Save the Last Dance: The Ballerina Bride / Invitation to the Boss's Ball

When he’d run out of breath he turned back to find the crew rolling their eyes, but Allegra…

Allegra laughed.

The sound burst from her, surprising her as much as him. She clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle it, but over the top of her fingers her eyes still danced.

Finn couldn’t help but join her.

Well, blow him down if the suits back in TV land hadn’t been right for once. Sharing this with someone who hadn’t done it before was fun. It was amazing to watch her soak up everything he gave her like a sponge, to see her eyes widen in awe at each new revelation.

He ran over to her, grabbed her tiny hand and tugged her with him to the edge of the precipice.

‘Have a go,’ he said, grinning at her. ‘There’s nothing else like it.’

Her eyes sparkled, but she bit her lip and shook her head. Finn just laughed harder, the sound rumbling low inside of him and gathering momentum until it demanded to be let out. So let it out he did.

It seemed such a shame that Allegra didn’t shout her joy out, too, that he whooped again and, as he did so, he tightened his hand around hers, hoping in some small way he was taking her with him.

Allegra plunged her canteen into the cool, dark pool of water and felt the warm air bubbles rumble to the surface. When she was sure it was full she lifted it out of the water and swung it to her lips.

‘No!’

Finn was through the draping ferns and beside her in a second, shoving the canteen away from her face with such force she almost dropped it. Shock must have been written all over her face, because his expression softened as he gently prised the canteen from her fingers and screwed its cap on.

‘It needs to be boiled first,’ he explained.

Allegra didn’t do anything but stutter. Shock had given way to awareness, and Finn McLeod was standing very, very close, his dark hair flopping over his forehead and his eyes full of delicious concern.

‘B-but, this…morning…’

He shook his head. ‘That was rain water. Different rules.’

She nodded, even though she didn’t really understand. Finn had amazed her with his ingenuity that morning. After their swim he’d set about recovering their water containers—as well as their canteens and sections of bamboo he’d cut up to make long cups—that he’d placed strategically the night before. Each one had a large rolled up leaf sticking out of the top and she’d discovered they’d acted as funnels, the torrential rain filling every one of them. But in this heat and humidity, their water supplies had gone down very fast, and there was no knowing when it would rain again.

She looked at her canteen in Finn’s hands.

She’d made a rookie mistake. One that, had she really been stranded on her own, might have been fatal. It only proved how much of a fish out of water she was here—and how much she needed Finn.

Maybe Finn had said something about not drinking the water, but she’d been too busy watching his face light up as he’d talked about navigating their way to the head of the creek he’d spotted from the top of the island to retain that information. It turned out the spring was not far from the base of the cliff they’d been standing on earlier. But they hadn’t known that until they’d made a two-hour trip, first locating the creek and then following it upstream to its source.

Finn gave her a half-apologetic, half-cheeky look, handed her canteen over and stepped back. ‘Sorry if I made you jump.’

She shook her head, and then blushed hard. Finn, thankfully, had turned away to finish filling his own canteen, and Allegra was hoping the shade cast by the drooping trees would hide her heightened colour from Dave’s beady-eyed lens.

It was a relief when Finn stood up and charged off into the jungle once again. She fell into step behind him, glad Dave and the rest of the crew were taking the rear and only had a clear shot of her sweat-stained back.

Their small party had doubled with the arrival of the speedboat that morning. Simon, who was both the producer and the director, had turned up, along with another cameraman—she couldn’t remember his name—and a safety expert called Tim. This wasn’t a big island and Allegra reckoned it was starting to feel a little crowded.

After a couple of minutes of walking, Finn stopped suddenly, eyed up a thick-trunked palm and then began hacking it to bits with his machete. Allegra quelled a shiver. There was something about a man pitting himself against nature that made a girl feel all…wobbly. When he was almost all of the way through, he pushed the trunk over and gouged a well in the stump, which instantly began to fill with clear liquid.

‘Here…’ he said, gesturing to it. ‘If you’re thirsty you can drink this.’

Allegra held back her ponytail and bent to sip from the shallow pool. The liquid tasted like water, clean and clear, with a hint of sweetness. When she’d downed as much as she could, she stood back and let Finn take a turn.

