Page 34 of Slow Burn

He nodded. ‘Let me set up the camera and we will begin.’

Because I’d arrived at the theatre so early, I’d finished my hair and make-up well in advance, leaving me time to find a quiet corner to upload the videos, along with a blog-style message to all the members on our database.

I promised I’d give them regular check-ins from each city we were visiting, and asked them to let me know if they enjoyed learning the dance steps that Gabriele and I had demonstrated.

I also promised to organize a gala evening when I returned, at which Gabriele would watch them perform the steps we had taught them.

I had no idea how any of this was going to go down – I imagined they’d like it.

My clients were generally fascinated by Strictly , and if they didn’t know who Gabriele was before, they would likely look him up, and the fact he’d been on the Italian version would be a huge pull.

Plus, our events always went down well. Usually, my mum would swan in looking fabulous in something long and sparkling.

Occasionally, Sedi came, but it wasn’t like she helped me serve drinks or anything, preferring instead to circle the room talking about her own exciting adventures to anyone who would listen.

I pressed ‘send’ on my members-only newsletter and posted an Instagram reel of Gabriele and I dancing, suggesting people come and join our James Jive family if they wanted to see more.

I’d check in with Julie and the others in a few days to see if anyone had mentioned it and, in the meantime, I’d try to think of other ways to keep our clients engaged while I was away.

When my phone rang, making me jump because it was still in my hand, I was surprised to see it was my mum. Strange; we’d only spoken the day before.

‘Hey, Mum,’ I said, my voice a little breathless. I tried not to let my mind wander to the worst-case scenario. Like was Dad okay? Was she ?

‘Can you hear me, Lira?’ shrieked Mum, talking far louder than was necessary, probably because she was standing out on the ship’s deck or something. At least she sounded fairly upbeat. Dad mustn’t have fallen overboard or anything.

‘Loud and clear,’ I said, with emphasis on the ‘loud’. I leaned my back against the dressing-room mirror, relieved that nothing appeared to be wrong. ‘What’s up?’

‘There is a Spanish couple on board and they somehow managed to get hold of a copy of El País when we docked in Crete. There are pictures of you all over it!’ said Mum.

‘Me?’ I said, confused. ‘You mean a review for the show in Madrid?’

‘Yes! Five stars they’ve given it. But not only that, they are raving about you, Lira. They are saying you are an undiscovered talent, that you have great things ahead.’

I let this sink in. The British press had been kind, but it had been Gabriele they had focused on, and of course Carlos had a mention.

There had been the odd grainy picture of Gabriele and me in hold, but that had been it.

If you didn’t read the caption in tiny print underneath, you’d never have known it was me.

‘Seriously?’ I said, taken aback, wondering how I could get hold of a copy for myself. ‘Can you take a photo of it and send it to me?’

‘I’ll ask your dad to do it, you know I can’t do texting.’

I smiled to myself. Mum was not the most tech-savvy person and I didn’t blame her for refusing to learn.

I thought life might be a whole lot simpler if you weren’t in constant communication with people via WhatsApp and social media, anyway.

I quite liked the idea of living your life completely oblivious to what everyone else was doing, and even what they thought of what you were doing.

My mum had always been very good at putting herself first, and I didn’t mean that in a negative way, not entirely.

I admired her for it, in fact, and wished that I’d inherited more of her extroverted personality and less of my dad’s more reserved one.

Because people who spoke out and said what they wanted got what they wanted, generally, didn’t they?

And the rest of us scuttled along behind them, picking up the scraps, taking the jobs they didn’t want and doing the tasks they didn’t have time for.

‘I never realized you still had this talent, Lira. Of course I remember how beautifully you danced when you were young. How elegant you looked, how you brought so much of yourself to each dance. But it has been so long now – how have you fallen right back into it, so much so that you are impressing some of the harshest theatre critics in the world?’

I was lost for words for a second. Was my mum complimenting me? Saying actual, really nice things?

‘Thanks, Mum. I guess it’s a lot to do with the choreography. With my dance partner, Gabriele. Maybe it’s about our connection. Perhaps I couldn’t have done this with anyone else.’

‘That I don’t believe,’ said Mum. ‘You have something special, Lira. And… I’m sorry.’

