“I know,” I said. What I didn’t tell her was that sometimes, I thought youth was wasted on me.
“What are you going to do now that you’ve finished with your contracted work?”
I smiled a little when she said “contracted work” like it was a dirty phrase someone as classy as her should never have to utter.
“I don’t really know,” I answered, and I worked hard not to sound like a lost little girl I was feeling.
“You can always come back to London and work for me again.”
I tried to ignore the hope I heard in her voice. I knew she thought teaching at Bowing’s was the next best thing if I wasn’t pursuing a professional career.
I shook my head. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that,” she said. “But I can’t hold this position for you for so long. At some point, I’ll have to hire someone else.”
“I know,” I said softly. And I did know. The only reason I wasn’t telling her to go ahead and hire someone else was because, selfishly, I didn’t know if I would go back to London.
Devastating gray eyes entered unbidden in my mind as I thought about the other reason I didn’t want to move away from New York.
We talked more about the drama that was going on at Bowing’s. Someone was marrying a director at the Royal Ballet thirty years her senior, someone was pregnant and tried to hide it for as long as possible—obviously, it didn’t work since the entire school found out—and someone was donating eggs before getting a hysterectomy.
“Why would she want to donate eggs when it’s obvious she doesn’t want children?” I asked about Riley, one of the younger dancers at the school. We didn’t talk because I had graduated before she was even accepted at the school, but I knew of her. I knew she was a spitfire of a girl who could really get somewhere with a little bit more training.
“I think that’s the reason why she’s donating. It’s a way to continue her bloodline, I guess, since she’s an only child and her parents don’t have any siblings.”
I smiled a little at that. “Continue the bloodline. Is that even a thing nowadays?”
“You’d be surprised,” Nadir said dismissively. “Though I’m sure this has more to do with the six-figure compensation than anything else.”
“That’s a lot of money for something so small,” I said. I was currently broke, and the only reason I had a place to live in New York was because my brother-in-law was Jace Reed, the CEO of one of the biggest equity firms in the country.
“I wouldn’t exactly call aiding in bringing a child into the world for someone else to be a small thing,” Nadir said, and something about her voice gave me pause.
I didn’t know why this topic was affecting her, but I knew she wouldn’t tell me even if I asked.
“I should go,” she said when I took too long to think of something to say to her that wouldn’t offend.
“Yeah,” I said. “Busy day tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
Which wasn’t all that surprising. Nadir was a busy woman. I couldn’t remember her ever taking some time, in the six years I’d known her, to just relax.
It was close to midnight where she was at now, and I knew she would be going to bed soon so she could be up before dawn the next morning.
Even if I was no longer doing ballet, I still hold on to the same routine I had when I was training. I let her go. Something about this conversation with her settled heavily in my chest.
I leaned my weight against my hand placed on the stage behind me as I looked out at the seats. Now that I had nothing else to occupy my mind, my thoughts strayed to the one man I could never forget.
Jensen Pierce had been on my mind for the past six years. I didn’t know who he was when I stole that kiss from him on the rooftop of the bar I used to work at. It was completely out of character for me. I wasn’t usually so brave.
But I had been feeling particularly sad that night about being so far from my family, and then he had asked me to meet him after work. I didn’t know what to think. With his dark hair and broad shoulders, I couldn’t decide if he looked more like a model or a quarterback. He wasn’t as tall as Jace, but then again, I had never met another person taller than my brother-in-law.
But Jensen had him beat in bulk.
Those powerful arms of his had sent a shiver of pleasure through me when he had wrapped his arms around me as I kissed him. That hadn’t changed in six years.
I never thought I would see him again, and when I didn’t see him back at the bar, I had thought I scared him away. I didn’t know he had gone back to New York after.