Dance for Me (Fenbrook Academy #1) - New Adult Romance (21 page)

What the hell had she been talking about?
Peacenik?!

I needed answers. I took the elevator down to the workshop.

Chapter Twenty Seven

Darrell

I was sitting on the floor, my back against a workbench. The fight with Carol had exhausted me.

When I’d told her I was starting to have doubts about my work, she’d actually thought I was joking—the champagne she’d knocked back hadn’t helped. It wasn’t until she took a good look at my expression that she’d sobered up.

“You have
doubts?!”
she’d said, disbelievingly. “When have you ever had doubts?
You
came to
me,
remember? You were the one who wanted into this game!”

“It isn’t a game,” I’d told her tightly. “And it isn’t the same anymore.”

I’d meant since the weapons had grown bigger, since we’d started measuring success in thousands of deaths, in city blocks destroyed. But I’d seen her eyes flick up towards the mansion. Towards Natasha. She presumed Natasha knew, of course. I didn’t correct her. I figured that if she thought she already knew, there was less chance she’d tell her out of spite.

She’d asked me if I’d wanted more money, or an in-house workshop at the company, or an assistant. I’d shook my head and told her I wasn’t sure why I was doing it anymore.

At which point she walked to the back of the lab and tore down my Curious Weasels poster. She’d known what was behind it, of course. I’d only put the poster up to cover it minutes before Natasha arrived to dance for the first time. I’d been planning to take it back down each time she left, but weirdly, I’d found myself leaving it in place.

Behind the poster was a photo. A black and white crime scene photo of the SUV, twisted and blackened, firefighting foam still dripping from it. I’d asked, then pleaded, then demanded a copy and the lead investigator had eventually relented. It had been the image that had kept me going through the all-nighters, kept me pushing at the problems when they resisted every attempt at a solution. I had only to look at the photo and I’d know that I had to keep going.

Carol had plucked it from the wall and held it in front of my face, following me with it when I tried to turn away. “Have you forgotten?” she asked me. “Do you not remember
who this is?”

And the memories had risen up inside me like a dark wave and I’d slumped to the floor. She’d crouched down in front of me and talked to me as if I was a child. Telling me how it was natural for me to be exhausted, towards the end of a long project. How I should maybe take a break—a full week or even two—before the next one.

“You’re a hero,” she’d told me. “A bloody American hero, even if you don’t get any of the limelight. It was people like you who won the Second World War, the scientists and inventors toiling away behind the scenes.”

We’re not at war,
I’d tried to say. But my mind was full of hot desert air and the blare of the taxi as it sped past me. I’d nodded, reluctantly, and she’d stood up and left, dropping the photo at my feet. She wasn’t happy, but she knew I was back on board—for now, at least.

I sighed and knocked my head gently against the workbench. Maybe I could stop, after this project. Finish the missile and then tell Carol it was over. Natasha never had to know. I’d managed to keep it from her so far. Another few weeks....

I heard the elevator doors open and watched Natasha walk straight past me. The room was in half-darkness—I’d only bothered to switch on a few of the lights when I came down with Carol—and the workbench blocked me from sight. She walked right up to the missile, staring at the sheet that covered it. Jesus, had Carol told her? But she didn’t look angry...just confused. I watched as she tentatively reached a hand towards the sheet, and there was a part of me that wanted her to find out. I was so sick of lies, and I wanted so badly to talk to her about what was going on. Maybe, if I stopped work on the missile right now, just shipped it off to Carol half-finished and washed my hands of it, Natasha could forgive me....

Except I couldn’t do that. I’d poured my soul into the project. I couldn’t stop it now any more than I could stop caring for a child. I wasn’t even sure I was going to be able to walk away from my work when the project was done, and I knew that was Carol’s plan: let me finish one and then hook me with the next.

Natasha’s hand touched the sheet and I stood up. “Hi.”

“Jesus!”
she spun, dropping her handbag in the process, and things went skittering across the floor.

“Sorry.” I stretched and walked over to her, pulling her into a hug.

She wound her arms around me. “Is everything okay?”

I gazed over her shoulder at the sheet-covered missile. “Carol and I had a disagreement. Work stuff.”

“Yeah, I figured. I ran into her upstairs.”

I moved her gently back, so I could look at her. “Oh?”

She shook her head. “She was drunk. Seemed to think I was a bad influence on you.”

I relaxed a little and kissed the top of her head. “I like your influence.” I really meant it. Being torn between her and my work was bad...but being oblivious to what I was doing, having my work and nothing else? I couldn’t even imagine going back to that now. Somehow, I had to figure out a way to have both, to keep Natasha
and
do right by my parents.

“You missed the end of the party,” she told me. “Everyone’s gone. Do you want to come upstairs? Maybe sit in the garden? There’s plenty of champagne left and it hasn’t started raining—yet.”

Actually, sitting out in the garden with her, watching the sun go down with a bottle of champagne sounded like exactly what I needed. I hugged her close again. “You go ahead. I’ll be up in exactly one minute. I just have one thing I need to do.”

I swept the stuff that had spilled out of her handbag back into it and gave it back to her, then watched her go up in the elevator. Only then did I walk over to the workbench where I’d been sitting and retrieve the photo of the SUV. I wasn’t sure I wanted it up on the wall again, even underneath the poster, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, either. Eventually, I settled for putting it away at the bottom of a drawer. When I closed it, I felt somehow...lighter. I wondered if I’d reached a turning point.

