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“Fuck me,” he muttered. Then she smiled and it hit him right between the eyes. This was O’s world…well, the world she would have inhabited if she’d gone on a different path. She fit in here. This was a woman he took to bed against silk sheets, not sweaty, quick and dirty sex against a wall.
As his gaze rose past the rope of diamonds circling her throat and riding on the swell of her breasts, then to her face, he got lost in her. Cat-like eyes, a pixie nose, she looked so delicate and fragile. Nothing like the woman who bravely stepped into a bar full of rough and dangerous biker dudes. He glanced around. The men stared and the women sent her dirty looks.
As he approached her, Jackson in tow, O’s mother and father materialized beside her Along with Katie in white like the other young women. He would recognize her parents anywhere, remembering how they had treated him seventeen years ago.
O’s mom looked up and froze. Her brows dipped, and she turned to O. They had words and her mother’s face flushed scarlet as she eyed them approaching. O reached out and clasped her mother’s arm. She must have warned her to behave and not cause a scene because she clamped her lips closed.
Jackson offered his arm to Katie, and as the music swelled, he took her to the dance floor, and they merged elegantly into a foxtrot.
The shock on her mother’s face was as insulting as her words must have been. Without a word, he went to O and offered her his arm. She took it and they walked out to the dance floor. He was the envy of every man in there as he wrapped her in his arms, and they floated together.
Her parents would never get it or approve of him, no matter how much he made or how many medals they pinned to his chest. They blamed him for O’s exit from their way of thinking. But Dean knew what they did not.
O was her own woman, and she would always be so. They were the sad ones because they couldn’t see that.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Wrappedup in Dean’s arms, Ophelia could almost forget the ugly words her mother had uttered after Ophelia told her about Jackson and where he came from. It was terror in her eyes, remembering how her oldest daughter was corrupted by the wayward street tough. In that moment, Ophelia realized what she had done in the past that had eaten at her for so long. She’d let her mother believe it was Dean who had transformed her because even then, evennow, she wanted her mother to be proud of her.
With her hands clenched into fists, her mother watched them with calculating eyes. She wanted to protect the bubble she had built around Katie—and it was a fierce bubble. She’d been robbed of her first protégé. She would only fight nastier for her last chance.
“Don’t let her get to you,” Dean said softly. “She doesn’t have power over you if you don’t give her the power.”
“Is that your SEAL Zen wisdom coming through?”
He chuckled, his breath warm against her temple. They moved together. Dean’s dancing flawless.
She raised her head from his shoulder and asked, “Where did you learn to foxtrot?”
“In the Navy,” he said. “Tier One operators have to be good at everything. We couldn’t possibly go to an embassy party and look like fools.”
“God forbid,” she said, then laughed when he dipped her with ease. When she came up, she spied Katie and Jackson. The boy was looking at her baby sister as if she were spun glass. It was easy to see he was besotted, but Katie and Ophelia weren’t anything alike. Katie embraced her mother’s way of life. Dancewasher life, and she would never jeopardize it for anything or anyone.
“You went far away, babe,” Dean said, bringing her back to him. The dance had ended.
She didn’t have to guess. Katie’s aspirations, like Ophelia’s would cause her immeasurable pain, but to get where Katie wanted to be, sacrifice would be her watchword. Ballerinas had to give up a lot in their life to really make it on the stage. “I think it was a mistake to bring you both here, to expose him to her.”
He cupped her chin and turned her face away from her mother, who was staring daggers at Jackson and Katie while they laughed together at the edge of the dance floor. The next dance would be starting soon, so her mother had to grit her teeth and bear it.
Katie and Jackson moved seamlessly into a waltz as the music sounded again. Her talented sister outshone all the dancers on the floor. She had to admit that Katie had something to protect.
The rest of the function went off without a hitch. But as soon as it was over, Ophelia’s mother marched over to Katie and took her arm. Ophelia walked toward them as they hustled their daughter out of the ballroom.
“Wait,” Katie was saying as she tried to pull away. “I need to thank him.”
Jackson showed up on the sidewalk as they moved toward their car. He looked both protective and angry.
“At least let her say goodbye and thank him, Mom.”
It was as if Ophelia’s words were the last straw. She dropped her younger daughter’s wrist and marched up to the three of them. “None of you have a place here. You don’t fit in. No matter how fancy your clothes or bright your jewels, you can’t cover up what you are.”
“What is that Mother?”
“Outsiders. Inconsequential.” She pinned Jackson with a piercing glare. “Your service is over. Don’t contact Katie, ever, or there will be serious repercussions.”
“Mom!” Katie said in outrage, her face softening when she gazed at Jackson with an apologetic look. “Stop it. Let’s just go.”
Something snapped in Ophelia. She grabbed her mother’s arm to break eye contact with Jackson. “You are making a spectacle of yourself, and why? For your own selfish reasons.”
