Slow Burn, page 4
He picked up my message immediately and I waited as he typed a reply.
Sounds good. I’ll be waiting for you in my office.
CHAPTER FOUR Gabriele
After Carlos sent everyone out of the room, I knew immediately what he was going to say. I was going to make him squirm, though. I refused to cut in and tell him what I thought, what I felt about Lira’s performance – he was going to have to have the balls to tell me himself. Then again, Carlos was hardly a wallflower.
‘We need to cast Lira in the leading role,’ he said, looking me directly in the eye.
I bit my lip. Now who was squirming?
‘No,’ I said. ‘Daniella and I know each other much better. We don’t have as much time to rehearse as we would have liked. It will be easier that way.’
Carlos sat back in his chair. From across the table, he observed me for a second or two.
‘And that’s how you want this show to be? Easy? Gabriele, you are coming off the back of huge success in Italy. Bring the Heat was the top-rated show in your country, no? As big as Strictly is here in the UK. Your celebrity appeal has never been higher and if you want to push your career even further, you are going to have to do something that surpasses even that. Something spectacular.’
‘It will be. Slow Burn with me in the lead and your choreography – it is going to be a guaranteed success.’
‘But not if it’s you and Daniella.’
I tutted impatiently. ‘You do not know that.’
‘We need to give the lead to Lira James, and you know it.’
‘She is too inexperienced,’ I argued. ‘Has she ever even worked professionally?’
Carlos placed his elbows on the table between us, resting his chin on the backs of his hands, his eyes boring into me. ‘Maybe she hasn’t, but she’s the best dancer we’ve seen by a mile. I know you could feel it, so why are you resisting?’
I wanted to deny it, it was on the tip of my tongue, but that would be a lie, and I did not lie, not ever. Okay, maybe very occasionally, if it was absolutely necessary.
‘The chemistry between you two was off the scale,’ continued Carlos, clearly not prepared to give up. ‘Something special happened as she walked into the room. A moment sparked between you. Have you met her before?’
Butterflies ripped through my stomach. Porca puttana, why did thinking about that night still have this strange effect on me? I had slept with countless women since then, some of the most beautiful women in the world, so why was I still hung up on the one night I had spent with her? If I was going to analyse the situation, I would say it was because she had been the one woman who had not been available to me. I had not been able to get what I wanted – she had walked out on me, the one and only time it had ever happened. Not to sound arrogant – although I was acutely aware that I could be – but women loved me. They begged me for more, they begged me to call, they wanted more sex, a dinner date, a relationship I could not give them. But not Lira James. Li. She had not been able to get away from me fast enough. Sure, it hurt, but I suspected that had more to do with my battered ego than anything else.
‘Briefly, many years ago,’ I replied, keeping my voice steady.
Carlos narrowed his eyes at me. ‘And…?’
‘And nothing. We danced together in Paris, in the hotel bar after the championships. We were teenagers, practically.’
‘And was your dance together as good as it was just then?’ asked Carlos.
A memory flashed in my mind’s eye of the two of us moving in total synchronicity across the carpeted floor of the hotel; of my hands on her waist, her hands running up my back.
‘It was better,’ I said.
Carlos nodded. He had me and he knew it. ‘Rehearsals start the day after tomorrow.’
* * *
On the way home, I stopped off at Daniella’s. She had a flat in Holborn, ten minutes’ walk from Pineapple Studios, so it was too tempting not to take her up on her offer. Besides, I needed a distraction. I wanted Lira James out of my mind, and what better way to do it than to have great sex with somebody else?
I rang Daniella’s bell and she buzzed me into her building. When I got up to the third floor, she was waiting for me in her doorway wearing, well, almost nothing. Black lacy underwear, a barely-there chiffon dressing gown. Her blonde hair was hanging loose down her back, her hip resting against the door frame.
‘I knew you’d come,’ she said, as I walked down the carpeted corridor towards her apartment.
