Bad Reputation

by Stefanie London

  “Isn’t that the greatest thing, getting lost in New York?” Bert looked wistful. “It’s been a long time since I experienced it.”

  “I bet it’s changed.”

  Bert chuckled. “Well, it was a very different place when I came. It was rough, dirty. But there was still the bright lights and the shows and the music.”

  “What else is there to live for?” Remi smiled, but this time he saw her facade crack. It was the barest muscle movement, little more than an involuntary tic.

  “I hope you’ll come by the theater,” Wes said. “We’d be honored to have you.”

  “I will. This week.” Bert bid them both good night and waved to someone walking past, who stopped and pressed a hand into his.

  Remi sucked in a breath. “Do you think we have his support?”

  “I don’t want to count my chickens,” Wes said. “But I have a good feeling about it.”

  To be fair, that good feeling had showed up last time too. No point getting ahead of himself.

  “I need you to shine when he comes to visit,” Wes said. “We’ve got to reel him in.”

  She nodded. “I know.”

  Silence settled between them like an uncomfortable, prickly barrier. Once again, they were outside the crowd, looking in. He wondered if Remi would admit that his mother had spoken to her, or if he would have to ask. As the seconds ticked by, it became clear it was the latter.

  “What did my mother want?”

  She looked at him, her expression difficult to read. “Ah, so you did see that.”

  “I see everything,” he said, keeping his voice light.

  “She introduced herself, wanted to know how you found me.”

  “I’ll bet she did.”

  “Then she gave me her business card and told me I could find myself with some open doors should the ‘right person’ provide their support.”

  His jaw clenched, his back teeth grinding together. He would have bet his last ten dollars she’d said something similar to his original lead ballerina, Ashleigh. And then he’d lost her. “And how do you feel about that?”

  Remi looked up at him, her brows crinkled. “I’m curious, sure. But I won’t be pursuing anything else until we know what’s happening with Out of Bounds. I’m not going anywhere, Wes.”

  He wanted to believe it, but this industry had taught him that loyalty didn’t always mean the same thing from one person to the next. “Even if things get tough?”

  “Things are already tough,” she pointed out. “You’re worried about funding, I’m struggling to catch up with the rest of the cast…and I’m still here. That’s not going to change unless you kick me out.”

  It eased some of the pressure in his chest to hear her promise to stay, and not just because he was worried about his show. “I’m not going to kick you out.”

  “Then it seems we’re in agreement. The show will go on, regardless of the challenges.” She shifted next to him, leaning to one side and rotating her other ankle.

  “Sore feet?” he asked.

  “Your personal shopper friend is a sadist in a pretty dress,” she said with a grimace. “I’d almost bet my pointe shoes do less damage to my feet than these damn things.”

  The shoes did look killer. They were the kind of shoes that he would love to tell her to leave on while he stripped that glittering dress from her body. Knowing what he did now—that she was firm and strong, that her breasts were the perfect handful, that when she moaned he felt it through his entire body—fantasizing was colored with the sharp edge of reality.

  “We can head home a little early,” he said. “My head is feeling like your feet.”

  “Tough crowd?”

  They turned and headed toward the rotunda’s exit. “Yeah. People either wanted to discuss my sex life, or they gave me a wide berth.”

  “I’m sorry that the Bad Bachelors thing is causing you so much trouble.” She shot him a sheepish look as they wove through the crowd on their way to the building’s exit. “And that I looked you up.”

  “I understand the curiosity.”

  They walked through the entrance of the building, Remi’s heels clicking with each step. It was like a beetle scratching at his skin, taunting him. Inviting him to react. Instead, Wes pulled out his phone and ordered them a ride from the car service he used for events.

  The night had grown cold, the breeze blowing over from the park whipping past them and disturbing Remi’s hair. When she shivered, he slipped out of his tuxedo jacket and placed it around her shoulders.

  “I do feel bad,” she said as they stood on the sidewalk. “It’s information that should be private. I know it can cause a lot of damage too. My friend’s fiancée had trouble with Bad Bachelors. It affected his work and his sick father. He ended up quitting his job because people wouldn’t take him seriously anymore. They said all kinds of bad things about him.”

  Wes’s ears pricked up. For some reason, that sounded a hell of a lot like Reed McMahon’s situation. “I’m assuming this was before they got engaged.”

  “Yeah.” Remi nodded and pulled his jacket tighter around her slim frame. “She didn’t even want to date him at first because of what the reviews said about him. He was supposed to be the ‘worst of the worst.’ But they’re really happy together now.”

  “His name isn’t Reed McMahon, is it?”

  Remi blinked. “Yeah, it is. How on earth did you guess that?”

  “I had a coffee with him recently because I wanted some advice on how to deal with the press issues.”

  “It’s a small world, isn’t it?” She frowned as if trying to figure something out. “How did you connect with him?”

  “Through a colleague of my brother-in-law.”

  A sleek, black car pulled up in front of them, and the driver got out to open the back door. Wes gestured for Remi to go in ahead of him, waiting until she’d slid across the seat.

