The Perfect Deception (The Perfect Match #3)

Chapter Nineteen

Chap-ter Nine-teen

A dam’s mouth dropped when Dina opened the door. At least, he was pretty sure the god-dess in white was Dina. She had the same vi-o-let eyes that in-trigued him, but this time they were ac-cen-tu-ated by sub-tle green shim-mery eye shadow. She had the same curves that made him want to bury him-self in-side her, but this time they were em-pha-sized by white fab-ric that some-how man-aged to hug her curves and flow at the same time. His gaze jumped to her head. Her hair. Her crazy, curly, out-ra-geous hair was per-fect. She’d pinned back her curls, but al-lowed enough of them to es-cape that they framed her face and once again, made him want to grab them. In-stead, he clenched his fist at his side. He’d dated enough beau-ti-ful women in his life-time to know bet-ter than to touch their hair when they’d ob-vi-ously spent time get-ting ready for an evening out.

But Dina? Dina was stun-ning.

She was also blush-ing, and he re-al-ized with a start he’d been stand-ing on her doorstep with-out ut-ter-ing a word for far too long.

“Hi,” he said. Bril-liant.

“Hi.”

So maybe she was as af-fected as he was. But by him? She was the last per-son to fall for any of his sup-posed charms, which was one of the things he trea-sured about her.

“You look…beau-ti-ful.”

She dipped her head. “Thank you.”

He held his hand out for her and when she placed her hand in his, the world shifted, like a house set-tling into a storm, and peace en-com-passed him. “Come on, we’re go-ing to have fun.”

She raised an eye-brow at him and they walked to his car in si-lence. Once in-side, he pulled onto the street and be-gan fol-low-ing his GPS.

“Did you know Prince-ton was founded be-fore the Amer-i-can Rev-o-lu-tion?” she said. “The Lenni Lenape In-di-ans—”

“Dina?”

She stopped, lips parted, and turned to-ward him.

“Re-lax,” he said, reach-ing across the con-sole and tak-ing her cold hand in his. “It’s go-ing to be fun. I prom-ise.”

Out of the cor-ner of his eye, he watched her chest rise and fall, like she was tak-ing her last breath of fresh air.

As he stopped at a traf-fic light, he turned to look at her. “We are go-ing to have a great time. And you are go-ing to be the star.”

Her body re-laxed, even as her ex-pres-sion told him she thought he was crazy. “We’ll see.”

For the rest of the ride, she blurted out ridicu-lous facts about cloth-ing—the Greeks and Ro-mans thought trousers were worn by bar-bar-ians, traf-fic lights—the first one was in-stalled in 1914, and hair gel—the first type was Bryl-creem, in-vented by the British in 1929. No mat-ter how many times Adam tried to change the sub-ject or en-gage her in what he con-sid-ered “nor-mal con-ver-sa-tion,” she al-ways re-treated to ob-scure facts. So he let her ram-ble and ad-mired the sound of her voice.

An hour later, when they pulled up to the ho-tel in Prince-ton, Dina re-mained seated in his car af-ter he’d turned off the en-gine. She stared out the win-dow at the facade of the build-ing. Or maybe she was watch-ing the peo-ple en-ter. Could be she was plot-ting the per-fect an-gle to make her es-cape. He couldn’t tell be-cause her body had stilled, and her breath-ing had soft-ened.

And she was silent.

“Dina?”

She didn’t an-swer. He craned his neck to look at her—at her eyes, glassy and fo-cused in-ward; at her hands, clasped tight in her lap; at her mouth, com-pressed into a firm line.

“Dina.”

Like some-one awak-en-ing, she opened her hands, re-leased her lips and turned to him. “Are you ready to go?” she asked.

“It’s go-ing to be fine.”

She gave him a bright smile, one that didn’t reach her eyes. It re-minded him of the smiles he of-ten gave. “We should go in-side now.”

He reached for her hand. It was icy cold and he rubbed it be-tween his. She stared down at their en-twined limbs like they were aliens. And al-though he honed in on the soft-ness of her skin, the del-i-cacy of her bones, he sus-pected right at this very mo-ment, she thought noth-ing of their touch. With a sigh, he pulled away and opened the door.

