The Saint of Petersburg (Dancing Dream #3)

by Leslie DuBois

  The

  Saint

  Of

  Petersburg

  by

  Leslie DuBois

  ***

  Kobo Edition

  ***

  Copyright © 2012 Leslie DuBois

  All rights reserved.

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Leslie DuBois on Kobo

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Visit www.LittlePrincePublishing.com

  ***

  Dedicated to all my little Queen Bees

  AH classes of 2010, 2011, &2012

  ***

  CHAPTER 1

  A Victory

  It was the last game of the season for the Lottomatica Roma team. The Euroleague championship. Down 2 points with only 25 seconds left, the entire crowd was on their feet cheering them on, especially my Will. He was having the game of his career with 58 points, 23 assists, and 21 rebounds. That was extremely good … I think. I still wasn’t sure about all this basketball stuff sometimes.

  Just two months ago he was almost traded to Madrid. Now, once again, he was the star player in Rome. I was so proud at how he had turned his career around. And so was the Rome crowd. They had been yelling out his nickname “El Matador” almost continuously throughout the game.

  We were married a few days after my eighteenth birthday in May and, although Will wanted to take a month long honeymoon, I convinced him to make it last only a week so that he could rejoin his team. Looking at the score, I was glad I did. They really needed him.

  With 6 seconds left, Lottomatica was still down by 2. I was used to nerve wracking, nail biting games with Will. The very first basketball game I had ever attended back at Bridgeton Academy where we both went to school was borderline traumatic for me. But Will, singlehandedly, won that game with a buzzer beating three-pointer. I was positive he would win this game as well.

  As the team strategized during their final timeout, I got an eerie feeling that someone was watching me. I scanned the crowd and locked eyes with none other than Damian Karl.

  I wasn’t completely shocked to see him there sitting next to pop star Veronica Valerio. She was a big basketball fan and Damian often choreographed her music videos. It made sense that they would see each other socially sometimes.

  Drawing my attention away from Damian and Veronica, I turned back to the game where Sergio Tolini was inbounding the ball to Will. He dribbled down the court, faked left, turned right and then launched the ball at the basket. The ball rose in slow motion, bounced on the rim and then, unfortunately, bounced out. Will didn’t pull out a victory for us. My heart sank. But then an alarm jerked me out of my sudden depression. Will was fouled. And since he was fouled shooting a three, he’d get three free throw shots.

  Before taking his first shot, Will found me in the crowd and blew me a kiss. The ball went in with a swish. I leapt out of my seat and cheered my husband on. Lottomatica was now down by one.

  “Your basketballer is having a fantastic night,” a familiar voice said from behind. I turned around to see Damian Karl sitting in my seat. If he hadn’t said anything, I would have sat down blindly and landed right in his lap.

  “Damian, please go away. If Will sees you –”

  “I don’t care if he sees me.”

  “Well, I do.” I looked at Will and smiled as he blew me another kiss. Because everyone around me was standing as well, Damian’s presence was obscured from his line of sight.

  After Will’s second free throw went in, the Polish team took their final timeout in order to strategize.

  “Have you thought about what I said?” Damian asked.

  I knew what he was referring to. After Will and I came back from our honeymoon, Damian showed up claiming he had called me a hundred times during my convalescence from a broken ankle and anorexia. I didn’t believe him, of course. He was just trying to find an excuse for why he hadn’t contacted me in two months.

  “Go away, Damian. I’m married now. We are over. Whatever we had is gone.”

  “Is it? We’ll see about that once we dance together again.” As the buzzer sounded indicating the end of the timeout, Damian stood to leave. “Maybe you should ask your basketballer about my calls.”

  I tried to ignore Damian as I watched Will dribble the ball three times before taking his final free throw. Too nervous to watch, I closed my eyes just as the ball left his fingers. The shouts and screams from the crowd told me I had nothing to worry about.

  By the time I opened my eyes, the other team had already inbounded the ball, but time ran out before they could get a good shot. El Matador had done it. I had absolutely no reason to doubt Will on the basketball court. I wished I could say the same about our marriage.

  ~***~

  There was an impromptu press conference as Will accepted his Most Valuable Player award. Taking the microphone he said in broken Italian, “I’d like to thank the most valuable player in my life, my beautiful, talented wife Sonya Maddox. Be sure to see her show with the DiRisio Ballet Company on May 31st.” The crowd laughed a little at his shameless promotion. “But seriously, without Sonya by my side, I would not be here before you today. I love you, Angel.” Then he swept me up with one arm and kissed me on the lips. From the sounds of the camera flashes going off, I knew the paparazzi loved this display of affection. I loved it even more. Even after a year of being together, one kiss from Will still made my stomach pirouette.

  “Great speech,” a very large black man said as Will and I left the court hand-in-hand.

  Will froze and his mouth flew open. When he started breathing heavily I thought he was going to have a heart attack or something.

  “Will? You okay?” I asked.

  He completely ignored me and said, “You’re Dashon Talbot.”

