Billionaire Erotic Romance Boxed Set: 7 Steamy Full-Length Novels (134 page)

“First things first. Nicole Rossi was in my home town the other week, Carl. Asking about me. I need you to tell me the truth... You’re friends with Henry, you must know her well enough. Is she the type of woman who’d try and mess with my business to get at me?”

Carl sighed. She heard a creak as he leaned back in his chair. “She’s exactly that type of person. Especially if she thought it would get her Henry back. Who, by the way, she doesn’t have. I’m pretty sure she’s the ‘anonymous source’ most of these papers are quoting. She’s feeding them the stories.”

“And the pictures?” Icicles were forming in Sophie veins.

“Oh, hell, Sophie. You know how they can make something look, out of context. I’m telling you, it’s not what it looks like. I know Henry, and he’d never go back to that viper. He didn’t even like her very much to begin with. He was mostly seeing her for his father’s sake.”

Sophie’s fingers tightened on her phone. She rubbed frantically at her forehead with her free hand. “Why does any of this matter to you, Carl? Why are you leaving me messages begging me to hear you out when Henry’s the one who screwed up? Again.”

He sighed and drummed his fingers on what sounded like a wooden table. Maybe a desk? “Honestly? I’ve known Henry a long time, Sophie. Long enough to know that he’s got issues. Long enough to know that he’s unhappy. And then you come along... You’ve made him happier than I’ve ever seen. I want that for him. You don’t know what he was like before, but I do. And you’re good for him.”

“You’re a good friend, Carl. He’s lucky to have you.” She stared at the blue of the sky and tried to blink away the fresh tears that pricked her eyes. She clenched her teeth against the anger and pain that welled in her chest. “But I don’t think this is going to work. I don’t think Henry’s very good for me.”

“Sophie–”

“Goodbye, Carl.” She hung up, even though he was still speaking. She’d heard him out. Nicole was the one feeding the stories to the tabloids. Nicole had snooped around her old dance studio, and probably elsewhere in town too. Anger burned like lava in her belly. At Nicole, for her vicious tactics. At Henry for keeping so much from her that she couldn’t bring herself to trust him. At herself for letting them both manipulate and control her emotions. Where was her backbone? She’d had it once. She’d been fiercely independent.

Seized with a sudden need to do something, to exert her will and change something for the better, anything, Sophie bent and snatched up a chunk of broken concrete about the size of her palm. She took careful aim and winged the hunk of asphalt as hard as she could at the old sign.

“Yes!” She gave a little hop as the bit of debris struck the broken ‘n’ and knocked it loose. It clattered to the ground with a satisfying thunk. Sophie stood, panting, fists clenched at her sides, staring at the building. The sign now read Bo—n—o.

Better than nothing. She gave a curt not, pleased with her handiwork, spun on her heel, and headed for her car.

Chapter Nineteen

She didn’t remember her bedroom ever being so small. It felt barely bigger than a postage stamp as she paced from one wall to the other. Ever since she’d returned to her parent’s house, adrenaline had tingled through her veins, bubbling through her blood. Her muscles hummed as if she was attached to some low level electrical charge. Sophie had to move. She reached her closet and spun on her heel again, striding back to her dresser.

On top was a small trophy with a ballerina on pointe. One of the first competitions she’d won. Several more were lined up beside it, tap, jazz, tango, ballroom. All first and second place trophies in gleaming gold and silver, the plaques all carved with her name.  Sophie snatched it up. “You never would have let yourself fall for a man you knew next to nothing about.”

She glared at the elegant, poised figure of the dancer. “You didn’t even care about boys.” If only that was still true now. Sophie grimaced. Her fingers tightened around the smooth, cool surface of the trophy. She had to force herself to relax her arm, which was ready, for all the world, to fling the darn thing across her room.

Instead, she stomped angrily to her closet and tugged open the door. She was looking for a box, something she could put the trophy in and not have to look at it anymore. She wanted to put them away, all of them, and not have to think about what a failure she was.

She pushed aside a row of winter coats as she glimpsed the brown of a cardboard box. Sophie curled her fingers over the edge and yanked. It wasn’t as heavy as she’d been anticipating, and it came rocketing out, spilling its contents onto the floor.

