31. Isabel
Ibarely made it to the dance studio on time, and not one hour into dance rehearsal with Sergei, I crumpled to the floor in a depleted heap. The tenderness between my thighs did nothing to stave off the memories that had me staring dreamily into space.
Sergei would have none of it. He’d barely broken a sweat, and his patience was in short supply. “What is going on, malishka? Dancing with you tonight is like dancing with a broken puppet.”
“Oh thanks,” I said tersely, well aware that I was indeed dancing like a broken puppet. Not that I was willing to share the reason why, because the last thing I needed was for Sergei to get worked up about me being with another man.
The Russian temper flared nevertheless and he stomped to the hi-fi system and brought an abrupt halt to Por una Cabeza, the tango music blasting over the speakers. I blew out a relieved breath. All I wanted to do was go home, crawl into bed and sleep. And of course talk to Roman.
You could cut glass with the look Sergei sliced my way. “I mean what do you call that, Isabel? Because it definitely wasn’t a tango.”
I met Sergei’s glare with a curt one of my own. “Calm down. I really don’t need you to yell at me right now, thank you very much.”
“We have the competition in two days, Isabel,” he said. “Two days.”
“When have I ever let you down, Sergei? It’ll be fine.”
Titters crystallized in one corner of the studio, where Sergei’s usual ballet company groupies looked on, taking way too much delight in the fact that he was losing his temper with me.
Pauline, Sergei’s current flame, was the only one not laughing. Instead she watched with calculated interest. Her only goal was to take my place as Sergei’s dance partner in the underground ballroom and freestyle competitions, but so far she hasn’t had any luck.
She slowly curved away from the barre, strolling toward us like a gazelle wandering a meadow.
“Give her a break, Sergei,” she said, looking down at me where my sensitive limbs remained in a scattered pile on the floor. “Nobody dances well when they’ve been fucked like she has. Isn’t that so, Isabel?”
Dear God, what a little bitch.
Sergei veered his gaze toward me and tilted his head, a thousand questions in his eyes.
I spiraled up from the floor, wincing from the ache, and faced Pauline with narrowed eyes. “Nice. And to think the other night when Sergei contemplated who he should take to his bed next, I agreed it should be you. For my judgment of character, I get a big fat zero on a scale of one to ten.”
“Jesus, malishka!” Sergei hissed softly.
As soon as the words left my mouth, I was remorseful, but would you believe the little wench didn’t back down.
“What’s really odd is that you don’t deny it,” she chirped on. “So is this a new boyfriend or just a Tinder hookup? Whichever it is, the fucking had to be pretty intense because your Calesita step was cringe.”
Of course my Calesita step was cringe, because the entire tango tested my pain threshold to the max and that goddamn step just brought the tenderness between my thighs home.
It was Pauline’s turn to be on the receiving end of Sergei’s scathing look. “What the fuck, Pauli. You don’t talk to Isabel like that.”
Pauline gritted her teeth and shot Sergei the scowl to beat all scowls. “At least you got my name right, not like two nights ago when you were calling me Isabel when you came.”
Oh, ouch.
Finally we got to the reason Pauline had those razor-sharp claws out for me. She immediately regretted confessing her humiliation. Her eyes scoured the floor in shame.
You’d think after the exhilarating day I’d had it would all be like water off a duck’s back, and I would easily escape the situation and make a hasty return home. But no. Now I felt sorry for Pauline.
“Wow, Sergei,” I muttered. “Seriously?”
Silence fell like a sledgehammer, and for the longest moment Sergei dramatically contemplated Pauline and me. Even the groupies quieted down, though they couldn’t possibly have heard what we were saying.
Finally Sergei reached some sort of decision that no one asked him to make. “I think we’ve rehearsed the tango enough for tonight,” he said. Then he sauntered over to the hi-fi system and changed the music to a Strauss waltz.
He pulled one of the groupies onto the floor and waltzed with her as if nothing had happened.
Pauline and I shared a look.
“Sorry I was such a bitch,” she said.
“It’s fine. Besides, I don’t blame you. Did he at least apologize?”
“No, he tried to gaslight me and said I heard it wrong.”
“Classic Sergei.”
There was a moment when Pauline had said her piece and the conversation was all but done, except to say goodnight and bidding each other a good life.
But then she uttered a “Hmmm” and looked me up and down like I was the root of all her problems and somehow responsible for Sergei yelling my name instead of hers during sex.
“As long as you keep dancing with him, he’ll always keep hoping, Isabel. Nobody else stands a chance. Why don’t you just leave him alone?”
Dear God, grant me the fucking serenity.
“Pauline, I’m not your biggest worry here. You see the giggle-posse over there? It’s them you should worry about. I’m not the one standing in your way.”
“See, that’s the thing, I’m not worried about them. You know what Sergei did last night, after fucking me stupid? He went to the living room with his laptop to watch one of the two million videos he has of you dancing. So yeah, I’m not worried about those useless, twittering little tarts.”
My impatient sigh reverberated in the air. At the same, I also felt bad for Pauline. I had a glimpse of what she was feeling at the auction with Roman, when Cassandra dragged her gorgeous self in there begging him to save her from that awful wedding.
I’m not going to lie, the moment I realized Roman had been inside that woman I was poison-green with envy. If he had to call out her name while we were having sex, I’d probably end up doing hard time in jail.