This conversation was taking a turn I’d never in a million years have expected. My mum – tough, no-nonsense, slightly emotionally averse Mum – actually sounded choked up. Had she just apologized ?

‘I’m sorry for assuming that you didn’t mind giving everything up to run James Jive. And I’ll admit it, it made my life easier. I had my own career to pursue and I wasn’t ready to give it up. But what about you? What have I done to you?’

I heard my mum sniff.

‘Mum, are you crying ?’

‘Only a little,’ she said. ‘And I don’t want you feeling sorry for me. I deserve all the guilt I’m feeling right now.’

I was touched. And thrown.

‘Look, Mum, it’s not all your fault. I could have said no.

If I’d had the guts to stand up for myself, I could have told you there and then instead of waiting until I was into my thirties and it was almost too late.

I’ll have a couple of years of performing at best, and then I’ll be back running the studio. We can make it work, can’t we?’

She sniffed again, harder this time. ‘I promise you, Lira, we will make it work.’

And for the first time ever, I believed her.

And it didn’t matter that usually when she said ‘we’ would do something, what she really meant was that I would need to do something.

I truly believed that she’d suddenly got it; that seeing a review of my dancing in black and white in a national newspaper – that I struggled to understand how she’d even managed to read, given she didn’t speak a word of Spanish – had made her realize that working in a dance studio wasn’t the only thing I wanted to do with my life.

Perhaps this was always meant to be my time to shine – a few years later than anticipated, but better late than never.

‘And listen,’ said Mum, ‘I’ve been talking about you to the cruise company. They’re doing a special press event in Dubai in the autumn and they want you and Gabriele to appear. An all-expenses-paid trip. Plus a fee, of course. Would you be interested?’

I was shocked. Shocked that somebody else would pay to see me dance; that they didn’t just want Gabriele. And Dubai? I’d heard so much about it, but it was the kind of place I didn’t think I’d ever go to just for fun – I had principles, after all – but if it was work, well, why not?

‘I’ll speak to Gabriele. But it sounds good. Thanks, Mum.’

When I put the phone down, I noticed a message from Jack.

I hadn’t thought about him for ages. Sure, I didn’t have the connection with Jack that I had with Gabriele, that unexplainable thing that made me feel giddy every time he looked at me, but Jack was sweet and gorgeous and kind, and sexy in his own way.

Are you back yet? Missing our PT sessions…

I smiled at our special code. I didn’t think the joke would ever get old. Although, one day, I might actually want some real personal training sessions with him, and then how would I differentiate between the two? I sent a message back.

Still away! Message you soon.

I pushed the thought that I might never contact him again from my mind. When my normal life resumed, I might very well be craving the excitement of a sexy tryst on Jack’s desk at the gym, however cold the thought of it not being Gabriele left me right at this moment.

An hour before curtain-up I was in the dressing room I was sharing with Daniella and another dancer, Astrid, touching up my make-up and spraying about a can-full of hairspray onto my bun so that there was no chance of it coming loose during one of the costume changes.

‘Evening,’ said Daniella, setting up next to me.

‘Hey,’ I said, casually.

Things still felt a little frosty between us and I didn’t quite know why.

I knew she’d been Gabriele’s dance partner for years, and that she’d wanted the lead in the show, so I supposed that was enough for her to resent me from the off.

And she was milking her role as dance captain, using the power it gave her to pull people up on their sloppy steps.

She’d criticized one of my lifts the other day and Gabriele had told her I was doing it one hundred percent accurately, and that since she didn’t know the steps as well as he and I did, she should probably keep her opinions to herself.

But there was clearly another layer on top of professional jealousy – I’d felt that from most of the other girls – but with Daniella it was different.

I suspected Gabriele had still been seeing her at the beginning of the run, certainly during rehearsals.

I tried to ask him about it, to make sure I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes, but whenever I broached the subject he shut me down immediately, insisting there was nothing going on between them.

I didn’t own Gabriele; he could sleep with whomever he wanted.

He didn’t owe me a single thing. And yet, it felt as though we were getting closer and closer.

Could I really let that happen if he was also getting closer with other women?

Was I saying, then, that I wanted Gabriele all to myself?

