Praise for Fiona Harper

‘The author never strikes a false note, tempering poignancy perfectly with humour.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Classic Fiona—funny with fantastic characters. I was charmed from the first page.’

—www.goodreads.com on Invitation to the Boss’s Ball

‘It’s the subtle shadings of characterisation

that make the story work, as well as the sensitive handling of key plot points.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Fiona Harper’s Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses

pairs a simple plot with complex characters, to marvellous effect. It’s both moving and amusing.’

—RT Book Reviews

About Fiona Harper

As a child, FIONA HARPER was constantly teased for either having her nose in a book, or living in a dream world. Things haven’t changed much since then, but at least in writing she’s found a use for her runaway imagination. After studying dance at university, Fiona worked as a dancer, teacher and choreographer, before trading in that career for video-editing and production. When she became a mother she cut back on her working hours to spend time with her children, and when her littlest one started pre-school she found a few spare moments to rediscover an old but not forgotten love—writing.

Fiona lives in London, but her other favourite places to be are the Highlands of Scotland, and the Kent countryside on a summer’s afternoon. She loves cooking good food and anything cinnamon-flavoured. Of course she still can’t keep away from a good book, or a good movie—especially romances—but only if she’s stocked up with tissues, because she knows she will need them by the end, be it happy or sad. Her favourite things in the world are her wonderful husband, who has learned to decipher her incoherent ramblings, and her two daughters.

Dancing with Danger

Fiona Harper

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Also by Fiona Harper

Swept Off Her Stilettos

Three Weddings and a Baby

Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses

Blind-Date Baby

Invitation to the Boss’s Ball

Housekeeper’s Happy-Ever-After

The Bridesmaid’s Secret

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Tammy, a woman of both inner and outer grace, and an amazing friend. Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

THE noise of the helicopter’s rotor blades made chit-chat impossible. Just as well, really, because Finn had no idea what to say to the tiny woman sitting next to him. Her eyes were wide, her knees clamped together, and her claw-like fingers clutched onto her seat belt as if it were a lifeline.

What on earth had Simon done?

I’ve found a fabulous replacement for Anya Pirelli, his producer had said. Just you wait! A real coup!

Finn knew sales patter when he heard it and after seeing the goods on offer he wasn’t sure he was buying. She certainly wouldn’t have been his choice for a celebrity guest star.

She was tiny, this woman. A ballet dancer, Simon had said. If they were standing she’d barely reach his shoulders. Nothing like the Amazonian tennis player, with her sporty curves and long blond hair, who was supposed to have been sitting beside him.

No, this woman was so thin she was hardly there. Would probably blow away in a stiff breeze …

Thinking of high winds, he turned to look past the pilot’s head through the windshield. The meteorological report had said the storm would hit in the small hours of the morning, but it seemed that the fickle tropical weather had decided to kick up a spectacular welcome for them. A greyish-purple cloud hung on the horizon and the sea below the helicopter was rapidly turning dark and choppy.

The pilot was also frowning and he turned to Finn and shook his head before focusing once again on the darkening sky.

Unfortunately, Finn knew exactly what that meant. He unbuckled his seat belt and reached for his rucksack. Twenty quid said the ballerina baulked at this latest development and he’d be making his way to their temporary desert island home with only Dave the cameraman for company.

Seriously? Had Simon really thought this woman—this girl, almost—was suitable for a gritty survival skills TV programme? He caught Dave’s eye. They both looked at the tiny, clenched woman sitting between them, then back at each other. It seemed Finn wasn’t the only one who thought Simon’s efforts at scraping the bottom of the celebrity barrel for Anya’s replacement had been unsuccessful.

The camera operator began to move, too, making sure he had all his equipment with him. A fuller crew would be arriving by much more civilised means later, but for now they only needed Dave, who was used to haring around after Finn and doing daft things. Despite his grumbling to the contrary, Finn was sure Dave secretly loved it.

The tiny ballerina was watching them as if she’d never seen anyone load a rucksack before. She was completely still, and the only parts of her that moved were her eyes, which darted between him and the cameraman.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked. But Finn didn’t hear the words; he just saw her mouth move.

He pointed emphatically to the dark clouds hovering over the island getting ever larger on the horizon and yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Storm’s closing in. We have to move now.'

Her mouth moved again. He was pretty sure she’d just echoed his last word back to him.

‘Now,’ he said, nodding.

She was lucky. If he’d been on his own he’d have jumped into the water, the helo still moving. But it was too dangerous for a novice. They would have to jump, but onto the wetter end of a wide beach. Not quite the luxury of a slow and steady descent on ropes as he’d planned. But there was one thing he could rely on in his life, and on his TV show—hardly anything went to plan. And that was just the way he liked it.

Finn prodded the ballerina’s seat belt buckle. She just clutched onto it harder, almost glaring at him.

‘Two minutes,’ he mouthed, and pointed sharply downward.

None of her features moved, not even her tightly puckered eyebrows, but her expression changed somehow. Something about the eyes—which he noticed were the colour the sea below them would have been if not for the storm. Bright, liquid-blue. The concern in their depths melted into panic.

Now, Finn wasn’t an unsympathetic man, but he didn’t have time to puppy-walk this girl. The helicopter needed to be well out of range by the time the storm hit. He just didn’t have the time to spoon-feed her the confidence she needed. The only course open to him was one of tough love.

‘Undo your buckle,’ he yelled, miming the action with his fingers. She hesitated, but he couldn’t have that. He yelled again, even as compassion tugged at him—told him to ease up. He batted it away, knowing from his days in the army that if he showed any kind of sympathy she might waver. Or freeze. Or panic.

He couldn’t have any of those things. The lives of the chopper crew could depend on it.

Fear was still swirling in her eyes, and she didn’t tear her gaze from his, but her fingers fumbled with the buckle and eventually it came free.

Good girl.

He shut that thought down before it showed on his face. He’d tell her later, when it was over. He used the same method of walking her through all the steps ready for their insertion as they hurtled towards their destination. He yelled; she obeyed. It was all good.

It seemed like an age before the helicopter was hovering only ten feet above the beach they’d be making their home for the next week. He jumped out of the open-sided helicopter without thinking, letting his knees bend, and rolled before standing up again. A Dave-sized thud beside him told him there was only one passenger left to disembark.

He turned back to the helicopter. She was standing in the doorway, her knuckles whitening on the edges. She didn’t look as if she was in a hurry to let go. Too bad.

‘Jump!’ he yelled, and thrust his arms up and forwards.

Almost instantly he was hit full-force by a flying ballerina. She must have flung herself out the moment he’d spoken, and he’d expected to have to yell at least once more. It took him totally by surprise, causing him to lose his footing, and they both went crashing to the ground. He was only half aware of the blurred shape of the helicopter moving away and the roar of its blades quietening.

