Stranded with the Secret Billionaire

by Marion Lennox

  He’d be crazy to let the haunting memory of one slim, dark-haired girl with astonishing aqua eyes spoil the chance to go back and recapture a little of the camaraderie and magic he’d enjoyed in his youth.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said cautiously.

  He was rewarded with a hearty and enthusiastic back-slap.

  * * *

  Eva stared at the doctor in dismay as two words echoed in her head like a tolling funeral bell... Hip replacement...hip replacement...

  It was the worst possible news. She couldn’t take it in. She didn’t want to believe it.

  A few days earlier, during a rehearsal of The Nutcracker, she’d landed awkwardly after performing a grand jeté, a demanding movement that involved propelling herself gracefully into the air and doing the splits while above the ground. Eva had performed the move thousands of times, of course, but this time, when she’d landed, the pain in her hip had been agonising.

  Since then, the hip hadn’t improved. She’d stayed away from rehearsals, claiming a heavy cold, which was something she’d never done before. Normally, Eva danced through every painful mishap. She’d danced on broken toes, through colds and flu, had even performed for weeks with a torn ligament in her shoulder.

  Such stoicism wasn’t unusual in ballet circles. A culture of secrecy about injury was a given. Every dancer was terrified of being branded as fragile. They all understood it was a euphemism for on the way out—the end of a career.

  This time, however, Eva found it too difficult to keep hiding her pain. Even if she faked her way through class and rehearsals, by the time she got home she could barely walk. So she’d seen an osteopath. But now, to her horror, the doctor had shown her disturbing results from her MRI scan.

  She’d never dreamed the damage could be so bad.

  ‘You’ve torn the labrum,’ the doctor told her solemnly as he pointed to the scan. ‘That’s the ring of cartilage around your left hip joint. Normally, the labrum helps with shock absorption and lubrication of the joint, but now—’ He shook his head. ‘The tear on its own wouldn’t be such a great problem, but there are other degenerative changes as well.’ He waved his hand over the scan. ‘Extensive arthritic inflammation of the whole joint.’

  Arthritis? A chill washed over Eva. Wasn’t that something that happened to elderly people?

  ‘I strongly recommend a complete hip replacement. Otherwise—’ the doctor sighed expressively ‘—I don’t really see how you can avoid it.’

  No, please no.

  On a page from his writing pad, he wrote the names of two consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeons. He handed the paper to Eva.

  Sweat broke out on her skin and she swayed a little dizzily in her chair. A hip replacement was a death knell, the end of her career. The prospect filled her with such desolation that it didn’t bear imagining.

  It would be the end of my life.

  ‘Aren’t there other things I can try?’ she asked in desperation. ‘Besides surgery?’

  The doctor gave a shrug. ‘We can talk about physiotherapy and painkillers and diet. And rest,’ he added, giving her a dark look. ‘But I think you’ll find that the pain will still be too severe, certainly if you want to continue dancing. Ballet requires movements that are very unnatural.’

  Eva knew this all too well, of course. She’d spent a lifetime perfecting the demanding movements most people never even tried. Pirouettes and adagios and grand allegros en pointe all made exacting demands on her limbs and joints, and she knew she was only human. She was at the wrong end of her thirties and there was a limit to what she could expect from her body. But she couldn’t give up dancing.

  Not yet! She’d worked too hard, had sacrificed too much. Sure, she’d known that her career couldn’t last for ever, but she’d hoped for at least five more years.

  Dancing was her life. Without it, she would drown, would completely lose her identity.

  She was in no way ready for this.

  The osteopath was staring at her a little impatiently now. He had no more advice to offer.

  In a daze, Eva rose from her chair, thanked him and bade him goodbye. As the door to his office closed behind her, she walked through reception without seeing anyone, trying not to limp, to prove to herself that the doctor must have been wrong, but even walking was painful.

  Glass doors led to a long empty corridor. What could she do now?

  She tried to think clearly, but her mind kept spinning. If she gave in and had the surgery, she was sure the company wouldn’t want her back—certainly not as their prima ballerina—and she couldn’t conscience the idea of going back into the corps de ballet.

  The worst of it was, this wasn’t a problem she dared discuss with her colleagues. She didn’t want anyone in the dancing world to know. The news would spread like wildfire. It would be in the press by lunchtime. By supper time, her career would be over.

  As she made her way carefully down a short flight of stairs and onto the Parisian pavement outside, Eva, who had always been strong and independent, valuing her privacy, had never felt more vulnerable and alone. On the wrong side of the world.

  * * *

  ‘Hello, this is Jane. How can I help you?’

  Griff grimaced. He couldn’t believe he was tense about speaking to Jane Simpson. In their school days, Jane had been the Emerald Bay baker’s daughter. Since then she’d married a cane farmer and was now convening the class reunion.

  ‘Hi, there, Jane.’ He cleared his throat nervously and was immediately annoyed with himself. ‘Griff Fletcher, here. I’m ringing about the school reunion weekend.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Jane sounded excited. ‘It’s great to hear from you after all this time, Griff. I hope you’ll be able to come.’

  ‘Well, I’m still trying to see if I can...er...fit it into my schedule. But I was curious—how are the...er...numbers shaping up?’

  ‘They’re great, actually. We have about thirty-five coming so far—and that’s not counting partners. It’s really exciting,’ Jane enthused. ‘I do hope you can make it.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’

  Since the barbecue with Tim and Barney, Griff had been warming to the idea of going back to the Bay. But he wanted to ask about Eva. The thought of running into her in front of everyone from their school days completely ruined the picture. There was too much unfinished business between them. There was bound to be tension. And friction. It would be unavoidable.

  If Eva was going to be there—which Griff very much doubted—he would stay well clear of the place.