She watched him, knowing she should quench the little puddle of warmth that had begun to collect in her stomach at his thoughtful action, but she didn’t have the heart.

I know he’s not mine, she silently told whoever was listening. I know when this week is up we’ll probably never see each other again, but let me have this. Let me have the crumbs I can have before I go back and face the mess I’ve made of my life.

Foolish girl, the ferns around her seemed to whisper. Don’t unlock this gate. Don’t cross this threshold.

Too late.

It was much too late for such warnings. She’d crossed into that forbidden territory when she’d started to realise Finn McLeod was so much more than a two-dimensional fantasy. She’d instantly lost herself in that new place when she’d seen that the flesh and blood man was so much more than pixels of light on a TV screen.

The territory of teenage crush was rapidly being left behind, and Allegra had no idea where she was heading now—only that it was new and frightening and exhilarating all at the same time, and that she had no choice but to follow him, because finally she felt alive.

‘Better now?’

Finn had finished, and his voice beside her ear roused her from her fanciful ramblings. She shut the door on them, not wanting to probe too deeply into what was happening to her, anyway. All she wanted to do was enjoy one week with Finn McLeod. Surely that wasn’t too much to ask?

Or was that just wishful thinking, that same disease that had plagued the character she’d brought to life on stage less than a week ago? Mermaid thinking. And that girl hadn’t really known when to give up and let go of the dream, had she? She’d let her hopeless desire for the wrong guy rob her of her very life.

‘Much better,’ she said, ignoring that thought. ‘How long until we reach our camp?’

Finn scrunched up his face and peered into the never-ending greenness in front of them. While he was working it out, her empty stomach decided to voice its displeasure with a loud and rather unladylike growl.

‘About an hour,’ he said, turning back to her. And then he smiled. ‘Why don’t we see if we can find some food along the way?’

CHAPTER SIX

‘HOW about a snack?’ Finn asked and waited for Allegra’s answer.

Dave, who had been on enough adventures with Finn to know exactly what sort of snack might be on the menu, positioned himself and his camera accordingly.

‘I’m ravenous,’ she said quickly.

Good. With what he had in mind, she’d need to be.

He kicked the rotted fallen tree he’d found with his boot and watched it crumble. Just as he’d hoped, when he cleared the bark away he found some grubs squirming there, bright and pearly-white against the dark wood. He picked a couple up and popped them in his mouth as if they were lemon drops.

‘Great source of protein,’ he said, before biting down into the firm flesh, feeling everything squelch out. He then got it down as quickly as possible. He grinned at his disciple, hoping he’d convince her to give them a go. No point in telling her they tasted like feet.

From the look on Allegra’s face, Finn knew that if she’d had any breakfast this morning, this would have been the point when she would have lost it.

He picked another wriggling grub up and offered it to her. She took a large step back.

Come on, Allegra. You’ve surprised me at every turn so far today. Don’t buck the trend and disappoint me.

‘You said you were ravenous.’

Allegra didn’t respond. She was too busy staring at the small creature tickling his palm.

‘It’s no big deal,’ he added, conveniently pushing aside his first memory of doing the same, when he’d decorated a fellow soldier’s boots.

‘I know you can do this,’ he said, lowering his voice to coax her further. ‘You’ve got it in you. All you need to do is choose to believe you can.’

Her eyes flicked up and held his gaze with an intensity that startled him. She inched a little closer. Not much, but a little.

‘Do you believe I can?’ She said it quietly and if he hadn’t known any better, he’d have thought he’d detected a tremble in her voice.

He glanced down at the grub, still blissfully unaware of its potential fate, and then back at her.

‘Yes,’ he said simply, knowing he was telling the truth.

Allegra’s mouth twitched as if he’d said something funny. Something funny and slightly wonderful. ‘You really believe I’ve got it in me to pick up this…thing…pop it in my mouth and chew?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. One hundred per cent.’

Something odd happened then. Her eyes sparkled, just as they’d done when she’d been standing on top of the island, drinking in all the beauty. They were full of wonder and promise and something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Didn’t matter, though. She looked amazing.

Without blinking, trapping him with her eyes, she pinched the grub between thumb and forefinger and threw it into her mouth. No hesitation. Then she clamped her lips together and moved her jaw.

