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Theo cleared his throat, and Kelsey risked a glance his way. She could have sworn she saw a fleeting look of guilt on his face. Jason covered her hand with his. “Wait, Kels. Just listen.”
Mr. Lemaitre watched all this with his sharp gaze. After a pause, he indicated the two strangers at the table. “Let me introduce Guy Benoit and Mariette Duval. Mr. Benoit is the director of our new Marseille show, currently in development--Cirque du Minuit. Have you ever been to Marseille, Miss Martin?”
Kelsey shook her head, regarding the shaggy-haired, middle-aged man sitting across from her. His deep-set hazel eyes held a kind of wildness. Typical Cirque visionary. Mr. Lemaitre was known to choose his directors based on the amount of risks they were willing to take.
“Ah, but Marseille is a lovely city on the Mediterranean coast,” Lemaitre went on, “with superlative weather and pretty scenery. A cultural capital, a melting pot. An ideal venue for a permanent show. Ms. Duval is Minuit’s talent scout.”
Mariette Duval was younger than Guy Benoit, with close-cropped black hair and liquid brown eyes. She nodded at Kelsey with a warm smile.
“And now,” said Lemaitre, “I suppose you wonder what this has to do with you.”
Kelsey nodded. She couldn’t talk.
Lemaitre looked over at Theo. “Mr. Zamora tells me you are interested in pursuing aerial work. That you expressed an interest in partnering with him.”
Jason glared at her. Kelsey ignored him for the moment, focusing on the owner of the company. “We--uh--may have talked about it in passing. He led me to believe he wasn’t interested in working with me.”
Lemaitre and Theo exchanged a look. “Well...” Lemaitre said quietly. “Mr. Zamora is not exactly in a position to pick and choose his partners. If you’re curious about aerial work, Ms. Duval and Mr. Benoit are seeking one last act for their show. An act of darkness and angst, passion and drama. A aerial spectacle in dark scarlet silks. The final act of le Cirque du Minuit. For this act we will need someone strong--and someone fearless.” Lemaitre glanced at Theo, then back at her. “I’m told you are the fearless type. Are you interested in this opportunity?”
Aerial silks? Holy hell. Any relief she felt at not being fired was replaced by panic about doing an act with Theo. Sure, Kelsey had offered. It had made sense to her at the time, in a general way. But Theo had shot her down and she’d filed the whole episode away as a what-the-fuck-were-you-thinking moment. She had a nice, comfortable act to do right here at the Cirque Tsilaosa. How the hell had they found out about that conversation?
There was only one way they could have found out.
Kelsey turned to Theo. “Why did you change your mind?” she asked bluntly.
He frowned and scratched beneath his bottom lip. “I have worked with Guy before. I respect him. I spoke to him about doing a solo aerial act and he said no, he was looking for a grand finale. I thought of you.” Theo shrugged, as if it was a matter of no import. “It would be challenging work, but you are hard-headed. Stubborn. I told him this.”
Lemaitre and Guy Benoit chuckled softly. Jason still scowled.
“You don’t have to do it,” Jason said. “It’s just an offer on the table. As I told them, you’re a gymnast with no aerial experience.”
“But she learns fast, I think,” Theo interjected. “And she has the strength of an aerialist.” The two men faced off against each other. Lemaitre looked at Kelsey.
“The choice is yours, Miss Martin. What do you think?”
Choose wisely, girl.
Theo sat straight and still, not looking at her. He was back to his haughty, disinterested act. She felt the urge to throw it back at him, his decision to work with her after all. I changed my mind, she wanted to yell. You’re an asshole.
Theo smiled then. She could swear he knew her thoughts. His look was idle but she sensed the turmoil underneath. If he was trying to get her as a partner that meant he was desperate. All the eyes in the room were on her, but only one pair communicated such secret depths of despair.
Choose, now. You want?
God help her, she wanted. Kelsey turned to Michel Lemaitre and met him gaze for gaze. “Yes. I suppose I’m crazy enough to do it. I’ll work as Mr. Zamora’s partner. When do we start?”
Chapter Four: Ascent
Brave, stupid Kelsey. Theo had known she would do it. Or hoped, anyway.
Her American coach was angry. He’d had some choice words for Theo before the meeting, and some choice words for Kelsey afterward. Michel Lemaitre, however, was impressed and amused by her. Theo knew it was a good thing for her career to catch his eye, an even better thing to impress him with her presumed courage. Michel Lemaitre loved only one thing more than abject submission, and that was courage. Balls.