In-side the ho-tel, they re-trieved nametags from the reg-is-tra-tion ta-ble in the black and tan lobby. Manned by three women, none of them showed recog-ni-tion when Dina picked up her tag, nor did they in-ter-rupt their con-ver-sa-tion with the guests who stood be-hind him wait-ing for their turn. But that wasn’t too un-usual. Not ev-ery-one re-mem-bered their en-tire class, even if they were on the re-union com-mit-tee.

Fol-low-ing the sound of mu-sic play-ing, they en-tered a ball-room dec-o-rated with enor-mous crys-tal chan-de-liers. Gold table-cloths cov-ered round ta-bles with cen-ter-pieces of green bal-loons. A Wel-come Class of 2007 ban-ner, also in green and gold, hung over the DJ sta-tion on the far end of the room. In the cen-ter was a dance floor, where cou-ples min-gled and danced. To the left was a mir-rored wall, lend-ing enor-mity to the room. Wait staff zigzagged through the crowd, of-fer-ing hot hors d’oeu-vres. A ban-quet ta-ble on the right was filled with cold ap-pe-tiz-ers, and a crowd surged by the bar.

“Would you like a drink?” Adam asked.

When she nod-ded, he cupped her el-bow and led her to-ward the crowd. He watched her scan nametags, with only a dis-creet frown in-di-cat-ing her re-ac-tion to any-one. But still she re-mained silent.

“Pick a per-son,” he said, as he handed her a gin and tonic with lime.

“What do you mean?”

“Pick some-one for us to go up and talk to.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Okay, then I will.” He started to walk to-ward a clus-ter of peo-ple and she grabbed his arm. Only the fact that he’d an-tic-i-pated her re-ac-tion, and kept his drink in his other hand, pre-vented him from slosh-ing his beer ev-ery-where.

“Wait! Please don’t,” she said.

He turned to her and stepped close enough to see worry etched in her vi-o-let eyes. “Come on. The first time is the hard-est. Af-ter that, it gets eas-ier.”

“But no one is go-ing to have any idea who I am.”

“So what? We’ll in-tro-duce our-selves, talk about our jobs, say how nice it was to see them and move on. It’s easy.”

“It’s em-bar-rass-ing.”

“Okay, then, let’s play a game. Pick some-one.”

When she looked at him askance, he held his hand out to the room. “Come on, pick some-one.”

With a quick scan, she pointed to a cou-ple nearby.

“Do you know them?” he asked.

“I can’t see their nametags, but I don’t think so.”

“Per-fect. What do you think they’re do-ing now? I mean ca-reer wise.”

She stud-ied the red-haired woman and the brown-haired man. They were well-dressed, if not or-di-nary, with him in a suit and her in a black sheath dress. They each held a soda in their hands and she was scan-ning the crowd.

“Doc-tor and lawyer?”

He shook his head. “Ac-coun-tant and teacher. Now we find out who’s right.” Be-fore she could protest, he pulled her by the hand to-ward them.

“Adam Man-del. This is Dina Ja-cobs. Nice to see you here.”

“Cory and Steve Tin-dal,” Steve said. “Did you at-tend school here?”

“I didn’t, but Dina did.”

Steve un-dressed her with his eyes, while Cory pasted a blank look on her face. Adam wanted to punch them both.

Dina squeezed his hand. “So, what are you do-ing now?”

“Well, I grad-u-ated from Penn State and I’m a lawyer,” Cory said. “You?”

“Har-vard un-der-grad and Uni-ver-sity of Illi-nois with a Mas-ters in Li-brary Sci-ence.”

Adam’s chest swelled with pride as she read-ily ad-mit-ted her in-tel-li-gence. From the looks on Cory’s and Steve’s faces, they were im-pressed. He felt Dina soften next to him.

“That must be why I don’t re-mem-ber you,” Cory said. “You must have been in all the hon-ors and AP classes.”

As they moved on from the cou-ple, Adam snagged two eggrolls from a pass-ing waiter.

“That wasn’t ac-tu-ally too bad,” Dina said be-fore bit-ing into the crispy hors d’oeu-vre. “Es-pe-cially since I was right.”

“I’ll get it right even-tu-ally,” he said. “Who should we tar-get next?”

They met a sec-ond cou-ple and a four-some be-fore Dina stopped in her tracks. “Uh, let’s go over there,” she said, point-ing away from the peo-ple they were head-ing to-ward.

“What’s wrong with that group?”

“I think I rec-og-nize them.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“I’m not sure.”