I was heading for the elevator when I saw something glinting under a table.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Natasha

Upstairs, the caterers had left and the house and gardens were quiet. The sky was fully gray now, and a breeze was getting up. There was still enough warmth left in the air that it was pleasant, though, and as long as the rain held off for a few minutes, we could still enjoy the sunset. I picked up a half-full bottle of champagne and two glasses and wandered out into the garden. I pushed the door shut behind me, realizing too late that it only opened from the inside. I’d have to go around to the front and ring the bell to get back in. I’d have to hope Darrell joined me soon, or I’d be caught outside in the rain.

Picking a spot where Darrell would see me when he came out but where some trees would shelter us from the breeze, I sat down on the grass and tucked my legs under me. With Carol gone and just the two of us alone, this could be a magical evening. We’d watch the sunset together, then maybe go out somewhere for dinner...and finally, that big, four-poster bed. I smiled.

I wondered what exactly they’d fought about. Had Carol tried to rekindle some past relationship, or was that just my paranoia at work? If she had, Darrell had obviously turned her down. Had she wanted him to work even harder, and he’d told her he was putting me first? That would certainly explain her outburst, though I was still bemused by the talk of peaceniks and hippies.

What made me happiest was what Darrell had said when I’d arrived at the house. The past was off limits, and maybe,
maybe,
if we could keep it locked away there, we had a shot at a normal relationship. I hadn’t even cut in days....

I froze. Whenever I thought about the past, about cutting, I always touched the cigarette case. It was an unconscious thing, like a child stroking their security blanket. Except my fingers suddenly couldn’t find it.

I pulled open my bag and rooted through it. Then, with growing panic, I tipped it upside down and emptied out the contents, rifling through them on the ground. Nothing.

It must have spilled out of my bag, down in the workshop.

Darrell was in the workshop.

I ran for the house.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Darrell

I picked up the thing and examined it—it definitely wasn’t something of mine. Then I remembered Natasha dropping her handbag, and her things spilling out.

It was like a woman’s powder compact, only bigger and rectangular, and I vaguely remembered seeing something like it in an old movie. A cigarette case.

I turned it over and over in my hands. I knew she didn’t smoke. I was certain I would have smelt it on her. What, then?

Obviously, I shouldn’t open it. It was something personal. I moved towards the elevator again. I’d give it back to her unopened.

At that moment, the doorbell rang. On the security monitor, I could see Natasha knocking at the front door. Worried. Scared, even.

I looked down at the case. What if it was something about her past? A photo, maybe, like the one I kept of the SUV. The person who’d abused her?

The doorbell rang again. Then again. She was frantic.

What if I looked and didn’t tell her? What if I could get a hint of what had happened to her? I could tell her I hadn’t looked, but I’d be better prepared to help her. At least I’d know what
not
to say. I was desperate to help her—I had to take any opportunity I could.

I fingered the case. I knew that whoever had abused her, it wouldn’t stop me loving her. I’d never tell her I knew.

I pressed the button, and the top sprang open.

Chapter Thirty

Natasha

I knocked, then banged, then hammered on the door, the noise almost lost in a rumble of thunder from above. My panic had turned into a cold, gnawing dread in my gut. Why would he take so long to answer? Unless....

He opened the door and I knew immediately that he’d looked inside the case. He didn’t have it in his hands, but I recognized his expression. I’d seen the same thing when Clarissa found out.

I never thought I’d have to see that expression on him.

I took a step backwards. “You opened it,” I whispered.

He was staring at me with something between raw anger and pity. “How could you do it?” he asked in a halting voice. “Why would you hurt yourself?” And just like Clarissa, he wasn’t asking for an actual reason. What he meant was,
Nothing could possibly be so bad that a sane person would do that.
Except it
was
that bad. He’d never understand.

“Why did you open it?” I took another half step back.

He took one step forwards, on the doorstep now, shaking his head. “Why would you—” He stretched his hands out towards me. “Natasha, you’re so beautiful. Why would you hurt yourself?”

I’m not beautiful. Not on the inside. You don’t know what I’ve done.
I had to keep backing away, stay out of reach of him, so I could run. I could feel the whole world sliding away from me, ready to send me tumbling six years back through time.

We stood there staring at each other. It was worse—much worse—than it had been when Clarissa found out. She’d been a friend; Darrell was a part of me. I felt as if I was bleeding—he’d ripped something away and exposed my blackened, ugly core, the part I never wanted him to see. I wanted to scream and rage at him for destroying what we’d had together, for blowing my one chance at happiness, but I knew he wouldn’t understand.

So I turned and walked away, scrunching down the gravel driveway towards the road, a breadcrumb trail of tears behind me.

“Natasha, please!”

I heard his footsteps behind me and walked faster, barely able to see, now.

“Wait! We have to—”

I broke into run, but then his hand was on my elbow, spinning me around, his face right up close to mine.

“Natasha, you have to let me help you! I can’t let you keep on doing this!”

And finally, I cracked.

“
Why?”
I screamed at him. “Why? Why can’t you let me? I’ve been doing this for years and managing
just fine!
Why do you—Jesus, why do you think you have to
fix
me?!”