Bella Frances - The Tycoon's Shock Heir

He reached out a hand—an involuntary gesture—but she muttered an apology under her breath and was already making her way back through the cabin. He watched her walk carefully, the red satin billowing out above her calves, swishing gently with each step, until he was almost hypnotised by the sight.

And then the plane bumped and dropped. And she stumbled. She reached out to grab at the nearest chair and held on to it for two long seconds. He could tell she was holding herself in pain. She didn’t utter a sound.

He rushed to her.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Perfectly, thanks,’ she said, keeping her eyes ahead and fixing that smile in place as she started to walk again.

‘I saw you stumble there. Is it your injury? I know that’s why you’re not dancing at the moment. Is everything OK?’

She raised her eyebrows and flicked him an as if you care glance. He deserved that.

‘I’m fine, thanks. I’m going to sit down now, if that’s OK.’

‘Ruby—hold up.’

She sat carefully in the seat, straightening her spine, and her bright smile popped back into place. He recognised that—smiling through pain. Everybody had a mask.

He sat in the seat opposite her. She tucked her knees to the left and pressed them together, sitting even straighter—a clearer Keep Back message he’d never seen.

‘What is it? Hip? Knee?’

‘It’s no big deal. It’s nearly healed.’

‘What happened?’

‘A fall. That’s all.’

‘Must have been some fall to have taken almost six months to heal.’

The bright smile was fixed in place. At least it looked like a smile, but it felt more as if she was pushing him back with a deadly weapon.

‘You know, I’ve had my fair share of injuries too,’ he said, when she didn’t reply. ‘I played rugby for years. I know that you might never have guessed, thanks to my boyish good looks, but I was a blindside flanker at St Andrew’s—when I was at university.’

He tilted his head and showed her the mashed ear that had formed after too many injuries. Luckily that and his broken nose were his only obvious disfigurements, but he’d lost count of the fractures and tears tucked beneath his clothes.

‘Blindside flanker...’ She looked away, sounding totally, politely uninterested. ‘Sounds like rhyming slang.’

‘I was about to be capped for England,’ he said, grinning through her cheeky little retort.

‘Really?’

At least that merited a second glance. He smiled, nodded, raised his eyebrows. Got you this time , he thought.

‘About to be? So what happened?’

‘Long story. Doesn’t matter. So, what exactly is wrong with you, may I ask?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘I’m sure I’ll be able to follow. I’ve been heavily involved in most sports, one way or another, and I know the pounding bodies take. Ballet is tough—I know that. It might not be my cup of tea, but I respect what you guys do.’

He could see her pausing for a moment, hovering between cutting him off again and continuing the conversation. The smile had dropped and she was watching him carefully, but her body was still coiled tight as a little spring.

‘I’ve not always been a boring old banker. I wasn’t born wearing a pinstripe suit,’ he said softly. ‘Give me a rugby ball any day of the week.’

‘So what happened?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you follow your dream?’

‘Tell me about your injury first,’ he countered.

‘Cruciate ligament,’ she said after a moment.

‘Anterior? Posterior? Don’t tell me it was one of the collaterals?’

‘It was the anterior. I had to have surgery. Twice.’

‘Painful,’ he said, sucking his teeth. ‘You’d better be careful. That can be the end of a beautiful career.’

‘I’m well aware of that.’

‘I imagine you are. Must be on your mind all the time. One of the players in my uni squad had a terrible time. Had to jack it in eventually. Pity. He had a great future ahead but the injury put paid to all that. I’ve no idea what he’s doing now—he was a bit of a one-trick pony. I don’t think he had a Plan B...’

And then suddenly the mask slid down and her brilliant smile slipped and wobbled. Her delicate collarbones bunched and the fine muscles of her throat constricted and closed. She was visibly holding herself in check.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That’s not what you want to hear right now. Dance is your whole life, isn’t it? I totally get it.’

‘How can you until it happens to you?’

She shook her head and twisted away from him, staring out over the twinkling yellow lights of London.

‘I really do understand,’ he said, cringing at his thoughtlessness. ‘Rugby was my whole life. As far as I was concerned banking was what my father did. And then— whoosh —he died and the carpet got pulled from under my feet. And here I am.’

He looked round at the jet, at the cream leather, the crystal glasses, the plasma screen flashing, the numbers and money, wealth and success. For all the Arturo deal would be the icing on the cake, he still had a pretty rich cake.

Her face told him she was thinking exactly the same thing and he couldn’t blame her for that.

‘It’s not exactly the same, though, is it?’ she said, with a note of wistfulness that rang like a bell in his consciousness. ‘You had a Plan B. I’ve got nothing else. Only this. My whole life has been preparing to be a principal dancer. I’m not good at anything except dancing—I barely got myself together to do this.’

She held out the skirts of her dress and looked right into his eyes with such an imploring look that he thought how easy it would be to fall for a woman like her. She was strong, yet vulnerable too—but all he had to do was dive right in and before he knew it he’d be scrabbling for the banks of some fast-flowing river or, worse, being dragged under and losing his mind along the way.

He would not be diving into anything. Arm’s length was the only safe distance with any woman—especially one that looked like this—because even when he was crystal-clear it always ended up the same way, with her wanting more than he could give.

Relationships: the rock he was not prepared to perish on again. No way. The skill came in avoiding crashing into that rock by keeping it light, keeping it moving along, keeping it all about the ‘now’. Worrying about the future...that wasn’t such a great idea.

He turned to Ruby, lifted her chin with his finger, the lightest little touch.

‘You’re doing a fine job. You’ve nothing at all to worry about,’ he said, hearing himself use his father’s gentle but firm pull yourself together tone.

But she shook her head and lifted those doe eyes.

‘I’m not. I’m useless. I’ve left the notes I wrote out at home on the table. And I spent hours writing them—in case I forgot something. I can’t hold things in my head, other than dance steps, and it’s been months since I’ve danced. I’m terrified that I’ll have even forgotten how to do that.’

‘Well, one thing at a time, yeah? You’ve been brilliant so far. I had no idea I was going to see a ballet based on a poem by Rumi, who I used to think was an amazing poet—back when my head was full of mush. Maybe I’ll see the error of my ways. Who knows?’

‘You really don’t mind that I’ve been a bit of a disaster so far? I don’t want to spoil your evening.’

‘It’s certainly different.’

‘You’re really going to love the ballet. I promise you.’

She smiled. Wide and fresh and beautiful. He wondered if she knew it was her deadliest weapon. She had to. She might say that she was no good at anything except dancing, but he would wager she could wrap pretty much anyone, male or female, around her little finger with just a flash of that smile or a glance from those eyes.