Dance, Sugarplum

16. Mikhail

CHAPTER 16

MIKHAIL

ACT 2

My studio surrounds me, and though it’s not dusty from being abandoned, it feels like a tomb to the old Mikhail. Everything is glossed and perfect, just like it was the last day I closed the door myself.

Part of me wants to go and find my housekeeper to scream some more about the importance of keeping certain rooms locked, but that wouldn’t help anyone in this situation, especially given the positive reputation I’ve managed to maintain with my staff.

I look at everything, images of an old life flashing before my eyes. My jaw aches with an intensity of pain that seems unfair after all this time. We’re made to believe modern medicine can fix anything, set right any broken bone, but even with all my money, that’s just not true. There is no true escape from the pain.

I’m not even a man as I stand here. I’m a patchwork of my past. I spend my life ignoring what this room meant for me. I no longer compose at my grandfather’s piano, for fuck’s sake.

A noise of rage and pain echoes from the back of my throat, and my fist snaps out, colliding with one of the walls of glass. Pain shoots up my knuckles, taking the worst of the sting out of my jaw, and a spiderweb fracture forms across the mirror. God-fucking-dammit.

The accident took my entire sense of self, a life without constant pain. The young man who danced and composed in this studio may as well have died in that car because he isn’t me. It’s hard to imagine I was once an eighteen-year-old with dreams that ended at once because of that car crash. The memories were forgotten, abandoned in a fog of my new reality. It feels like pain, and a poorly healed jaw have been my entire life.

This room is proof that Mikhail existed, and she had no business being there. A part of me sees how perfect they would have been for each other—Lyla and that Mikhail I no longer am. The sting in my knuckles worsens, and I look down to find them bruised, bleeding, and decorated with small bits of glass. The old Mikhail certainly wouldn’t have done that.

Of course Lyla would find a way to dance even away from the main stage, but I didn’t expect her to open every damn door in the place just to piss me off and then wind up here. Since I’ve brought her home, I’ve been checking in on her through the cameras, and this is the first time I’ve had any issue with what I’ve found.

Maybe I get her frustration to some extent. I’m not sure I’d respond well to the same treatment.

I stare at the floor beneath me, unable to face myself in the now-broken mirror. I’m a fool and too old for this behavior. I know better. My good hand works to pick the larger pieces of glass out of the cuts as I swallow and bury down the feelings coming to the surface.

Emotions are rarely appreciated in high society. From an early age, I learned I would hide them or suffer. It served me well enough all along, but especially when my life came crashing down. I stepped outside of my feelings and became whatever was left of me without them. I had to in order to survive.

But time and time again, the true me comes to the surface, and it’s always as a result of Lyla’s presence in my life or lack thereof. A feral undercurrent hides under my mannered surface, something primal and unseemly that would humiliate generations of my forefathers if it were to break free. It will only get more intense if I don’t possess Lyla the way I need to.

I know I shouldn’t be angry, but everything Lyla does drags an intense reaction out of me, and I’ve worked to avoid any intense reactions. The pain in my knuckles actually helps me to see sense. It’s a new pain rather than the one that’s tortured me for a decade and a half.

She was practicing the choreography I need her to perform for the upcoming show. I don't dwell on the fact that she should be my prima ballerina if I’m aiming to calm myself. She needs to be perfect to deserve my stage.

She’s terribly in need of real food, rest, and a place to stay, but the real reason I’ve been hiding and avoiding her is because I don’t know how to deal with the issue. Carter is all over the theater, the pompous fuckwit. He’s trying to pull strings and rank, desperate to establish himself as the top-billed producer there. It won’t work.

Pulling myself out of my thoughts, I go to Lyla’s room, closing doors along the way. I’m not sure what to say when I get there. My jaw hurts from shouting, which is convenient since I won’t apologize anyway. She shouldn’t be in that room without permission, but I reacted like a maniac, and she didn’t deserve the way I shouted at her.

