“Because we’re training for a showcase.”
“We also had dinner at your cottage.”
“One dinner.”
“And there were those kisses.”
My face heats. “We agreed not to talk about that.”
“Did we?” He tilts his head, all innocence. “I don’t recall agreeing to anything.”
“I recall you agreeing very clearly.”
“Hmm.” He moves past me into the studio, close enough that I catch his spicy, smoky scent. “My memory must be faulty. All those years catching up with me.”
I frown. “All those years? You’re what, thirty-five?”
A pause. Just a heartbeat too long.
“Approximately,” he says.
Before I can press further, the door chimes and my next student arrives—sixteen-year-old Alexandra Martinez, who’s preparing for her quinceañera waltz and requires the kind of patient, repetitive instruction that leaves no room for personal conversation.
Mal retreats to the observation area, where he pulls out his phone and pretends to be absorbed in something other than watching me teach.
He’s not fooling anyone.
The problem, I realize somewhere around noon, is that everyone in Bellamy Cove has apparently decided my love life is community property. I discover this when I stop by the Copper Kettle for lunch and find myself cornered by the café’s owner, Rita Jenkins, who is Bianca’s aunt and the town’s most efficient gossip distribution system.
“I heard about the gala,” she says, sliding my usual sandwich across the counter.
“What about the gala?”
“That you’re going.” Her eyebrows perform an elaborate dance of implication. “With a date.”
“I’m not—” I stop. “Wait, what gala?”
Rita stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “The Bellamy Cove Charity Gala? Annual fundraiser for the community center? Black tie, silent auction, dancing in the historic ballroom?” She pauses for effect. “Your studio is one of the sponsors.”
Oh no.
I’d completely forgotten. Every year, the Solis School of Dance sponsors the charity gala as part of our community outreach. Every year, I attend alone, make polite conversation with potential clients, and leave exactly when the music switches from waltzes to whatever current pop hits the DJ considers appropriate.
Every year, various well-meaning townspeople try to set me up with their nephews, brothers, former college roommates, and in one memorable instance, a visiting goat farmer from Vermont.
“The gala is next Saturday,” Rita continues, clearly enjoying my dawning horror. “Bianca mentioned you’d probably be bringing that gorgeous man who’s been helping at your studio. The one with the jawline.”
“Bianca said that?”
“Bianca implied it. I extrapolated.”
“Of course you did.”
I pay for my sandwich and flee before Rita can extrapolate anything else.
The thing is, it’s not an unreasonable assumption. I know this even as I’m fuming about it. Mal and I do spend an unusual amount of time together. We do look like a couple when we practice—all those holds and turns and moments where our bodies move in perfect synchronization. And yes, there were those kisses, which we’ve been studiously not discussing but which linger in the air between us like smoke after a fire.
Plus there’s Nix, who has taken to lurking in the studio’s rafters and making increasingly pointed comments about “boss’s heart things” whenever Mal thinks I can’t hear.
