Living in Sin (Living In…) (17 page)

He looked up at last and there was understanding in her eyes. And sympathy. “She’s too good for me, Ell. What if it’s not enough?”

She smiled. “It’s always enough, Kahu.”

Surely she was wrong. It hadn’t been enough for Anita. Or at least, his love hadn’t been enough.

This isn’t the same.

No, it wasn’t. Because this time, he knew Lily loved him. She’d said it. Out loud. To his face. Her green-gray eyes full of pain and truth as sharp as knives

And this time it was him who was pulling away. Him who kept himself separate and holding back. This time he was Anita.

You coward.

“She’s too young,” he said again. “She’s Rob’s fucking daughter.”

“So? Who cares about that? Luc’s way too young for me but he doesn’t give a shit. And neither do I.” Eleanor gave him a look he didn’t much like. “You want to know what I think?”

“Not particularly.”

“Those are excuses, Kahu. Weren’t you the one who told me people who are scared use excuses to hide behind?”

“No. It must have been some other stupid, fucking idiot.”

“There’s only one stupid, fucking idiot who told me that and I’m looking at him right now.”

But it wasn’t until he’d gotten back to his apartment that night, and was struck yet again, as he had been for the past two weeks, by the emptiness of it, by the sheer lack of a small, slender yet impossibly strong ballet dancer, that he understood Eleanor was right.

He was a stupid fucking idiot.

He didn’t know how and he didn’t know why, but he’d fallen in love with Lily and she wasn’t here. She wasn’t goddamned here and he couldn’t stand it. All he could see was her pale, delicate face, determined as always. Giving him the last piece of herself.

I see the man I’ve fallen in love with.

Laying herself open to him. Laying herself bare. Giving him her soul.

Why couldn’t he accept it? Why couldn’t he give her his in return? Why did the thought fill him with absolute terror?

It was Anita, of course. He’d done what Lily had and had it thrown back in his face.

But did you really do what Lily did?

In the process of getting himself a glass of scotch, he stopped, staring at the empty glass in his hand.

Had he? Had he ever laid himself open to Anita like that? Had he given her everything of himself the way Lily had done?

Then again, he knew the answer to that question, didn’t he? He knew the answer deep down. No, he hadn’t. He’d let her do the culture, the food, the education, all the things she’d wanted. But he’d never once told her no. Never told her that he didn’t like it. Never told her what he
did
want.

Because first he’d been too scared. And then he’d been too angry.

Scared from years on the streets where he’d divorced his mind from his body, protecting himself the only way he could by never revealing anything, keeping everything he was close and safe, his emotions completely detached.

Angry because he’d needed her to get rid of her armor first. And she hadn’t.

And then she’d let him go.

Like Lily had let him go.

The glass fell from his hand and smashed on the floor.

He could have gone after Anita. He could have refused to leave when she’d told him too. If only he’d risked himself for her. If only he’d been braver.

Now he had the same choice. To let Lily go because he wasn’t brave enough to hold on to what he wanted. Or learn from her strength and her determination. To not surrender.

To fight.

You’re my music, Kahu.

His heart swelled up inside his chest, full and painful with need, with desire. Oh, holy fucking God, he wanted to be her music. Wanted to be the man she thought she saw. His would be a dirty kind of music maybe, out of tune and off-key. Hard to listen to, harder to dance to. But he would be there, surrounding her, supporting her, a soundtrack she could maybe live her life to.

All he had to do was give her everything he was. Not just his body, not just his passion. He had to give her his heart too. Because if he didn’t…

You’ll always be broken.

Kahu turned from the broken glass at his feet, ignoring it completely, and pulled his phone from his pocket, punched in a number.

“Hey Rob,” Kahu said. “Sorry to call you so late, but I need to talk to you about Lily.”

She wasn’t nervous, though perhaps she should have been. There were a number of people sitting at the table in the large, airy room, looking at her with polite but distant smiles on their faces.

They’d specified a black leotard so that’s what she wore. To make herself stand out, she’d put on a black headband with a dark green
koru
pattern on it—a uniquely Maori fern design. For her New Zealand roots of course, nothing to do with Kahu.