  The simple question should have been easy to put to Jane. Griff couldn’t believe he was uptight.

  It wasn’t as if he’d spent the past twenty years pining for his high school sweetheart. Many of the relationships he’d enjoyed since then had been fabulously passionate and borderline serious.

  Admittedly, Griff’s relationships did have a habit of petering out. While almost all of his friends and colleagues had tied the knot and were starting families, Griff didn’t seem to have the staying power. He either tired of his girlfriends, or they got tired of waiting for him to commit to something more permanent.

  At least he and Amanda were still hanging together. So far.

  Now, he braced himself to get to the point of this phone call. Every day in court he faced criminals, judges and juries, and he prided himself on posing the most searching and intimate of questions. It should be a cinch to ask Jane Simpson a quick, straightforward question about Eva.

  ‘I don’t suppose...’ Griff began and stopped, as memories of Eva’s smile flashed before him. The view of her pale neck as she’d leaned over her books in class. The fresh taste of her kisses. Her slim, lithe body pressing temptingly close.

  ‘Have you heard from Eva?’ Jane asked, mercifully cutting into his thoughts.

 
Jane had been one of Eva’s closest friends at school, so she knew that he and Eva had once been an item.

  Griff grabbed the opening now offered. ‘No, I haven’t heard from her in ages. We’re...not in contact these days. Has she been in touch with you?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m afraid she’s not coming,’ Jane said. ‘It’s such a pity she can’t make it.’

  OK. So now he knew without having to ask. Relief and disappointment slugged Griff in equal parts.

  ‘I’m not at all surprised,’ he said.

  ‘No, I’m sure Eva’s incredibly busy with her dancing. It’s wonderful how amazingly well she’s done, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes—amazing.’

  ‘Anyway, Griff, let me know if you do decide you can come. It should be a fun get-together. Do you have my email address?’

  Jane dictated the address while Griff jotted it down. He would leave it a few days before he emailed her. In the meantime, he would swing by Tim’s favourite lunching hangout and let him know he was free to join him and Barney on a nostalgic trip back to their schoolboy haunts. And if he did happen to see Eva again, of course he wouldn’t lose his cool.

  * * *

  Eva sat beneath the red awning of a pavement café, clutching a cup of blissfully decadent hot chocolate as she watched the rainy Paris streetscape. Beyond the awning’s protection, raindrops danced in little splashes in the gutter. Across the street, the lights of another café glowed, yellow beacons of warmth in the bleak grey day.

  Even in the rain Paris looked beautiful but, for the first time in ages, Eva felt like a tourist rather than a resident. She could no longer dance here and everything had changed.

  She’d come to Paris to work, to further her career. Until now she’d been a professional with a full and busy life. Her days had a rhythm—limbering and stretching, promotions and interviews, rehearsals and performances.

  If she lost all that, what would she do?

  She hadn’t felt this low since she’d broken up with Vasily, her Russian boyfriend, who had left her for a lovely blonde dancer from the Netherlands.

  Such a dreadful blow that had been.

  For eight years, Eva had loved good-looking Vasily Stepanov and his sinfully magnificent body. They had danced together and lived and loved together, and she had looked on him as her partner in every sense. Her dancing had never been more assured, more sensitive. Her life had never been happier.

  She’d learned to cook Vasily’s favourite Russian dishes—borsch and blini and potato salad with crunchy pickles, and she’d put up with his outbursts of temper. She’d even taken classes to learn his language, and she’d hoped they would marry, have a baby or two.

  Getting over him had been the second hardest lesson of her life—after that other terrible lesson in her distant past. But now the devastating news about her hip was an even worse blow for Eva.

  Sipping her rich, thick chocolat chaud, watching car tyres swish past on the shiny wet street, she found herself longing for sunshine and she remembered how easily the sun was taken for granted in Australia. A beat later, she was remembering the beach at Emerald Bay, the smooth curve of sand and the frothy blue and white surf.

  And, out of nowhere, came the sudden suggestion that it made perfect sense to go back home to Australia for her surgery.

  She could ask for leave from the company. Pierre was already rehearsing a new Clara for The Nutcracker, and the understudy was shaping up well. Eva was, to all intents and purposes, free. She found herself smiling at the prospect of going home.

  She would make up some excuse about needing to see her mother. It wasn’t a total lie. It was years since she’d taken extended leave and it was at least two years since she’d been home, and her mum wasn’t getting any younger. If she had the surgery in an Australian city hospital, she’d have a much better chance of flying under the radar than she would here in ballet-mad Paris.

  There might even be a chance—just a minuscule chance—that she could come back here to Paris as good as new. She’d been researching on the Internet and had read about a leading dancer in America who was performing again after a hip replacement. The girl was younger than Eva, but still, the story had given her hope.

  And, Eva thought, as she drained the last of the creamy rich chocolate, if she was returning to Australia, she might as well go to that school reunion. She’d had an email from Jane Simpson telling her that Griff was undecided so, if she went, she was unlikely to have the ordeal of facing him.

  She would love to catch up with everyone else. It felt suddenly important to her to chat with people who lived ‘normal’ lives.

  Yes, she decided. She would go.

  As soon as this thought was born, Eva was hit by a burst of exhilaration. This was swiftly followed by a shiver of fear when she thought about Griff, but she shook it off.

  It was time to be positive and brave about her future. Perhaps it was also time to lay to rest the ghosts of her past.

  Copyright © 2017 by Barbara Hannay

  ISBN-13: 9781488014840

  Stranded with the Secret Billionaire

  Copyright © 2017 by Marion Lennox

  This work includes words based on “THE SERENITY PRAYER” by Reinhold Niebuhr

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