“They just saw you, so we’re about to find out.” He put his arm around her shoul-ders and faced the woman walk-ing to-ward them. If Bar-bie was a liv-ing per-son, she would be it. Blond hair teased and sprayed to within an inch of its life, big boobs, tiny waist, end-less legs. But for once, he wasn’t at-tracted to her. At all.

“Oh my gosh, I love your dress,” Bar-bie said with a squeal. “Where did you get it?”

Dina gave her the name of the store and Bar-bie scrunched up her nose. “I’ve never heard of it.” She leaned to-ward Dina’s nametag and he’d swear she mouthed the words as she read them.

“Dyna Ja-cobs? I’m not sure…”

“It’s Dina with a long E. We were in a mar-ket-ing class to-gether sopho-more year.”

He felt the ten-sion en-ter her shoul-ders and he mas-saged them.

“Oh, Dina! Meg, Sta-cie, come here! It’s Dina Ja-cobs.”

Her voice could grate cheese and even Adam winced as she yelled. All around them, heads turned and Meg and Sta-cie minced over.

“Dina? I don’t re-mem-ber any Dina,” Meg said, her brassy red hair-from-a-bot-tle over-flow-ing her shoul-ders and em-pha-siz-ing the swell of her breasts in a low-cut black tube of a dress.

“Yes you do, girls,” Bar-bie said. “She was in mar-ket-ing with us.”

“I was drunk in mar-ket-ing,” Sta-cie said. Adam tried not to stare at the rolls of fat squeezed into a red dress at least three sizes too small. When she rubbed up against him, he stepped to the side, push-ing Dina, who stum-bled.

“Sorry,” he mut-tered.

“I’d re-mem-ber you, though,” Sta-cie said, eye-ing him and down. “Want to get me a drink?”

He stepped back at her bla-tant flirt-ing. Dina was right here. “Love to, but Dina and I have some-thing to do first. Nice meet-ing you all.”

With a firm grip on her up-per arm, he half dragged, have pushed Dina across the room. They stopped at the ban-quet ta-ble, where Adam grabbed a cock-tail nap-kin and wiped his brow.

“Wow.”

Dina shook her head. “I told you.”

“Please tell me your en-tire school wasn’t like that.”

“My en-tire school wasn’t like that.”

“I’m se-ri-ous.”

“I am too. There was a group of them—those three were part of it—who drank and par-tied and were in the ser-vice of Venus with any-thing that breathed…”

His lips twitched.

“What?”

His nos-trils flared.

“Adam, what?”

His eyes wa-tered.

“Are you okay?”

He burst out laugh-ing. Through stream-ing eyes, he watched con-cern, con-fu-sion and an-noy-ance flash across her fea-tures. By the time he’d con-trolled his laugh-ter, she stood in front of him, arms crossed be-neath her breasts, toe tap-ping. She re-minded him of the stereo-typ-i-cal “sexy li-brar-ian” and he sobered.

“What was so funny?”

“The ser-vice of Venus?”

“Yes. It’s an old term to de-scribe you-know-what, and we’re in pub-lic, so it’s not like I’m go-ing to say it out loud.”

She was right. They were in pub-lic. Out of the cor-ner of his eye, he could see peo-ple mov-ing to-ward them, stop-ping some dis-tance away. But he didn’t care. For once in his en-tire adult life, he didn’t care what oth-ers thought. For the first time since his mother left, he wanted to com-mit him-self to a woman he cared about, to let her into all parts of his life. He reached for her and his fin-gers brushed the un-der-sides of her breasts as he grasped her fore-arms. His breath quick-ened and he drew her for-ward. When their toes touched, he looked at her and won-dered how he could ever have thought some-one like Bar-bie or any of those other bla-tantly sex-ual, vo-cab-u-lary-chal-lenged women could ever be ap-peal-ing. Ev-ery-thing he wanted in a woman was right in front of him. Class, hu-mor, beauty and brains. She made him feel good about him-self. She made him less afraid. She gave him hope. It was time to tell her.

“I love you.” Say-ing the words didn’t scare him any-more. They filled him with peace. “I love you, Dina.”

She had to have mis-heard him. There were peo-ple gath-er-ing around them, their voices min-gling with the sounds of the mu-sic, mak-ing it hard to hear. “What?”

“I love you.”

She hadn’t mis-heard him.

