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“Okay ladies, if we don’t want to be single, we have to mingle. Well, except for you, Tay. Because if you mingle, I’ll have to call Charles, who made me swear on Mom’s grave to make sure no red-blooded male goes within five feet of you.” Lana holds up her phone and shows a scowling Taylor what must be a text message from my brother.

“Oh, I’m so having a word with him,” Taylor growls, grabs her phone, and stomps off as the rest of us dissolve in laughter.

“Hit up the dance floor, ladies!” Lana waves her hands in the air and practically runs to the crowd with Olivia laughing behind her.

I grin, following them into the throng and close my eyes, letting the music wash over me. My body moves to the beats, my left leg carrying most of the effort, but my right side is cooperating tonight.

I’m in a spaghetti strapped black minidress with two sexy triangle cutouts on the sides, my updo perfect, my makeup on point, and I’m wearing sensible flats so I’m not straining my feet and legs. I feel pretty damn good.

Olivia squeals and I open my eyes, finding her and Lana laughing with a few guys, clearly making friends in the crowd, and I go back to my dancing.

With each passing minute, my muscles slowly relax. I didn’t realize how much tension I was carrying. I gyrate my hips harder, glee churning inside me when my muscles didn’t protest in pain. I’m enjoying myself.

Yes. This is the old me. I’m older, more mature, but a part of the old me is still alive.

Reaching back, I grab the hair clip pinning up my tresses and shake out my waves, relishing in the freedom—the high of the music, my body in one with the beats again.

I’m thrown back to my ballet recitals when I was younger—the weightlessness of my body as I twirl around the stage.

Determined, I hurl myself into a pirouette, my muscles never forgetting the proper technique.

But dammit, I forgot to use my left leg as anchor instead of my right.

A painful spasm ricochets up my calf, and my knees give out. I claw at the air, struggling to regain my balance when a very familiar pair of arms clasp my waist and complete my rotation before tugging me flush against solid muscle.

“How many times do I need to catch you?”

Chapter 32

Awareness sizzles through meat the ghostly rasp next to my ear, followed by his distinctive cologne reaching my nose.

My mouth runs dry.

“Cat got your tongue?” A puff of breath hits the sensitive spot under my ear and I shiver.

Ethan’s breath catches, and he tightens his arms around my waist, drawing me closer to him.

So close I can feel his body heat singeing into my bare back.

“Ethan, what are you doing here?” I curse myself for the breathlessness in my voice.

My mind finally registers our positions on the dance floor—him pressing my body in front of his, his head dipped down, nose grazing my neck, his hands a firm brand on my hips, slowly moving us to the beat of the sultry music.

We’re dancing together.

But it feels way more than that.

“Lana told me to come and give her a flash drive.” He clears his throat.

I narrow my eyes. Something isn’t computing. “And you didn’t think that was weird.”

“I was nearby.” He sounds strange. He clears his throat again.

“I don’t buy it.”

Ethan chuckles. “Well, I’m not selling you anything. And lucky I came because you were about to fall flat on your ass…again.”

His fingers trail up the sides of my dress to the triangle cutouts at my waist. A new tension radiates from behind me as he grazes my bare skin.