“Listen Pauline,” I said gently. “There’s nothing much I can do here. You could always make him fall in love with you. I mean—”
“Oh and how the hell am I supposed to do that when his laptop and phone background are still pictures of you?” she asked, her pretty face contorting into total bitch mode again.
Now I was beginning to regret ever getting involved. “I don’t know. Google it. Apparently cyberspace is full of bright ideas. I have it on good authority that someone pulled off the perfect date by looking on the internet.”
A smirk crept over Pauline’s lips. “The internet, seriously? Next thing you’ll suggest looking for sex tips on Tik Tok.” And with that she traipsed back to the rest of the groupies with an angry pout.
I made a beeline for the exit and was barely out the studio’s front door and onto the sidewalk when Sergei called out behind me. “Malishka!” He grabbed me by the waist and spun me around. “You can’t just walk out like this,” he said, holding me firmly in place in case I made an attempt to flee. “I need to speak to you.”
“What is it, Sergei?” This was the last conversation I wanted to have, and my reluctance had to be plastered all over my face. I looked up at him, a dim streetlight casting shadows over his beautiful face.
“Is it true what Pauli said? About you being with someone else?” he asked, and his tone leaned more toward accusation than friendly curiosity.
“Really? That’s your biggest concern here? You have some of your own shit to sort out, Sergei. Call me curious but why, and that is a capital WHY, are you allowing that silly girl to take the frustrations you cause her, out on me?”
“Malishka…”
“Don’t malishka me.”
“So, you are sleeping with someone.”
“That’s what you take away from this. Great.”
“Well, you don’t want to answer me. I would like to know. You know who I sleep with.”
I was beginning to regret coming to the studio. I should have stayed at Belmont Manor, in bed with Roman, and damn any staff members who had a problem with that.
Sergei’ s hands slipped from my waist, and I stepped back, creating a distance between us to make a point. “There’s one major difference in that, Sergei. I don’t care who you sleep with. What you do at your home, in your bed, is your business, and what I do is mine. And I think it’s time you realize that.”
Sergei paced in front of me, and if anyone could make frantic pacing look elegant it was Sergei. He was Romeo contemplating his ill-fated relationship with Juliet as he continued the interrogation. “So is this a waiter or chef where you work, or what?”
I realized Sergei didn’t even know I’d left my job at Le Petit Chateau.
“What did I just say, Sergei? About my private life being my business.”
He stopped in front of me and curved his head toward mine. To anyone on the outside looking in, this man was about to kiss me. But I knew Sergei. This was him exercising his male dominance which, with me, never quite worked out for him because I glared right back at him.
“So you’re embarrassed,” he said. “Probably because he’s just a waiter, and that’s a huge step down from me.”
Dear God, where’s the fucking serenity I asked for so nicely earlier.
My head was beginning to hurt, and it might have been all that champagne at lunch. “Think what you want, Sergei. And since when have you become such a snob? Being a waiter is a decent job. At least it’s better than a ballet dancer jeopardizing his chance at principal dancer because he breaks the rules.”
“Those are stupid rules. Ballroom and freestyle don’t influence the way I dance ballet. The director is full of shit. Besides, I’m happy dancing as a soloist. It’s not as stressful as being principal.”
“Keep telling yourself that, and soon you might even believe it.”
For some reason Sergei’s stubbornness irritated me. That was the dream for each of us, to become a principal dancer. My dream was cut short, and after that Sergei’s ambition took a nosedive. When we started doing ballroom and freestyle for fun, I didn’t realize that any other dance forms were strictly forbidden by the ballet company, and Sergei never told me.
The director had it in his head that dancing other styles messed with a ballet dancer’s posture, and when a little bird told him Sergei was doing ballroom and freestyle in his spare time, his chance of becoming a principal dancer was swept right off the table. What bothered me most was that it didn’t bother Sergei nearly enough.
Fatigue was beginning to set in with a vengeance, and I could barely keep my head up. “I’m tired, I’m going home. Tomorrow I’ll be fine for rehearsal and I’ll do better, okay?”
Sergei leaned in, melancholy and displeasure brimming his gaze. “Are you seeing the waiter tonight, malishka?”
“There is no waiter,” I said, which was true enough, just not in the way Sergei wanted it to be. “But there is one very pissed-off girl in the studio you need to be nice to so she stays off my case.”
“Who?” Sergei asked, genuinely confused.
“Jesus, Sergei.”
“Oh, you mean Pauli. She’ll be fine. Let me walk you home at least, zhizn moya. It’s dark.”
“I appreciate it, but it’s fine. I prefer walking home alone. I’ve done it a million times.”
My phone dinged with a text. Somehow I knew exactly who it was, and despite my exhaustion, my pulse was set ablaze.
I didn’t dare look at the text because my face might betray the adoration I felt. My faux indifference was met by Sergei’s knitted brows.
“You have a text, Isabel.”
“My ears work, I know.”
“It’s the waiter isn’t it?”
“Again, there is no waiter, I promise,” I said with a comforting and deceitful smile, and kissed him on both cheeks. “Good night, Sergei.”
Sergei watched me as I set out on my walk. Why I felt so guilty was a complete mystery, and only when I was half a block away, did I dare to look at my phone.
ROMAN:My sweet. Let me know when I can call.
ME: How about now? You can keep me company on my walk home.