  “Did he give you any helpful tips?” Remi shrugged out of the jacket and slipped off her shoes, tucking her feet away under the length of her dress.

  “You don’t need to hide them, Remi. I’ve seen plenty of ballerinas’ feet.”

  A pink tinge spread over her cheeks. “They’re not very attractive.”

  She relaxed and leaned back against the car’s seat. No, they weren’t “attractive” feet. Remi’s were looking pretty battered—two toes were bandaged up, and she had a nasty blister on another. The nail on her right big toe was purple, showing a bruise on the nail bed. The joints in her toes were swollen in a way that made them look mildly arthritic.

  “Anything that’s worth doing will leave a scar,” he said. They were his mother’s words, and they had no business inserting themselves into his head. “And no, Reed wasn’t particularly helpful.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “That’s a shame.”

  “He was super cryptic. Said there was a cost he wasn’t willing to pay when he went after the people behind Bad Bachelors.” Wes drummed his fingers against the car seat. “Makes me wonder if he knows who’s behind it.”

  Remi raised a brow. “Wow. I bet a lot of people would want that information.”

  “He’s locked up tight about it though. Said he wouldn’t tell me or anyone else.” Wes rubbed a hand over his jaw. “You don’t think it has anything to do with your friend, do you?”

  “Darcy?” Remi shook her head. “No way. I mean, not that I know.”

  “It must have been something big if he was willing to resign over it. If he knew who made the app, then he could have shut them down and stayed where he was.”

  “That’s very strange.” Remi toyed with a loose strand of hair, the golden length catching the lights of the city as it rolled past. “What on earth is a ‘cost he wasn’t willing to pay’? Can’t be money. He’s got an apartment in DUMBO that must be worth a small fortune now.”

>   “It didn’t sound like an actual cost.”

  “A personal one then?” Remi shook her head. “I have no idea. Maybe something to do with his dad? I’ll ask Darcy if she knows anything. I never heard a peep about it after they got together. I thought he’d agreed to let the whole thing go.”

  “Who knows?” He shrugged.

  Remi tilted her head and leaned it against the window of the car. The lights played over her skin, little flickers of orange and yellow and white that made her look luminous. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and pull her into his lap.

  “Do you regret hiring me?” she asked suddenly.

  Wes frowned. “Why would I regret it?”

  This was her demon. He’d known a lot of ballet dancers—both male and female—over the years who’d had the perfect feet or the perfect body composition but could never quite get their heads in the game. They tortured themselves with doubt, and no amount of training or perfect genetics could overcome a mind that wasn’t resilient.

  Sometimes it was triggered by an event—a bad injury or messed-up audition or, worse, a botched performance. He suspected Remi fell into this category.

  “I feel like…” She looked down at her lap, as if trying to find the right words. “I’ve lost control over my talent. It used to come when I called it and I could rely on being able to perform, but now it feels like this slippery, intangible thing that deserts me when I need it most.”

  It was the difference between the first time when he’d caught her dancing alone and how she looked during rehearsals. The difference between her first audition piece and when he’d asked her to improvise. There was a switch that seemed stuck. A setting in her brain that needed rewiring.

  “What caused it?” he asked.

  She laughed. “I don’t know if I’m ready to tell you that.”

  “So it was a guy then?” He chuckled at the surprise on her face. “Lucky guess.”

  “Either that or I’m embarrassingly easy to read.” She leaned back and turned her head toward him. Her blond hair was starting to escape the confines of her updo, and it played over the black leather seat like wisps of golden cotton candy. “Could go either way.”

  “Who was he?”

  “One of the soloists from my company.” She chewed on her lip. “He was their pride and joy. We used to call him ‘the chosen one’ because he could do no wrong. Everyone loved him. Dating him was like…doing thirty-two fouettes. It was thrilling and sweaty and exhausting. When it was right, it was magic, but on the off days, it went to Hot Mess City in a second. And if I could have left it at one night, I would have been fine. But I was stupid and I got involved when I shouldn’t have.”

  “The company directors frowned on it?”

  “Well, they tend to in general anyway. Two dancers on the rise can make waves if they leave together. It’s a big risk for the company.” She paused. “But my situation with Alex went a bit beyond that. The artistic associate had a daughter who was madly in love with him. She flipped when she found out we were sleeping together, told Mother Dearest, and then all hell broke loose.”

  “They kicked you both out?” he asked, and when the look of pain flickered across her face like a wavering flame, he realized. “They kicked you out.”

  “Yeah, just me. Female dancers are a dime a dozen, apparently.” She sucked in a breath, her hands pressing against the tight bodice of her dress. “They gave him a choice. He could keep seeing me and exit the company, or he could choose his career. Guess what he chose?”

  He made a derisive sound. “Bastard.”

  “Yep.” She turned to look out the window as they approached the Brooklyn Bridge. “So you see why I have that rule about mixing business and pleasure.”

  “But you still want thirty-two fouettes?” Thrilling, hot, sweaty. He wanted to give her that until he’d scrubbed the memory of this other guy from her brain.

  “Maybe, but what I need is a barre. A guy who’s solid and stable. That way I have something to hold on to if my feet go out from under me.”

