Slow Burn, page 1
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To the girl I used to be.
Who dreamed with open eyes, danced through every storm, and held onto hope even when the music stopped.
And to every woman learning to rewrite her story, one step, one page, one brave word at a time.
This is for you.
With all my love,
Oti
PROLOGUE
My fingers threaded through his as he led me along the long, carpeted corridor of the grand Hotel Paris. Heat sizzled between us as I squeezed him tighter, unable to wait for us to be alone.
‘This is my room,’ he said, stopping to pat down his pockets, presumably looking for his key card.
I ran my hand impatiently under his shirt, tugging hurriedly at the hem in an attempt to convey how desperate I was to rip the whole thing off and feel his golden-brown skin beneath my fingertips; to run my palms over his abs, which were so well defined that I’d been able to feel them through our clothes as we’d danced together down in the bar, performing the sexiest Argentine tango of my entire life.
‘Got it,’ he said, whipping the key card out of his pocket and tapping it on the pad.
The door opened and we stumbled inside, laughing softly in anticipation of what was to come. He kicked the door shut behind him and I turned to face him, breathless with longing.
‘Come here,’ he said, holding out his hand.
I took it, letting him pull me into his arms, shivering involuntarily as he ran one hand down my spine, making my back arch with pleasure. Groaning, I didn’t care how primal I sounded – I wanted him, and I wanted him now.
‘I do not even know your name,’ he growled, his voice low and gravelly, sounding older than the twenty-one or so years I guessed he was.
I hesitated. Tonight was the first night of the rest of my life. Or, to look at it a different way, the last night of my old life. I knew I would never see him again once morning came and that we didn’t have long together, but regardless I felt I was about to experience something – a significant moment in time – that I would always remember.
‘It’s Li,’ I said. It wasn’t totally a lie.
‘Li,’ he repeated. The nickname only my sisters used sounded prettier in his husky, Italian lilt. ‘Well if you must be Li, then I will be G. Or you can just call me—’
I kissed him to cut him off, partly because I was desperate to but also to stop him from saying more. The less we knew about each other, the better.
CHAPTER ONE Lira
Thirteen Years Later
I waved goodbye to one of my favourite couples, Chris and Jenny, closing the front door of the studio behind them with a satisfying click. For the last forty-five minutes, I’d been teaching them a very simple Viennese waltz, involving minimal spinning and a whole lot of standing still while looking longingly into each other’s eyes. Neither of them were natural dancers, but it was my job to make sure that, when they took to the dance floor on their wedding day, they had their guests gasping in delight. With a few more lessons, I knew they were going to absolutely nail it.
My heels clattered on the sprung wooden floor as I walked across the studio, giving the bright, modern space a quick once-over. We’d been booked out for an audition that afternoon, so I left the speakers switched on, but turned off the rotating glitter ball – I didn’t think the world-renowned Spanish choreographer Carlos Torres, who was apparently casting for a new West End show, would appreciate the multi-coloured beams of light swirling around the room. Much to my family’s amusement, I liked to have it spinning above our heads throughout all of my lessons – I thought it brought a touch of the Blackpool Tower Ballroom magic to our humble little dance studio in Castlebury, and put my clients in just the right mood to shed their inhibitions and get caught up in their dancing. It might all be in my head, but nobody had complained so far.
Determined to make the space look as perfect as possible for the casting, I had a quick tidy around. Carlos’s assistant had sounded stressed when she’d called to make the last-minute booking, enquiring as to where exactly Castlebury was. When I’d told her it was only seventeen minutes from Victoria on the fast train, she’d complained that nobody was going to show up for a casting ‘miles from London’. I’d reminded her that you could spend four times as long getting from one side of the capital to the other on the tube, but she’d refused to accept that the studio was anywhere other than the back end of nowhere.
If we hadn’t needed the money, and the prestige of being a venue for world-class choreographers to utilize, I would have told her to stick her booking.
Besides, what did she expect, leaving it until the day before the audition to book a space? Didn’t she know that Thursday afternoons were peak time for kids’ lessons? As it happened, I’d had to cancel today’s toddlers tango, which wasn’t ideal, but with the costs of keeping the studio running at an all-time high, I hadn’t been able to turn the lucrative opportunity down. Hiring out the space to Carlos and his team was making us three times as much as we’d earn from those classes.
Not for the first time, I wished I had someone to talk things through with when it came to the operational side of the business. I’d long ago given up wishing Mum and Dad would step in and actually make a decision for once – I didn’t think it was unreasonable given it was actually their business. Most of the time it was great that they left me to run the studio however I saw fit, but sometimes I wondered whether I was going to spend the rest of my life working for my parents, teaching the foxtrot to local pensioners and having a skeleton of a social life, let alone a romantic relationship.
Out in the reception area, I straightened up the cerise velvet chairs and gave the champagne bar a wipe over with a damp cloth. Finally, I updated Chris and Jenny’s file with a couple of notes about what to focus on in our next session: Work on Chris’s arms! Remind them to create intimacy with eye contact, even when not in hold!