“Did you know that when two lovers stare into each other’s eyes, their heart rates syn-chro-nize?”

Adam’s body vi-brated against hers as he laughed silently. “Re-lax, sweet-heart, I love you.”

He had to be crazy, be-cause who de-clared their love for some-one at a high school re-union? She watched sur-rep-ti-tious point-ing from Sta-cie and some of her friends. Had they heard what he said? Did they think he was crazy? Ex-cept…he didn’t look crazy. He looked like Adam.

At the same time, he didn’t. He looked sure and set-tled and solid. Not like Mr. Flashy-pants. More like Mr. De-pend-able.

That must be what all the other peo-ple were notic-ing. Her heart raced in her chest and she swal-lowed. Her mouth was dry and her arms, where he held on, were warm and cold.

“You do? Why?”

He laughed at her again, but only for a short time. More like a mo-ment, re-ally.

“Most women wouldn’t ask that ques-tion the first time their boyfriend de-clared his love for her.”

“Most boyfriends don’t de-clare their love at a re-union.” Sur-rounded by women so much more beau-ti-ful than I am . She took a quick glance around, sur-prised by the num-ber of women star-ing at her. Was it so hard for them to be-lieve a guy like him could like—or love—a woman like her?

He let go of her arm and ca-ressed her jaw with his fin-ger, mak-ing her for-get about ev-ery-one else, be-fore tip-ping her face to meet his gaze. “Most boyfriends are not in love with a woman who calls sex ‘the ser-vice of Venus’.”

She melted a lit-tle. “You keep say-ing that word.”

“I’ve said a lot of words. Can you be more spe-cific?”

“The ‘love’ one.”

“Is there a prob-lem with it? Is there some ar-chaic vo-cab-u-lary you’d pre-fer me to use in-stead?”

“No, I just don’t un-der-stand why.”

He hugged her to him and she in-haled his clove scent. The mu-sic, flash-ing lights, laugh-ter, con-ver-sa-tions and point-ing melted into the back-ground.

“That is a longer con-ver-sa-tion for a dif-fer-ent time,” he said. “But know this. I do love you, and I don’t say that of-ten.”

Her heart flut-tered in her chest. He loved her. She loved him too. Should she tell him now? Would he think she was just say-ing it be-cause he said it to her? It was too im-por-tant for it to be han-dled triv-ially.

He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers, stop-ping all thought of con-ver-sa-tion. In fact, all thoughts flew from her head as he deep-ened the kiss, send-ing trails of heat down to her belly and mak-ing her breasts tin-gle where they pressed against him. Be-fore she could do more than kiss him back, he pulled away, his eyes dark, his nos-trils flared.

“That’s an-other thing we’ll con-tinue at an-other time,” he said.

Tak-ing her hand in his, he turned to-ward the buf-fet ta-ble and grabbed two plates.

She blinked, try-ing to fo-cus on some-thing other than his lips. Or his butt, which faced her as he spooned a va-ri-ety of foods and sauces onto her plate. Sauce. Most of the food had sauce and she was wear-ing white. Lovely. With a sigh, she took the plate and held it gin-gerly, scan-ning the room for an empty ta-ble.

“Let’s sit there,” she said, point-ing to a ta-ble next to the dance floor. He joined her and they ate with fin-gers en-twined, as if he were loathe to let her go. She didn’t taste the food, had no idea what she was eat-ing, but fo-cused on Adam and how to tell him she loved him.

Just when she’d de-cided to come out with it, two more cou-ples joined their ta-ble. She sighed, not in the mood to be friendly to peo-ple who had no rec-ol-lec-tion of her. But these four peo-ple stared at her and at Adam, their gazes track-ing the two of them like spec-ta-tors at a ten-nis match. Did she have some-thing on her face? Was see-ing two peo-ple in love that strange?

Adam squeezed her hand and leaned for-ward. “Hi, I’m Adam Man-del and this is my girl-friend, Dina Ja-cobs. Great re-union, isn’t it?”

The women shrugged and the guys raised their glasses to their mouths and looked at each other be-fore an-swer-ing.

“I guess it de-pends on what you’re look-ing to get out of it,” the large guy with a square head said.

The skinny guy put his arm around his date and Dina frowned.

“So, did you all grad-u-ate from here?” Adam asked. An-other rea-son she loved him—he was try-ing so hard for her.