He lay there, breathing hard. Damp sand cooling his back and a shaking ballerina warming his front.

‘S-sorry,’ she stammered. She didn’t move, though. Must be too shocked. Or mortified.

She needn’t have worried. Finn liked surprises. They produced a delicious little cocktail of adrenalin and endorphins that he’d decided he rather liked. Even when surprises came in the shape of flying ballerinas. He suddenly saw the funny side, and chuckled deep down in his torso.

‘What did you say your name was?’ he asked the unblinking pair of azure eyes just centimetres from his own.

‘Alle—’ she croaked out. And then she tried again. ‘Allegra.'

Finn grinned at her.

‘Well, Allie—Allegra—whoever you are …’ He lifted her off him with surprising ease and dumped her on the sand beside him. He really would have to anchor her to a tree if the wind picked up, wouldn’t he? Then he jumped to his feet and offered her his hand, grinning even wider. The sky was steel-grey and from the taste of the wind now whipping her long dark ponytail into her face he knew torrential rain was only minutes away.

‘Welcome to paradise,’ he said.

CHAPTER TWO

Forty-eight hours earlier

ALLEGRA stood rigid in the wings as the corps de ballets rushed past her and onto the stage of the Royal Opera House. Breathe, she reminded herself. Relax. You’ve done these steps a thousand times in rehearsal. Your body knows what to do. Trust it.

Too late for more rehearsal now. She’d be on stage in a matter of minutes.

Even so, she couldn’t stop herself marking the opening sequence on the spot, her arms and legs carving tiny, precise arcs in the air as they mirrored the full-blown sequence of turns and jumps in her head.

Frustrated, she stopped herself mid-movement, pulled her cardigan off and dumped it somewhere she’d be able to find it later before resuming her position in the wings. As she listened to the orchestra and watched the corps de ballet set the scene, she arched one foot then the other, pressing her shoes into the floor until there was a tight but pleasing stretch in her instep.

Pretend it’s just the dress rehearsal. Just another run-though.

She tried very hard to do just that but the adrenalin skipping through her system called her a liar.

Not just a rehearsal, but opening night.

No familiar role, either. Neither for dancers nor audience.

This was a brand new role created just for her. Created to prove the child prodigy, the ‘baby ballerina’ hadn’t lost her sparkle after seven long years in the profession. This new ballet, The Little Mermaid, was supposed to silence the critics who’d been prophesying for years now that Allegra Martin would burn brightly and then, just as quickly, burn out.

They’d been saying that since she’d turned twenty and now—three years past that sell-by date—she was sensing the creeping inevitability of that prediction every time she put on her pointe shoes. She almost dreaded sliding her feet into them these days.

Not tonight. It couldn’t be tonight. Her father would be devastated.

To distract herself from these unwanted thoughts, she checked her costume. No stiff tutu for this role. Her dress was soft and flowing, ending just below her knees. Layers of chiffon in deep blue, aquamarine and turquoise. And her dark hair, instead of being pulled into its habitual bun, was loose and flowing round her shoulders; only two small sections at the front were caught back to keep it off her face. She resisted the urge to fiddle with the grips, knowing it would probably only make things worse.

The orchestra began a new section of music. It wasn’t long now. She should try and focus, slow her butterfly-wing breaths and let her ribs swell with oxygen. She closed her eyes and concentrated on pulling the air in and releasing it slowly.

Behind her eyelids an image gatecrashed her efforts at calm and inner poise. A pair of dark masculine eyes that crinkled at the corners as an unseen mouth pulled them into a smile. She snapped her own eyes open.

Where had that come from?

Now her heart was beating double speed. Damn. She needed to get her thoughts under control. Less than a minute and she’d be making her entrance. She shook her head and blew out some air.

And then it happened again. With her eyes open.

But this time she saw the smile beneath the eyes. Warm and bright and just a little bit cheeky.

It must be the stress.

Weeks of preparing for this moment had finally got to her. She’d heard other dancers mention the strange random thoughts that plagued them before a performance, but it had never happened to her before. No sudden musings on what she was going to have for dinner that evening or whether she’d remembered to charge her mobile phone.

But why was she thinking of him?

A man she didn’t even know.

What was he doing here, invading her thoughts at such a crucial moment? It was most unsettling. The last thing she needed right now. And she really meant right now. The violins had just picked up the melody that signalled her entrance.

Thankfully, her body had been rehearsed so hard the steps were almost a reflex and it sprang to life and ran onto the stage, dragging her disjointed head with it. There was a moment of hush, a pause in the music, and she sensed every person in the audience had simultaneously and unconsciously held their breath.

They were watching her. Waiting for her.

It was her job to dazzle and amaze, to transport them to another world. And, just as she lifted her arm in a port de bras that swept over her head, preparing her for a series of long and lilting steps across the diagonal of the stage, she wished that were possible. She wished that she could escape into another world. And maybe stay there. Somewhere new, somewhere exciting, where no one expected anything of her and she had no possibility of failing to make the grade.

But tonight, while she made the audience believe she was the Little Mermaid, while they saw her float and turn and defy gravity, she would know the truth. She would feel the impact of every jump in her whole skeleton. She would hear the knocking of her pointe shoes on the stage even if the orchestra drowned out the noise for the audience. She would feel her toes rub and blister inside their unforgiving, solid shoes.

No, she knew the reality of ballet. It might look effortless from the outside, but from the inside it was hard and demanding. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t pretty or nice. A fierce kind of beauty that asked for your very soul in return for greatness, and then devoured it without compunction.

She had chosen this path and there was no escape. There was no other world. It was all an illusion.

But she would fool them all. She would dance like a girl who was full of sadness, trapped in a state of endless longing, wishing for a reality that could never be hers. And she would dance it well. She wouldn’t even be acting, because it was the truth. Her truth.

No escape. No matter how much you wanted it.

Truth like the pain of a thousand knives.

‘It was marvellous, darling. Absolutely stunning.’

Allegra air-kissed the woman whose name she couldn’t remember and smiled back. ‘Thank you. But, really, the credit has to go to Damien, for giving me such wonderful choreography to work with.'

Bad form for a principal dancer to hog all the credit. She was merely the vessel for someone else’s genius, after all. The blank canvas for someone else to paint their vision on.

‘Nonsense,’ the woman said, waving her glass of champagne and spilling a drop on the arm of one of the other guests. Neither one noticed. But Allegra saw it all. She saw every last detail of the after-show party in crisp, exquisite, painful detail.

She saw the Victorian steel and glass arches of the tall hall that had once been part of Covent Garden’s famous flower market, the white vertical struts and pillars so straight, so uniform that it felt they were penning her in. She saw the herds of people milling, champagne classes pinched between their fingers, half of them trying to gawp at her while not getting caught. Most of all she saw the tempting patches of midnight-blue beyond the glass and white-painted iron-work of the roof.

