at some point she might actually see the humour, too. Probably when she was at home, safely hidden from grabby French hands.
Interspersed between the tapping of stilettos as the group practised their steps, the scrape of chairs sounded across the wooden floor to put Lola’s teeth even more on edge.
‘Now take a seat,’ Angelique invited them, and tutted when they did. ‘Not like that. Like this.’
She slid a chair through her legs, seat first, in one fluid movement, and sat astride it.
‘With our backsides flush against the back of the chair, we want to pop our legs over the top and lie back, grabbing on to the chair legs. It’s all about balance.’
Lola knew she should have worn trousers.
Angelique demonstrated a variety of provocative grinding moves until she had her followers riding the furniture like dirty cowgirls. Once Lola’s initial discomfort had passed, and she saw that the others were too preoccupied to watch what she was doing, she started to relax into it. This was supposed to be fun—a way to free herself from the tensions of the day, not add to them.
She emptied her mind from all negative thoughts and concentrated on being a good student. After all, this was only a chair, and she was fully dressed. If she stood any chance of moving on from the past she had to stop sweating the small stuff.
Surprisingly, once she let go she found herself enjoying the predatory nature of chair-dancing and the aggressive power it gave her—over the object, over her body. For once she had nothing to prove to anyone, and without the pressure she revelled in her sensuality.
In total abandon, she threw her head back and gave herself over to it—only to lock on to a familiar pair of male chocolate-caramel eyes staring down at her.
‘Well, hello, down there…’ The masculine French accent mocked her.
From her upside down view it seemed a long way up to find the voice. A pair of muscular jean-clad thighs filled her direct line of sight, but as she glanced up along the slim-fitting blue checked shirt emphasising a solid torso, she met the last face on earth she’d wanted to see smirking back at her.
‘Dr Benoit.’ Surprise at seeing the head of her department coupled with her awkward position in the chair turned Lola’s voice into a husky rasp. Clearly there was a two-for-one deal on nightmares coming true that she hadn’t been aware of.
‘Dr Roberts.’ He gave a slight nod of his head, that lopsided grin never leaving him.
Shame flushed through Lola’s system, bringing tension to every muscle as she withdrew into herself. With as much dignity as was available to her in the circumstances, she unhooked her legs and swivelled around to sit in a more civilised pose.
Without the cover of her fellow juniors she had an unimpeded view of her uninvited guest’s handsome looks. There was no denying that the strong smooth jaw and the slightly too-long black hair curling around his ears, along with that accent, gave him all the ingredients for the ultimate heartthrob. But not for her. In her experience good looks tended to hide cruel hearts, and thus far he’d proved no exception.
This little performance simply provided him with more ammo against her. As if it was needed.
‘So this is how you spend your time off?’ he asked.
Lola got the impression that he thought she would be better employed brushing up on her medical know-how.
The injustice of being caught out on her one night of respite and the sticky heat of embarrassment at her compromising situation crept along her body and made her snap. ‘It is no one’s business but mine what I do outside hospital hours. So if you’ll excuse me…?’
She thought her heart would pound out of her chest as she retaliated. Normally she wouldn’t dream of speaking to her superior in such a fashion, but she felt trapped, vulnerable beneath his stare, and she’d learned to fight back whenever she was placed in that situation. She pulled off the suffocating feather boa and made to get up from her chair.
Angelique appeared at her side and placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. ‘Stay where you are. Henri’s just leaving—aren’t you, dear?’
She batted her false lashes and shooed him away—much to Lola’s relief.
Henri slunk to the back of the room to take a seat, shaking his head in bewilderment. The familiar scene that had met him behind the studio doors—cackling females sticking their asses out—usually didn’t impress him at all. But tonight, seeing one of his staff in Ange’s ragtag bunch, had caught him totally off guard.
Lola—that was her name. It really didn’t suit her. ‘Lola’ conjured up images of a showgirl, confident and sure of her every move. The opposite of what she’d shown today. As her supervisor, it now fell to him to draw those qualities from her. One more responsibility to add to his load, and certainly one he could do without.
She obviously had the book smarts to have got this far in her career, but as first appearances went…he was not impressed. He didn’t tolerate slacking in his department. Not when he’d already stood by and watched his sister let her medical career slip away without a fight.
Even now Lola appeared to have separated herself from the rest of the group, hiding away in the corner. Although the assertive nature he’d witnessed when he’d walked in and her feisty tone when she’d put him in his place was a complete departure from the hesitant junior doctor he’d encountered earlier.
Relegated to the role of peeping Tom, watching her from the shadows, he was mesmerised by her body-rolls. Every move of her hips showed off the lace-topped stockings under that minuscule skirt and called to his basest needs. Clearly it had been too long since his last hook-up with the opposite sex if the sultry fashion in which Lola straddled the chair seat was making him envy the damn thing!
It wasn’t a good idea to be thinking about his new recruit with her bouncy little blonde ponytail and ridiculous pink stethoscope this way. She’d already distracted him from the small matter of his niece’s apparent truancy, which he’d come to discuss with Angelique.
Ange stalked over to his corner to wag a finger at him. ‘I can’t afford to have you scaring off my customers, Henri.’
His older sister gave him that withering look guaranteed to make him regress back into the role of reprimanded teenager. Given the years he’d spent under her wing, he’d had many a rap on the knuckles from her—but he still respected her, and would never purposely do anything to make her regret the sacrifices she had made for him.
‘I only said hello,’ he muttered, still unable to take his eyes off the performance behind her.
‘Well, you shouldn’t be in here anyway,’ she huffed.
Angelique saved him the trouble of leaving by turning her back on him and ending the session with a round of applause for her trainee dancers.
‘Très bien. Great stuff, guys. I’m afraid that’s all we have time for tonight. I hope you’ve had fun.’
The flushed, smiling faces staring back at her said it all. Never one to miss an opportunity, she left him to go and hand out her business cards.
‘I know this lesson was probably intended as a one-off, but if you want to join us I run classes most evenings. It’s a great way to stay in shape and keep the man in your life very happy.’
The girls tittered. Henri groaned. He still couldn’t quite come to terms with her line of work. Especially when it was his fault she’d traded in a proper career to earn money dancing half naked. If their parents hadn’t been killed in that car crash, if Angelique hadn’t had to raise a teenage boy on her own, she might have been a respected medical professional by now.
All her studying had gone to waste, her bright future gone in a puff of smoke, in order for her to put food on the table for her little brother. They’d both been handed a life sentence that cold winter’s day which had robbed them of their