“Olin, I—” He winced, his voice sorrowful velvet. “I’m sorry you went through something so painful.”

The genuine dismay on his face reminded me so much of the boy who’d loved me. The boy who’d protected me, walked me home, supported my dancing, and watched me as if I held his moon and stars.

That boy deserved an answer that wasn’t curt or cold.

That boy broke my heart all over again.

His hand shook as he swiped hair from his eyes. “You don’t have to answer. It’s—”

“It’s fine.” I shrugged with a half-smile. “There’s nothing really to tell. Oldest cliché in the book. Just a silly dancer with big dreams.”

“You were never silly.”

“I had my moments.”

He winced. “That doesn’t explain how your back is scarred to shit.”

“It does if I was dancing at all hours and didn’t have a car to get to and from the theatre.”

“What happened?” He cocked his head. “Do you...can you still dance?”

Ouch.

I wasn’t successful in hiding my flinch, skirting away from the painful memories. Holding my head high and embracing my flaws, I no longer worried my scars were on display. I painted myself in the fake confidence that came from dancing in front of hundreds of people.

The stage, bright lights, and pantomime granted no room for error. That world was a dangerous place for someone with no confidence. This chilly warehouse was no different.

I was on a stage.

Gil was my spotlight.

I merely had to dance this dance until the curtain fell.

“I was overtired, overworked, underpaid, but in love with dance. You know how I was.”

He made a sound under his breath. “Addicted. You were addicted to any form of movement.”

My heart did a cabriole, ridiculously happy that he remembered.

He rolled his eyes, his voice doing its best to be dark and disinterested but his green eyes gleamed with history. “You never just walked, you—”

“Floated like a leaf in the breeze.” I smiled, a true smile tugging after guarding myself from him. “You told me that the day I cooked you—”

“Pancakes in your parents’ kitchen.”

His gaze snagged mine.

I sucked in a breath.

He swallowed a curse.

Something that shouldn’t have happened cut through our protection, cracking open the hard shells of two adults pretending to loathe one another.

“Go on.” He crossed his arms, moving away from me as if to give himself space from the overwhelming need to touch. To remember. To say a proper hello after so, so long apart. “Tell me the rest.”

I shrugged again, fighting the urge to hug my breasts, my confidence gone again. “I biked to the theatre and home all the time. That night, though, tiredness made me sluggish. A drunk driver took a corner too fast, and I didn’t get out of the way in time. She hit me. I ended up on the windshield of her Mazda Demio as she drove us through the window of a French restaurant.” I sighed as memories of hospitals and operations and being told my aspirations of dancing for a living were over.

I was lucky if I’d ever walk normally again, let alone twist or fly.

I’d proven the doctors wrong after two years of physiotherapy and determination. I could walk and do yoga and exercise better than the average person.

But dancing....

No matter how hard I tried, my back just couldn’t cope.

I’d cut myself off from my dance troupe because I didn’t belong in their world anymore.

I’d lied to myself that I could find something better, only to find destitution instead.

I’d left London where my contract had kept me paid and fed.

I’d ended up back in Birmingham with my tail between my legs.

Gil raked a hand through his hair. “When?”

“Two and a bit years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

I blinked, totally dumbfounded to hear such considerate words. “Thanks.”

He paced away, walking around the stage to stare at my back again.

I let him, staying still all while his gaze skated up and down my spine. Was he reliving the nicknames he’d kissed into my hair? Was he suffering the history between us?

His voice did its best to scatter the unwanted tenderness and return to stiff formality. “Normally, I’d send you packing. I don’t deal with piercings, scars, or tattoos, and you have all three.”

I looked over my shoulder. “I’d say I was sorry, but I’m not. They’re a part of me.”

He scowled. “Luckily, this commission is frontal only. I don’t need you to contort or reveal parts of you less...desirable.”

I winced at that.

Not desirable?

No woman liked to be told that—regardless of context. Especially from Gil when once he’d been as hungry for me as I’d been for him.

Our eyes caught again.

So many things flew. So many feelings and hurts and questions.

My mouth went dry. My knees quaked.

Gil’s eyes tightened. His hands fisted.

We both didn’t have a chance against the lashing, demanding connection.

He rubbed his mouth with a rough hand, cleared his throat as if eradicating a decade of pain, then returned to his paint table with jerky steps. “We do this one commission, but you’ll have to find another job afterward. Long term won’t work out.”

As much as I didn’t want to hear such things, I couldn’t blame him.

I’d fit so much of his ad attributes...apart from some pretty major ones.

I’d also interrupted his present, reminding him all over again of unfinished business with a girl who never got over him.

I tried to be pragmatic.

A few days of employment were better than none.

Seeing him for an afternoon was better than forever wondering where he was.

Smiling gently, I ordered my body to relax. I was about to spend untold hours in Gil’s very close presence; it was time to get used to it. “That’s fine, Gil. I’m just grateful for the work you can give me.”

My soft tone wrenched his eyes up. Our gazes tangled all over again, hot and lashing, completely different to the ice surrounding him.

My heart stopped beating, hanging onto the fine thread of love-string he’d severed seven years ago. His eyes darkened with torment, his head shaking infinitesimally as if begging me not to be here. Desperate to keep distance between us. Pleading for space...from me.

It hurt.

Hurt that echoed with new and old, and in that tiny moment, we weren’t adults with barriers and warnings, we were kids again. Kids who finally found salvation in the other and were courageous enough to pay for that privilege with their hearts.

I couldn’t stop it.

He couldn’t stop it.

Whatever drew us together was still as vicious as before.

Gil’s neck worked as he swallowed. He struggled to tear his gaze away. His shoulders bunched, and I knew I wasn’t the only one struggling.

And that knowledge awoke a tiny sliver of hope.

Hope that frantically plaited filaments of broken string, drawing the two ends of our severed love closer together.

Gil groaned beneath his breath, turning away from me.

I gasped as a thousand dormant butterflies stretched their paper wings and flew.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Five

______________________________

Gil

-The Past-

“MISS MOSS, WHERE do you think you’re going?”

I glanced up from rubbing out an incorrect answer on my math work. Olin flinched, tucking dark blonde hair behind her ear, the rest of the shoulder-length strands messy from running in the field at lunch.

I’d watched her stand-up to Josie Prichard—a bully of epic proportions today.

Josie had cornered a younger student, commanded her to do her chemistry homework, then robbed the poor girl of her lunch money. I’d stayed in the shadows while Olin had dashed across the grass, placed herself bravely in the middle of the bully and victim, and demanded the money back.