If colours could talk, she mused, blue would be an invitation.

Come to me …

She wrenched her eyes off the night sky with difficulty and focused them back where they were supposed to be. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, bestowing the woman with a gracious smile. ‘I see my father over there … ‘

The woman glanced over her shoulder to where her father was half-hidden by the ostentatious champagne bar filling the middle of the room and then smiled widely back at Allegra. ‘Of course, of course. Such a talented conductor and a wonderful man … And it must be fantastic to know that your father is close by on an opening night. What a marvellous sense of support he must give you.'

Allegra wanted to say, No, actually, it isn’t. She wanted to say that sometimes, having a parent so invested in one’s life was anything but comforting. She wanted to shock the woman by telling her how many times she’d wished her father was a builder or a schoolteacher. Anything but a conductor. Or how much she wished he’d sit in the back of the stalls occasionally, as the other parents did, rather than standing only a few feet beyond the footlights. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel weighed down by his gaze, weighed down by all the hopes and expectations of not just a parent but also her manager and her mentor.

She didn’t say anything, of course, but smiled softly in what the woman probably took for gracious agreement, then used the excuse of her fabulous father to make her departure.

Of course, the press loved the father-daughter angle—devastated widower conducts as ballerina daughter tops the bill, just as he’d done for her tragic mother when she’d been alive. They ate it up.

In her darker moments she silently accused him of loving it, too, of wanting double the glory. Double the adoration. But it wasn’t that, really. He just wanted things to be the way they’d been before, wanted to claw back time and resurrect the dead. Impossible, of course, so he’d had to settle for second best. Even so, Allegra hadn’t failed to see how he’d come back to life when she’d grown old enough to fill her mother’s shoes, dance her mother’s old roles.

But not tonight. This one was all hers. No comparisons could be made. She would stand or fall in her own right when the reviews came out in the morning.

She supposed that since she’d used her father as an excuse she’d better go and say hello, so she forged through the crowd, ignoring the people who tried to catch her eye. And there were plenty. She was the star of the show. It was her evening, after all.

But she didn’t want to talk to them. Not the ones she knew in the company who either envied or idolised her, nor the ones she didn’t know, who saw her as some strange creature imbued with magical powers. Gifted—or should that be cursed?—with a talent they daren’t even dream of having. They looked at her as if she was somehow different from them. As if she were an alien from outer space. Something to be studied and discussed and dissected. But not human. Never human.

What she wouldn’t give for one person on this planet to see past the tutus and the pointe shoes.

More than once she had to change direction when a gap between bodies closed up. Eventually, she just stood still and waited. Chasing the holes in the crowd was impossible; she would wait for the tide of bodies to shift once again and let the gaps come to her. Her stillness, however, was just another way to mark herself out from the other guests.

All around her people were celebrating. It had taken an army of people months to prepare for this night, and now they’d pulled it off their relief and joy was spilling out of them in smiles and laughter and excited conversation. But Allegra felt nothing. No joy. No bubbling. Nothing inside desperate to spill out of her.

Except, maybe, a desire to scream. It was funny, really. For a few years now she’d wondered what would happen if one day she did exactly that. What would they all do if the habitually reserved Allegra Martin planted her feet in the centre of the room and split the hubbub with a scream that had forced its way up from the depths of her soul?

The look on their faces would be priceless.

She treasured this little fantasy, because it had got her through more stuffy cocktail parties, lunches and benefits than she cared to count. Only it didn’t seem quite as funny any more, because tonight she felt like making the fantasy a reality. She really felt like doing it for real. In fact, the urge was quickly becoming irresistible, and that was scaring her.

She had to start moving again, keep walking at all costs, even if she ended up momentarily heading away from her father, because she feared that if she paused, that if her two feet stayed grounded for long enough, she might just do it.

Despite her meandering progress across the Floral Hall, she had almost reached her father now. He hadn’t noticed her silent zig-zagging approach, however, because he was deep in conversation with the Artistic Director. She heard her name mentioned briefly above the din of the party. Neither man looked happy.

Had she done badly tonight? Had she let them all down? The thought made the panic racing inside her torso double its speed. And that internal momentum had a strange effect: just as she was on the verge of stepping into the circle of their conversation, a gap opened up to her right and, instead of ploughing forward and greeting her father, she took it.

Bizarrely, she found that once she’d started going in that direction she couldn’t stop. Not until she’d left the crush of the party far behind, not until she’d run down the minimalist wooden staircase at full pelt, leaving her warm champagne glass on the flat banister at the top, not until she was standing in the foyer. She rushed past the cloakrooms to the large revolving door and moments later she was amidst the pillars and cobbles of Covent Garden, the cold night air soothing her lungs.

But she didn’t run any further; she stood there, blinking.

What was she doing?

She couldn’t leave yet. She couldn’t escape.

Her father would be waiting for her. There were senior staff and investors and a minor Royal waiting to greet her.

No, her body said. Enough. And she was inclined to agree with it.

Now that the adrenalin high from the performance had evaporated, she ached all over. She’d been up since six, had done class this morning and then had spent most of the afternoon making last-minute changes to a pas de deux with her partner, Stephen, that the choreographer had insisted were essential. And the performance that had seemed so light and ethereal on the outside had been gruelling beyond belief.

She stood still for a few seconds, closed her eyes. Trap the breath then let it out slowly … smoothly.

Unfortunately, a sense of duty was hardwired into a dancer’s psyche.

When she had finished pushing the carbon dioxide out through her clenched teeth she opened her lids again.

And then the ballerina turned, with all the grace expected of her, and let the revolving door coax her back inside, let its momentum almost propel her back up the stairs and into the crowded bar. Her glass, full of warm and flat champagne, was waiting for her on the banister and she retrieved it before pulling herself up tall and losing herself in the tangle of bodies.

Allegra cranked open an eyelid and focused half-heartedly on the digital clock by her bedside. Definitely way too late still to be awake. Or should that be way too early to get up?

Ugh. Who cared?

She always got this way after an opening night—too tired, too excited, too aware of the reviews only hours away now in the morning editions.

Knowing she’d only get even more grumpy if she lay there in the dark chasing sleep, she fumbled on the bedside cabinet for the TV remote and then pointed it into the darkness. A bluish light flooded the room. She squinted and drummed repeatedly on the volume button, hushing the garish advert for oven cleaner. She didn’t want to wake her father.

She changed the channel a dozen times. And then a dozen times more.

There really was nothing on at this time in the morning, was there? Unless you counted infomercials, ‘channel off-air’ graphics and lengthy documentaries about long-forgotten prog rock bands. She carried on changing channels until she lost count, and she was just about to give up and turn the TV set off when the image replacing the previous one caused her thumb to freeze above the button.

A pair of crinkling brown masculine eyes. And a killer smile to match.