I was still sitting at the desk half an hour later when the bell tinkled. I looked up and smiled as Carlos Torres and his assistant, Emily, glided through the door as though they were making a flamboyant entrance stage right.
Carlos was renowned in the industry for being ruthless and almost impossible to impress. I vaguely remembered him from my competing days, and he’d been terrifying even then. Seeing him again, after all this time, instantly took me back to the years I’d spent performing myself. I could even remember how the rehearsal rooms had smelled back then: like dust and sweat and wooden floors. Nothing like the light-filled space, with a delicate spritz of The White Company room spray, you could expect to find at our studio. If Carlos liked it here – and I struggled to see why he wouldn’t – maybe he’d use us on a more regular basis.
I slipped out from behind the desk to greet them, trying not to appear starstruck by being in Carlos’s presence again – even if I was, just a little bit.
‘Welcome to the James Jive Dance Studio,’ I said, proffering my hand. ‘I’m Lira James, the studio manager.’
Carlos looked at my hand suspiciously, and for a split second I thought he was going to leave me hanging. Then, with a sigh, as though he was doing me a huge favour, he shook my hand limply. Was it worth telling him that I used to dance, too? That he’d sat on a judging panel while I’d danced in front of him, many years ago? That he’d one hundred percent remember my mother even if he didn’t remember me? I thought probably not.
‘You must be Emily,’ I said, shaking the hand of Carlos’s even less enthusiastic assistant. ‘We spoke on the phone.’
Slim, blonde and sporting a pair of the most magnificent cheekbones I’d ever seen, she looked at me with irritation, as though I’d already managed to annoy her. God knows how – it was probably the ‘horrendous’ journey out of London I’d forced her to endure.
‘How many auditionees are you expecting?’ I asked, grabbing a clipboard to scribble down some notes.
‘Fifty. If anyone works out where Castlebury is and actually turns up, that is…’ said Emily, shuddering.
I knew that my home town was hardly at the cutting edge of the dance industry, but it was quiet and leafy and there were enough affluent locals to make running a dance studio viable. And it was a friendly, welcoming place, filled with couples just getting their foot on the property ladder, young families looking for somewhere quiet to raise their children, and the elderly who had lived here their whole lives. We essentially had a captive audience – after all, there wasn’t that much else arts-related to do around here. There was an Odeon a short drive away, and a theatre in the next town along, but if you wanted bright lights and excitement, Castlebury probably wasn’t the place for you.
Emily looked around at her surroundings, poking her head through the archway separating the bar area from the dance floor.
‘I’m sure the idea of auditioning for Carlos Torres will be a huge pull,’ I said, smiling at Carlos, remembering what an eye he’d had for detail; how he’d notice if you made even the tiniest mistake, and would then shout at you until you got it right.
Part of me envied the dancers about to audition for him, while another part felt relieved that my life was relatively stress-free now, compared to when I’d been compe
‘They will need to bring their absolute best today,’ said Carlos, showily slipping a sequinned jacket off his shoulders to reveal a black velvet bodysuit tucked into skin-tight black leggings. Stacked Cuban heels competed the look. He’d been world champion several times in his heyday – my mum had once shown me footage of him burning up the dance floor with his Argentine tango – and I bet he still had it in him to blow most professional dancers out of the water.
‘Are you casting for something specific today?’ I asked, genuinely interested.
‘We are looking for our leading lady,’ said Carlos, his expression darkening. ‘And it is proving more difficult than I thought to find her.’
‘How come?’ I asked, surprised.
London was teeming with brilliant dancers – how difficult could it be to find the perfect person for the role when you had a reputation like Carlos? Surely everyone wanted the lead in his new show, which I’d read in The Stage was going to be called Slow Burn and had a sultry, Latin theme, and some dancer from the Italian equivalent of Strictly in the lead male role.
‘Not one dancer we’ve seen so far has had enough chemistry with our leading man,’ said Carlos, whistling through his teeth. ‘None of them are right. I need this pairing to look so hot for each other on stage that they leave the audience breathless and begging for more. So far, not one single dancer has had the intensity required to pull off the spectacular Argentine tango I want them to perform at the end of the show.’
‘Well, hopefully the dancer you’re looking for will be here today,’ I said, reassuringly. It would be a particularly good coup for the studio if he found his lead here – maybe then he’d consider James Jive Dance Studio for every difficult part he needed to fill.
‘Shall I get them to line up outside the studio? If they queue to the right, they shouldn’t block the entrance to the Waitrose Local. We want to avoid complaints if we can,’ I said, ignoring Emily’s withering look.
Upsetting the locals was not advisable in a town as small as this. James Jive was an integral part of the community, and the businesses on the high street supported each other whenever we could. Personally, I wanted to keep it that way, and I wasn’t sure having fifty girls blocking the pavement was going to ingratiate us with the majority of residents. On the other hand, I imagined some of them might love it – it would be the most excitement Castlebury had seen in months.