She was wrong, of course – before Lira had showed up, I’d had no intention of going anywhere except home. And even now I was torn – I felt like I needed her tonight, and of course I wanted her, she was gorgeous, but it was a bad idea to start things up with her again, and I knew it.
I filled the doorway, slipping my arm around Daniella’s waist, pulling her into me as though I was either about to take her in hold or take her somewhere else altogether.
‘You look as good as ever,’ I said, threading my fingers into her hair. It was still damp from the shower and she smelled of some expensive, fragrant hair product she had probably just combed through it.
‘I’m all yours, Gabriele,’ she said in the seductive tone I’d heard her use myriad times before. I wondered whether she used the same lines on other men, but realized I didn’t really care if she did.
She dragged me into her flat and I kicked the front door closed behind me. Then I dipped my head to kiss her and she groaned instantly. Knowing she wanted me this much felt good. I ran my hands down her lean body. She was lovely, of course she was, but why did I suddenly have a longing for Lira? A flash of reminiscence about how I had once skimmed my palms over her breasts and then across her flat stomach and then out again over her more generous hips, still strong and muscular, but soft and smooth and voluminous all at the same time.
I grunted with frustration, not wanting to think about her, wanting to be here in the moment with Daniella. I owed her that, didn’t I?
I scooped her up into my arms and she wrapped her legs around my waist in anticipation. Her flat was small, her bedroom mere steps away, and I carried her to it, laying her down on the bed, familiar with the layout of her place having been here so many times before.
‘I’m glad you’re here, baby,’ purred Daniella, pulling my vest over my chest. ‘Lift your arms.’
She wrenched it off and then began unbuttoning my jeans. Lira’s face popped into my mind again and I tried to get rid of it by kissing Daniella hard, burying my face in her neck until finally my lips met hers. She opened her mouth, her tongue moving urgently against mine.
I flipped her over, so that my back was flat on the bed and she was straddling me.
‘Take off your bra,’ I instructed her.
‘Only if you tell me if I got the job or not,’ she said, running her fingers underneath the straps, pushing them seductively off her shoulders, teasing me.
‘That is not my decision,’ I said, feeling a pang of guilt. But if I told her now, it would kill the moment, and the moment was the whole point of my visit.
She reached behind her and undid the clasp, her small breasts sliding out. I reached out to stroke them, focusing on them and only them, then sitting up so that I could suck them, too, desperately trying to lose myself in her body like I usually could.
She stroked my head, pulling me closer.
‘This feels so good,’ she whispered in my ear.
‘Mmmm, molto buono,’ I lied, laying back down on the bed and pulling her on top of me.
* * *
Afterwards, she lay against me, her head on my chest, and I stroked her hair. Secretly, I desperately wanted to leave, but I knew she would be hurt and that even thinking it made me an arsehole, but I just couldn’t settle with her here, not tonight. The sex had been great in the end, it always was, but it did not mean I wanted to hang around. She liked to chat after sex, she said, and I knew exactly what about in this case. About the job I knew she was not about to be offered.
‘Who was that girl who auditioned after me?’ asked Daniella, casually, stroking my thigh, as if to distract me and catch me off guard. ‘I’ve not seen her around.’
I groaned inwardly. For the last fifteen minutes I had managed very successfully not to think about Lira James and now there she was again, popping into my mind’s eye. And since I was going to be working with her night after night during the six-week run, not to mention the three weeks of rehearsals before that, I was hardly going to be able to avoid thinking about her, was I?
‘She is a former world Latin champion who gave it up to run a dance studio, apparently.’
Daniella stopped stroking my leg. ‘Why would she do that?’
‘No idea.’
‘And what, she’s just landed herself an audition right off the bat, after years of being out of the business?’
I shrugged. ‘Carlos saw her dance. He hand-picked her to come in.’
Daniella laughed. ‘Oh great. He’s plucking dancers off the streets now, is he?’
