Elle
‘ All clear. ’ That’s what the doctor said yesterday before my physiotherapy appointment with Hazel. We’ve been working together twice a day, and I can’t fathom the pricing, even now that I have one hundred and thirty thousand sitting prettily in my account. I still couldn’t fathom that either, all those zeros. It feels so heavy, so undeserving as I stare at the six figures, waiting for them to vanish.
But why? Why can’t I just accept things? Why can’t I be entitled like the blue-bloods that surround me?
Still, I’m making progress because I’m taking whatever I’m offered without questioning it, at least out loud. I’m accepting the medical care, the therapy, the lavish full-course meals, the luxury skin and hair care products Gant rubs on me every night, and the pretty panties he rolls up my hips all at his expense. And why should I feel guilty about that?
Maybe because you plan to cash out with even more once you leave, my inner voice coos.
I’m still not sure how to do that once Rin gets the documents proving that Silas owns that vintage car and that he’d repaired the fender two years ago. My head’s still spinning, trying to make sense of everything. Silas is the father of Madame’s son, Gant’s secret brother. Not Jarett like Bart and Gant think.
Delphine and Silas got together to make Marisol jealous. To shatter her heart and rub it in her face. I guess it runs in the family, shattering people. Gant surely took a few lessons, but what about Silas? Was he that jealous of Marisol sleeping with Jarett nearly two decades later? If what Delphine said is true, I assume Marisol loved Silas and that Silas loved her, but that’s just it: he loved her. Then there’s Bart, who never loved her at all.
Bart… Bart Auclair is the one offering the reward. He’s Gant’s father yet, reaching him seems damn near impossible. He feels like a phantom, haunting the lair, haunting Gant, but he’s never around, just traces of him like his commissioned artwork in the theatre.
Revulsion rolls through me. How could I meet someone so unapologetically cruel to his own child?
You should know. You lived with Jarett, and you need to meet him again because he may have more answers… But I can’t think of Jarett now. One father is enough to concentrate on at a time.
I meant it when I told Gant I didn’t want to meet any of the Auclairs. Could I go through Bart’s assistant anonymously? He’s a busy man. Surely he has a whole team ready to handle something like this, but it’s a delicate matter. He would want to meet in person. That aside, hiding behind his team would be cowardly.
Didn’t you want to obliterate Gant publicly, like how he publicly humiliated you? How much of a stab to his ego would it be when you denied meeting his father as his girlfriend, but met him instead for business and blackmail, all behind his back?
You could go through his phone. Send a voice note from Gant’s number to get his attention and prove that you aren’t just some random but that you want to become one. You want the check, and you want out of his son’s and the Auclair’s lives for good now that you’ve given them their answers, and they’ve given you your money.
Out of Gant’s life…
A nagging question prods at me. Did Gant really have nothing to do with the pointe shoes getting into the theatre? He’d never lied to me before. Omitted, but not lied.
He told me to my face that he wanted to torture me, shatter me.
He said how much he loathed my parents.
He said he wouldn’t fuck me until he was buried in my heart.
He said he’d do anything to keep me, including driving around Little Wing to find me, although just sitting in a car was unbearable for him.
He promised me he would never let me go. No matter what.
So far, he’d kept his word. So why would the shoes be any different? Then again, the shoes themselves are only a minor detail in this game he’s started. I shake my head. The details don’t matter. He started this, and I have to finish it. That’s what matters.
Claim the reward, publicly, Rin chants in my ear. Let everyone know that Gant’s beloved girlfriend only went back to him for the reward. All the humiliation of the play, all those nasty taunts including Beaussip’s, will vanish when they see who got the last laugh. You.
And when I laugh, I glance around Gant’s private dance studio, playing house with him will end. I’ll finally find my home, my place in the world, because I’ll have everything I need and desire.
Money.
Security.
A dance career?
I gaze down at my pink satin slippers, the same pair I hadn’t worn in years. The same pair I thought I’d never have to put on for a class again. They were still a bit snug from my residual swelling.
“Thirty minutes of dance a day. Soft slippers only. That’s all you get this week.”
And next week, when I’m back at Beaulieu? How do I expect to confidently face Gant after I cash out? Surprisingly, Gant is the least of my worries. Would I even be able to stay at Beaulieu?
Headmistress Cardot contacted me a few days ago as PR control, no doubt, excusing me from pointe class for two weeks when I return. Just two more weeks and three days . That’s all I have to make this work. To heal.
I look at the digital clock above the mirror. Thirty minutes, or I’d swell so badly, I’d begin to float.
The soft music of the Sugar Plum Fairy drifts through the speakers, and as I begin, so does the pain. It shoots through me at the first petite allegro, and I stumble, catching myself with my palms. But as I catch my breath, I’m hit with a sudden realisation… I don’t feel anything. Nothingness courses through me as I gaze at my feet that are waiting for me to get up. So what was that? Pain? Or fear?
I start again, and so does the agonizing sensation. Millions of pinpricks stab through my toes, and my knees buckle, desperate for me to get off my feet and stop the damage. I crumble, chest heaving against the Adiago flooring, but as I press my cheek to the vinyl, there it is again, that feeling of nothingness.
Up. Get up.
My trembling fingers clutch the remote, and I restart the music. I make it thirty seconds in before I swear my slippers are growing wet. That’s what causes me to slide, but when I look down, the satin’s perfectly dry. Perfectly pink and not red.
I swat at my sweaty neck and get into position again.
And again.
And again.
Ground yourself in reality.
The lights are white and soft. Not harsh and blue for Cinderella's wedding. There’s no audience. I’m all alone.
But my stumbling reflection in the mirror multiplies, stretching out like a crowd before me.
I shake the vision away.
There's no glass. No pain.
You took a painkiller ahead of time, ensuring you wouldn’t feel too much.
But my skin suddenly boils like peas ready to split open, and it does all at once, reopening dozens of stitched wounds.
The soft white lights turn a stark icy blue. In the mirror, my warped reflections look horrified. I follow their wide gazes to my feet and see a bloodbath. My knees give out and I fall hard onto my back. Suddenly, fingers are threading through my hair.
“What have you done!” Stassi’s voice shrieks through my skull with the pounding.
But Stassi isn’t here.
The therapist Gant hired said these flashbacks aren’t real, but they are. It happened.
It’s happening.
Fingers stroke through my hair and then arms embrace me, lifting me, but I’m not blinded by pain or those harsh lights dotted through the theatre’s ceiling.
Instead, I’m greeted by Gant’s painfully handsome face, a halo of ethereal white shining softly above him. His beautiful features aren’t twisted in panic and fear but calm concern.
“Dove.”
He sounds like he's underwater.
One moment, I’m cradled in his arms like a new bride, like Cinderella at her wedding… the next, I’m upright as he hooks my legs around his waist.
“Penthouse,” he says simply.
What?
I can feel his heartbeat against mine. It's quickening as he dances us around the room, but it's steady, and it's forcing my racing heart to sync and calm.
“We’re in the penthouse, Dovey. In my lair where no one can reach us.”
I cling to his neck tighter as he leaps, locking my feet behind his back.
“It's just you and me.”
We turn in tune to the music, his words as hypnotic as the soft beat.
“Just us.”
Just us.