  “Yes, I am,” he said with a smile.

  Letting go of my hand, Will shook hands with the big black guy and said, “What are you doing in Italy?”

  “I was on vacation and thought I’d take in a game.”

  “I’m a big fan, Mr. Talbot. A big, big fan.” Will kept holding the man’s hand and shaking it up and down for an awkwardly long time.

  “After your performance tonight I have to say I’m a big fan of yours as well.”

  “Are you serious?” Will looked like a little boy whose parents just told him he won a lifetime supply of cotton candy and Legos.

  “I’m very serious. Do you have an agent? I’d like to talk to him about your career.”

  “Yeah, I have an agent. His name is … his name is … um.”

  “Antonio Rimaldi,” I volunteered for my husband who was obviously too starstruck to think straight.

  “Antonio Rimaldi. Got it. You got any more games coming up?”

  “Um, yeah. I think.”

  “He’s got a tournament in England coming up,” I said when Will didn’t volunteer any more information.

  “We’re flying out next week so I won’t be able to see y
ou play again. But I have your agent’s name. I’ll be in touch. It was nice to meet you, Will.”

  “Oh, yeah. Same here. Nice to meet you too.”

  Will kept staring at Mr. Talbot so long that it was getting really weird. Finally, I said, “Will, you have to let go of his hand.”

  “Oh, right,” he said, releasing his grip on Mr. Talbot.

  “So, who was that?” I asked Will after we had taken a few steps away.

  “Who?”

  “The big black guy you were talking to.”

  He looked at me strangely. “Are you serious? You don’t know who Dashon Talbot is? You are so cute sometimes,” he said, kissing me on the top of the head. “Dashon Talbot is a hall of fame NBA player and now part owner of the New York Knicks. I can’t believe he saw me play. He just might be my ticket to the NBA.”

  “Are you okay there, babe? Don’t worry, if you pass out; I know mouth to mouth.”

  “You don’t need to find excuses to kiss me, Mrs. Maddox. I am always ready and willing.” He swept me up into his arms and gave me an X-rated kiss right there in the arena.

  I tried to be excited for Will. He really did deserve all of his success. But I had to admit that a part of me didn’t want him to play in the NBA. I was pretty sure there was no NBA team in St. Petersburg, Russia and that was where I wanted to dance. It was what I had worked for my entire life. How in the world would we make this work?

  Chapter 2

  A Hundred Times

  I called you at least a hundred times ...

  Damian’s words played over and over again in my head. How could he have called me a hundred times? I didn’t receive one call. No messages, no missed calls. Nothing. He had to be lying. Unless ...

  A buzzing interrupted my thoughts. I dug my phone out of my bag and noticed that Will had programmed a reminder for me to eat. I dug a granola bar out of my bag and took a bite while circling my ankle to warm it up.

  I thought back to that time. After breaking my ankle and then being hospitalized for anorexia, I was at an all time low in my life. I was still angry at Will for cheating on me with Veronica Valerio and at the time, I wanted to be with Damian. We were supposed to go to L.A. together where he was going to choreograph a movie, but my illness prevented me from traveling. I practically slept with my cell phone next to my head during those first few weeks waiting for Damian’s call. Trust me: I would have known if he called.

  Was he lying? Was he trying to confuse me and mess with my head again? Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he did call me and for some reason the calls never came through. How was that possible? Unless Will ...

  My phone buzzed again. This time it was a text message from Will.

  Luv u

  I sighed. I loved him too, but I still couldn’t get Damian out of my mind. I had even been dreaming about him lately. A lot. Each dream more explicit than the last. I would wake up feeling guilty and dirty. Will knew something was wrong with me, but I blamed my mood swings on missing my sister. My sister, Sasha, was an evil, ruthless backstabbing bitch who had betrayed me not once but twice. As far as I was concerned, I had no sister. But I did use her as an alibi for my melancholy. I couldn’t very well tell Will that I was pining away for Damian in my dreams.

  “Are you ready to start?” my personal trainer Juan Carlos asked, entering the studio. He wasn’t a professional dancer or anything, but he was an expert at rehabilitation and even had experience with nutrition. He often worked with the Lottomattica basketball team. Will had hired him two weeks ago in order to get me back in shape for the performances I had coming up.

  “Yeah, let’s start.” I stood and did a couple of heel stretches.

  “What have you eaten today?” he asked. “Will wanted me to make sure you’ve had enough to eat.”

  I sighed again. “Yes, I’ve had enough to eat. Let’s just work out okay?”

  Two hours of stretching and exercise wasn’t enough to purge Damian from my mind. I kept thinking back to how he showed up at my doorstep after Will and I got back from our honeymoon. He told me that he hadn’t been in L.A. His father died suddenly and he had returned to Brazil to bury him. Damian said he called me every day, sometimes twice a day, for fifty-eight days. Over a hundred times.

  After working out with Juan Carlos, I wasn’t ready to go home. I wanted to clear my head of Damian first, so I went shopping with my old roommate from the DiRisio Academy, Anna Marie, and her boyfriend Raffaele.