  A strange, uncomfortable feeling zipped through him. Jealousy. He had no right to such an emotion. But it didn’t stop that fast and furious unfurling of hot, primal sensation in his gut. “Don’t tell me those are the kinds of guys you’ve been looking up on Bad Bachelors?”

  “I haven’t used it much lately.” The light flickered in the car, making her expression difficult to read.

  “But you still looked me up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just me?”

  She bit down on her lip. For someone who had trouble digging into the passion onstage, her emotions never seemed far from the surface everywhere else. He loved that—it made him feel like he knew her.

  And right now it also made him feel pretty fucking pleased that he was the only man she’d been looking up.

  Don’t be proud of that. One, it means nothing. Two, the reviews are a nuisance and you should be cursing their existence.

  “We never finished that conversation before,” he said.

  She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “And we’re not going to. You know why now.”

  “No one can fire you from my show,” he said.

  “You can. That’s exactly the point.” She looked as though she wanted to say more, but she didn’t. “Look, I know you’re attracted to me and I’m attracted to you. I’m not going to deny that, because we’re both well-behaved adults.”

  Wes raised a brow.

  “Mostly well-behaved adults,” she corrected herself. “Just because I want something doesn’t mean I can have it. I know you’re used to getting what you want, but I’m not.”

  She was right. Wes might be the affable, charming guy who never seemed to ruffle feathers—Mr. Genial, as she’d called him, even if he hated that label—but he went after his goals with a drive and single-mindedness that those with lesser ambitions didn’t understand. He wasn’t going to let other people dictate what he could and couldn’t do.

  Remi needed to do the same.

  “I want you to meet me at the theater on Sunday,” he said, flashing her a secretive smile. “I know it’s supposed to be your day off, but I promise I won’t work you too hard.”

  “What on earth are you scheming up?” she asked, cocking her head.

  “Just meet me there.”

  Would she trust him? Her eyes seemed to shift from black to golden brown as the streetlights bounced around inside the car. He could almost hear the cogs turning in her brain.

  “Okay,” she said eventually. “Sunday.”

  Good. Now that he knew what Remi’s demons were, all he had to do was get her to face them.

  Chapter 15

  “If you’re looking for an excuse not to date Wes…then this review is not for you.”

  —MaddyAve

  The meeting with Wes provided a point of fixation for Remi over the weekend. Luckily, she’d scheduled in some girl time on Sunday morning, which would hopefully prevent her from the insanity of wrangling her libido into submission.

  “What’s it like waking up to this every day?” Remi stood in the center of the place Darcy shared with Reed and soaked in the view.

  There wasn’t anything super flashy about the interior of their Water Street apartment. The furniture was modern and clean looking, if a little minimalist for Remi’s taste. The kitchen was compact but functional, with what looked to be nice quality fittings.

  The view, however, was on another level. Since the apartment was on the corner of the building, the living room had two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows, which framed the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Manhattan skyline to perfection. It looked like a goddamn tourism ad. And now, having seen it in both daytime, when the sun bounced off the pale floorboards, and at night, when the city was coated in a sparkling blanket of lights, Remi could say she was
officially jealous.

  “Not very difficult, I’ll be honest.” Darcy chuckled from behind the kitchen island, where she whipped up some pasta sauce to go with the “zoodles” Remi had picked up from Whole Foods. “Although ask me again in winter, when I’ve been trekking to and from the library in the snow.”

  “Yeah, but the view at Christmas will be amazing.” Remi sighed dreamily and wandered over to the kitchen. The scent of the pasta sauce bubbling away filled the room with a delicious aroma.

  “Ugh, Christmas. The other C-word.” Annie rolled her eyes. “Darcy, please don’t tell me that, now you’re all loved up, you’re going to turn into one of those sappy Hallmark-watching types this year.”

  “I have a feeling Reed will be allergic to Hallmark movies.” Darcy grinned. “But I might indulge.”

  “Yes!” Remi pumped her fist in the air. “Another member for Team Jingle Bells.”

  Annie wrinkled her nose. “You’re disgusting, both of you.”

  “Come on. I spent most of my life eating a full roast lunch and sweating my butt off in cute Christmas sweaters while it was unbearably hot outside. White Christmases should not be taken for granted.”

  Annie shook her head. “It’s not the holiday I have a problem with, it’s all the saccharine advertising and the cheesy movies that networks shove down our throats.”

  “You hate anything romantic,” Remi said with a huff. “Flowers, Valentine’s Day—”

  “Not a real holiday,” Annie interjected, taking a sip of her wine.

  “Ice skating at Bryant Park”—she ticked the items off on her fingers—“the color pink, anything with hearts on it, romcoms.”

  “Especially romcoms.” Annie shuddered. “Sandra Bullock has a lot to answer for, you know. Kate Hudson too.”

  Darcy snorted. “Did I used to sound like that?”

  “Yes,” Remi and Annie said in unison.

  “But now you’re all smitten with your wonderful fiancé,” Remi said with a smile. “And we couldn’t be happier for you. Speaking of which…”