The Last Dance (8 page)

Georgina waved to the audience and blew a kiss before she bent to pick up the flowers that had been thrown at her feet. The bright lights warmed her skin, but they meant she could not see the audience. She felt them though, and she heard their rapturous applause. She waved again, savoring the moment before she exited the stage.

The corridor backstage buzzed with dancers laughing and talking, congratulating one another on an amazing performance, enjoying the rush of adrenaline before Maxim came back and dampened it with the catalogue of mistakes he’d noted. He made a list every night; every minor offense was written down. Nothing was ever good enough. It couldn’t be; they were the best because he did not allow complacency.

Georgina rushed past a group of dancers from the chorus, eager to get to her dressing room and go home. Natasha smiled when she caught her eye. Georgina smiled back, but it soon faltered when she saw Maxim approaching. His eyes were narrowed the way they did when he was about to launch into a full-on verbal assault. She knew that look well. In her early years with the company, the look was often aimed at her, but tonight he was looking at Natasha.

Georgina caught her gaze again and held it, silently telling the other dancer to be strong. Maxim tormented her more because he saw potential in Natasha. She needed to know that. Part of her wished she could stop and speak to her, but there was an invisible wall that separated the chorus from principal dancers. Natasha would not thank her if she breached it because it would only alienate her from the other dancers. She would have to weather this storm alone, the way Georgina had.

“Would you like a lift home?” her partner Sergei asked as he walked past her dressing room. She had just finished taking her false lashes off. She would wash her face when she got home.

“Please.” Normally Georgina enjoyed the short walk to her flat, but the ice was treacherous. No new snow had fallen to give her traction, so she would happily take her partner’s offer of a ride home. Plus she was safe from Roman if she was with Sergei, not that Sergei could offer her any physical protection. Roman dwarfed him, but Roman would not approach her in front of anyone. He was far to cunning for that.

“Let me change and grab my coat.” She had left her formal winter coat at the Hermitage, so she had to make do with her puffy down jacket. It was certainly warm, but it made her look like she was wearing a sleeping bag. Luckily she had no one to impress tonight, or any other night really.

“Take your time.”

That was why she liked Sergei. He was considerate—that, and he was the only dancer in the company tall enough to be partnered with her. Georgina smiled as she shut the door to get changed.

* * * *

The ride home was quick because her apartment was only a few blocks from the theater. Sergei had turned on the heater, but the engine did not even have time to warm enough to heat the air.

“Thanks. See you in the morning,” Georgina said when Sergei pulled up in front of her building.

She hurried up the steps and unlocked the door, acutely aware of how vulnerable she was now. For whatever reason Roman had allowed her to live, but she could not depend on continued magnanimity. Her breath caught when she saw a new bouquet of peach roses in a vase at her front door. They must have been delivered while she was at the theater. “No,” she whispered, the word barely making it past her lips. A boulder plummeted to the pit of her stomach; her body shook from the realization that Pavel had another task for her. She clenched her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. It was too soon. Pavel could not expect her to have anything yet. No. Did he know she had failed? Was he giving her another target? No, he couldn’t expect that of her already. Surely she had paid her debts in full. No more. She could not do this anymore. Last night was a wake-up call. She needed a life. She had given up too much for ballet. The price was too high now.

Georgina snatched the vase up and let the apartment door slam behind her. She did not wait this time; she had to know what Pavel wanted. She sank to the floor and found the rose in the dead center of the bouquet and pulled it clean from the stem. She separated the petals and searched. Nothing. It wasn’t there. Georgina shook her head. She pulled off the next rose and searched again. Still nothing. She tried a third and a fourth rose. It wasn’t there. One by one Georgina tore every rose from its long stem. Nothing. She could not find the message. “Shit,” she mumbled. Did she miss it?

