Elle
Christmastime.
Two months later…
“It’s almost time to say I do.”
I turn to Gant as he slips beside me. We’re tucked in the shadows of the stage’s wings. The hum of the orchestra vibrates around the theatre, through the stage, up my pointe shoes, through my stockinged legs and to my heart. It’s thrumming in anticipation of my big moment when I finally get to dance en pointe again. There’s no fear coursing through my veins as I watch the leaping shadows and feel the aftershocks of the jumping dancers on stage. The bright lights don’t feel like an inferno but a warm welcome back, given the last time I graced the stage, because I finally, wholeheartedly feel safe.
And loved.
“ I do? ” I arch a brow. “There is no wedding. I’m not Cinderella.”
Rin twirls through the bluish spotlight with Sylo as they perform their grand pas de deux with all the grace and elegance expected of the leads. I guess Rin’s overcoming her frigid emotional stuntedness.
Gant and I were cast as wedding-goers, bystanders in someone else’s fairytale. But that’s just it. Life isn’t a fairytale, and despite hours of physical therapy and private lessons with Gant, re-starting just a month ago, I’m still behind. But at least I’m still here.
Gant shouldn’t be here, though. He should be in Sylo’s position, front and centre, with the audience transfixed on him instead. He’d skipped the auditions, claiming he had no time as he wrapped up Bart’s death investigation and the following legal procedures of his inheritance of Bart and Marisol’s estates and business proceedings. Most of it will take years to complete, given the headaches of boards, egotistical directors, loopholes, red tape and court system wait times. But despite the heaviness of that load alone, I know it’s only a half-truth. I could fantasise that his step back in ballet was largely for my sake too, a guilt trip after the rigged pointe shoes, but I know better. I know the other reasons he’ll never say out loud.
Like the fact that his forgoing the audition meant Sylo was next up. And if Sylo was the lead, Silas wouldn’t miss the play. He wouldn’t miss the chance to see one of his sons on the stage while his other son sat in the crowd beside him. But even then, that still doesn’t feel like the largest reason. The biggest reason is Hale’s grin from the front row as he watches both of his brothers perform with the father he’s always wanted at his side.
But not everything is wrapped up so neatly in a bow.
Delphine is on the run.
“And I’m not Prince Charming,” Gant says with far more self-awareness than I’d expect.
“I don’t think anyone was confused about that.”
“But it doesn’t mean you aren’t still my princess,” Gant says, pulling me close, his voice laced with seriousness. “I want that.”
I follow his gaze to Rin and Sylo spinning in synchronized perfection in their pearlescent wedding attire. They look so pure, so perfect…so unobtainable. A fairytale that’s come to life.
“What?” I ask, the question catching in my throat because I think I already know.
“Happily ever after. The end. ”
His words linger heavily in the air between us, and a gnawing, longing ache swells in my stomach.
“How are you going to get it?” I ask breathlessly, waiting for him to tell me what I so desperately want to hear.
He leans into me, his warm breath skimming the tip of my ear. “First with a new setting. I got rid of the penthouse.”
My brows furrow. “I know it held some bad memories.” The death portrait. His father’s death. His near death. The weight of all that history and more. “But you were raised there, too, with Marisol, weren’t you?”
“We had homes all over Europe,” he says, his voice suddenly ghost-like as if he’s travelling to each in his mind, remembering them all. “I still own most of them, but the penthouse was our constant base.”
“It must have been painful and a relief to get rid of it,” I muse as the finality of his decision hits me. We had memories in the penthouse, too. Good memories. Nights of being his little doll. Becoming a puppet up top his cars. Watching movies tangled in his limbs. Dancing in the studio and on his cock, my leotards hopelessly shredded. Self-care in steamy showers, and long late night into early morning dinnfasts or brunches on the balcony overlooking the glimmering city below.
“We can still visit it,” he murmurs into my hair as if he’s reading my thoughts.
“How?” But the question barely leaves my lips as realisation washes over me. “Wait, you didn’t say you sold it. You said you got rid of it.”
“I gave it to my brother.”
My heart flutters at the sound of the word tumbling so easily from his lips without the sting of ‘ bastard’ attached.
“Brother. You say it so comfortably now.”
“Hale’s always been my brother. I’ve always loved him.”
