Nothing else could be said. Nothing. She ducked around him and rushed outside to her hatchback, barely able to see through the curtain of her tears.
What a mess of a night.
Chapter Twenty
“More sex!” Nigel bellowed across the floor.
Anita stopped halfway through the hip twist she was attempting and crossed her arms over her chest. She blew hair off her forehead. “Seriously, Nigel?”
“You know I’m right, love.” Nigel held up a bored hand. “Again. More sex this time.”
She felt Patrick move behind her and shot him a cutting glare. He stepped back, hands up in mock apology. “I didn’t say anything.”
She hated this. It had been strained, and that was putting it conservatively, between them all day. He had every right not to be there. Heshouldnot have been there, not after how she had acted. Instead, he had installed video cameras at the studio and had waited with a cup of green tea to carpool to Nigel’s studio in Philadelphia.
It wasn’t right. None of this was. She could barely touch him without remembering the heat of his body on hers last night. She never could have imagined that passion caged inside his playful exterior.
She needed not to imagine it. Repress. Push it down. It would help if Patrick would stop looking at her, that concerned smile on his face which somehow made him more impossibly handsome. Her walls were crumbling, and it was freaking her the fuck out, and it was not her fault that she had tossed and turned all night last night because—
She stifled a yawn.
“Are we boring you, love?” Nigel called from the sidelines.
“Do you have anything more constructive to add?” She scuffed a spot out on the floor with the toe of her dance shoe.
“You pay me to be honest.” Nigel sipped languidly from his coffee cup. If Anita had any more caffeine, she would likelyexplode into a fuzzy ball of frenetic energy. “You look wooden. You keep staring out at the audience. Rumba is not about them—it’s aboutyou.Engage more with your partner, Anita. This is not how you win. Deal with your shit, and put more sex into it.”
“We are not going to win anyway.” She did not need to think about this right now. Did not need to think about sex, especially sex with Patrick.
No matter how close they had come last night.
Nope, shoving it down.
She glanced at the clock and groaned inwardly. They still had forty minutes left of the session. If Keystone were not starting in four days, she would beg off tonight and soak her troubles in the tub.
“At least give me a chance before you doom us to mediocrity,” protested Patrick.
Now everyone was pissed at her.Perfect.
Nigel shook his head disparagingly. “I don’t know why I’m telling you things you already know, love.” He turned another song on the stereo, Enrique Iglesias’s “Ring My Bells.”
They started the choreo again, but Nigel stopped them after only a few bars. “Crikey, Anita, you look like a fish. More sex!”
Patrick whispered something under his breath.
“Want to share with the crowd?” Anita barked at him. She needed to get a grip. Even Patrick, he of the infinite patience, was on edge. It was her fault, all her fault.
He raised an eyebrow at her, and her hackles raised. “I was just saying, maybe the problem is that you haven’t had great sex.”
Anita pushed him away, furious. Of course, she had. There was—
She did not have time for this. “That is absolutely none of your business.”
Patrick smiled wickedly. “One might say that is exactly my business right now.”
“Children, stop fucking around! More dancing!” Nigel stood at the edge of the floor, tapping on the face of his fitness tracker with a fingertip. “Time’s ticking, loves.”
Anita frowned deeply and turned back to Patrick, who was standing there, all innocent and adorable.Bastard. Men. AAAAAAAARRRRGH.