  “What is the matter?” Raffaele asked in Italian. He must have noticed me staring at my cell phone as I tried to figure out how it was possible that I missed one hundred phone calls.

  Raffaele didn’t speak English. Oddly enough, Anna Marie didn’t speak Italian. Yet somehow their relationship worked. Actually, they seemed to have better communication than Will and me.

  Still staring at my phone I asked in English, “Would it be possible for someone to call my phone but for me to not receive the call?”

  “What’s this about?”Anna Marie asked.

  “Maria, you have to try this on,” Raffaele said, holding up a little black dress in Anna Marie’s size.

  I didn’t think she actually understood what he said, but she definitely knew she’d look fabulous in the dress he had in his hands. “Be right back.” She grabbed it and then dashed off to a dressing room.

  I was still staring at my phone as Raffaele waited for Anna Marie to change.

  “It’s possible,” he said suddenly a few moments later.

  “What?” I had almost forgotten I had asked a question.

  That’s when he went into what I had nicknamed Rapid Raffaele Rambling. It happened three or four times a day when he would say about five hundred words a minute and I could understand about every third word. So by way of summary, he said that he and his oldest sister were just about best friends and they talked on the phone every night. When she lost her cell phone, she didn’t want to wait for a new one to be shipped before she could talk to him so she had Raffaele’s number forwarded to her work cell phone. If you could have a number forwarded to another phone, he was sure you could also have that same number blocked on one phone. He said the person who paid for the cell phone service could probably even have numbers from an entire area code or country blocked. So basically, it was possible.

  After I finished translating Raffaele’s rambling in my head, I started staring at my phone again. Actually, it wasn’t really my phone. Will had picked it out, bought it, and paid the bill. Could Will have had Damian’s number blocked? Did he have the calls to my phone forwarded to his phone?

  Anna Marie stepped out of the dressing room looking fabulous in the little black dress. Apparently Raffaele agreed as he started kissing her right there in the shop.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I excused myself from Anna Marie and Raffaele. I left the store and went out on the sidewalk.

  Would things have been different if I had kept in touch with Damian during those two months? Would I have still married Will? Unfortunately, now I would never know. Will had taken away my right to choose. Awful music blaring from a storefront didn’t help my mood. I turned around to see a music video from Veronica Valerio playing. It was the same video Will had guest starred in as the basketball playing love interest. Suddenly, I was very angry with my new husband.

  I couldn’t believe Will had done this. He was trying to control me again. What I needed during that time was the opportunity to come to an unbiased decision about who I really loved, but instead Will had manipulated things so that he was all I had.

  I felt cheated and used and lied to. I also suddenly remembered how Will had cheated on me with Veronica. And as I climbed the stairs to Damian’s hotel room, I felt that Will needed a taste of his own medicine.

  Chapter 3

  Another Man’s Hands

  I wasn’t expecting what I saw when Damian opened his hotel room door.

  “Your hair,” I said with a gasp. “You shaved your head?” Damian’s hair was his crowning
glory. He had a full blown, soft, beautiful afro which kind of made him look like a blue-eyed Lenny Kravitz. It was his trademark. I couldn’t imagine anything that would make him part with it.

  “My father is dead and the woman I love has married another man, he said with pain in his eyes. I simply thought it was time for a change.”

  I wrapped my arms around him. I just wanted to ease his pain. I hated seeing other people suffer. But my empathy led to more than I’d planned.

  Damian nuzzled my neck and breathed in deeply as if he wanted to fill himself with my scent. Then he pressed me closer to his body.

  “Damian, I –”

  “Shh. Just let me hold you. Please.”

  So hold me he did. We were folded in each other’s arms so long that time ceased to exist. Finally, Damian kissed my ear, then my neck, then he moved the spaghetti strap of my dress off my shoulder and kissed there as well. I felt my resolve weakening. No, it crumbled. Almost instantly. Damian placed his lips on mine and every fiber of my soul exploded in passion. I was powerless under his kiss. I didn’t resist as he led me to the bed.

  It had to be a dream. It had to be one of my elaborate dreams. There was no way this was real. But lying in Damian’s bed next to his naked skin, it surely didn’t feel like a dream.

  Did I really just do this? I thought, as I rested my head on Damian’s warm, muscular chest and ran my fingers around and around his navel. Did I really just cheat on my husband? I’d only been married four weeks. What kind of person was I? What was I going to do? Was I going to leave Will for Damian?

  Damian sensed my anxiety and pulled me closer to him. “Don’t feel guilty about this,” he said after kissing me tenderly on the forehead. “He shouldn’t have lied to you. He shouldn’t have tried to keep us apart.” I looked up into Damian’s intense, soulful, turquoise eyes. He was so different from Will. Will had sweet, calm, baby blue eyes. And with his golden hair, he looked like he should be in a commercial for Wonder Bread or Welch’s grape juice. Damian had fiery eyes that always seemed to be burning with desire.