Pictures and papers and ribbons piled around her feet. Sophie groaned in exasperation and squatted, setting the trophy down with a thunk.

“Another mess. Good one, Sophie. Maybe there’s a market somewhere for someone so good at making messes. You could help people plan for disaster relief just by living your stupid life in their vicinity. Christ!”

She began shoving the papers back in the box, barely glancing at them, until the words
TO DO: IMPORTANT
in her own childish scrawl caught her eye.

Sophie paused, breathing a little uneven, and pulled the paper from the pile.
#1
, she’d written,
Become a Dancer! #2 - Travel the World! #3 - Dance until I’m Too Old (Like 30) #4 - Meet a Handsome Prince! #5 - Get Married, Live in a big Mansion, Have Kids #6 - Happily Ever After!

Based on the date in the corner, she’d been about six when she wrote this “important” to do list. Five easy steps to the Happily Ever After part. If only life were really that easy. But it wasn’t. Some things just weren’t meant to be, no matter how bad you wanted them.

Sophie wasn’t at all sure if she was talking about her dance career, or what had happened with Henry. Still, she’d accomplished the first two on the list. Maybe that wasn’t so bad. She had written it almost twenty years ago.

“Doing a little remodeling, sweet pea?”

Her father leaned in the doorway, a beer in one big hand, his eyes taking in the scatter of things on the floor and the disarranged trophies on top of the dresser. Sophie shrugged one shoulder, not meeting her father’s eyes. “Just looking through some old stuff.” She scooped more of it back into the box, a handful of award ribbons nearly every color of the rainbow.

“Here, let me help.”

“Oh no, Dad, that’s fine. I’ve got it.”

But he’d already crouched beside her and began straightening papers and untangling ribbons. He flipped over a photograph of Sophie in her tutu, arms over her head.

“You’d have slept in that thing, if your mother had let you.”

Sophie lips quirked a little. “Probably. I remember thinking other clothes were completely boring in comparison.”

Her dad tucked the picture back into the box and lifted a stack of papers. Order forms, Sophie saw, for tap shoes. “We could probably throw those out.”

“Your mother would kill me.” He folded them into the box.

“They’re likely fifteen years old. I doubt I could still get them for that price.”

“Seemed like a lot then. You were always needing new taps.”

Sophie ducked her head. “I would bring them over to friend’s houses and tap there too.”

“Knew it.” He snorted, lifting a handful of second place ribbons.

He pulled one out of the batch. It was slim and red. Or it had been. It was so faded it was now merely a washed out pink, and the ends were frayed and loose. Whatever words had been on it were almost completely worn away, except for a shimmery gold P near the top.

Participation ribbons were what they gave out to all the people who didn’t win at the competitions Sophie had gone to as a kid. Her dad chuckled, running his big, rough fingers over the worn ribbon. “I remember this one.”

Sophie blinked, surprised. It was hardly distinguishable from the others, except that it was slightly more faded than some of the rest. “You do?”

He nodded, grunting a little as his knees popped when he stood, and crossed to sit on her bed. He carried the ribbon on his palm, still stroking it with a gentle fingers.

“You don’t?”

She studied it again, cocking her head, trying to place some sort of significance on it. But she had a ton of ribbons. Sophie had danced in any and every competition in the tri-state area as a child. That particular ribbon held no special meaning for her. “No.”

“
You couldn’t have been more than eight. You’d just started expressing an interest in dance a year or so before, and your mom signed you up for Miss Clara’s. You were doing the ballet, and some tap, I think.”

Sophie nodded, setting the box aside to sit on the bed beside her father. “I remember that part.” Her dad nodded, smiling fondly down at the little ribbon.

“There was a ballroom competition in Verona. It was the first time you participated doing tango. Your partner was that boy... the one with the stutter?”

“Frankie Blondell!” Sophie remembered the slim, bird-like boy whose mother had signed him up for dance lessons hoping to boost his confidence and help with the speech impediment. The first several years had been torture for him, teased not only about his stammer but also because he danced. But Frankie had stuck with it and become a really good dancer.

By the time he reached the age when girls became a thing of interest, Frankie had, in fact, grown comfortable and confident in his body. He’d also been sleekly muscular and knew how to dance. Girls responded to that. The other boys stopped laughing at him.  Frankie had quit competing in dance competitions in high school, and gone on to become a software engineer and marry a model. The memory brought a smile to Sophie’s face.

