Chapter 41

Forty-One

SARA

“Bravo,”Tom said. The sarcasm in his voice was all too palpable. He walked toward Alexei and me until he was merely a couple of feet away. “You two looked great. I’m no expert, but that was fascinating to watch.” He turned to lock gazes with me. “Interesting though, Sara, how well you danced. I mean, given you’re not a dancer.” He grinned, yet his eyes remained impassive.

“And who might you be?” Alexei asked, almost defensively.

“How rude of me,” Tom replied, looking back at Alexei. He reached his hand across to the Russian. They shook hands. Firmly. “I’m Tom, Sara’s boyfriend.”

Alexei sensed the heated tension. We’d both been so startled by Tom’s impromptu appearance that we hadn’t realized we were still standing close. Tom’s scrutinizing gaze didn’t alleviate the situation.

“I’m Alexei, the company’s choreographer.” He stepped away from me, releasing some of the uncomfortable intimacy left behind from the dance. “I’ll leave you two alone.” Alexei walked out of the studio, leaving an eerie silence behind.

This was life blowing up in my face as I’d feared it.

I swallowed hard. I still couldn’t put together the words that could possibly begin to explain what Tom had just witnessed or why I had lied.

Tom crossed his arms as he settled a steely gaze over me. “So, care to elaborate?” His voice scraped like sandpaper against my skin.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in California?” I blurted out, still in shock.

His face scrunched into a scowl. “You’re gonna make this about me?”

“This is about you,” I shot back at him, annoyed. He’d caught me in a lie, but why hadn’t he told me he was coming home sooner? This was the second time he’d showed up unannounced at my office, and it irked me he felt the need to check up on me. “What is it with you and showing up unannounced? Do you not trust me or something?”

“You’re going to question me about trust? Now? After finding you like this?”

I knew being mad at him wasn’t the proper reaction, but he’d caught me completely off guard. I’d had every intention to tell him when he returned that weekend, just not like this. Things looked worse than they were, and I had no way of explaining what he witnessed without sounding like an ass. “Why didn’t you call me to tell me you were coming?”

“I did call,” he replied sternly, tamed anger brimming in his eyes.

Last time I’d seen him this mad was back in Santa Monica after I’d confronted him about his best friend’s comments. I’d accused him of treating me like one of his hook-ups. He didn’t take it too well.

I crossed my arms in the hopes the nervous energy vibrating through me could be contained. “When did you call? And why were you sitting in the shadows, anyway?”

“Sara, stop trying to avoid the real issue.”

My body shook. He was right. I’d been caught lying and I was failing miserably at trying to deflect. I panicked and instead of owning up, I dug a deeper hole. “You should have told me you were coming home sooner.”

He sucked in an exasperated breath. “That’s what’s bothering you? Not the fact you’ve been lying to me from the beginning? I mean, you had me convinced this Alexei guy was an asshole. That he was making your life a living hell, yet here you are, after-hours, dancing alone in this studio like you’ve been dance partners all long. What gives? What other lies have you told me, Sara? Is anything you’ve said to me about your life true?”

I blinked hard. His words were the walls of a spiked cage closing in on my heart. My chest constricted. The accusation was an acid burn. Shame continued to wash over me, covering me in guilt. Not only had I not told him I was a dancer, I’d painted a virulent image of the man I was intimately dancing with. Tom had every right to be upset.

Seemed all I knew was how to screw things up.

I looked down at my crossed arms for a brief second then gazed up at him, trying to find the courage I needed, the strength he’d always been able to give me. All I saw reflected in his eyes was anger bathed in sadness and soaked in disappointment. My heart fractured. His anger I could bear—I deserved every ounce of it—but to see him slowly blink away the moisture in his eyes made my universe crumble. I’d broken our trust, the one thing he’d lost in women and only recently been able to restore. I felt his pain and was no longer able to hold back the tears beginning to trickle down my face. “Tom, I can explain—”

“Explain what?” He dropped his arms and placed his hands on his waist, his face taut with frustration. “There’s nothing that can justify why you’ve been lying to me about dancing or why I found you here. Alone. With Alexei.”

My spine tightened. This wasn’t how I’d wanted to tell him about my past. I needed to salvage the situation, but his harsh attitude and the disapproval in his eyes unraveled me. “Tom, I was going to tell you when you got back.”

He paced. “That’s not the point, Sara. You should have never lied in the first place. Baby, there was never a need for you to lie to me about this. It doesn’t make sense.” He paused, confusion dimming the glow that always sparkled in his eyes. He looked away as if trying to conceal his thoughts. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

He was silent for a long moment before he replied, “Unless you didn’t want me to know about Alexei.” His poignant stare cut through my core.

I shook my head in disbelief. He couldn’t have been farther from the truth, and the insinuation I could stoop so low made the ice in my blood turn arctic. “How can you accuse me of such a thing?”

He sucked in a deep breath as his nostrils flared, pressing his lips into a tight line. “I’m ending this conversation before either one of us says anything else we’ll regret.”

He turned to leave but I called after him. “You don’t get to decide when this conversation is over. You can’t leave.”

“Watch me.”

“Not until you tell me why you came here.”

He stalked back toward me and pinned me with an unflinching stare. “I came to make sure you were okay. You’re alive and breathing. I can go.”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Listen to your messages.”

“Tom, please. You have to let me explain.”

He looked back, his eyes liquid fire. “Where’s the girl I had in my arms a few days ago? Because it sure as hell isn’t the person standing in front of me now. I…I can’t believe I was so wrong about you.” He shook his head in disbelief as he continued to walk toward the back door.

“What are you talking about, Tom?”

He stopped for a second, his back still to me. “Sara, it’s obvious you didn’t want me to know about this.” He opened his arms wide, showing me he meant the studio. “After everything we’ve talked about and shared, I don’t know why you would lie to me about it. And then to find you so intimately close with Alexei…I mean, all the stuff you’ve said about him. I don’t get it. And to tell you the truth, I no longer care.” He kept walking.

“Where are you going?” I ran toward him, fear crawling up my skin. As I caught up to him, he stopped to look at me one last time.

“Sara, I don’t want to do this. I don’t have time for bullshit in my life. I know I told you I’d wait until you were ready, but finding out like this…”

“You weren’t supposed to find out like this. Just give me a chance to explain. Please.”

“Sara, stop,” his voice quavered as he held back the pain he was clearly trying to cover up with anger. “I’m done. It’s over. It’s not even that you lied, it’s all this other shit. The fact you can’t own up to what you did.”

Something inside me cracked. It was like watching your most precious porcelain treasure slip from your hands and fall to the ground, shattering into a million pieces. There’s this moment of awe, disbelief. Then this feeling of helplessness settles in when you know there’s no way of putting it back together, and even if there was a way, the porcelain would be full of nicks and craters. Never perfect. Never whole.

What have I done?

“Tom…”

“Save it. Don’t bother calling.” He walked out.

I could have followed after him, but I had no right. My body was numb. A meteor had collided with my world, obliterating me from existence.

I’d been exposed for what I was.

A hypocrite.

A shameful liar.

I was a foolish girl standing alone in the place where I had sought redemption, but where all that now remained was humiliation and self-reproach.

And too many regrets.