Not that she’d thought about him once during the last two weeks of frantic lessons and practice before she flew to Sydney for the private audition that had been offered to her the week before. Of course she hadn’t. She’d been far, far too fucking busy.

The director indicated for her to start so she prepared herself as the music flooded the room.

Why wasn’t she nervous? She always had been before, especially with something as important as this. Because if she failed again and didn’t get in….

You’d what?

Lily rose up on her toes and lifted her arms, and began to dance.

And abruptly she was back in Kahu’s study, dancing for him. Dancing naked, with his gaze on her, so hungry and intent. Freeing something within herself, the passion that had always been there that cancer had taken from her.

She spun, ran and leapt, the music around her, over her, propelling her into the air then catching her as she came down again. Like Kahu had. With his hands on her body and his dark, husky voice.

She lifted her leg, turned toward the directors with her arms out. But she didn’t see them. She only saw a dark-eyed man who’d watched her dance. Who’d made her fall in love with him.

Oh, she knew why she wasn’t nervous. Because this didn’t matter. The audition, the career, the lost years she’d spent being sick, none of it mattered. And even if she failed here, if she never danced again, she wouldn’t have lost anything.

It was the passion that mattered. The passion for dance, for life, for love. The passion for living and it had been here all along. It was inside her, burning bright and strong.

She held the passion within herself and nothing, not failure, not losing, not even fucking cancer could ever take that away.

Lily threw her arms out and lost herself to that passion, to the music flowing through her, and to the memory of Kahu’s hands on her body, lifting her up into the sky, launching her so she could fly.

And when the music died and she opened her eyes and came back to herself, she found she was facing the directors, her heart pumping, adrenaline effervescent in her blood. They stared back and she thought she saw shock on their faces.

She smiled because this didn’t matter. They didn’t matter.

There was only one thing that did.

That night, in her shitty Sydney hotel room, she took out her phone and scrolled through her contact list to find Kahu’s number. She debated texting him then decided not to. A personal visit was better. She would dance for him again, convince him somehow that what they had was worth fighting for. Because he was worth fighting for. The dark passion that lived in him wasn’t dirty or broken. It was as pure as hers. He just needed to see it.

It was as she was getting out of the shower that a knock came on her door. Puzzled, she squinted through peephole and saw one of the hotel employees outside. Weird. She wasn’t expecting anyone.

As she pulled open the door, the guy smiled at her and handed her a box.

“For you, miss. I was asked to bring it to you.”

This was not getting any less weird. She thanked him, took the box and closed the door. Then walked into the middle of the room and lifted the lid.

And her heart nearly stopped beating.

In the middle on a pillow of black velvet was a piece of greenstone. A familiar piece of greenstone.

Kahu’s.

She swallowed, lifting it from the box and a piece of paper fell out as she did so.

Her hand shaking, Lily bent and picked up the paper. There was writing on it.

I’m in the bar and I have something to say. If you want to talk to me, come down and wear the necklace. If all you want is to say goodbye, come down but don’t wear the necklace. If you never want to see me again, don’t come down and throw the necklace away.

Your choice, ballerina. I’ll live with whatever you decide.

He was here. He was here in Sydney. Oh fuck. Oh Jesus.

Lily’s hands gripped the flax cord and they were still shaking as they drew the necklace over her head.

Kahu had never been so nervous in all his life. He sat at the bar in the extremely shitty Sydney hotel where Lily was staying, and he simply could not keep still. His fingers drummed on the wood and he hadn’t even taken one sip of the scotch he’d ordered.

He didn’t know what he would do if she didn’t come. Well, he’d go back to Auckland heart-fucking-broken obviously, but after that? He had no idea.

It felt like his whole life had narrowed to this one point. This one woman. This choice he’d made.

The absence of the familiar weight of his necklace was like the absence of a limb. Remembered and still sensed but gone. A phantom.

If she didn’t come down, he’d live with that absence forever. Except it wouldn’t be the necklace he would be without, but the woman. A woman who’d stormed into his life, turned it upside down, turned him inside out, and whom he’d sent away because she scared the shit out of him.