She held her breath. Then she looked towards her bedroom door and quickly back again to the television. Without tearing her eyes from the screen, she pressed down hard on the volume button until the noise from the set was only just audible, turning the subtitles onto compensate. And then, finally, she let out the air she’d been holding captive in her mouth.

Finn McLeod. My, he was gorgeous!

All rugged male energy, with a glint of adventure in his eyes.

His dark hair, that never seemed to sit quite right, flopped over one side of his forehead and a smile stretched his stubble-studded jaw. She’d had no idea they were showing late-night reruns of Fearless Finn. Just as well, really, because if she’d known she could have watched him jumping into rapids and hanging off mountains by his fingertips all night long, she might have done just that. Unfortunately, a sleep-deprived ballerina at the Royal Opera House would not have gone down well.

Sometimes, she thought, as she tugged an extra pillow from beside her and stuffed it behind her shoulders, she felt so old. That wasn’t right at twenty-three, was it? But she felt as if she’d been riding the same unrelenting merry-go-round of classes, rehearsals and performances for so long that her life had sped up, and she’d aged faster than she should have done. It was hardly surprising that, deep down, she longed for something fresh, something new.

Her gaze returned to the screen, where Finn McLeod, in his gorgeous, rolling Scottish accent, was explaining how to find food if one was unlucky enough to be stranded in the mountains.

She smiled. Really grinned. See? She’d never realised there were tiny little seeds inside pine cones that could be prised out and eaten.

Or had she?

She supposed she had. She had pine nuts on her pasta all the time. It was just that she’d never connected the tree on the mountainside with the tiny packet on the supermarket shelf, never thought about what bit of the tree the nut came from or how it could be harvested.

And that was why she loved watching Fearless Finn. It reminded her she was young, that there was so much of the world she had yet to see, so much to learn about life. The feeling would well up inside her until she wished she could literally climb inside the flickering rectangle on the wall and run down that hillside with him, or taste that pine nut fresh from the cone for herself.

Finn turned to the camera and grinned, getting right up close to the lens, before flinging himself off a rocky riverbank and into the fast-flowing water.

Okay, maybe education about the planet wasn’t the only reason she watched this show. But he was so … so …

She didn’t really know what he was, or exactly how he made her feel, only that she felt alive watching him, that she believed she could sprout wings and fly away when he was on the screen.

Another symptom of the narrow, ultra-focused life one had to live if one was going to get to the top in her profession. Ballet had to be everything. So, just as she felt she didn’t know much about the big wide world beyond the ballet studio, she didn’t really have a lot of experience with men, either.

But seeing that six foot hunk of testosterone and adventure, with his unruly dark hair and even unrulier dark eyes, made her want to learn a little more about both.

She blushed hard and bit her lip. It seemed her first teenage crush had finally arrived after a rather lengthy, ballet-related delay.

Well, so what? Everyone had their guilty pleasures, didn’t they? Finn McLeod was hers. And until the milk floats began to moan through Notting Hill, outside her father’s tall white house, she was going to forget all about ballet and mermaids and morning editions, and lose herself in a pair of captivating brown eyes.

Watching dawn break from the top of a glacier was definitely the way Finn McLeod liked to start his day. The horizon had been the clearest, purest cobalt but now as the sun pushed upward it slowly turned an icy, pale blue.

‘Wow,’ the A-list Hollywood actor who stood beside him said.

Wow, indeed.

‘This is, like, perfect,’ the guy said, nodding gently.

‘Yup,’ said Finn. It didn’t get much better than this.

He and Tobias Thornton, action movie god, stood there, silent, staring at the awesome display Creation was putting on for them, better than any celluloid car chase or exploding building.

Finn glanced across at the backpacks that were sitting a few feet away on the ice. ‘The helicopter will be here shortly,’ he said, his gaze drawn inevitably back towards the sunrise. It was swiftly blocked out by six and a half feet of movie star. Finn discovered that was because Toby was intent on crushing the life out of him in a bear hug. Not part of the plan, really, since they’d spent the better part of a week trying to survive this frozen wasteland.

‘Thanks, man,’ Toby said, thumping Finn on the back.

‘No problem,’ Finn replied, wheezing slightly.

The actor released him and stood back. ‘This has been life-changing, Finn. I mean it.’ He turned to face the sunrise once again, but carried on talking. ‘I feel as if I’ve stripped away all the garbage from my life and discovered who I really am.'

Finn just nodded. That was what spending a significant chunk of time in the wilderness would do for a man. It was why he loved it here. Or any place a man-made structure, or a power line, or even a mobile phone signal were many, many miles away. It made him feel alive. Connected to something indefinable, something bigger than himself.

‘I’m never going to be the same, man …’

Finn frowned. Of course, normally he travelled to places like this on his own. He’d planned to enjoy the silence. Not much chance of that now, as his actor friend continued to gush.

But this was what the TV company had wanted. Having a tag-along celebrity for the fifth series of the show hadn’t been his idea; he’d been quite happy with the previous format, where he’d spend a week in various remote locations showing the audience not only how to fend for themselves in that environment, but giving them a taste of a rarely seen gem of a place.

But that hadn’t been enough for the TV execs. He was too competent, apparently. He grunted out loud at that thought. What rubbish. Being competent at this stuff was why he’d got the job in the first place. Unfortunately, the suits thought the viewing public had got that message now, and were going to get bored with more of the same, so they’d come up with a plan to saddle him with a novice so he could pass on his expertise. And, of course, people loved watching celebs thrown out of their glitzy worlds and into the deep end. What could go wrong? the TV company had said.

Finn sighed. He supposed it hadn’t been that awful. The guy standing beside him had been okay company, and it had been fun to watch him build his confidence over the last week. Whether the experience would produce a lasting change in the well-known bad boy and womaniser was another matter altogether.

‘So who’s your next victim?’ the actor said, turning to him.

Finn smiled to himself. ‘Anya Pirelli.’

The actor let out a low whistle. ‘The tennis player?'

Finn nodded.

Toby slapped him on the back. ‘Lucky dog.’

‘Just don’t tell my fiancée,’ he said, grinning.

‘You have a fiancée?’ Toby pulled a face. ‘Too bad, man.'

‘Oh, I don’t think I’m doing too badly—she’s Natalie Cross.'

‘The chick who does the nature documentaries?'

Finn nodded, and Toby whistled again. ‘Definitely not doing too badly, mate!’ and then he frowned. ‘But spending a week stranded with Anya Pirelli … She’s not the jealous type, is she, your fiancée?'

Finn laughed and shook his head. He’d been joking. Neither of them were jealous types. That was what made them the perfect match. They both liked their freedom and, even though they were committed to each other, they both understood how destructive the urge to pin someone down and keep them for yourself could be.

‘When’s the wedding?’ Toby asked, and Finn stopped smiling.