My chest tightens and aches with happiness for Hale. “I wish Hale could overhear you. He needs to hear it as much as he needs to feel it.”
He pulls back to peer down into my eyes. “I wish you would feel it when I tell you I love you.”
A ball knots in my throat, and suddenly, I feel as fragile as glass in his arms and equally transparent.
“I do believe you.” At his prompting gaze, I turn to the crowd where I know Hale is sitting, though I can’t see him.
There’s no one sitting in the crowd for me. Jaime hadn’t tried to contact me. I didn’t want her to, and I wouldn’t have answered if she had. But I hadn’t blocked her, and the sting of knowing she never tried still pangs through me.
“Sometimes it’s hard to accept, to understand that someone chooses to love you when those that should don’t.”
“I’ve chosen you from the start,” he says, his fingers tightening against my ribs as he sways us to the melody drifting from the stage as Rin and Sylo continue their perfect performance. “It’s the only decision I’ve never had to think about. Close your eyes.”
“What — ”
“Close them,” he commands and my eyelids flutter shut without resistance at that cool, deep tone that makes me so fucking willing all the time. “I want you to see my fairytale.”
My eyelashes dust my cheeks as the world fades away and the music quiets to a soft echo.
“We dance all over the world, in every theatre. Whether they’re acclaimed or holes in the walls. So long as we’re on stage and together.”
“That’s if we got into a company,” I mutter, but the words feel hollow. I’ll get into a company. We’ll get into a company. Haven’t the past few months shown me that we can do anything?
“I already have a company in mind. My mother’s,” he says, his lips brushing my ear. “We still have to audition, of course.”
I pop an eye open. “Hale signed over the company to you? Even though he could use it for his new business? One the Beaumonts can’t cringe at?”
“He said it was never his to begin with. He handed me the keys and signed off on all the paperwork as easily as I handed him the keys to the penthouse. Unlike me, he has good memories filled with Marisol there. Our memories were mostly attached to the dance studio.”
I nod slowly in understanding.
“Close your eyes, dovey.”
I oblige, one eyelid at a time, which makes him smile. The whole world stops when he smiles at me.
“We audition for Marisol’s company because it won’t technically be mine for a few years. We dance the world. Then we return to… Where do you want your castle to be?”
My thoughts swirl, but then, through the mist, comes the clearest depiction.
“An estate like the Parrish’s.” Delphine was still missing. Still a piece of shit. But her taste is impeccable. “The high-rises are beautiful but — ”
“You don’t have to justify why you like anything to me. You love what you love, it’s why you’re with me. So if it’s the Parrish estate you want, you’ll have it. Done. We’re at the Parrish’s estate, renamed the Auclairs.”
“Wait!” I try to pull back to peer up at him, but he locks me in place. Auclair estate?! “I didn’t say I want the Parrish estate specifically, I said-”
“I saw the way you looked at it. Like it was a fairytale. A dream. It’s the same way you looked at Beaulieu when you first arrived.”
I shake my head. “Gant! It’s Silas and Sylo’s home, maybe even Hale’s — ”
“Hale will never be welcomed there so long as Silas owns it,” he cuts me off. “And I want him to be welcome there because it’s all he wants. To be accepted by his blood. So I’ll be the one to bloody welcome him.”
I’m speechless. It’s not just for me but for his brother. I love this man and… I’m still terrified of him because he’ll do anything for who he loves. “I don’t think I want to know how you’re going to pry it from Silas.”
“Let me worry about that. We’re there, in that fairytale estate, close by Beaulieu. Or Ennox Prep or Bradley for Boys, in case tech or blue-blooded bastards, are more our little darlings’ speeds.”
“Little darlings?”
His fingers drift to my hip bones. “Remember those compliments Madame gave you? You said one day.”
I nod, my heart skipping a beat. “I meant that.”
One day, I would be a person worthy enough to protect someone else’s life. I’d always choose them like Bart and Jaime never chose us. I’ll always love them. No matter the cost.
“So one day. And they’ll be our little princes and princesses. And you’ll look into their black eyes and at their black hair when they’re placed into your arms, and you’ll love them from the start because you love me.”
My eyes sting because… because it hadn’t occurred to me until now how important that is for Gant too. To be loved from the very beginning unconditionally.
