Page 173 of A Vicious Love

The marshal nodded.

I shrugged. “Cleared.”

“That was not a normal clearance.”

She looked at me for a moment. Then, to my great personal satisfaction, she shook her head slightly like she was trying not to smile.

Excellent.

The evacuation was now a success.

We went inside.

I kept one hand at her back, for safety. A fiancé making sure his recently cold fiancée did not slip.

The front hall had posters along the walls. Performance notices. Donor names. I noticed Marcel and Emmeline Crow listed too many times. Along with Harrison. I paused when I saw Alistair. That wall suddenly needed demolition.

The schedule board had Sienna’s name in several places.

Sienna Bellemere — lead variation rehearsal.

I looked at the board too long.

“That’s for the winter piece,” She expected me not to care and had already forgiven me for it before I failed.

“Tell me.” I turned my head toward her.

Her expression went blank with surprise.

“What?”

“The winter piece. Tell me.”

Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag. “Now? In the hallway?”

“Is the hallway sacred?”

“No, but…” She looked uncertain. “You hate ballet talk.”

I deserved that.

“I don’t hate ballet talk.”

She gave me a look so small and sad it almost qualified as a medical injury.

“Fine,” I said. “I have behaved as though I hate ballet talk.”

One eyebrow moved. That was dangerously close to attitude. Baby. Don’t tempt me.

I wanted to kiss her.

Instead, I stood there like a civilised man, which was deeply unnatural, and waited.

She looked at the schedule board. “It’s the Harlan Winter Ballet Society gala piece. There’s a guest choreographer from St. Cross. The role is… not really a story role. More emotional. It’s about restraint and fracture.”

Of course it was. The universe had a sense of humor and deserved consequences.

“Fracture,” I repeated.