A woman he wanted desperately.

He’d never be good enough for her, not in a hundred million fucking years. But he hoped what Eleanor had said would be true. That his love would be enough.

A movement by the bar door. Kahu looked, his heart contracting painfully in his chest. But it wasn’t her. It was someone else.

He looked down into his scotch feeling like someone had stabbed him.

A hand came to rest lightly on his shoulder.

He turned sharply and looked into the eyes of the woman standing next to him. A color caught between green and gray, smoky and dark and yet somehow luminous. Her face was pale and anxious, her hair hanging in damp strawberry blonde curls around her shoulders. She wore jeans and a black top, and hanging between her small breasts was a familiar piece of greenstone.

Kahu stared at her and every single word he’d been going to say vanished from his head.

She was here and she was wearing his necklace.

“Lily,” he forced out.

For a moment she stared at him so fiercely it was like she was committing every part of him to memory. Then she held out her hand.

Wordlessly, he took it and wordlessly, he followed her where she led him, up in the elevators, the space between them violent with everything he was desperate to say, desperate to do, then finally along the hallway to her door.

She opened it and he went in, and when she closed it he couldn’t wait any more.

One step took him to her side, another and she was pressed against the closed door, his body fitting itself against her small, slender body. His hands cupping her face, the warmth of her skin like sun on the frozen ground of his body, waking him up, calling him back to life.

She didn’t move and she didn’t protest, and he knew he’d overstepped the line but he just couldn’t bring himself to move away. Not yet.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a voice he didn’t recognize as his. “I’m sorry I said those things to you, ballerina. I didn’t mean them, not any of them. This does matter and this is important and you’re the only woman in the world I want.”

He should let her go. But he didn’t. He covered her mouth, kissed her until the taste of her filled his head and eased the terrible ache that had taken up residence inside him. Then he lifted his head.

Lily’s face was flushed, her pouty mouth full and red. And she smiled. She fucking smiled. “Hello, Kahu, nice to see you too.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“For kissing me? God, I hope not.” Her hands came to rest on his chest, a gentle pressure. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to apologize for what I said to you when you left. And I wanted to tell you that you were right, I’ve been blind. I’ve been blind for fucking years. I’ve been closing myself off, isolating myself. Protecting myself. Because I’ve been too fucking scared to let anyone in.” He stared down into her eyes, saw her bright soul staring back. “Those years on the streets broke me and I thought… Christ, Lily, I thought the only way to stop myself from being broken anymore, the only way to keep myself safe, was to not let anyone touch me. Not let anyone take any more pieces of my soul. But then you came and you got under my skin, got under my defenses.” He stroked the soft skin of her jaw. “You touched me, ballerina. With your strength and your passion, and your sheer bloody-mindedness. I have no protection against you, none at all.” He took a breath and then made himself stand away to give her space.

It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life.

“You told me I was pure. That I was your music. Well, I’m a hideous kind of music, sweetheart. But I want to play for you. I want to be there to lead you through the dance. To watch you move and grow and change. See you be the superstar you are.” His voice had grown hoarse but he went on anyway. “I love you, ballerina. You have my heart and you have my soul. You have all the dirty pieces of me there are. Take them, Lily. I don’t want them anymore. They’re yours.”

A tear slipped down her cheek, a tiny jewel. “No,” she said fiercely. “You’re not dirty. None of those pieces of you are. You had to do some really crappy things, but you did them to protect your family and you did them to survive. You fought, Kahu. And you came through. That doesn’t mean you’re broken. That means you’re strong.” She came forward and put a hand on his chest, her touch a stroke deep inside him. “Do you know what happened today? I had my audition. And as I was dancing, I realized something. That it didn’t matter. Whether I got a place in the company or whether I failed. Whether I dance again or whether I don’t. It doesn’t matter. What matters is passion, is heart. And it’s here, it’s inside me.” Another tear joined the first. “You showed me that, Kahu. You taught me what it was. That’s where my strength comes from and that’s where yours lives too.”