The Swan and The Sergeant - Alana Albertson Page 0,48

gave you his world, and now you have nothing.”

I snapped.

“Dima cheated on me for years. And he got me drunk and took advantage of me when I was with Bret. Dima screwed me over!”

She gasped. “Liar! Dima never would do that.”

“He did! So what that I’m with Bret? Hell, Vika, you’re married to a man old enough to be your grandpa just to get to the top. Don’t you see this is different? I love Bret. I love him. And I don’t care if Dima hates me. He cheated on me. He hurt me. But I love Bret. And Bret loves me.”

She smiled grimly. “Well, I hope you are happy. Now you don’t even have partner.”

“Enough!” Nicole blurted. She shook her head at Vika.

Nicole was always good to me. I hoped that she and Eric at least had some kind of agreement, and she wasn’t getting cheated on.

Vika looked at her feet. “I’m sorry, Selena.”

“It’s fine.” I just wanted the drama over.

Nicole’s eyes narrowed, then she turned to Vika. “C’mon, luv, let’s go clean up. We still have to film this video.” She took Vika by the hand and led her out of the lobby. I watched them go.

Elizabeth leaped off the sofa with a crooked smile on her face, like she’d just come to some profound realization. “Don’t worry, Selena. Everything will be okay. You did what you had to do. Nothing works out perfectly in the ballroom world.” She smiled and pranced out of the room.

Elizabeth was a sweetheart. I hoped that she would never succumb to the jerks in our industry.

My rage drained away by the second, leaving just emptiness and guilt.

Jenny was the last one on the couch. She sat there in silence, eyeing me. “Are you okay?”

“I will be. I’m just a mess now.”

She offered me a hug, and I took it.

Jenny stood up, straightening her workout shorts. “Just focus on Bret. Everything will work out.” Then she walked right past me, following the rest of the girls into the studio behind her.

A director inside the studio clapped her hands sharply twice, then hollered, “Chop, chop, people. The dance waits for no woman.”

Vika shouldn’t have found out like this. I had wanted to tell her but didn’t get the chance before the gossip sites leaked my new relationship.

I walked over to the couch and dropped onto it, more exhausted than I’d been recently. My ballroom career was over, even if we did win Blackpool. And now I’d probably be on the cover of Star magazine.

Because I chose to be with Bret.

I loved him—and he loved me too.

But I had to tell him the truth about what happened with Dima and me years ago.

“Selena—now!” the director yelled. The beat of a techno tango ripped through the speakers. In a few minutes, I’d have to smile for the camera like life was just a peach. A happy, joy-joy, this-is-so-amazingly-fun peach.

Bret

Back in Marin, Selena and I had settled into a nice daily routine. She moved into the houseboat. We’d hiked Mt. Tamalpais, camped at Angel Island, and spent the weekend at Xavier and Robyn’s beach cottage in Bolinas. Life was idyllic away from the paparazzi in Los Angeles.

But we needed to have a talk about the future.

I took her out to dinner at Sushi Ran. We sipped sake and dined on the freshest sashimi I had ever had.

I gazed at her over the small table, enamored with my girl. “Let’s talk, Sel. How are we going to make this work?”

Selena took a long sip of her glass of water. “Well—you are stationed at Camp Pendleton, which is only two hours from Los Angeles. We can live off base in Orange County. Maybe Laguna Nigel? Or Ladera Ranch? I have a friend who owns a dance studio down there so I can still teach. My students will come to me. And I can commute during the tapings.” She paused. “I mean, after Blackpool, of course. I still need to be close to Dima until we compete.”

I pursed my lips and nodded. I had accepted that she was going to still train with Dima until Blackpool, so I wasn’t going to complain. She deserved to achieve her dream.

I was impressed that she’d at least already thought out some logistics of how we could stay together.

“Ladera Ranch or Laguna Nigel? Yah, I mean the locations are great because they’re both close to the back gate of Pendleton, and I work right there. But those places are expensive. My housing allowance with