Jim Becker sipped his beer. “Frankie Blondell, that’s right.”

“We lost,” Sophie said, plucking the ribbon from her father’s palm. She was beginning to recall the competition, vaguely. “We were the youngest competitors in that category and we were both still so new.” She chuckled a little ruefully. “I’m pretty sure we were awful. Is that why you remember it?”

“No, sweet pea.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “That’s not why I remember it. Goof.” He squeezed her a little. “I remember it because it was your first big loss. Your mother and I were both worried about how you were going to take it.”

Sophie frowned down at the ribbon, trying to remember. She would have thought it would be clearer. Her first big loss. But she barely recalled it at all, even now that she was trying hard to draw the memory out.

“Was I upset? I don’t remember.”

Her dad chuckled, shaking his head. “No, not at all. That’s why I remember it. Your mom and I were sitting on the sidelines as you walked off the floor, waiting to see if you were going to scream or burst into tears or... what. We didn’t know. And you strode right up to us with your little chin in the air. I said ‘You did very well, sweet pea,’ trying to head off the explosion.”

He took another sip of beer, snorting a little. Sophie laid her head on his shoulder. “And I didn’t explode.”

“Not a bit. You looked me right in the eye and said ‘Next time, I’ll do better.’” He rubbed his chin over her hair. “You could have knocked your mother and I over with a feather, we were so surprised.”

It was Sophie’s turn to snicker now. “I didn’t win in Verona until I was thirteen, I think. Maybe fourteen.”

“But you kept going back.” He dropped his arm from around her shoulders and turned her face up, gripping her chin until she met his eyes. “I was so proud of you. I still am, sweet pea. Your mom, too.”

Sophie cleared her throat of the sudden obstruction and blinked away the sting of tears. “Um, thanks Dad. But I’ve always been passionate about dance. I’m still not sure I get why this one was so memorable to you.”

“It wasn’t the passion, Sophie. Anyone can have passion for something. And it has nothing to do with whether you were winning or not. Your strength, your dedication, your unwillingness to give up. That’s what makes us so proud of you.” He let her go and stood up, taking the ribbon from her hands and laying it gently in the box.

“You went back, and you did better. You kept on, until you made it.” He smiled fondly, finished his beer, and stretched. “I’m going to go have a quick shower before dinner.”

“I love you, Dad.” Sophie’s voice was a breathy rasp as her father’s words washed over her.

“Love you too, sweet pea.” He took only one step out of the door before stopping and turning to look back at her. “Whatever it is, Sophie? You’ll work it out. I have faith in you.”

She couldn’t help the tears that flooded her eyes at that, wetting her lashes. But her lips curved in a smile. She gave her father a short nod, because she couldn’t speak. He winked and strolled down the hall to the bathroom.

When she heard the door shut, Sophie let out a long, quavering breath. She should’ve known she couldn’t fool her father. He might not say as much as her mother—his little speech a minute ago was about as verbose as he ever got—but that didn’t mean he didn’t pay attention.

“
It’s not just the passion
,” he’d said. Was that true? Passion had always seemed the most important part of her pursuit of dance. She’d seen it countless times, throughout all the years she’d taken classes, and now, teaching them too.

Some people mastered the technique but were never great dancers, because the passion wasn’t there for them. It was the difference between understanding something and
feeling
it.

The great dancers were the ones who, when they danced, you could see the passion emanating from them like a glow.

Sophie’s gaze fell to the cardboard box and the small, faded ribbon on top. Her dad’s words touched her mind again, like a hand on the shoulder. Maybe it wasn’t the passion. Or, not only the passion. She had worked
hard
to be the best dancer she could be. She had practiced and trained and practiced some more. She had sacrificed a lot to make it to the top of the competition circuit, before the injury.

It had always felt worth it though, because she loved it and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. That’s why she had felt so lost after the accident. Why she’d fought so hard to get back on her feet, literally, after all the surgeries. Why, when she’d finally reconciled herself to the fact that she would never dance professionally again, she’d opened the studio—with Darren’s help, of course. Why she worked so hard to make the studio as successful as it could be. Because it was a part of her—dance.