Fiona Harper - Save the Last Dance - The Ballerina Bride / Invitation to the Boss's Ball

‘It’s been quite a day,’ he said seriously.

No kidding.

‘I reckon it’s time to hit the ferns,’ he added.

Allegra just nodded and dragged herself into the shelter, leaving her head at the open end near the fire. What a difference to the previous night! She was warm and dry and Finn, thankfully for him, had been right about the jungle mattress. Not that she’d have had much energy to do anything about it if he hadn’t.

She rolled onto her back and felt the bamboo poles beside her bounce as Finn joined her. She turned her head to say goodnight and found him staring up at the stars beyond the roof of the shelter and grinning like a loon. The firelight cast soft shadows on his face and he looked simply adorable.

‘You really love what you do, don’t you?’ she said sleepily.

‘Uh-huh.’ He nodded, still staring at the star-sprinkled sky. ‘Don’t you?’

That question sobered her up from her sleepy stupor a little bit. Back home, her standard response would have been, Of course. But here… Everything was too open, too honest. She found she couldn’t lie.

‘Sometimes,’ she said slowly. ‘Sometimes I hate it, too.’ She paused for a few breaths. ‘Mostly I hate it.’

Finn frowned and rolled over to prop himself on one elbow. ‘Why do you do something you hate?’

Allegra looked away and stared at the orange shadows dancing on the roof of the shelter for a long time.

‘Sometimes you have to do what’s expected of you. I mean, you must have to do certain things to continue to be the presenter of Fearless Finn, don’t you? And if you didn’t, you’d be letting people down.’

She moved her head just enough to catch his reaction out of the corner of her eye.

‘True,’ he said, nodding again. ‘So…who expected you to be a prima ballerina?’

Oh, that question was easy. So easy she let out a little dry laugh. ‘Everyone!’

Finn laughed, too. And when he realised she wasn’t joking, he stopped.

‘Ever since I put on my first pair of ballet shoes, people watched me closely,’ she said. ‘They watched, they waited, trying to see if I had the same gift as my mother. It pleased everyone—especially her—that I did. She died when I was eight and afterwards I felt it connected me to her. It felt as if I was talking to her when I was dancing.’ She wrinkled her nose and allowed herself to look at him more fully. ‘That sounds silly, doesn’t it?’

‘No.’ Finn looked back at her, the most serious she’d ever seen him. ‘It sounds as if you were a little girl who missed her mother.’

Strangely, that thought made Allegra smile. Finn had such a clear, practical way of saying things. No oblique hints, no subtext. He knew what he wanted to say and he said it. But he didn’t ramble or stutter. It was rather impressive.

She frowned as she tried to do the same—tried to put clear words to the half-acknowledged feelings that had been weighing her down for so long.

‘I grew up believing ballet was what I loved more than anything, but I think I confused it with the memory of my mother. Now I’m not sure if I ever loved it at all. It asks too much. More than I have to give.’

She stopped talking, waited for the bottom to fall out of the universe at her admission, but in the breathless seconds that followed nothing happened. The planet remained on its axis. There were no mighty heaven-rending explosions. All she could hear was the shuffle of the surf against the shore and the crackle of the fire. And if Finn was shocked at her outburst, he was hiding it very well.

Allegra felt a huge weight lift off her.

There. She’d finally said it. And it had been so easy.

‘I always thought I had chosen ballet but, looking back, I can see my path was chosen for me. It was my mother’s dream, not mine. But I wore it with pride, just like the sapphire brooch she left me.’ She closed her eyes before she said the rest. ‘I feel so ungrateful, because I know there are hundreds of dancers who’d kill for my life. It’s horrible to be blessed with a gift you don’t really want but have the responsibility of living up to.’

Finn’s voice was soft and warm in the darkness. ‘Give it up. Find something you’re passionate about. Life’s too short, Allegra.’

She opened her lids and stared at him long and hard. He was serious, wasn’t he? She swallowed. Even a week ago, if someone had said that to her she’d have laughed at the impossibility of it. Right now, she wasn’t even smiling.

Could she? Could she walk away and be free?

She didn’t know. Wasn’t sure she had the strength. It was easy for someone like Finn to say such a thing.

She rolled onto her left side and faced him, mirrored his position with her head propped on her hand. ‘I’m not like you,’ she said softly. ‘I wish I was, though.’

Finn grinned at her. ‘You wish you were twice your current weight, widely acknowledged to be slightly bonkers and in need of a good shave?’

Allegra grinned back. ‘No,’ she said, scolding him good-naturedly. ‘I mean it would be nice to be spur-of-the-moment, spontaneous…creative.’

Finn looked shocked. ‘You’re a ballet dancer! Of course you’re creative!’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t make up the moves. I just dance them. I don’t have the luxury of choosing my steps. I just follow instructions.’

Finn pressed his lips into a grudging smile. ‘Nah, don’t buy it. I’ve seen you dance.’ His gaze shifted to the starry sky again as he pulled the memory from its filing place, and then he looked back at her. ‘I saw you dance Juliet—Nat dragged me along.’ He gave her a look that reminded her of a naughty schoolboy. ‘That sounded awful. Sorry.’

She tried not to smile back, and failed. ‘Forgiven.’

‘But you’re wrong when you say you’re not spontaneous and creative. You took that choreography and filled it with life. You made it something unique.’

Allegra’s whole body began to tingle, warmed by Finn’s praise, then as suddenly as the pins and needles had started, they vanished.

‘That was a long time ago.’ She looked at the mattress beneath her fingers, played with a thin leaf. ‘Don’t you read the papers? I’ve burned out since then. Lost my spark.’

Finn didn’t say anything and her stomach went cold, fearing his silence, but when she found the courage to meet his gaze she discovered he’d been waiting for her to do just that. He dismissed her comment with a word that shouldn’t be repeated in polite company.

‘I don’t believe that. Not from what I’ve seen of you in the last two days. But it really doesn’t matter what the papers think. It’s what you think that counts.’

Allegra raised her eyebrows. What a novel concept.

Finn continued. ‘I think you need to stop waiting to see if ballet has finished with you and decide if you have finished with it. It’s your choice, Allegra. Yours alone.’

Neither of them said anything for a long time after that. Finn left her to digest what he’d said in peace, and digest it she did. Who knew if it would agree with her?

I don’t know about ballet, she silently told him, but you’re my choice. That one was easy. Took no effort at all.

When she sneaked a look at him again his eyelids were closed, and seeing him give in to drowsiness pulled her own lids down, too. She let them slide closed as she rolled over, but before sleep took over she whispered, ‘Thank you, Finn.’

‘No problem’ was the mumbled reply.

And then Allegra wasn’t aware of anything any more.

‘Doesn’t this make you wish we had a packet of marshmallows?’ Finn was enjoying the contrast of the warmth from the fire on his face and front and cool night snaking up his back under his shirt. With a million childhood campfires swirling in his head he turned to Allegra, who was sitting on a log they’d pulled close to the fire for a bench, looking at him with blank eyes. He poked the fire with the stick he’d been holding before dropping it into the flames.