‘Hardly the streets. He saw her at her dance studio, when you guys were there auditioning. Apparently, she had picked up all the steps and he was impressed when he caught her practising them after she thought he had left.’
This was weird. I was feeling defensive over Lira, despite me not wanting her to get the job, either. What was wrong with me?
‘Do you know her, then?’ asked Daniella. ‘From before?’
‘Not really,’ I said flippantly. ‘We met once, I think, years ago. In Paris.’
There it was again, the dreaded feeling in my stomach, the strange sense of pain I still felt about how all of that had played out; pain over one night of, admittedly phenomenal, sex; pain I was pretty sure I had inflicted on several women in my lifetime, and there would be more to come, I was sure.
How pathetic of me. Basically, Lira had treated me like I had treated many other people, as though I was something to be used and discarded. I would have begged her to stay if I could have. And now here she was, back in my life, and there was no way I was going to let her get under my skin again.
I sat up. Perhaps if I walked, got some fresh air, I would feel better.
‘Have to go,’ I said, kissing Daniella’s wrist before sliding out of bed and looking for my clothes, noticing the look of rejection on her face. I felt terrible.
‘Let us hang out again soon, si?’ I said, feeling as though I needed to give her something. Although I wasn’t sure that seeing each other again would help either of us in the long run.
* * *
Walking back to the tube, I checked my phone. I had received a message from my mother.
Happy birthday, my darling! Call me when you can.
Damn. I really had tried to forget it was my birthday today. I had never liked birthdays. Actually, that was not strictly true – as a kid they had been fun. I had often spent them in Argentina with Mama and my grandmother while my father stayed at home in Italy to look after the farm. But once I started dancing professionally, once I moved away from home and was travelling from competition to competition and then later from show to show, it became less and less important. Perhaps it did not help that I never told people when my birthday actually was.
I called my mother back instead of messaging, suddenly wanting to speak to somebody who knew me, who loved me, and who I adored just as much.
‘Ciao, Mama,’ I said into the phone.
‘Ah, my Gabriele. Happy birthday, my sweet boy. How is everything in London?’
‘Busy,’ I said. ‘We start rehearsals for the show in a couple of days, so I am enjoying the rest while I can.’
‘Ah exciting. And you have a leading lady now?’
I swallowed, feeling as though my throat had tightened, suddenly. ‘We have.’
‘And she is perfect, just like you’d hoped?’
That was the problem – she was far too perfect in every way.
‘She is an excellent dancer,’ I said.
‘But…?’ said Mum.
She knew me so well.
‘But we only have weeks to choreograph four dances and she has been out of the game for years. I am worried she will struggle to keep up. I feel such pressure for this show to be a hit.’
‘It will be, Gabi, people will flock to see you, particularly when you come to Italy, but also in London, in Madrid, in Lisbon and in all the other cities you will perform in. You are a star these days and you must not forget it.’
I smiled to myself. I knew all mothers thought their sons were special, but it still felt good to hear it. It warmed my heart that somebody – even if it was my mother – could see positive attributes in me that had nothing to do with the way I looked, or even the way I danced.
‘What are you doing for your birthday?’ she asked. ‘Something with friends? You don’t have a girlfriend to tell me about yet, my love?’
I’d reached Covent Garden tube and stood outside, watching the tourists, the gaudily decorated tuk-tuks and the shoppers out with friends, and I felt quite alone. Everybody had somewhere to go, someone to be with. This was why dance had saved me – the dance company would be like my family for the next nine weeks, but then they would be gone, leaving me with nothing and nobody. Again.
‘Working, Mama,’ I said. ‘But that is what I do best.’
‘But there is life outside of dance, Gabriele, and you must not forget this. Ah, here is your father. He wants to speak to you.’
I suppressed a sigh, not because I didn’t want to speak to my father, but because it always left me in a strange mood when I did and I was already on the verge of feeling depressed. This is what birthdays did to me.
‘Fine, put him on,’ I said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
There was a rustle on the other end of the line. I heard my father clearing his throat.
