Allegra picked herself up off the studio floor and glared at her partner. Damien, The Little Mermaid’s choreographer, continued to stare at them, his patience thinning rapidly.
So was Allegra’s.
‘It would help if you put your hands where they’re supposed to go,’ she muttered darkly to Stephen. He was in a particularly infantile mood this afternoon.
Stephen helped her up, spun her into his arms and proceeded to take hold of her a good few inches south of where he was supposed to. Allegra clenched her teeth, prised his hand from her left buttock and moved it to her hip.
‘You’re no fun any more,’ Stephen moaned, not in the least bit repentant.
She placed one hand on his shoulder, the other on his cheek and got into position. ‘You and I have never had that kind of fun, Stephen, and nor are we likely to,’ she said, as she tipped her head to the correct angle.
Pity, that. Because Stephen was blond and finely sculpted, and just about the only man under fifty she saw on a regular basis who wasn’t gay. But Stephen had the morals of an alley cat, and made the most of being a good-looking straight male in a predominantly female profession. When it came to women, flirting was Stephen’s default position. However, as long as any physical contact between them was strictly professional, Stephen was pretty harmless. Most of the time she ignored it and they got along fine, but this afternoon she really needed to impress Damien and her partner was not making it easy.
‘I think there are a few of the corps that you haven’t slept with lurking in the corridors hoping to catch a glimpse of you. Why don’t you see if you can rid them of their girlish illusions once rehearsal’s over and leave me alone?’
‘Careful, darling,’ he said as he dipped her backwards and then lifted her into the air. ‘Or soon they’ll be calling you the Little Cactus instead of the Little Mermaid.’
The rehearsal went fine after that. At least, Allegra had thought it was going fine. She lost herself in the dancing, just as she’d done in the early days, and forgot about everything—the reviews, her father, even the telephone call that had made her heart soar, just for a moment. Instead she concentrated on bones and joints and muscles, on shapes and lines and angles. It was a blessed relief.
‘No, no, no!’ Damien shouted as they got to the end of a particularly difficult combination. The pianist who’d been accompanying them broke off mid-bar.
‘You’re supposed to be the picture of innocent longing, my dear,’ the choreographer said, turning away from her and running his hand through his hair. ‘Do try and put some feeling into it or the audience will be dropping off to sleep.’ He turned to the pianist. ‘From the top—again.’
So they did it again. And again.
Allegra looked deep inside herself, pulled out everything she could find in there—and there was quite a shopping list, she discovered. Grief for a lost parent and a lost childhood. Resentment for every person who’d pushed and pulled and ordered her around in the last decade. And, yes, longing too. Longing for a pair of deep brown eyes and a crinkly smile, for a life of adventure that could never be hers. She poured it all in there and when they’d finished that section she was drained.
She broke away from Stephen and headed for her water bottle on the floor near the mirrors, then she picked up her towel and wiped the sweat off her face, neck and shoulders.
She turned to find Damien surveying her with hard eyes.
‘I can see you’re trying, Allegra, but it’s not enough. I need more.’ He nodded to the pianist. ‘From the start of the adagio…’
Allegra walked over to Stephen, a slight twinge in her right ankle making her favour the other foot, and they assumed the starting position for their pas de deux. The pianist pounded the keys and Allegra closed her eyes, told her exhausted body it could do this and started to move.
After no more than ten bars of music Damien interrupted them. ‘More, Allegra! I need more!’ he yelled as she turned and jumped, spun and balanced.
‘More!’ he shouted as Stephen propelled her into the air, turned her upside down and then swung her back to the ground.
Damien stamped his foot in time to the music, driving them on through the final and most physically demanding section. ‘More!’
I don’t have anything more to give, Allegra thought, her body on the verge of collapse. Surely this has to be enough.
The music ended and she and Stephen slid apart and sank to the floor, panting. The choreographer marched over and stood towering above them. Allegra looked up.
‘Not good enough, Allegra. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you’d better buck your ideas up by tomorrow’s rehearsal or I’ll replace you and Stephen in Saturday’s performance with Tamzin and Valeri. I will not have months of my hard work undone by one lukewarm ballerina. Now get out of my rehearsal and don’t come back until you’re truly prepared to commit to this role!’
His face was pink now. Allegra was speechless. She looked at the clock. They still had half an hour. He couldn’t really be—
‘Get out,’ Damien said, and pointed to the door.
So Allegra left. She quickly changed her shoes and pulled on her stretchy black trousers, then she picked up her things, pushed the studio door open with her hip and walked out.
And she kept on walking. Out of the rehearsal studio, out of the building and out of her life.
CHAPTER FOUR
ALLEGRA’S brain was swimming. She’d just jumped out of a helicopter and onto Finn McLeod! And now he was standing over her, grinning like a maniac while the wind whipped around them, offering his hand.
She took it. How could she have done anything else?
She couldn’t tell if this was better or worse than her late-night fantasies when she’d been stuck on an island with no one but Fearless Finn for company—and entertainment. A big blob of water fell out of the sky and crashed onto her scalp, but Allegra was only aware of it in a distant, out-of-body kind of way.
The awareness that came from the warm hand clasped around her own? Now that was very much up-close and immediate, and definitely, definitely in her body. Just that simple action had caused her flesh to tingle and her pulse to do a series of jetés.
She was touching Finn McLeod. Actually holding his hand.
And as she looked into his eyes once again she realised that while TV Finn was just plain gorgeous, In The Flesh Finn had the kind of presence that made a girl’s nerve endings sizzle and her eyes water.
Or could that have something to do with the rain?
To be honest, she didn’t really care. She didn’t care about anything now; she was a million miles away from her life and Finn McLeod was holding her hand and talking to her in that beautiful Scottish accent of his. All she wanted to do was stare into those impossibly deep brown eyes…
Oh.
He’d been talking.
And now he’d stopped. He was also frowning at her. Why?
She suddenly became aware of the tension in his arm muscles, of the tugging sensation in her shoulder socket. He was pulling her. She was supposed to moving, getting up. Not letting her behind get damp on the sand. Not gawping at the most gorgeous-looking man she’d ever seen in real life.
Thankfully, she was well used to telling her body to do things it had no real inclination to do. She issued a command to her feet and legs and they obligingly pushed down into the sand, levering her upwards with the help of Finn’s hand, until she was standing opposite him.
Nobody