The women ig-nored him and turned to Dina. “We both did,” the date of the block-head an-swered. “I’m Cheryl and this is Ann. We’re friends with Sta-cie. You were in mar-ket-ing with us, right?”

Dina nod-ded, re-al-iz-ing Cheryl had spo-ken more to her with that sen-tence than she ever had in four years of high school. It was weird. It was even weirder that she wasn’t look-ing at Adam, the per-son who had asked the ques-tion in the first place.

“What are you do-ing now?” Dina asked. If Cheryl was be-ing friendly, she might as well re-spond. Next to her, Adam put his arm around her shoul-ders and Ann stiff-ened.

“I’m an of-fice as-sis-tant at an in-vest-ment firm,” Cheryl said. “You?”

“I’m a li-brar-ian.”

Cheryl nod-ded. “You al-ways were re-ally smart.” There was no scorn on her face. In-stead, Dina de-tected ad-mi-ra-tion. She looked at Ann, who looked…sym-pa-thetic?

“And you?” she asked Ann. “What are you do-ing?”

“I’m a teacher, can you be-lieve it?”

Dina smiled. “We all change.”

In fact, Dina was hav-ing a hard time de-tect-ing the va-pid, nasty girls in these two women and her judg-ment soft-ened. Be-cause she’d changed, too.

The mu-sic changed to a slow song and Adam leaned to-ward her. “Want to dance?”

Yes. She rose and the other women leaned down to their dates. She as-sumed they were go-ing to join them on the dance floor, but in-stead, Cheryl and Ann called her name.

“Dina, we’re go-ing to the ladies’ room. Want to join us?”

There was an in-ten-sity in their ex-pres-sion that Dina didn’t un-der-stand. She turned to Adam, who shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“But I’d rather dance with you.”

He touched her cheek. “We can dance to the next song. It’s good for you to so-cial-ize.” He sat back down and took a drink, and Dina nod-ded and fol-lowed the women to the ladies’ room, if only for cu-rios-ity’s sake.

The door had barely swung shut when they pulled her into the room and off to the side.

“The guy you’re with,” Cheryl said. “How long have you two been dat-ing?”

Dina pulled back. In the mir-ror, her shock at the ques-tion re-flected back at her, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as her feel-ings. This woman barely knew her. How could she ask her such a ques-tion?

“About six weeks or so.” She turned to go, but a man-i-cured hand on her arm stopped her.

“Does he work at some law firm named Man-del and some-thing?”

This time it was Ann who spoke. Nei-ther one of them had given two thoughts for her in high school. Why the heck was she both-er-ing now?

“I don’t think it’s any of your busi-ness.”

Women were open-ing the stalls and star-ing at them as they ap-proached the sink and Dina’s face heated. Cheryl and Ann drew her over to the side.

“Lis-ten,” Cheryl said. “I know you don’t know us. But we should prob-a-bly warn you about Adam. You’re reach-ing his ex-pi-ra-tion date.”

“What are you talk-ing about? How do you know him?”

“He works at the same firm as Ash-ley Pe-ters,” Ann said. “ She was part of our group in high school.”

“So what?”

“Ac-cord-ing to her, he goes through women like wa-ter,” Cheryl said.

“How do you know that?”

“Be-cause we’re still friends.”

“Okay, so what?” Dina asked. The whir of the air dryer was be-gin-ning to give her a headache. Or maybe it was the mix-ture of per-fume, hair-spray and scented lo-tion. She rubbed her tem-ples, wish-ing she could rub the women away in-stead. She had a man to tell she loved him.

“He’s never dated any-one longer than six weeks.”

The shriek filled his eardrums, caus-ing the DJ to stop the mu-sic mid-spin. Con-ver-sa-tions halted mid-word and as one, peo-ple’s heads turned to-ward the per-son guilty of re-leas-ing the glass-shat-ter-ing racket.

“It’s you!”

Adam watched the crowd part and a model-thin woman in a slinky black dress and sky-high heels stalked to-ward him. His stom-ach dropped.

“What are you do-ing here? Don’t you tor-ment me enough at work?” she asked, stop-ping close enough to him he could see her trem-ble. Her skin was pale, her ruby lips out-lined in a thin white line of anger, and her brown eyes crack-led in fury. And that anger was di-rected at him.