‘Gabi?’ he said. ‘Happy birthday.’
‘Grazie, Papa,’ I replied. ‘How are you? How is the farm? Business good at the vineyard?’
‘Busy. We will have to employ more staff this summer, there is so much to do,’ he said.
The familiar feeling of having disappointed my father surged through my body, as it always did when I thought about the family business. In his mind, I should be there in Tuscany now, helping him make and sell wine, not travelling the world doing this, a job he’d never fully understood or wanted for me.
‘I do need to speak to you, Gabi,’ he said. ‘About things here, about my plans for the future.’
I tried to laugh it off. ‘Okay, but this sounds serious. Can we not do this today, on my birthday, of all days?’
May as well use the birthday excuse.
‘Then when?’ he hissed.
I felt the stirrings of panic.
‘You are not the only one getting older,’ he said. ‘Soon I will not be able to put in so many hours at the vineyard. As my only son, you should be here, taking over. Remember it will be left to you when I am no longer here. Don’t you want to know how things run? Don’t you want to support the family business that has paid for your schooling, for your dance lessons?’
‘Papa, I—’
I heard a tussle on the other end of the line, my mother’s voice. She was scolding my father, telling him not to upset me on my birthday, berating him in his own language, Italian.
‘Gabi?’ said Mama. ‘Do not listen to him today. Now go and have fun on your birthday, yes? Promise me?’
‘I promise,’ I said.
Although having fun was a promise I was not convinced I could keep.
CHAPTER FIVE Lira
Jack and I had had an arrangement, if that’s what you could call it, for the last year or so, since I’d paid for a course of actual personal training sessions with him at the swanky and extortionately priced local gym I’d signed up to because I could feel my body changing as I got further into my thirties, and not for the better. Of course, I didn’t have the pressure of being a dancer anymore – I wasn’t competing or on tour, because if I was, that would have come with a much more urgent need to be at my fittest and to look at my absolute best. But how my body worked, how strong it felt – it was still important to me. And Jack had pushed me to my absolute limits during our training sessions, which I’d whined and moaned about at the time, of course, but once I started seeing results, it had all seemed worth the effort.
Then one day, after a particularly intense session, we’d ended up having sex up against the lockers in the men’s changing rooms. It had all been so out of the blue that I hadn’t even had time to worry about what would have happened if somebody walked in and saw us. Since then, our PT sessions had morphed into sessions of another kind, which I had to say were ten times more enjoyable than pounding it out on the treadmill for forty-five minutes straight.
I knocked on his office door – he was the gym floor manager now, so he spent less time training clients and more time doing admin, which made it believable, I supposed, that I’d need to see him in his office for an extended period of time. According to Jack, nobody had ever questioned why, occasionally, we’d spend half an hour in there with his door locked, although, to be honest, I preferred it when we met at his flat. He’d even been to mine once, when my parents had been away and I knew there was no way either of my sisters would pop in unannounced.
‘Come in!’ called Jack.
I pushed open the door, closing it behind me. He was perched on the edge of his desk, wearing racing green gym shorts – and they were short – and a white polo shirt that made him look like he’d just come off the rugby pitch. His blonde hair was short at the sides and longer on top, and when he reached out his hand I already knew to lock the door behind me – no point in taking chances.
‘Come here,’ he said softly.
His blue eyes were so familiar now, so warm and safe and inviting. The opposite of Gabriele’s, which were dark brown and as hard as flint. I would not think about him – I was here with lovely Jack, and sure, it wasn’t like we ever did anything other than work out or sleep together, but I always enjoyed the time I spent with him. We’d never been on a date and I thought Jack was probably on the same page as me when it came to having no inclination to move things forward. It wasn’t true to say I felt nothing for him. I liked him, he was sweet, he made me feel good – hence the urgent phone call to him this afternoon – and the sex was great, but I didn’t have those sorts of feelings for him.