‘Do anything interesting today?’ asked Daniella, brushing copious amounts of bronzer onto her face and décolletage.

I busied myself slicking on another coat of mascara.

‘Not much,’ I said. ‘I recorded some bits and bobs for James Jive’s social media pages. You know the studio I run?’

Daniella stifled a smirk. ‘Sure, I remember.’

Every time I started to feel bad about potentially stepping on her toes with Gabriele, she went and did something that made me lose empathy for her all over again.

‘You think it’s funny, don’t you?’ I asked, for once not wanting to let her get away with her bad behaviour. ‘That I have to teach dance rather than just perform. You find it strange.’

‘I never said any such thing,’ she said, giving me a baffled, gaslight-y look, as though I was a bit mad for suggesting it.

‘I mean, it’s not something I could do, that’s all.

I think if you’re a dancer, you’re drawn to the stage like a moth to a flame.

Nothing would ever get in the way of that for me. ’

I nodded, as though in agreement. ‘Well, I’m glad you’re in a position to do exactly what you want with your life. Not all of us are so lucky,’ I replied.

I put my mascara away and pulled out my concealer, dabbing some onto one of my fingertips and applying it to all the areas of my face that needed smoothing out.

‘I noticed Gabriele has been helping you with your socials stuff,’ said Daniella, leaning into the mirror to apply her eyeliner. ‘Seems like you two are spending more and more time together.’

I shrugged. ‘He’s good at that kind of thing. He offered to help, no big deal.’

‘But you’ve been seeing each other, right?’

I tried to focus on finishing my make-up, but she was putting me on edge and my hand was shaking a little.

I had no idea why she had this effect on me, but she reminded me of some of the girls at school – the mean girls, the bullies who had tried to intimidate me and my friends, a group of equally quiet and studious people, who I still saw for dinner and drinks now and again.

I realized that Daniella was like a grown-up version of one of those girls, and I seemed to have regressed into the teenaged version of myself.

I would not let myself be walked all over, not anymore.

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ I said, sounding arsier than I’d intended. Better to overplay it than under, probably. At least this way she’d get the message that I wasn’t a total pushover.

‘Oh, it’s not,’ she said, her tone changing slightly.

Was it my imagination or was she the tiniest bit thrown by my pushback?

That was the thing with bullies, or at least that was what they told you, wasn’t it – if you got them on their own, they lost most of their power.

‘I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all,’ she said, obviously lying.

I almost smirked this time, but I wasn’t going to lower myself to her standards. But honestly, as if she cared about my feelings. This was entirely, one hundred percent about her.

‘Thanks for your concern, but I can look after myself,’ I said.

‘You know he’s been sleeping with me as well, though, right? And probably a couple of other women, too. Have you seen the contacts in his phone? He has hook-up after hook-up listed and, because of who he is, the way he looks, he can pick any of them to come over whenever he chooses.’

I swallowed hard. Contacts? Hook-ups? Obviously, I’d never seen inside his phone, and now I was annoyingly intrigued.

Because there was something off about having a list of women you picked from at random whenever you happened to feel horny, and it made me slightly sick to think that I might be one of these women.

There was no way that I was going to let Daniella see it, but she’d got to me.

‘You really like him, don’t you?’ said Daniella.

Our eyes met in the mirror.

‘And so do you,’ I said, softening my tone.

I was all for supporting other women, usually, so maybe I needed to find some sympathy for Daniella here, even if she was going about things all the wrong way. This was happening because she had feelings for Gabriele, plain and simple. And I, better than anyone, understood how that felt.

‘Maybe we should both tell him where to go,’ said Daniella. ‘It would serve him right.’

I smiled tightly. ‘Maybe. But whatever happens, please let’s not argue over it anymore,’ I said.

‘Agreed,’ said Daniella, unzipping her make-up bag with a flourish.

For the next five minutes, we finished getting ready in silence, but not the sort of angry, resentful silence we’d experienced before.

I was glad we’d finally addressed the issue between us.

And I wondered whether I’d been taking my anger out on her when, deep down, it was myself I was angry with, for letting myself get caught up in the whirlwind that was Gabriele Riccitelli all over again.