Page 8 of Pretend it’s Forever

He had married me because he had wanted the Cage money—something that had been new to me at the time—and hadn’t touched it. He’d taken half of my life, but not the Cage family dynasty. That was the difference.

I had been a principal dancer for the Denver Ballet for long enough, and had made enough investments, that I’d been well off on my own without touching the Cage money. But Cale had wanted more. And he tried to break me open as if I could give him anything more than what I had within my soul.

I let out a breath, tried to push him from my mind.

He didn’t matter now. My girls were with their nanny, and would be with my mother after that. I needed to work to keep this place open, and to ensure my girls had a future.

And I couldn’t focus on what their father wanted.

I hadn’t been born a Cage. Not truly. Cage had been my middle name, as it was for the rest of my full siblings.

Our father had been in and out of our house, seemingly on work trips, but we hadn’t known that he hadn’t truly been married to our mother. Hadn’t known that he’d had a secret family.

Suddenly, my family of five children was a family of twelve. Twelve children over two families, with two women. Two women who had known and had covered up his secrets and mistakes so they could have some part of him.

I knew my brothers’ mother, Melanie, had stayed with him for money—at least that’s what they’d told me. But my mother, Constance Cage Dixon, had stayed for love. A twisted love that I would never understand and wanted no part of.

And after my father had died, and we found out at the will reading that we weren’t alone, the Cages had grown in notoriety, but connections had solidified in strength.

Our father had wanted us to fight with one another, clawing for the inheritance. The will and his greed even forced us to have meals together once a month in a show of theatre. Instead, it had brought us closer together, and sometimes I forgot that I hadn’t grown up with the majority of my brothers.

So when I wanted to change my name after the divorce, I had taken away the strings that had tied me to a past I wanted no part of. And I wanted my girls to have a true family.

Dixon was my mother’s name, and while I was slowly finding common ground with my mother, I would never understand her choices, and while I didn’t respect or even like my father, may God rest his soul, I loved and respected the others with the Cage name.

So I was now fully a Cage, as were my girls, and since my family tended to slap their names on everything, including the small town they owned, me having a dance studio with the same name just made sense.

I once again did my best to ignore all of the trappings of the complications of my past, and went to my next dance class, this one with twelve- to thirteen-year-olds. I couldn’t help but smile at their glee and the concentration on their faces.

I ignored the pain in my leg and went back to dancing.

I knew my mother was worried about me, as were my sisters and brothers. I had been ignoring their texts all day, as all they did was check on me and ensure that I wasn’t working too hard.

I scrunched my nose, played with the new septum ring there, and smiled. Ballerina princesses did not have tattoos and septum rings, but I did. I wanted them, and I wanted more.

I was trying to figure out who I was now, as a single mom, and one who had dance in her heart, but wasn’t able to dance a whole song without falling in pain.

By the end of class, I was a sweaty mess, and the kids were ecstatic. We were getting ready for our next ballet, and I was so excited. It was summer, and that meant no Nutcracker around here.

I went to my office bathroom and quickly washed up, knowing I needed to be ready after lunch. The harder classes would be then, and I honestly couldn’t wait.

“Knock, knock,” a familiar voice said from the doorway, and I whirled and put my hand on my chest, grateful I hadn’t screamed. I could feel the blood slowly sliding from my face, and Flynn cursed under his breath before moving towards me slowly.

“I’m sorry, Sophia. I didn’t mean to scare you. Fuck. Are you okay?”

I smiled, blinking and hating the nerves that constantly ran through me these days. I was not weak. I wasn’t going to be jumping around every corner. “I was just startled. It’s good to see you, Flynn.”

Flynn was technically my half-brother, and one of my favorite people in the world. He and his twin Hudson were the second oldest of the twelve while I was technically the eighth oldest. Which was ridiculous in retrospect, because I was technically the second oldest in my half of the family. But suddenly I had far too many older brothers, and two younger ones, and the over protectiveness was getting a little ridiculous. But I stupidly loved it.

“I’m really okay, Flynn. I didn’t know you were stopping by.” I tried not to sound annoyed with him, but nearly every day a different Cage family member or friend stopped by just to check on me.

Flynn however, frowned. “It’s on the calendar. We have lunch today. Remember?”

I blinked, and then pulled out my phone, scrolling through my files.

“Oh. You’re right. I’m sorry.” I cringed, looking down at my clothes. “Let me put on jeans real quick, and this sort of works as an outfit.”

I was in full dance gear, and since it was summer, a cute double-layered tank top and jeans would work for an outfit. “Unless we’re going somewhere fancy, and then I’m sorry, I’m a failure.”