She ran from the room and down the hall to her own.
Carajo.No, not her room. The guest room.
She didn’t see him again as she left the house, speeding through traffic on the 10 to get to her first job, an early morning pole-dancing workout class.
From there, she had a packed day. Spin class, three back-to-back yoga classes, and an after-school ballet program guest-teaching gig with twenty teenage girls.
By the time she got to her five thirty “Soulsa” class—a workout that combined salsa dance and cardio—her head pounded, her feet dragged, and she was thoroughly sick of LA traffic.
California had a lot of advantages over New York City. Driving wasn’t one of them. Days like this, she missed the subway, even though she’d seen more than her fair share of crazy shit there.
But the ladies who showed up to this class looked to her to perk them up after a full day of working in various offices around the city, and they paid well to work with a celebrity instructor at a fancy gym. Better than some of her other gigs, anyway.
Natasha chowed down on yet another protein bar—her fourth that day—as the women filed in from the locker room. She waved and smiled, even though all she wanted to do was curl up on the floor and sleep.
She checked her phone one last time before plugging it into the sound system.
Nothing. No texts from Dimitri. Not a single one the entire day. It shouldn’t have bothered her, or surprised her, but each time she’d checked, her stomach sank a little further. It was currently somewhere near her ankles.
Sure, she would be back at his house tonight, and he wasn’t great about texting, but she’d thought after last night . . .
She swapped out her sneakers for dance shoes, then strode to the center of the room. Seriously, would it have fucking killed him to send a text? He’d fucked her brains out twice last night, and he knew she had a busy day. Was “Hey, how’s your day going?” really that fucking difficult?
Facing the mirror, she was met with her own grimace.Ay dios,she really had to get it together. She couldn’t let them know she was exhausted and hungover. Fixing a brilliant smile on her face, she clapped her hands, signaling that the class was about to begin.
“Buenas tardes,ladies,” she said, as she always did. “I hope you all had a good day at work.”
She was met with the usual grumbles.
“I know, I know. Don’t worry, we’ll turn this day around, starting now. Ready for warm-up music?”
A chorus of affirmatives. She sidled over to the speakers, turned on the playlist she’d queued up, and went back to the center of the room. A bumping rhythm poured out of the speakers. The mood in the room instantly lifted, and smiles beamed her way in the mirror’s reflection.
She smiled back. “Ready? Let’s begin.”
She stepped to the right—and kept going as her ankle rolled under her weight and she started to fall.
She was a dancer. Her body was finely attuned to its own movements, honed through years of practice and hard work. It knew when shit was going wrong. And now it was screaming at her.
Danger!
Adrenaline flooded her system, and she stumbled to right herself, slower than she would have if she were firing on all cylinders.
But she wasn’t. She was barely operating on half power.
Gasps echoed through the room as she pitched forward and caught herself against the mirror, her palms making a smacking sound as she hit.
Natasha blinked at her own reflection. What the hell had just happened?
Someone turned off the music. Two ladies ran forward to support her arms.
“Are you okay?” one of them asked.
“That looked really bad,” said the other.
“I’m fine.” Natasha pushed off from the mirror, her own voice sounding soft and far away, drowned out by the pounding of her heart in her ears. She put her right foot down to test her weight on it. “Just a stumble. I’m—Coño!”
Pain spiraled up her leg, blocking out her vision. She gritted her teeth and shifted all her weight to her left leg.