He saw on her face the moment the larvae exploded and she got the full experience, but she didn’t open her mouth and spit anything out until her throat had moved and the ‘snack’ was gone. Then she braced her hands on her knees, bent over and coughed and spluttered.

Finn felt a pang of guilt as he clapped her on the back. ‘Probably should have warned you about the taste, huh?’ he said.

‘You don’t say,’ Allegra replied hoarsely before pulling herself upright again.

Finn laughed.

Brave, and funny, too.

Allegra Martin was shaping up to be the perfect castaway companion.

Allegra eyed the night vision camera bolted to the tree opposite the shelter entrance suspiciously. ‘How much can that thing actually see?’ she asked Finn as he dumped yet another bundle of palm leaves into her waiting arms.

He shrugged. ‘Everything. Why?’

She turned and spread the dry leaves on the top of the bamboo poles. This was at least the third layer. Finn had better be telling the truth about it being more comfortable this way. If she found out it was going to be as ‘okay’ as eating the bug had been, she’d kill him with his own machete.

A shudder ran up her spine and she couldn’t help wiping her tongue against her lips a few times. She could still taste the vile little creature, and she hated to think what it must have excreted inside her mouth to make it taste so bad. She shuddered again.

‘No reason,’ she replied as she finished spreading the leaves across the shelter floor.

‘That means you’ve got to behave yourself!’ he added. It was just a throwaway comment—he didn’t even look at her. Nothing in it. Just one of Finn’s jokes.

Instantly she spun back around and played with the bedding, flushing hot and cold. ‘You should be so lucky,’ she muttered, doing a passable imitation of not at all bothered.

She didn’t want to banter like this with Finn, even if it showed he was starting to feel comfortable around her. Teasing was too close to flirting, and flirting was too close to pretending she could have all the things that could never be hers.

Chore finished, she straightened and then headed down to the beach, stopping where the dry sand ended. The sun was starting to set, and since their beach faced west she had a ringside view. It made something inside her ache. But in a good way. As if something unused and stiff was waking up.

She sighed. An inadequate response, but it was all she had.

The crew’s speedboat had left more than twenty minutes ago, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to stay close to Finn unless she had to. She let out a hollow little laugh. How totally gauche and pathetic she was. Alone on a desert island with the man of her dreams. She knew plenty of girls who’d jump at the chance to jump onto Finn McLeod, fiancée or no fiancée, but unfortunately she couldn’t.

No. Actually, she wouldn’t. Her choice.

Because she didn’t want Finn to be the sort of man who’d cave so easily when temptation arrived on his doorstep. Because she thought she’d shrivel up and die if he replied, Yeah, honey. Let’s have a steamy tropical fling. He wouldn’t be the man she believed him to be then. At least this way she still had the idea of Finn to cherish.

She shook her head and concentrated on the descending orange disc on the horizon. That at least was all she had hoped it would be. However, the moment it disappeared completely she was forced to retreat up the beach. Night fell quickly here and she needed to get back to the warmth and light of the huge fire they’d built. And Finn, of course.

He’d stoked it up nicely and was cooking some fish he’d caught by sharpening a length of slim bamboo and splitting the end into a star-shaped spear. Allegra was surprised just how filling one fish, some boiled roots Finn had dug up on the trek back to camp and half a coconut could be. Once her stomach was full, her eyelids began to droop.

She stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. When she opened her eyes again, Finn was looking at her.

‘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.

‘You never went camping as a kid?’ he asked, almost wondering if such a horror could be true.

She shook her head.

Wow. A deprived childhood indeed, despite her obviously cultured and privileged background.

‘Not even once?’

She bit her lip and shrugged. Finn tried hard to find the silver lining. He liked silver linings; they protected a man from the depressing facts of life. His gaze roamed to the shelter, the fire, the moonlit beach and then he turned back to her. ‘At least this week should go some way to making up for that.’

She smiled at that. ‘Apart from the marshmallows,’ she added quietly.

Right then and there, Finn decided to send a whole crate of marshmallows to Allegra when he got back to London. Then she could use her fire-making skills to roast them whenever she liked—if she ever managed to get the knack of it, of course.

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