“Who says they’ll be Gant clones?” I ask, trying to stop my voice from cracking as I chuckle to lighten the mood. We had to be on stage in a matter of minutes. I couldn’t dance with tears in my eyes.
“That’s what happens when you have recessive genes. You lose. I cannot help my domination.”
“Your mother had green eyes,” I counter. “Even if you can’t see them, they’re still somewhere in you, in your code.”
“But if they never make a reappearance?” The questions so damn quiet, a vulnerability I don’t think I’ve ever heard from him.
“Gant, I fell into your abyss the moment I looked at you, and nothing will pry me out of them or out of any other abysses I hold in my arms. That darkness you’re worried about is my heaven. I don’t need blue oceans or auric hair to think otherwise.”
“Because I am your heaven?”
I fucking crack. “Untraditional, but my heaven nonetheless.”
“Does it sound like heaven? All of it?”
I lean up to kiss him, soft but sure. “It does. Like paradise.”
“So say yes to paradise.” He pulls something from his pocket, and I freeze at the sight of the marques ring the Beaumonts had reset as a part of Marisol’s dream collection.
The last time I saw it, it was on the penthouse floor through a haze of tears as I injected Gant. Stassi had tackled Delphine into a display case that tumbled and shattered and as if it sought me, the ring had bounced against my knee as I crumpled over Gant’s bluing body.
“Say yes to me.”
“You…you bought it back from the Beaumonts.” My eyes burn, as does my throat. “I didn’t know it was Marisol’s. I — ”
“It was never sold. Stassi gave you the money and slipped it into the jewels Bart had dropped off. I wanted it recreated in the setting my mother had drawn.”
There’s a difference between shattering and crumpling because my heart crumples at the mere thought of what I’d selfishly done when I gave that ring away.
He tips my chin. “I would’ve had to take it back anyway, dove. It wasn’t beautiful enough for you.”
How does he always know what I’m thinking?
“But when I put it on your finger and I asked you to be mine forever in the last play, I wasn’t playing. I wasn’t pretending inside that little bubble you put us in. You said that bubble would burst, but I told you those barriers didn’t apply to me in the first place.”
My breath hitches. “Because I didn’t see a way out of it. How could I have known you’d… eliminate the walls surrounding us?”
“You didn’t take me seriously. I told you I’d do anything to have you. To keep you.”
“That’s terrifying,” I say, my voice barely a whisper even as pure warmth spreads through me.
“Not if you’re with me.” His fingers trace the back of my neck, and I shiver. “Not if we’re hopelessly intertwined. Me in you and you in me.”
“Sometimes being with you is frightening,” I say finally. “But not being with you is terrifying. I got a taste of that in the hospital, and I never want to experience a life without you again.” I give him my hand, and he takes it with a wicked grin, sliding the ring onto my finger and slipping his tongue into my mouth. “Yes. I want forever with you.”
The curtains flutter shut, cueing us to get behind them before they open a few seconds later.
“You said we had to work for those positions, even if it’s with Marisol’s company, right?” Gant’s company or not, I want to work for my role in whatever company I wind up in.
“I have no say over the board yet,” he says, and relief rushes through me. “Favouritism exists, but you’ll have to stand out unless you want some minor role as a pittance. The company won’t drag down its reputation for me by putting you front and centre if you don’t deserve it. So when you win that invitation, it’ll be on your own merit, and it’s up to you to accept or decline it.”
I hesitate. “What if I decline it?”
“You’ll be denying your future company for a period, not me. You’re a dove. I’m a demon, remember? We can both fly. Wherever you go, I’ll follow. I have my talons hooked into you already.”
The curtain lifts, and the lights blind me, but I don’t need to see anyone besides who’s right beside me.
“So fly, little dove,” he whispers as the music begins. “I’m right beneath you.”
And I do. I go en pointe, and for one second, phantom pains freeze me.
Gant’s panicked black eyes dart to my feet, but then I move, and he moves with me, and his relief turns to hunger as his eyes bore into me like he wants to devour my soul.
And I want him to devour me. No matter what stage we end up on.
Because I know that we’ll always finish the finale — I jump into the last arabesque, and Gant catches me around the waist — the same way we started.
Together.