Frantically she rummaged through the scattered petals. Where was it? What did Pavel want? What would he do if she did not respond?
Shit
. She needed a plan. She had saved enough. She could go back to America. That had always been the retirement plan: open a residential ballet school in Montana so dancers would not have to move out of state to train the way she had. She could do this. She scrunched her eyes together. Oh God, she didn’t want to be done. That couldn’t have been her last performance. Her eyes burned and her chest ached, but she didn’t cry. She never did.

She could have a normal life again with friends and food and nights out and maybe a man. No. She wasn’t ready, not yet. Damn it, what was she going to do? She didn’t even know how to contact Pavel if he wanted her. She had not seen him in eight years, but his presence was always known. And he would find her if she didn’t act. A chill ran the length of her spine. Pavel had warned her once never to contact him. He said the next time he saw her would likely be to identify her body. She had no doubt that he would kill her if she betrayed him or was no longer any use. Would he follow her to America?

Fuck, she wished she could cry and get some release. Normal people would cry now. Her eyes burned and her chest constricted. This would be a good time for tears.

The doorbell rang. Georgina’s heart stopped in her chest with a painful thud. Oh God, he was here.
Shit
. What was she supposed to do now? She glanced past the other roses at the window. She was on the second floor. She could jump; there was enough snow to pad her landing. But then what? Go to the airport? No. He would find her there. A boat to Estonia and then the train across Europe. She could fly out of Heathrow. He wouldn’t expect that.

Yes.

But he would find her in Montana. She would never be safe. She would always be looking over her shoulder. That was no way to live.

Georgina stood up; peach petals fell from her as she rose. She would face this the way she faced everything, head-on with no apologies and no regrets.

She opened the door and gasped. Roman Zakharov stood in front of her. Her knees buckled with relief. She grabbed the door to steady herself. What had her life become? A Mafia boss at her door made her feel relieved because he was the lesser of two evils.

“Roman,” she whispered.

He was holding her formal coat. He had gone back to the Hermitage to get it. She cleared her throat. She did not know what to say to him.
Thank you for not killing me?

Roman squeezed past her, not waiting to be invited in. That was just like him. He took what he wanted. She allowed the door to close behind him. He wouldn’t be leaving until he wanted to, so she would not bother to ask him to go.

Roman took off his jacket and laid it across the back of the leather wingback chair. He stared at the petals strewn across the floor. “I wish I had known you were not a fan of peach roses. Next time I will send yellow.”

“They are from you?” Relief washed over her. Pavel wasn’t sending her a message. He didn’t know. As far as he knew, she was still in play. She still had value to him.
Oh, thank God.

“Who else would they be from? Who else are you fucking?” His voice was as cold as his eyes.

“We’ve never fucked,” she reminded him. They’d had their chance, and for whatever reason, Roman had decided not to. A bullet dodged.

“But you wish we had. Ask nicely and I might still consider it.”

Georgina shook her head.

“Come now, angel. We both know you’re not above begging.”

She did not bother denying it. She had begged him to make her come, but she was not going to allow herself to think about that again. “Why are you here?”

“We have business.”

Georgina’s eyes narrowed.

Roman ran a gloved hand over her cheek. “You really are sweet, the innocent side of you. Or is it stupid? Either way it is sweet how inept you are as a spy. You didn’t think I would let you go and expect nothing in return? Oh, you did. I can see by your face.”

Georgina took a step back. She already had one man controlling her life; she did not need another. “What do you want?”

“I want to know who you are working for and what they want to know. But first I want to know who you thought the roses were from?”

Georgina bit into her lip before she answered. “My lover. He upset me.”

Roman nodded. “As I suspected.” He pulled out his phone and texted someone before he slid it into his pocket. “Your handler. Is that how he sends you messages? Clever. Ballerinas receive dozens of bouquets.” He gestured to the numerous vases. “All these flowers, messages are hidden in plain sight.”

If he expected her to confirm his suspicions, he would be waiting forever. She would give him nothing.

“Always peach? That is his color? I shall avoid that in the future. So as not to confuse you.”

“Or you could just never send me flowers.”