‘Yes, fine,’ said Emily, snippily, tossing her perfect, expensive-looking hair over her shoulder. ‘I really shouldn’t be doing the door myself, but the girl who was supposed to be here missed her train and there wasn’t another one for thirty minutes! I told her not to bother.’
‘Right,’ I said.
‘I don’t suppose you’d fancy…?’ said Emily, eyeing me hopefully.
‘I’m afraid I’ve got some paperwork to do,’ I said, apologetically.
It was true, there was always some admin to fill my time with, but really I just didn’t want to give Emily the satisfaction of being able to boss me around all day.
* * *
At five minutes to two, we were ready to open the doors. Emily was clip-boarded up and looking formidable, which, for reasons I didn’t quite understand, the people on the door always seemed to be at auditions. Did they purposely choose the most intimidating members of the team to work front of house, ticking off names so ferociously that the dancers who weren’t robust or confident enough would crumble under the pressure and could be weeded out before they’d even begun?
The rest of the casting team had arrived a few minutes ago – two producers and Carlos’s assistant choreographer, who, along with Carlos himself, would make up the judging panel. I’d set them up behind the trestle table we used for internal exams, and had made sure they had jugs of water, glasses and little bowls of healthy snacks pilfered from the bar.
After getting the nod from Emily, I let the dancers file in. Pangs of envy curled in my belly, taking me by surprise. I missed dancing – there, I’d said it – properly dancing; dancing like my life depended on it. Sure, I got to teach now, so I was still moving my body, coming up with steps, and, of course, when I had the studio to myself, I let loose and danced to my heart’s content.
But it wasn’t the same.
It wasn’t like dancing with a partner, and it didn’t come with any of the buzz you got from performing for an audience. There wasn’t the tension of competition, of pushing your skills to the absolute limit. There was no waiting for scores to come in, or being crowned world champion – the best in the world at something.
I’d been nineteen the last time I’d experienced that feeling, and I was thirty-two now. Where had the years gone, and what exactly had I done with them?
Out of nowhere, lately, I’d had a relentless ache inside me; a nagging feeling that something was missing. Ultimately, it had been my decision to help Mum and Dad with the studio while they travelled the world; to live at home and be the dutiful daughter I’d always been. I’d understood when my mum said she wanted the best for me, a more settled life, not the unpredictable life of a dancer, not knowing where my next pay cheque was coming from. She’d thought I wasn’t suited to a life of uncertainty, she’d wanted me to be happy, and I was, for a while. But suddenly I couldn’t shake the feeling there might be more to life than teaching wedding dances to nice people in a not very exciting town.
Contrary to Emily’s predictions, there was quite a queue, and I watched the women file in, their toned bodies exquisite, clattering across the floor of the reception area on a wave of chatter and excitement. The bar wasn’t big enough to accommodate more than about fifteen dancers at any one time, so I’d subtly suggested to Emily that she let them enter in groups – when one set of fifteen went in to perform, the next group could be ticked off and waiting in the bar for their turn. My organizational skills had always been second-to-none, which was probably how I’d found myself being manager here in the first place. My former dancer of a mother, a three-time South African Latin world champion, no less, knew I could be trusted to keep on top of things, and I’d never given them any reason to think otherwise.
After helping Carlos’s assistant choreographer with the stereo system – a slight tech issue had ensued, but I’d soon sorted it out – the auditions began in earnest. I took my place at the reception desk, using the handily located porthole window to keep an eye on what was happening in the studio, while pretending to be heavily engaged in my ‘paperwork’. Carlos’s assistant was teaching a set of exquisite steps that I couldn’t help mapping out with my feet as I watched – the Argentine tango had always been my favourite.
For one brief moment, I let my mind wander back to a moment in the deliciously decadent Hotel Paris. It had been midnight, or thereabouts. A male dancer with slim hips, dark, intense eyes and the most beautifully sculpted cheekbones I’d ever seen had led me onto the makeshift dance floor in the hotel bar. I let myself remember how his hips had moved against mine, the way our legs had effortlessly kicked and flicked between each other’s as we did a set of the fastest boleos known to man.
It had felt like we’d danced together a million times before, and yet it was our first and only time.
I’d thought of him often over the years, and desperately wished I could stop. I knew I’d romanticized it all in my mind, so much so that nothing had ever quite lived up to that night. Or to him. And the idea that one single night, thirteen years ago, was going to be the best thing that had ever happened to me was too awful to contemplate.
* * *
As ever, the auditions ran over – by two and a half hours! They’d only hired the studio until six, but it was eight-thirty before we knew it and the last group of dancers had only just left the building. Emily was looking even more annoyed than she had been when she’d first arrived – if that was even possible – and Carlos and his team were huddled together, no doubt deciding who they wanted to call back for a second audition.
