrieve my bag from the floor and headed towards the front door, giving no regard to the fact I was currently barefoot.
“You’re running out on me, again?” He shouted from behind me.
“No, not running. This is me walking!” I replied haughtily.
As I reached the front door and pulled it open, I was unaware of Nikoli’s presence until he pulled the door from my hands and stood himself in front of it. “You’re not walking out on me, not again. Every time I try and talk to you, you close up and run.”
“Nikoli, please!” I begged, I wasn’t sure what I was begging for, for him to drop this conversation, to move away from the door, to kiss me again. “This isn’t your problem, Nikoli.”
His eyes went wide, his jaw dropped and a scoff flew from his mouth. “You know what, you’re right! This isn’t my problem, but I’m in too deep for me to ignore what’s going on!”
“What do you mean, in too deep?” I snapped, confused at his comment.
“Forget it! Look, I’m not Max so I’m not going to keep you here against your will. I’m giving you a choice, and I pray you make the right one.”
I stayed silent waiting for him to spit out whatever it was he wanted to say.
“I want you stay and talk to me, open up and let me in. I won’t judge and I won’t push, but I want it all, Raine. Everything that’s going on at home, I want to know, no holding back.”
“And if I don’t want to open up and talk?” I whispered with a deep-seated feeling of apprehension at what he would say next.
“If you walk out of here, right now? Then whatever the fuck this is that’s going on between us? Ends here tonight and I’ll have Petra teach you to dance.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
“What do you want to know?” I asked through gritted teeth. He had me over a barrel and I felt defeated by his ultimatum. I couldn’t envision learning to dance from Petra, having to face Nikoli in the studio and know that everything between us would only be from a professional stand point, knowing I’d never have the chance again to taste or feel his lips against mine, he knew that and used it against me.
His face softened and a sigh passed his parted lips. He moved from the door and headed back towards the couch, “I just want to know why,” he said quietly, “why you are with him, why you are still with him?”
“I don’t know anything different,” I replied dropping my bag to the floor and heading in his direction.
Silence descended between us again and he watched me pour myself another vodka, this time, one small shot. Drinking it back, I chose to sit opposite him rather than right next to him. Having learnt over time how to read and gauge Max’s possible reactions from the smallest twitch of his lips, the slight incline of his eyebrows, the pulse in his neck that would swell, to the way his nostrils would flare, I was hoping to try and read Nikoli’s facial expressions as I spoke.
“Explain. The beginning is always a good place to start,” he stated, moving his hand in a sweeping motion, as if to say the floor is yours.
I brought my legs up onto the couch and took a deep breath in preparation. “I was handed over to the authorities when I was born, I never knew my birth parents, and for years I was passed from one foster family to another. When I was thirteen I finally found, what I believed to be my forever home. They were a lovely couple in their fifties and I was their first foster child. Margaret could never have children and it caused the breakdown of her first marriage. Then she met Kelvin and after several years of trying to foster, finally, I made it into their lives.”
“And?” He gently encouraged as I began to twist my fingers together nervously.
“From the age of thirteen to eighteen I lived a life I’d always dreamed of. I found love and warmth, stability and a self-worth with Margaret and Kelvin, I did well academically but socially I was always the outcast, the one no one wanted to mix with due to my background. I struggled to make real friends, I had a few but they were more acquaintances than the actual friends I craved. I was never appealing to the opposite sex, I was never asked out on dates, and I had no one to take me to prom…”
I stopped talking when I heard Nikoli snort, “You have to be kidding me, right? Do you know how fucking attractive you are?”
I felt my cheeks grow hot at his compliment and I could tell by his lopsided grin and the ferocity of the heat settling across my face that they now resembled the color of deep crimson. I moved my eyes towards my legs trying to find a distraction, and I found it in the form of a loose thread hanging from my leggings. I wound it around my fingers as I explained to him about the day I met Max, the day my life changed again.
“So, Max was really the first male to pay an interest in you?” Nikoli asked once I’d stopped talking.
“Yes. He was forever complimenting me, buying me new things, taking me to new places, introducing me to his world. I shared many of my first experiences with Max.” I mumbled the last four words quietly. “He swept me off my feet and I was carried along with the wave in complete awe. We had a whirlwind romance and when he proposed I eagerly accepted.”
“Was that because you thought no one else would be interested in you again if you didn’t accept?”
“No,” I snapped as I vehemently shook my head, “it was because I loved him and everything he stood for!”