I bring my hand up to knock, but I remember it’s my house, and I don’t want to give her a courtesy she didn’t extend to me. So I swing the door open. She’s sitting on the bed, her legs dangling at the edge. She’s so tiny that I feel even worse about my response. She could shatter me emotionally, but physically, I’m so much larger than her. Her eyes narrow at me when I come in, but she’s smart enough not to ask me what I’m doing here.

“I’m going to the rehearsal tomorrow,” she tells me with her small nose upturned.

I say nothing, working out whatever I want to tell her about my overreaction. She goes where I tell her to go, and I won’t argue with her. Lyla doesn’t need locked doors to do what she’s told, but if I have to impress a point, I will. Lyla jumps from the bed, disturbed once again by the silence. She’ll learn to like that, too.

“I have to practice. What will Eduard think? The other ballerinas?”

It doesn’t matter what he thinks. He’ll do what I tell him to do. The ballerinas are even less of a consideration. I won’t entertain their stupid questions either. I stare at her, trying to understand what it is that makes her so fucking irresistible. I can never put my finger on it. She’s just some kind of magic.

“I overreacted,” I tell her, jaw already screaming in pain from the scene I’m currently trying to make amends for.

“Is that an apology?”

I shake my head. Her gasp of outrage shouldn’t travel directly to my cock, but it does.

“I don’t know why you have a room people aren’t allowed in. It’s stupid.”

This earns her an arched brow. I have many rooms people aren’t allowed in. This was just the only one that happened to be left open. She’s pissed and trying to push me just like she was with those doors. I can’t deny that the lack of my attention seems to have made an impression on her. After years of being obsessed with her, it’s rather gratifying to watch her yearn for me.

I stare her down, waiting for her next stupid argument, wondering if maybe I should say more. She starts to fidget under the weight of my gaze. That’s when she notices my hand. I wasn’t hiding it from her, but I wasn’t waving it around either. I’m not proud of myself.

“Mikhail, what the hell happened?” she gasps, surprising me with the genuine concern in her voice.

I don’t answer but just watch in shock as she runs to my side and grabs my hand. She lifts it gently, careful not to hurt me, and holds it up to her face to look.

“Your knuckles are full of glass,” she speaks matter-of-factly, but her lip trembles. I try to pull my hand out of hers before she gets any of my blood on her. “Let me clean them,” she insists, and I pull my hand more forcefully this time.

“No,” I tell her sternly, and the most lovely look of disappointment warps her expression.

“How did this happen?” she asks, but I have absolutely no intention of telling her. If I have things my way, she’ll never see the mirror anyway, but my cheeks warm, and I can’t help but be embarrassed.

“You didn’t!” she accuses me, hands slapping against my chest. “You didn’t hurt the studio!”

I did, in fact, hurt the studio, so I’m not sure how to respond. She brushes a strand of hair out of her face, her big brown eyes aimed at me as if she knows I think about her day and night.

“This was incredibly stupid,” she tells me, lightly lifting my hand again.

I nod. There isn’t a chance in hell I would try to deny what’s so obvious.

“Everyone acts impulsively sometimes.” It almost sounds like she’s speaking to herself as she examines me. “Let me help you get this clean and wrapped, and then we’ll clean up the studio too if it needs it.”

I shake my head again, and my face warps with my displeasure at not being listened to. She’s not cleaning my fucking hand when I deserve what I get for punching my own shit.

“Mikhail, I don’t understand. Why won’t you let me take care of you when you so clearly need it?” She slaps her hands on her hips like I am the most confounding creature in existence and not the other way around.

“You’re the one who clearly needs to be taken care of.” I aim a sharp look at her. The ways I want to punish her for living so dangerously number in the thousands.

I still haven’t figured out just how long she was homeless, but the fact she was makes me insane. Especially when I could have made it right for her so easily. I want to smack her ass black and blue for choosing the cold when I was an option, and I don’t care if that feeling is unreasonable. She should have known I’d always want her.

“Come on, you’ve taken care of me for days. Let me return the favor.” There’s really only one way I want her to take care of me, and if there are knuckles involved, they’ll be inside her.

I stare in complete astonishment as she lifts my hand again, but this time, she presses a kiss to one of my knuckles, smearing my blood on her top lip.

Fuck .