“It’s really not fair that’s she still in this school,” big nose griped. “She should move on already.”
Light and graceful, the ballerina did a series of spins before being caught by the male dancer.
“Did you hear she moved in with the Logans?” Helmet hair gossiped. “She had no one else to take her in after her grandmother died, no family or anything. I heard both her parents died when she was a baby.”
I leaned forward a little when I realized this might be the girl who was responsible for me being forced into a tux tonight. Nina told us that this chick was her sister, but these ladies talked about her grandmother - not her mother.
Nina had lied yet again. Shocking. Faking her death was a higher level of subterfuge than I’d expected from her, though. If she hadn’t abandoned her own child, I’d almost be impressed.
Initial background checks hadn’t shown anything interesting about Nina other than a habit of making late or incomplete payments on her credit cards. That was almost expected of a gold digger, though. What surprised both me and my father was what we found when we went searching in Nina’s past. We located the mother she won legal emancipation from in New York City – Nina had claimed her mother was dead. Our security team noted a teenage girl living there with her, but I had accepted her tearful confession of a sister without blinking. After all, Nina was thirty-two. Who would expect her to have a teenage daughter?
The three women made fake noises of sympathy about the grandmother’s death before the crowd gasped again. This time it was over how the male held the ballerina up in the air with one hand as she gracefully demonstrated her flexibility and balance by doing some kind of rotating split thing that was actually kind of hot.
“The only reason they would have agreed to take her is because of her influence over Ryan,” Big Nose whispered. “I heard that the Russian grandmother would lock them in a room and wouldn’t let them do anything but dance for hours, even after they’ve been in school all day.”
“Well, why do you think so many of the best ballerinas in the world have been Russian?” Helmet Hair griped.
“Rachel told me that the girl is weird and doesn’t even watch TV,” the third one criticized.
“Well, obviously, I want Jenna to have a career, but I also want her to experience life,” Helmet Hair sniffed. “This girl’s going to end up having a Black Swan level breakdown, mark my words.”
The male dancer had a moment to dance on his own while the ballerina held still, but my eyes were still on her lithe form. Her hair was wrapped tightly in a bun with some kind of flowery thing covering it, but it looked like it might be a light brown or dark blonde color.
“I don’t think the Russian girl is going to be able to do much more for Ryan,” Big Nose tittered. “He’s not getting the height he needs on those jumps, and I haven’t seen him do anything impressive yet.”
“True, but there are so few male dancers, I’m sure he’ll find a place in a company somewhere doing corps work.” All three of them chuckled meanly, and I rolled my eyes.
I was far from being an expert on any type of dance, let alone ballet, but even to my untrained eye, it was clear that the female had something extra that the other students lacked. She flowed gracefully with the music and drew your eye, even though she was sharing the stage with another dancer. She flew higher than the others, and her body bent even more dramatically in ways that I wasn’t aware a human body could.
There was thunderous applause once the couple finished their dance, and a large number of the audience stood when they moved to the front of the stage for a bow. I leaned past my brother so I could see my dad.
“King and I are stepping out for a minute now that we’ve seen the girl.”
My dad looked over at me in surprise. “That was her? Glad I paid attention to that one.”
Nina woke up from her trance. “I would have been so disappointed in you if you missed her.”
I snorted, doubtful that she had even bothered to watch her sister, or daughter, or whatever this girl was. Nina obviously didn’t give two shits about her.
I had no idea what my father saw in Nina. Years passed after the accident that took our mother, and he’d never brought another woman home – until Nina. Hell, he had barely bothered to come home himself.
Initially, I thought Nina was just a passing phase for him, or maybe a midlife crisis, but I was shocked when he proposed to her several months ago. Nina might be beautiful on the outside, but she was rotten to the core. She was selfish, spoiled, materialistic, and an obvious gold digger. I had no idea why my father would date her. At least he was insisting that the engagement stay a secret for now. We still had time to get rid of her before she got too strong of a foothold into our family.
King followed me out of the auditorium, and once we got to the lobby, I stretched my back gratefully.
“Fuck,” Kingston said as he stretched his arms. “How much longer is this going to take? I have a hot blond with giant tits waiting at the hotel bar for me to get back.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m more worried about how we’re going to derail this marriage.”
“Why bother?” Kingston shrugged. “Dad will have her sign a prenup - he’s not stupid. And you know we won’t see much of either of them after they’re married.” Kingston pretended to be casual, but
