“Just like that.” I looked at her, this beautiful, incredible woman whom I never would’ve expected would turn my world upside down, and marveled that she was mine. The universe knew what it was doing after all. “I’ve been here since day one, darling. I was simply waiting for you to join me.”
Scarlett’s smile spread so wide and warm I felt it all the way in my bones.
“I haven’t had an official boyfriend in years, so this is exciting,” she said. “Does this mean you’ll hold my bag and let me borrow your shirts to sleep in because men’s shirts are always more comfortable than women’s, for some reason?”
“The shirts, yes. The bag, depends. If you have as much shit in it as the day we met, then no.” I raised a brow. “I’m a top athlete, you know. I have to conserve my strength.”
I laughed when she kicked me under the table.
“My old therapist would be proud of me.” Scarlett slid her pendant along its chain. “She said healing wasn’t just about closing the door on my past. It was about allowing myself to open one for the future too. We worked a lot on my trust issues after Rafael. If it weren’t for her, I’d carry a lot more resentment than I do now.”
I noted the past tense of her words. “You don’t see her anymore?”
She shook her head. “Some people fold therapy into their daily lifestyle, but I got to a good place. However, I know I can always call her if I need to, even if I hate asking for help.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Ha ha.” She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “My parents weren’t thrilled at first. They’re old school. There’s this stigma around therapy in their generation, but once they saw how much it helped, they were onboard.”
Curiosity wound through me.
Scarlett didn’t talk about her parents much. I knew they divorced when she was young and that she had a fairly normal relationship with them, but that was it.
“How did they…”
“Deal with my accident?” she finished. “As well as they could, I suppose, but my mother was shattered. She was worried about me, obviously, but I think she was equally devastated about the end of my career. She liked having a prima ballerina daughter that she could brag about to her friends. My father moved to London for the first few months after the crash. Vincent was already here. They rallied.”
“Do you resent your mother for that?”
I tried to imagine how my father would react if I got injured and couldn’t play football anymore.
My blood congealed at the mental image.
I’d checked in with him a few times since his heart attack, but it was always through my mother. I hadn’t spoken with him directly since the hospital. However, it didn’t escape my notice that he never reached out to answer my question.
Your team or your son?
“Surprisingly, no.” Thankfully, Scarlett’s response drew my thoughts back to her. The last person I wanted to focus on during our last night here was my father. “I knew she felt those things, but she didn’t act on them, if that makes sense. She didn’t push me to try dancing again, and she was supportive when I became a teacher at RAB instead.” The wind blew stray strands of hair across her face, obscuring her pensive expression. “We all have ugly feelings sometimes. It’s a part of human nature. But it’s what we do with them that counts.”
Every time I thought she couldn’t get more amazing, she proved me wrong.
“That’s a mature way to look at it. I’m sure your old therapist would’ve been proud of that, too,” I teased.
She offered a flicker of a smile. “Maybe. But can I confess something?”
“Always.”
“Sometimes…” Her smile dimmed. “I get so jealous of my students that I can’t breathe. I want them to be happy, and I’m truly proud of their success, but there are days when I look at them and see not only the potential they have, but the potential I used to have. They have their entire careers ahead of them, shiny and untarnished, while I’m a has-been. It’s the wrong way to think about things, but it can be…difficult to live in the shadows when I’ve trained my whole life to be in the spotlight.” Her cheeks reddened. “I know this makes me sound like a terrible person. I’m their teacher. I shouldn’t be jealous of teenagers. And I don’t feel that way all the time. But on bad days, it can make me spiral.”
“They’re human feelings,” I said gently. “Like you said, they’re normal, and you’re not trying to sabotage your students. You’re allowed to feel what you feel.”
“I know. But it’s easier to give advice than to take it.” Scarlett played with the edges of her napkin. “Emma, one of my top students, got the role of Sugar Plum Fairy in the school’s student showcase this year. She wants me to attend the opening night. The staff showcase is at the school, but the student one takes place at Westbury, and I can’t bring myself to go there.”
Westbury was one of the leading performing arts venues in London. I’d never attended a show there, but I passed by it all the time.
“I was on my way to perform at Westbury when the other car hit us,” Scarlett said, her voice quiet. “It was also where I got my first rave review for my performance in
Swan Lake. That review put me on the map. In many ways, Westbury is the ultimate symbol of my old life, and I haven’t been able to step foot near it since the accident. It hurts too much to remember what used to be.”
Her eyes were a thousand miles away, and I let the revelations of the night settle around us instead of disrupting it with an immediate response.
Sometimes, listening was a better strategy than talking.
The remnants of our dinner had long gone cold. The hours stretched toward the obscenely late half of the night, but I hung on to each minute like it was our last.
If I could’ve stayed on that rooftop with Scarlett forever, I would’ve.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a long silence. “Every time we go on a date, I end up making things so depressing.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m no better,” I said. “Remember the time I brought you to Holchester and trauma dumped on you in my childhood bedroom? That was fun.”
Her laughter chased away the melancholy and brought an answering grin to my face.
“It’s not depressing to learn these things about you,” I said. “I want to know you better. The good, the bad, and everything in between.”
Scarlett’s expression melted into a different, softer smile. “Asher Donovan, I was so wrong about you at the beginning.”
“Most people are. I’m even more handsome, charming, and witty than they could’ve imagined.”
“You forgot humble.”
“Obviously. That’s a given.”
She laughed again, and everything else we wanted to say was communicated through our long, lingering gaze across the table.
Our relationship was built on unspoken words. We’d gotten better at expressing them over the past two months, but there were still a few words that remained locked away inside me.
Three, to be exact.
I was saving them for another time, when the prospect of revealing our relationship to my brother didn’t darken the horizon like a thundercloud.
For now, I simply enjoyed my last hours in Japan with Scarlett and let the future take care of itself.
SCARLETT
Thanks to the time difference (Japan was eight hours ahead of the UK), we left Tokyo Sunday morning and landed in London in the early afternoon.
Our late dinner, early wake-up call, and the change in time zones conspired to confuse my body about what it was supposed to be doing when, so I opted for the safe option and slept for a majority of the flight.
When we arrived in London, I went to Asher’s house instead of going straight home. Vincent was joining us at training tomorrow, and I wanted to say goodbye to our studio.
It sounded stupid, but the studio had been our private little Eden for two months. It deserved a proper farewell.
“How did he react when you told him we’ve been training at my house this entire time?” Asher asked as I ran my hands over the smooth wood barre.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.