Ballsy little gymnast. Theo could see the oh, shit crawling over her like a rash as soon as Michel offered her the job. She’d almost turned it down, struggling to reconcile her attraction and simultaneous hatred of him.
In a perverse way, he wanted her rage. He deserved it. He’d lingered afterward, eavesdropping on her clipped argument with her trainer, in hopes she would seek him out and stand up to him again, eyes flashing and arms crossed over her chest in a show of bravado he recognized as patently false.
When people crossed their arms over their chests, it was a protective gesture.
One week. They were leaving in a week.
They had a lot of work to do. A mountain of work, starting with a bus ride to beautiful, warm Marseille. New apartments, new friends. Theo knew Marseille, had traveled there as Michel Lemaitre’s guest, had worked with Guy on other shows and concepts. Twenty-two years he’d been in the circus, since he was twelve. As for when he would stop, he just trusted he’d know. He’d tried to stop after Minya. It would have been a natural stopping place. Maybe if Kelsey hadn’t come knocking on his door and nagging him, he’d be done right now. Settling into some aerial school somewhere, or some gym, or retiring on a farm. Growing his own food and living off the grid.
Theo hated people. Most people. Kelsey...he loved and hated her just as she loved and hated him. For this reason, they would have a perfect partnership. Minya...she had loved him too much.
Don’t think about her. Don’t think about it. If he was going to keep performing, he needed his mind clear, his focus unwavering. For Kelsey’s safety and his. But he still wasn’t sure what to do about...the other thing. The reaction Kelsey triggered in him. The hot lust and violence he felt every time she followed him with her eyes. The impulse to grasp her wispy white hair in his fist and force her to her knees, only to feel her fight back and then submit to him.
He was no better than Michel.
But Kelsey would not be Michel Lemaitre’s, not while Theo had life in his body. He’d seen the flicker of interest there, the speculation. Theo had communicated with a look that she was his, and not available. She would be under his protection in Marseille, because he knew just what kind of perverts and degenerates were there. Cirque du Minuit indeed. Midnight Circus, dire and dangerous. Michel had chosen the theme and many of the cast members himself. Theo knew Michel considered him the final victory of casting, the fallen artist resurrected to haunt them all. If Michel wanted a midnight circus, he’d get it, but not at Kelsey’s expense.
Kelsey, blonde and wide-eyed, like Little Red Riding Hood without her cape. Theo stayed to watch her in the show that night, earnest and energetic in her acrobatic routines. He studied her body--where she was strong, where she was weak. Where she was beautiful. He remembered her under him that night, writhing and moaning, all her uptight posturing fallen away.
Theo would have her again. It took his breath away to think about it. Not tonight, but soon, she would scratch and cling to him again, and that would only be the start of what they would do together.
He left before curtain call, ambling over toward the dormitories. He knew which one was hers. He also knew she wouldn’t go out with the others after the show, or stay backstage to talk and smoke cigarette
s. She didn’t smoke or drink, only eat candy, long striped straws of sugar. He’d seen her with them and, curious, bought some at the store and tried one. Only one. Disgusting.
He lingered outside her residence hall and smoked half a cigarette. Not long after ten she came along, all alone, just as he’d expected. “Kelsey,” he said, stepping out from the shadows near her door.
She screamed, a shrill piercing noise that set his hair on end. Not one other door opened. No one at Cirque du Monde came home right after the show. Only Kelsey, who had stopped screaming and was looking at him in chagrin.
“Thanks for scaring me shitless,” she snapped.
“Thanks for bursting my eardrums,” he replied. “I want to come in.” He gestured toward her door.
She put her hands on her hips, another Kelsey-ism. “Oh, really? You want to come in? After the way you treated me last time we...talked?”
“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t really, but his quick, curt apology seemed to confuse her into silence, which was a good thing. “Do you have your key?” he asked.
She pursed her lips and shoved the key in the lock. She opened the door and for a moment he thought she’d close it in his face, but then she stepped back and let him enter.
He remembered the Cirque dorms from many years ago, before he’d bought his own place. White and bland, boxy and suffocating. He looked around and found Kelsey’s apartment as organized and neat as he’d expected it to be. No clutter on the counters, no dirty dishes in the sink. A small TV and a futon with a hot water bottle and heating blanket draped over the arm. His eyes narrowed on her.
“Are you injured?”
She shook her head. “Just different muscles getting exercised. What do you want? I’m tired.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “A ‘thank you’ might be nice. For getting you a new job. A finale act.”