He shrugged. ‘When we get around to it.’ They’d been engaged for two years, which seemed a long time to some people, but he and Nat travelled so much for their jobs theirs was almost a long-distance relationship. They’d find a date they could both manage eventually. Just the knowledge they’d agreed to do it some time in the future was enough for now.

‘No … Nat will be fine about it,’ Finn added.

Toby’s eyes glittered wickedly. ‘Still, you’ll be stuck alone with Anya in the jungle somewhere or up a mountain. Who’s to tell?’

Finn gestured over his shoulder to the camera operator who was standing a little way down the slope. ‘Who d’you think?'

Toby slapped himself on the forehead. ‘I’ve got so used to them being there, I kind of forgot we weren’t on our own.'

Finn shrugged. It was easy enough to do. Sometimes he threw himself headlong into risky situations while filming, completely forgetting he wasn’t on his own and that a camera, a producer and possibly a safety expert were trailing along behind him.

He took a few paces away from Toby, tried to create a little bubble of space and silence where he could let all this grandeur and beauty seep into him so it could mingle with all the other memories and experiences he collected on his travels. However, as mind-blowing as each location was, he always felt there was room for more, that a little piece of him ached for the ultimate destination, the ultimate adventure. That was what kept him moving, kept him searching.

There was a glint of silver off to the right in the sky, and Finn lifted his hand to shield his eyes further.

Yep. That was the chopper.

Time for the next adventure. And he couldn’t wait.

CHAPTER THREE

A NEAT stack of newspapers sat on the kitchen table in the basement kitchen. Other than the sound of her own breathing, Allegra could hear nothing. She tore her eyes from the stack and looked at her father.

‘Shall I read them to you?’ he asked.

Allegra shook her head and returned her gaze to the tower of newsprint in front of her. Instead of taking the top one off the pile, she picked one from the middle and eased it from its place. The critic who wrote for that paper was always the hardest to read. Not because he was vicious. He was blunt, yes, but never vicious. It was much, much worse than that.

By some magical power, this man always managed to hone in on those elements of the performance that Allegra fretted about herself and then shone a big, nasty spotlight on them. However, if she could read this review and get it out of the way, the rest would be a piece of cake. At least, that was what she was telling herself.

She pushed the pile of papers to the far edge of the table to give herself space to unfold the broadsheet and carefully turned pages, smoothing each one flat, until she reached the arts section.

There, filling almost half the page, was a grainy black and white photo of her and Stephen in the last act. Stephen, as always, looked like one of those sculpted marble statues, all perfect musculature and good bone structure, as he supported her in an arabesque.

She felt a little of the panic drumming beneath her ribs drain away. She didn’t look too bad herself. And the line of that back leg was perfect, even though she’d only hit that position for a split second before moving through it to the next step. Surely, a picture like that had to be a good omen?

She glanced down at the text beneath the picture and phrases swam in front of her eyes.

‘Astounding.’

‘Technically brilliant.’

‘Allegra Martin didn’t miss a step … ‘

She released the breath she’d been holding out through her lips and let it curve them into a slight smile. She risked a look at her father, but he was wading through another of the papers. The cup of chamomile tea he’d made her was now almost cold. She reached for it and took a sip, then grimaced.

Now her initial shakiness had subsided she went back to the beginning of the article and read it in whole sentences, taking it in slowly, weighing every word instead of fracturing it into phrases that had a tendency to jump out at her.

It all sounded good but as she switched from the bottom of the second column to the top of the third she started to feel chilly again. By the time she’d read a couple more paragraphs she knew why.

‘I’ve always been a huge Allegra Martin fan …’ the man had written.

The ballerina in question raised an eyebrow. Really? If that was the case, she’d hate to be on his bad side!

‘… but while her performance as the Little Mermaid was technically flawless, I still don’t think she has lived up to her early promise. ‘

Allegra’s stomach bottomed out and a faint taste of chamomile tea clung to her teeth, making her feel queasy. She read on.

‘Miss Martin seems to have lost the engaging sense of wonder and joy she had as a young dancer and, while I appreciate her virtuosity, I don’t feel she captured either the exquisite joy of first love nor the torture of unfulfilled longing that a truly great rendition of this part would require. ‘

She wanted to stop, but she couldn’t. It was like driving a speeding car when the brakes had failed. Her brain was frantically pressing on the pedal, but her eyes kept reading.

And it only got worse:

‘In Hans Christian Andersen’s original story, the Little Mermaid was a creature not blessed with a soul, and I’m afraid, with Allegra Martin in the title role, this was all too obvious. ‘

Allegra didn’t move. Nothing would work. Not her mouth, not her legs, not her arms.

Soulless? He’d called her soulless?

She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up, met her father’s eyes.

He didn’t say anything. Very unusual for her father. He always had something to say about her performances, some aspect she could improve for next time. Also, no matter how hard on her he was in private, when the reviews came in he normally got very defensive, would argue why the writer was wrong.

The chill in her stomach dropped a few degrees.

There was nothing to argue about, nothing to refute. She could see it now—the glimmer of disappointment in his eyes.

‘You think it’s true, don’t you?’ she asked, her voice almost a whisper. Even at that volume, it managed to wobble slightly.

He closed and opened his eyes slowly. ‘I don’t know what’s been wrong with you the last year or so, Allegra. You’re just not as focused as you used to be. Your work is suffering.'

She looked at him with pleading eyes. Yes, her father was hard on her, had always pushed her, but he was supposed to be her protector, her champion! Why was he saying this? Why couldn’t he dismiss the opinion of one ‘know-it-all hack', as he liked to call them?

That was when she saw something else in his eyes, clouding out the original emotion, making it darker and harder. He wasn’t just disappointed with her; he was angry.

‘You can’t waste your gift like this. You’ve got to stop throwing it all away.'

There was a sharp stinging at the back of Allegra’s eyes. He wasn’t talking about losing the role of principal dancer—although that might be a possibility if her current artistic drought didn’t end—he was talking about the big picture, the vision he’d had for her ever since he’d put her name down for an audition for the Royal Ballet School, aged ten.

He wasn’t talking about jobs and salaries and reviews. He was talking about living up to her mother’s legacy, of carrying on where Maria Martin had left off on the road to becoming one of the greatest British ballet dancers in history.

He was saying she just wasn’t good enough. Might never be.

Allegra rose to her feet, looked at the paper still open on the table and then back at her father.

‘I want to see you bringing that same energy and commitment you used to have back to every class, every rehearsal, every performance,’ he said. ‘You owe it to yourself.’

You owe it to her. That was what he really meant, wasn’t it?

Didn’t he think she would if she could? I’m trying, she wanted to scream at him, but nothing’s working because I feel dead inside! I’m not her. I haven’t got her talent. I’m not sure I’ve even got my own any more! Or that I want it if I do have it.

The words didn’t even get close to being on the tip of her tongue; they swirled around her head instead, making her eyes blur and her throat swell. She licked her dry lips and forced something out.

