While she read, I rose and moved across the room to a mini-fridge. After grabbing two bottles of water, I returned to my desk, set my bottle down on a coaster, opened the second, and held it out. Without looking up, she reached for it and moved it to her lips. I grinned as she downed half the contents before lowering the bottle and looking at it as if perplexed at how it had gotten into her hand. I didn’t tease her, simply sat down and drank mine far slower, content to watch the beauty’s lips move as she silently read to herself. My cock instantly twitched as I imagined those lips wrapped around it, the tip of her tongue that occasionally licked the surface of her bottom lip laving up and down my rigid shaft instead. She flipped the first page over to begin reading the second. I wasn’t surprised when after reading the last paragraph on the final page, she turned the sheets back, finished her bottle of water and then read through the entire document again. Like I’d thought, she was a smart woman.
After she was done, she looked up.
“Any questions?” I asked.
“Not really,” she said nonchalantly but the brief hesitation told me she did have a few.
“Honesty goes both ways,” I said, nodding toward the papers. “You might not be a virgin in all things legal, but I’d bet my life you’ve not signed a contract that includes some of the demands we feel are necessary to protect our company.” I wasn’t lying. Yuri might have agreed to offer her a chance, but he wasn’t fool enough or trusting enough to give her a deal without covering his ass.
“What sort of penalties are you talking about?” she finally asked, and I nodded.
The question told me she had read the paragraphs in those pages that had to let her know we weren’t ignorant of her past regardless of how much we wanted her to join us. If she signed, she opened herself up to random drug tests and would pay penalties for various infractions of rules we would often test.
“The exact nature remains to be determined,” I said as thoughts of penalties no legal system would condone flooded into my head.
“Are you talking about loss of pay or what?”
Nodding, I grabbed onto that suggestion like a puppy pouncing onto a chew toy. “Sure, that’s one example. Extended practice hours, community appearances to promote the company even though I know you’ve kept yourself out of the limelight ever since you walked away. By the way, I will want to hear the true story about what happened—”
“Google it,” she said abruptly, fingers gripping the contract so hard the pages rustled. Looking down, she seemed to realize she’d been a bit rude and smoothed out the sheets. “I’m sorry. I’ve learned it doesn’t matter what the truth is… people believe what they want to believe.”
“I’m not just people,” I said. “I’m the man who is offering you a chance to give those people the middle finger and show the world they’ve been wrong about you.”
Her head rose slowly, her gaze even slower to meet mine. “Okay.”
“You’re good with everything, then?” I asked, and, when she nodded, I held out the pen.
I didn’t mention the fact her hand was trembling as she took it and signed the contract. I also didn’t let her know I couldn’t believe she was actually doing so. Those papers would change her life. She’d be back in the spotlight, but at a price I could only hope she was capable of paying. It would be a lot of hard work, but if there was anyone strong enough to do what was required to regain the life she’d been robbed of, I truly believed Clara was that person.
Once she signed the contract, she laid it and the pen down on the desk and pushed both toward me almost as if to reassure she couldn’t easily reach out and grab it to rip it in two before the ink had fully dried. I removed the temptation by opening my middle drawer and casually sliding the document into it.
“Welcome to the Volkov Ballet,” I said, closing the drawer and then moving around my desk to offer her my hand.
Gold flecks glittered in a sea of green, the change of emotions from the uncertainty of her future to surprise at finding herself accepting the challenge of beginning all over again moved like waves within the depths of her expression. Only when the jade hue grew darker did I realize any pretense of shaking her hand had ended and, instead, I was holding it, the pad of my thumb brushing along the delicate bones of her fingers. When she dropped her eyes to our joined hands and then gave a little tug, I reluctantly released her hand.