Patrick pulled his eyes from Anita, leaving her feeling strangely unmoored. “I didn’t do anything. It was all Anita. She’s the real professional here.”
“Don’t be so modest!” Maria put a hand on his arm, suddenly flirtatious. Anita wanted to smack the hand away from him, then inwardly chastised herself for her unkind thoughts.
“I’m not.” He slipped an arm around Anita’s waist, and she almost died. “I retired, remember? Anita works at the studio every day, she teaches fellow champions. She is incredible.” Her knees wavered, but she managed to stay upright.
She needed to eat something more than a granola bar. Maybe Patrick.
“I think I need a cold shower after that performance,” Maria said conspiratorially. “Well done, you two. Can’t wait to see what’s in store tomorrow night.” She blew them a kiss with her fingers.
Alone again. Good. No, no bad. Bad. Alone with Patrick equaled bad.
But the still, soft voice at the back of her mind did not want to cooperate. The still, soft voice reminded her that they had adjoining rooms and nowhere else to be for the next eight hours. The still, soft voice that remembered every single curve of Patrick’s body, the taste of his kiss, the way it had felt pressing her lips to his dimple.
“You didn’t have to say that.”
“This isn’t my triumph.” The color had seeped back into his eyes as the intensity had left. Damn it. They had lost the moment again, hadn’t they?Shit.“You deserve all the credit, Anita. You really are amazing.”
“Yes, she is,” said a thick, dark voice.
Perfect, just perfect. Of all thezasranets—
“Hello, Mikhail.” No greeting was too frosty for him. He looked shorter all of a sudden, particularly next to Patrick. As Mikhail was not performing tonight, he was dressed in a light-blue button-down shirt and dark-gray suit with black highly-polished Oxfords. He had slicked his hair back in a nouveau pompadour, and Anita was certain he was wearing gray eyeliner.
She just kept making the same bad choices. She couldn’t drag Patrick down with her.
Patrick shook the hand Mikhail extended tersely. At least this time he had acknowledged Patrick’s presence.
“That was quite the performance.” Mikhail set his hands on his hips and jutted out his chest. An image of a preening blue jay popped into Anita’s mind, and she choked on a giggle.
“Thanks.” Patrick tightened the arm around her waist.
Ugh. If anything could kill the mood—
“You never danced like that with me, Anita. If you had, maybe we should not have broken up.”
“It’s lucky you did,” Patrick replied, his gaze steely. “Now you can finally get out of her way.”
Mikhail whipped toward him, and Patrick dropped his arm from her to adopt a more offensive stance. “What did you just say?” Mikhail demanded, fists clenched at his sides.
“I said, now that you are out of the way, maybe Anita can start winning again.”
“Boys, please.” She crossed her arms over her chest. The fire from the dance had fled, leaving her chilled and ticked off and frustrated. She was so done. Men and their idiotic pissing contests. “You two are being ridiculous.”
Neither paid any attention to her. Their voices had risen as well, drawing a crowd.
She bristled at the tension in the air and wished they could go back a few moments in time so they could have just left the ballroom.And gone where, Anita?Her heart pounded. She told it to hush.
“You are just some halfwit writer, dancing on the weekends. You think you can do better than me?” Mikhail thumped on his puffed-out chest.
Patrick smiled languidly at him. “Yeah. Yeah, I kind of do. I may be a halfwit writer, but even I can see that you can’t tell your mambo from your cha-cha.”
Mikhail moved so quickly, Anita almost missed it. Patrick dodged the first fist, but Mikhail brought a second uppercut into his chin.
“Stop it, you goddamn idiot!” She pulled at the back of Patrick’s shirt, but he pushed her away from him and threw a wild punch at Mikhail’s ribcage.
The crowd that had gathered oohed and aahed, their collective breathing rising each time a hit landed. Anita tried again to intervene, but they seemed lost in their own world of the fight.
Idiots. Men!