‘I’ve got class at ten-thirty,’ she said. And then, without looking at her father again, she turned and headed up the stairs that led from their basement kitchen, pulled her coat from the hook near the door and walked with silent steps into the chilly morning air.

People were everywhere. Finn stood still and took a few moments to adjust. After a week in the frozen wilderness, where the only noise was the wind curling round rocks or the crunch of snow beneath his boots, a busy provincial airport terminal was an assault on the senses. Not that he minded.

This was just a different kind of adventure, a different kind of wilderness. One that Finn considered far more dangerous, even with its thick sheen of civilisation.

And, while he hadn’t minded Toby’s company, he’d been secretly relieved when the man had been whisked away in a limo as soon as their helicopter had hit the tarmac. Now he was alone again. No need to use his vocal cords unless he really wanted to. No need to take anyone else’s needs into account. He could move at his own speed and choose his own route.

He ignored the moving walkway, clogged with bored-looking tourists with suitcases, hitched his rucksack higher on his back and set off down the near-empty carpeted area beside it, his strides long and his smile wide.

A buzzing in one of the side pockets of his cargo trousers tickled his legs. At first it made him jump, but then he realised what it was and bent to fish his mobile phone out of a slim pocket low down on his right thigh.

‘Hello?’

‘Great! Finn, I’m so glad your mobile’s finally on again. It’s all gone pear-shaped since I last talked to you …'

Finn gave a lopsided smile and began walking again as he waited for his producer to finish his mini-rant. Simon always got like this after a shoot. Finn knew he just had to let Simon vent until he’d either run out of steam or run out of breath—whichever came first.

When the sentences weren’t hurtling past at a hundred miles an hour and blurring into each other, Finn firmly squeezed a question of his own in. ‘So … what’s really up, Si?’

There was a slight pause at the other end, as if the other man’s unending monologue had suddenly encountered an unexpected hazard and had taken a split second to work out how to flow around it.

‘Slight snag, as they say.’

‘What sort of snag? We’re supposed to be off to Panama tomorrow. Can’t it wait until we get back?'

‘Ah …’

Okay. Now he’d managed to dry Simon up completely. This was news Finn probably didn’t want to hear.

‘It’s Panama we’ve got a problem with.’

Finn stopped walking altogether. ‘Oh?’

‘Anya Pirelli has injured her knee in a training session. Her coach says it’s going to be months before she’ll be ready to tackle a desert island.'

That wasn’t a problem, it was an unexpected blessing! Finn started striding again.

‘How awful,’ he said, feeling genuinely sorry for Anya, but he couldn’t help thinking there was a silver lining.

‘Don’t worry, though,’ Simon added quickly. ‘I’m working on a couple of possible replacements as we speak.'

Now, that was what Finn had been afraid of.

‘There’s no need, Si. We can go back to the old format. Me on my own.'

Simon’s silence was heavy enough to slow Finn’s pace yet again.

‘No can do, I’m afraid, Finn. The TV company have seen the rushes for the first new-format episode. They loved the Formula One star in the swamp. Said it did just what they’d been hoping it would. They’re adamant you need a celebrity sidekick.'

‘But—’

‘I agree with them, Finn. It makes you seem more human. Less of an indestructible force of nature yourself, someone the ordinary guy in the street can relate to.'

Finn had reached the end of the wide hallway now and he had to dodge people stepping off the end of the moving walkway as the space narrowed and funnelled them towards the gates.

‘Okay, okay,’ he finally said. ‘Let me know who you’ve got lined up when you’ve got something firm.'

He said his goodbyes and hung up. He was just about to shove his phone back into his khaki pocket and button the flap shut when he realised there was someone else he probably ought to call before he couldn’t use it again.

He punched a speed-dial button and waited. He got Nat’s voicemail. That was the problem with having a woman in his life who was as free-spirited as he was. He left a brief message, then checked his account for messages, too.

First in the queue was one from Nat.

‘Hi, Finn,’ her message said, sounding a little tense. ‘Look, the South Pacific shoot has been moved forward and I’ve got to fly out this evening.'

Finn frowned. He hadn’t seen her for four weeks, and he’d been hoping to catch up with her this evening. Oh, well. It couldn’t be helped.

‘Anyway,’ Nat continued, ‘your itinerary says you’re connecting through Schiphol, and so am I. I could get there early and we could meet up.'

Oh. Okay. That would be good.

Finn nodded to himself and waited to see if there was anything else. The pause was so long he’d started to pull the phone away from his ear when she spoke again.

‘Finn, I—’ Another pause, shorter this time. ‘We really need to talk, that’s all. Call me.'

And that was that. Finn tucked the phone back into his thigh pocket and shrugged.

Gate Ten loomed close and he moved swiftly and silently through the forest of people until he was standing near the desk by the doors.

The thought of leaving one point on the planet only to arrive somewhere different a few hours later always got Finn excited. And the sense of anticipation did a good job of stifling any niggling questions trying to take root in his brain. Like whether he should have been a little more heartbroken about not speaking to Nat in person. Or that perhaps he should wonder why she’d slipped from his consciousness as quickly and as completely as the phone bumping against his leg in its khaki pocket.

After class that day Allegra returned home. No one had said anything, but she’d known they’d all read every word of that review. It had been there in the surreptitious glances when they’d thought she wasn’t looking. It had been there in the barely contained smirks behind her back. She hadn’t even acknowledged the few sympathetic looks that some of the girls had tried to send her. Those had been the worst.

She’d been so much younger than everyone else when she’d joined the company, still a child almost. If the age difference hadn’t driven a wedge between her and her contemporaries, her meteoric rise through the ranks in the following couple of years certainly had. Now she had colleagues and dancing partners, but she didn’t really have any friends.

All she had was her father.

That was why she headed straight to his study after she’d let herself in. Even though they hadn’t argued, there’d been such a horrible atmosphere between them. She’d apologise. She’d make it right again. She’d swallow the rising tide of suffocation and live with it a little longer. Because she understood he didn’t mean it really. And he did try.

She pushed open the heavy wooden door and looked around. The room was empty. At least, she thought it was. She stepped inside to get a better look.

‘Daddy?’

Where was he? She wandered round to the other side of the large cherrywood desk with the green leather top, trailing her fingers along the edge as she did so. One of these days her father would have to give in and learn to use a computer, but for now he was steadfastly holding out. There was no scribbled note, no scrap of paper to hint at where he’d gone or when he might be back. She sighed.

Oh, well. She’d just have to find him later. She had a rehearsal in an hour and it had been tight fitting in a trip back home as it was.

She had reached the other side of the desk again when the phone rang. By the time she reached the door the answerphone kicked in and a male voice filled the empty room.

‘Hi. This is Simon Tatler again. I was wondering if you’d had a chance to think over the offer for Miss Martin to appear on Fearless Finn. As you know, the schedule is pretty tight, so could you possibly get back to me today?'

