“Es la verdad, pero no me importa.”Natasha continued in Spanish, testing the other woman.
Donna only shrugged and replied in English. “We all make our own choices for how we go about being Latina in this industry. You, apparently, have made yours.”
Natasha sucked in a breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Raising a hand, Donna swirled it to indicate the space around them. “I get it, I do. It’s a hard industry, and an uncertain one. One bad injury, and it’s all gone. Or you age out. Whatever. It’s much easier to shack up with a rich guy, especially one who’s at that settling-down age, with family on his mind.”
“What?” Was this bitch for real? “¿Qué díces?”
“That will give you an out, if you want it.” Donna nodded at Natasha’s ankle. “If you want to blame it on the injury, play it up more, get a doctor to lie and say it’s worse than it is, they’ll let you out of the contract. Then you can keep on playing house with Dimitri.”
“What? No. That’s not what I want.” This conversation wasn’t going at all how Natasha thought it would, and Donna’s implications were offensive.
Worse, they mirrored what her mother said when she found out Natasha was living here.What happened, it got too hard and you’re looking for a man to make it easier?God, she had to get out of here, or everyone would think she was taking the easy way out.
“Then figure it out. Otherwise, you’re fired.”
Fuck.Natasha struggled to keep her tone calm. “Don’t worry. This is a temporary solution. I’ll be healed soon and back in my own place.” Whether that was the apartment she was currently playing rent on or not, well, that remained to be seen.
“See that you are.” Donna got to her feet. “Sleeping with one of the judges is way worse than sleeping with your celebrity partner. With Gina and Stone, people could tell they were into each other. But this? You know what people will say. At best, they’ll call you a slut. At worst, they’ll say you’re jealous of Gina and you’d do anything to win.”
“That is a fucked up thing to say, and you know it’s not true.”
Donna shrugged. “I’ve made it far in this industry by being able to predict audience reactions. I’m just warning you.”
And by manipulating people into doing what she wanted for those reactions, but Natasha kept that thought to herself.
“Don’t get up, I’ll let myself out.” Donna headed to the front door and paused. “A word of advice, Tash. I’ve known Dimitri longer than you have. The men in this industry . . . they’re not worth it. You’re a good dancer, a good choreographer. You have the potential to build a bigger career. Don’t throw it away for a guy who will never commit.”
To her eternal shame, the words,But he loves me,flitted through Natasha’s brain. God, she was so stupid.
Maybe he did love her. Who cared? Love was transient, unreliable. She had to think about herself. She couldn’t rely on him to fix everything for her.
“Bye, Donna.” Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
“Make the right decision, Tash.” The door clicked shut.
Natasha sat for a minute, replaying the conversation in her head. After resetting the security code, she hobbled back to the spare room, which still held most of her stuff, and opened her suitcase on the floor. It was time she took control of her own life, busted ankle or no.
It was time to move out.
39
Traffic had cleared by the time Dimitri got back on the freeway and headed toward his house.
Show her with action, huh? Hadn’t that been what he was doing? Helping her with physical therapy exercises, taking her to the restaurant, showing her with his body how much he cherished her—short of stepping in to solve all her problems for her, what else was he supposed to do?
Maybe romance. They’d completely bypassed that entire part of relationships. Hell, they’d only been on one date, and it was to visit her old place of employment and the restaurant he currently owned. It hardly counted. They should go on a real date. To dinner, or something. At a place he didn’t own. Or a movie premiere, or a launch party, or a—shit, those weren’t the kinds of dates real people went on. Had he become so removed he no longer knew how to date a woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with?
Yep. He had. Time to remember how to be a real person.
He called his brother and put him on speaker through the car’s Bluetooth.
“Yeah?”
Nik had never learned the proper way to answer the phone. “It’s me.”
“I know, fool. What do you want?”