Roman’s mouth hitched in a smile. “We’re lovers now, angel. I have to send you flowers and gifts and make a show of how infatuated I am. That was the plan, wasn’t it? You weren’t just supposed to fuck me once and plant a bug. That is a waste of your talents. And remember, I have tasted your talents.”

Georgina’s skin warmed. He was standing too close. She tried to focus on his scar, how hideous his face was, but her concentration failed her, and she ended up focused on his piercing eyes and then lower to the broad expanse of his shoulders. She took another step back and hit the wall. “What do you want from me?” Her voice betrayed her by cracking.

“In less than an hour I will know who has been sending you peach roses. I will find your handler, with or without your help.”

Georgina swallowed. Her mouth was too dry. “And then?” she pressed, needing to hear the words out loud, to remember exactly the man she was dealing with. She would not mourn Pavel’s loss, but she did not want him murdered. He was a human being, a shitty one, but a human nonetheless.

Roman shrugged.

“Tell me. Tell me what you are going to do.”

“Oh, my sweet angel. You don’t get to ask questions.” Roman closed the space between them. He tilted her chin up so she had no choice but to look into his pale, crystal-blue eyes. “That is not how this works. You have been discovered. You belong to me now.”

An electric bolt of fear shot through her, chased by something else, something she would not let herself feel. That part of her had died long ago.

Roman took off his gloves and laid them with his coat. “The plan was to seduce me and then become my mistress, was it not? I have done my research on you, and that is your pattern. You go from one powerful man’s bed to the next. You have quite the record. I am surprised no one has put it together yet. And now you have landed in my bed. You’re my mistress now.”

“But I’m not.”

“No one needs to know you are a failure. I had you watched today. You have made contact with no one outside your company. I have had your phone, so I know you did not call anyone. Your handler does not know you failed. And he won’t until it is too late.”

Georgina shook her head. She had no loyalty to Pavel, but Roman would get her killed. “And then what? You find out who is investigating you. What happens to me? In every possible scenario, I end up dead.”

Roman nodded. “Perhaps. One thing is certain, if you betray me, you will die. Perhaps the other man is more magnanimous. For your sake, let’s hope he is.”

“No.” Georgina shook her head. “This won’t work. He will know I have failed because the bug has been destroyed. If he doesn’t know now, he will figure it out. I can’t— I need to—” Georgina stopped short of telling Roman she needed to leave Russia.

“It is transmitting. I am not stupid. Last night, while we were not fucking I had time to think. I activated the bug this morning as soon as you left. You’re in play, angel.”

She wished he would stop calling her that. She wished he wasn’t in her living room, or in her life. She wished she could go back a decade and undo what she had done that led her here. “I will be expected to put in another one in your apartment and one in your car,” she said, testing the waters. This was insane, but she had no other choice. “I will also need photographs. He will need a list of everyone I come in contact with when I am with you. This is not just a matter of a few bugs. Everything. He will expect me to fully infiltrate your life.”

Roman undid his top button. “
He
is very confident in your abilities. What if I had not been interested? What if I had turned you down and not wanted to fuck you.”

“It hasn’t happened yet,” she said simply. Men were simple creatures. Seduction was not difficult.

Roman’s stare went impossibly cold. “How many?”

Georgina shrugged. “You have done your research. You know the answer to that.”

“Did you care for any of them?”

“Do you care for any of the women you fuck?” Georgina retorted.

Roman thought for a second. “I at least enjoyed fucking them. Can you say the same?”

He was judging her. She felt it in the heat of his stare. She did what she had to do. She wasn’t proud of it, but neither was she ashamed. He did not have the right to judge her. She knew his story after all. At least she had never killed anyone. “Until you, they were all attractive. You are the only ugly man I have been assigned. And I have been spared having to fuck you. I enjoy that fact very much.”

Roman undid another button and then another, not stopping until his shirt hung open.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Are you scared, angel, or turned on? I can’t tell with you. They show as the same emotion on your face. Lucky that you are beautiful enough for the both of us.” Roman kicked off his shoes, then undid his trousers and let them drop to the floor.