He added his number and email address and rang off.

Allegra stood, half in, half out of her father’s study with her mouth open.

An invitation to appear on Fearless Finn! A warm feeling surged up from her toes and burst up through her, leaving a smile on her lips. She’d get to meet him? Actually stand face to face with him? Her heart began to pound at the thought.

And then her excitement began to evaporate. This Simon had phoned before? Why was this the first she’d heard of it?

Her father found her moments later in the doorway, frowning. She jumped when he lightly touched her on the shoulder.

‘Are you okay, Allegra?’

On autopilot, Allegra nodded, but then she realised what she was doing. She turned to face him.

‘What was that message about? The one about Fearless Finn?’

Her father looked puzzled. ‘Who?’ ‘The TV show …’

He blinked and shook his head faintly. ‘Nothing, really. They were looking for a celebrity guest. I tried to tell the man you couldn’t do it, but he insisted I think about it.'

‘You think about it?’

Her father nodded. ‘Yes.’

Allegra’s eyebrows pinched together. ‘Don’t you mean, he suggested I think about it?'

He shrugged and walked past her into the study. ‘It hardly warrants an argument over semantics, Allegra. You simply can’t do it. They wanted you to fly out to some godforsaken place tomorrow and stay there for seven nights. I don’t know what the man was thinking even approaching us about it—’

‘And you didn’t think to tell me about this?’

Her father smiled at her. That same soft smile he’d given her when she’d been a little girl and had tried to use a complicated word and had got it wrong.

‘I didn’t see the need.’ He walked round to the other side of the desk and rifled through some papers, effectively dismissing her. ‘As I said, it was impossible.'

‘I know it’s impossible!’ She paused and cleared her throat, got control of herself. ‘But that’s not the point,’ she said evenly. ‘It’s my career. It was my decision. You should at least have mentioned it to me.'

Her father looked up, a wad of papers clutched in his hand, looking perplexed.

He just didn’t get it, did he? It didn’t matter what she said, or what she did; he would never get it.

To him, she was just another thing to be conducted. He waved his baton and she jumped. He waved it again and she stayed silent. And she’d let him. All these years she’d let him, because she’d seen what he’d become after his wife had died, how he’d almost given up on everything. And she’d seen his renaissance when she’d started to excel at her mother’s art. How could she snatch that back from him and still live with herself?

She continued to stare at her father, who had paused rifling through the papers on his desk and was looking at her with raised eyebrows.

There was so much she wanted to say to him.

Let me live, Daddy. Let me breathe …

If only he would give her the same range he gave his musicians. At least they got to change tempo and mood. When he conducted them he made sure he breathed life into the music. He made sure it had light and shade, joy and despair, stillness and dynamism.

She had none of that freedom. She was always supposed to be the perfect little ballerina. Focused. Dedicated. Obedient. And, if her life had a score, no one would want to listen to it because it would be plodding and quiet and controlled. It would be dull.

‘You should have told me, Daddy,’ she said quietly, begging him to see past the even tone, the reasonable words. Begging him to look deep inside her and see what was longing to burst out.

He shook his head and shrugged. ‘Okay,’ he said dryly. ‘I promise I’ll tell you about the next ridiculous offer that comes along. Happy now?'

No, not really. Because this was just a symptom, wasn’t it?

He shook his head again. ‘Sometimes I just don’t understand you, Allegra. You have the life a thousand other dancers would kill for. The life your mother dreamed about, would have given anything to continue, and yet still it’s not enough for you. Sometimes I think I’ve spoiled you, and that you’ve grown up a little bit selfish.’

Allegra blinked at him, stunned.

Selfish? When all she’d ever done was try to please everyone else, try to ease their sadness by showing them her mother had left a little bit of herself behind in her child?

Well, the compliments were coming thick and fast today, weren’t they? First she was soulless, and now she was selfish, too. She wondered that anyone still wanted her around if she was really that awful.

Maybe she was ungrateful and spoiled because she couldn’t stand the weight of her mother’s mantle on her shoulders a moment longer. It had been weighing her down since just after her eighth birthday. Once she had loved feeling that her talent had connected her to her mother, but now she wanted that connection broken, severed once and for all.

Her mother was dead. Nothing was going to change that.

And Allegra feared that if something didn’t change soon all the life would be sucked out of her as well.

She looked at the floor and then back up at her father, giving him one last chance to really see her, see past layer upon layer of expectation he’d pasted upon her, but his face was closed. He was still angry with her. For the comment she’d just made, for the performance last night, for the review he’d have to defend himself against to his arty friends.

Suddenly she felt utterly and totally alone.

The only remedy was to throw herself back into her work and hope the boiling pot of emotions she was busy trying to keep a lid on would flow out in her next performance, and give that critic good reason to eat his words.

‘I have a rehearsal at two. I have to go.’

And, without waiting to be dismissed, she turned and left her father’s study.

Nat was waiting for him at one of the airport bars. It was a pity they only had an hour or so together, otherwise they might have been able to go into Amsterdam for a meal. Finn didn’t mind too much about that, though. This was the life they’d chosen and they were used to it. There’d always be another time.

He walked up to Nat and pulled her into his arms for a kiss. Nat kept her mouth firmly closed and then slid away. Finn stopped and looked at her. Same Nat, with the jaunty honey-coloured bob, the girl-next-door healthy glow about her faintly tanned skin. As usual, there was nothing girl-next-door about the clothes. They were designer all the way.

She pushed herself back onto her bar stool and took a sip of a brightly coloured cocktail with a lime-green straw and an umbrella sticking out of it. Finn frowned. Where was the usual vodka and tonic?

‘What’s that?’ he asked, nodding towards the garish drink.

Nat’s smile started in her cheeks but didn’t make it all the way to her lips. ‘Dutch courage, I think they call it. Want one?'

He shook his head. ‘I think I’ll stick to beer, thanks.’ And he waved to get the bartender’s attention and ordered just that.

‘Finn …’ Nat folded her hands in her lap and studied them for a moment, then she lifted her chin and looked him straight in the eye. ‘There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to come out and say it.'

Finn went very still. She wasn’t pregnant, was she? Because that would be way ahead of schedule. He was only thirty. Plenty of time for that later.

Nat inhaled. ‘I’ve met someone,’ she said quickly and returned her gaze to her lap.

Huh?

‘Pardon?’ Finn said. It was the only word he could think of.

Nat sighed and reached for her cocktail. She held the umbrella-laden glass against her chest like a shield. ‘I can’t marry you, Finn.’

This wasn’t real. No, this definitely couldn’t be real.

This wasn’t Nat sitting opposite him sipping the wrong drink, saying the wrong thing. He must be having a weird in-flight dream and Schiphol airport must still be hours away.