Adam’s foot hit the floor and he gripped his drink so hard he was cer-tain the glass would shat-ter. Forc-ing him-self to act calm, he placed his glass down and wiped his lips with a nap-kin be-fore fold-ing it and stick-ing it in his breast pocket.

“Ash-ley,” he said. “What are you do-ing here?”

“I be-long here,” she snapped, get-ting up close in his face. “The ques-tion is, why are you here?”

“I’m here with my date.” The last thing he wanted to do was em-bar-rass Dina. For once in his life, his main con-cern was some-one else. He held his hands up and she glared at him, be-fore look-ing around at the gath-ered crowd.

“Pfft. I bet you tried to im-press her with your po-si-tion at your daddy’s law firm. Maybe I should tell her about the real you. About how your fa-ther—”

He reached for her arm. “Ash—”

“Don’t touch me!” Her drink sloshed over the side of the glass and splat-tered on the floor.

A buzz started in the crowd, or was it in his head? He blinked. A sea of faces stared at him, while two guys walked over and flanked Ash-ley. A third ap-proached him.

“Lis-ten, buddy, you need to leave her alone,” guy num-ber three said. He had the beer belly of a for-mer frat boy/foot-ball player and a buzz cut, with a thick neck and beady eyes. He’d lost his suit jacket—or maybe he’d never had one to be-gin with—but his tie was worth less than Adam’s silk socks.

“I’m not do-ing any-thing to her,” he said. “Never have.”

“Never does any-thing for me, ei-ther. He leaves work to go party, giv-ing me all his busy-work and then blames me when he for-gets to do some-thing,” she said.

The crowd should have got-ten bored by now, re-turned to their food, drink and danc-ing. But it looked like he was the lat-est en-ter-tain-ment of the evening. Where the hell was Dina?

Shit. Dina. He needed her in or-der to leave, but he didn’t want her any-where near this. She’d never un-der-stand and she’d be mor-ti-fied. He was sup-posed to have helped her deal with tonight and in-stead, he was caus-ing a scene. Beads of sweat popped on his brow and he reached for the nap-kin he’d slipped into his breast pocket.

The crowd parted again and two women ap-proached, their arms around Dina. As they got closer, he rec-og-nized Cheryl and Ann, the two women who’d asked her to join them in the bath-room in the first place. It was a woman thing he’d never un-der-stand, but at the time, he’d been glad they’d in-cluded her. But now, Dina looked green. Was she sick or had the two women said some-thing to bother her? He pushed away from Ash-ley and rushed over to Dina.

“You okay?” he asked, his hand cup-ping her cheek.

“Stay away from her,” Cheryl said. “You’re just mak-ing things worse.”

Ash-ley joined them, as well as the var-i-ous men as-so-ci-ated with them. With Dina sur-rounded by so many peo-ple, it was hard to fig-ure out what was go-ing on. All he knew was that she was up-set and he wanted to back up time by about fif-teen min-utes. He didn’t want her know-ing about Ash-ley.

Un-less she al-ready did.

He didn’t want to think about that, but once the idea en-tered his brain, it took up res-i-dence. He didn’t want Ash-ley any-where near Dina, but the four women looked as if they were best friends. He didn’t want to face Dina if she knew about Ash-ley’s ac-cu-sa-tions, but she was star-ing at him.

If only he could read her ex-pres-sion. Or her mind. That would be help-ful. But he couldn’t. And un-for-tu-nately, ev-ery-one around them had gone silent, so what-ever he said to Dina would be heard by the crowd. And more im-por-tantly, they would hear Dina’s re-ply.

“Dina, would you like to go?” His voice sounded raspy to his ears, as if he’d dragged it over an ar-ti-fi-cial turf. All he wanted was to get the two of them out of here, or at least away from these peo-ple.

She shook her head no and his world stopped. He reached back for the bar he’d been lean-ing against, for-get-ting mo-men-tar-ily that he’d stepped for-ward when the guys had come up to him. He stum-bled, and righted him-self. She didn’t want to go with him. She was choos-ing them over him. Like his mother. Roar-ing sounded in his ears and his breath came in gasps. He tossed a quick look over his shoul-der, try-ing to find a clear path to the door, but peo-ple had sur-rounded them and there was no way out.

Cool pres-sure on his hand star-tled him and he looked down.

Dina.

“I don’t want to leave. I want to dance with you.”