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“She was jealous.” He lifts his head, his gaze searching mine. “She acted proud, but I always thought there was an edge. A resentment. She thought she could be a prima ballerina when she couldn’t even make principal of her company.”
“And you were so gifted.”
His jaw works, but he doesn’t reply.
“Is she still in jail?”
“Yes. I don’t bother to keep up on her parole hearings.”
Both his parents are alive and well but completely inaccessible. I run my hands through his hair. “You miss it?”
“I did at first, but then I was so busy trying to be a different person. I put on more muscle. I went to Ranger school. The deployments were almost a relief. I couldn’t get any farther away from what she did. But there were long stretches of nothing where I was alone with my thoughts. It’s why I left when my enlistment was over.”
He must’ve thought contracting would be faster paced. “And then?”
“And then I came home. I couldn’t live in San Diego, but being around all the arts again… Yeah. I miss it. But I can’t bring myself to dance again.”
“I don’t know how to cope without dancing.” This time I lay my head on his shoulder and hook my arms around his waist. “Well, I’m not going anywhere. I don’t think I’m cut out for the military.”
A soft chuckle reverberates through his chest. He rubs my back. “When I first saw you dance, I didn’t want to look away.”
I snap my head up. “Really?” I’m a good dancer, but I didn’t consider myself mesmerizing. I didn’t consider he’d find me mesmerizing. Warmth spreads through my limbs and into my body.
He traces a finger down my cheek, my neck, over my chest. All the way down and over my hip. “Long lines. Graceful. You have good form. But it’s more than that. You get this look on your face… It’s everything I used to feel when it was just me practicing in the studio. When there were no instructors, no masters critiquing and nitpicking. I could let go of perfection and just be.”
I had a hard time keeping my emotional distance from Cannon when he was a wrinkled, aloof friend of a friend. This Cannon is passionate. He’s poetic. And he’s sincere. I’ve fallen for him so far there’s no way I can climb back up.
“The night I first saw you—the way you were dressed in that dark blue-and-black dress—I wanted to possess you, Penelope.”
“Would you have? If I weren’t married…”
“No.” The muscles flex in his jaw, and he pries himself out of my arms. “We need to have some lunch and get back to work.”
“Dammit, Cannon.” I slam my hands onto my hips. “Quit walking away when the conversation gets difficult. Why not? Be honest.”
The force of his gaze is like a slap across my cheek. “You want honesty? Because I look at you and wonder how much my mom would’ve sold you for. I look at you and see another dancing vixen leaving a rich husband. I look at you and wonder what you’d be willing to do if you found yourself single with no money.”
My gasp echoes through the living room. I press a hand to my belly. He looks at me and thinks I’m no better than his mother. “I’m not—”
“I’ll sleep in the same bed with you so we both get some damn sleep, but I can’t touch you again. When I met you, you reminded me of my mother. And sometimes you remind me of the worst time in my life and how badly I failed. I failed to see what a monster my mother was, and I failed every one of those students. I worked so hard to get away from my past, and you’re dragging me back to it.”
Penelope
After five years of a frigid,loveless marriage, I can confirm I’m leaving with my pride. I started sleeping on the couch two nights ago when Cannon said I reminded him of all things terrible. A man isn’t going to compare me to an embezzling trafficker and then sleep in the same bed. Sex or not, just no.
Cannon didn’t like it when I told him I was taking the couch. He offered to take the couch, but I said that I wasn’t sleeping in his bed either.
We all have shit. Furniture in our head, taking up space, that should get therapied to the dump. But having him tell me he can’t be with me because I make him think of the worst moment in his life was…
Ouch.
I sense it’s an excuse to keep me away. I want so badly to talk to my friends about it. To open up to them like I wish I would’ve during my marriage. But I can’t. I literally can’t vent about him when we’re in the same house and our communications must be made so carefully. Even more, I can’t betray his confidence in me. I dug into a past he didn’t want me to know about.
He hasn’t told a soul who he is. Most people wouldn’t know. They might not have even heard the news stories. It echoed through my life because I was in the same world as him at the time.
So, lucky me. I get to keep this all to myself just like he’s doing. Two people just being miserable in separate rooms.
I plump my pillow and roll over. Since I started sleeping here, I try to spend my days elsewhere. That leaves the gym and the kitchen. Since I don’t know how to cook, I’m getting pretty sick of Mother’s smoothies. They’re good, but not when they’re all I can make for more than a week.