‘Who?’ he said, and his voice sounded hard and flat. He couldn’t look at her.

He heard her fidget in her seat. ‘His name is Matthew, and he’s an architect. I met him at a charity do a few months ago, and then I bumped into him a few times after that. And, well, one thing led to another …'

How he hated that phrase. It implied that something couldn’t be helped, that the person in question had had no choice and, therefore, bore no responsibility.

‘He’s asked me to marry him,’ she said quietly.

That made him whip his head round. ‘But you’re supposed to be marrying me!'

‘I know,’ Nat said, looking at him from under her lashes. ‘I’m sorry.'

Finn just stared at her. He was feeling so many emotions that he wasn’t even sure which one to pick out of the bag first. How about anger? A good one, that. Much better than disappointment or the sting of rejection. Or the creeping sickness telling him he’d been stupid to let himself get too attached once again.

‘Sorry doesn’t cut it, sweetheart! We had a deal, remember? You’ve got a—'

He’d been about to say ring on your finger to prove it, but a quick glance at her hand left him without ammunition.

Silently, she reached into her handbag, opened her purse and handed his diamond back to him. He took it between thumb and forefinger and stared at it, felt its weight.

This was real.

Nat gave him a weak smile. ‘We weren’t really ever going to get round to it, were we, Finn? It was a nice game, pretending we were ready for a proper relationship when really we hardly spent any time together. We did it because it was easy.'

It had been easy! What was so wrong with that?

‘We worked together, Nat! Wasn’t it nice to know there was always someone to come home to? To have someone who wouldn’t moan about the long hours and weeks spent apart? Someone who knew how to pick up where they left off without a lot of fuss? Is the wonderful Matthew going to put up with all of that?'

Nat sighed. ‘It did work, Finn. Did being the operative word. “Us” was a habit we’d fallen into, a way of keeping our freedom while telling ourselves we were ready for more.'

What was she talking about? He’d been ready for more. Hadn’t he? The anger quickly dissolved into confusion.

He looked at Nat and she looked back at him.

‘Now I really am ready for more,’ she said.

‘Just not with me,’ he replied, then pressed his lips into a straight line.

She shook her head. ‘Matthew wants us to move to a nice big house in the country and fill it with kids.’ She smiled to herself. ‘I’m amazed to discover I want that, too. I’m even thinking about giving up Amazing Planet and doing something UK-based.'

What? Cutesy early-evening nature programmes? Nat hated those!

‘But you’ll go mad staying in one place for that long! You always said you didn’t want to be tied down like that. This is a mistake, Nat! You love your job.'

She looked back at him, unblinking and contrite. ‘I love him more,’ she said simply. ‘I want to be where he is, Finn. I can’t stand being away from him.'

Finn slumped back into his leather-backed stool. She was crazy, but there was no talking to her. She’d made her choice and, even if she regretted it later, he wasn’t going to stop her. And he certainly wasn’t going to beg. So it was time to cut ties, to let her loose, he supposed.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, watching the crowds bustle past. Families with whining kids and stupid big Spanish hats that no one born there would disgrace themselves by wearing. Elderly couples on city breaks who’d probably seen Amsterdam’s canals from the wrong side of a coach window.

He turned away, irritated, and found Nat watching him.

‘That was us, Finn. We were tourists.’

Finn glanced at the almost-empty cocktail glass. What exactly was in that concoction? Nat knew he’d never been on a package holiday in his life, knew he’d rather shoot himself first.

She stood up, looking very serious. ‘I want the real experience now, Finn. I don’t want to just whizz past the landmarks—dating, engagement, wedding—and still not really know what it’s like to live there.'

That drink had really gone to her head. She wasn’t making any sense at all.

‘I hate to ask, but would you do me a favour? Will you keep quiet about this until I get back from Tonga next week? I don’t want media speculation running rife while we’re both out of the country.'

He nodded. She could have anything she wanted. He didn’t care. He was numb. Just as well, really, because he was in no hurry to find out what a broken heart felt like.

She leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. ‘Goodbye, Finn. I hope you find what you’re looking for.'

And then she was gone. Lost amongst the overladen trolleys and duty free bags.

The bartender plonked his bottle of beer in front of him and Finn took a long, long drink.

Jilted in the time it took to order a beer. Marvellous.

‘I want to see that lift again.’

Allegra picked herself up off the studio floor and glared at her partner. Damien, The Little Mermaid’s choreographer, continued to stare at them, his patience thinning rapidly.

So was Allegra’s.

‘It would help if you put your hands where they’re supposed to go,’ she muttered darkly to Stephen. He was in a particularly infantile mood this afternoon.

Stephen helped her up, spun her into his arms and proceeded to take hold of her a good few inches south of where he was supposed to. Allegra clenched her teeth, prised his hand from her left buttock and moved it to her hip.

‘You’re no fun any more,’ Stephen moaned, not in the least bit repentant.

She placed one hand on his shoulder, the other on his cheek and got into position. ‘You and I have never had that kind of fun, Stephen, and nor are we likely to,’ she said, as she tipped her head to the correct angle.

Pity, that. Because Stephen was blond and finely sculpted, and just about the only man under fifty she saw on a regular basis who wasn’t gay. But Stephen had the morals of an alley cat, and made the most of being a good-looking straight male in a predominantly female profession. When it came to women, flirting was Stephen’s default position. However, as long as any physical contact between them was strictly professional, Stephen was pretty harmless. Most of the time she ignored it and they got along fine, but this afternoon she really needed to impress Damien and her partner was not making it easy.

‘I think there are a few of the corps that you haven’t slept with lurking in the corridors hoping to catch a glimpse of you. Why don’t you see if you can rid them of their girlish illusions once rehearsal’s over and leave me alone?'

‘Careful, darling,’ he said as he dipped her backwards and then lifted her into the air. ‘Or soon they’ll be calling you the Little Cactus instead of the Little Mermaid.'

The rehearsal went fine after that. At least, Allegra had thought it was going fine. She lost herself in the dancing, just as she’d done in the early days, and forgot about everything—the reviews, her father, even the telephone call that had made her heart soar, just for a moment. Instead she concentrated on bones and joints and muscles, on shapes and lines and angles. It was a blessed relief.

‘No, no, no!’ Damien shouted as they got to the end of a particularly difficult combination. The pianist who’d been accompanying them broke off mid-bar.

‘You’re supposed to be the picture of innocent longing, my dear,’ the choreographer said, turning away from her and running his hand through his hair. ‘Do try and put some feeling into it or the audience will be dropping off to sleep.’ He turned to the pianist. ‘From the top—again.'

So they did it again. And again.

Allegra looked deep inside herself, pulled out everything she could find in there—and there was quite a shopping list, she discovered. Grief for a lost parent and a lost childhood. Resentment for every person who’d pushed and pulled and ordered her around in the last decade. And, yes, longing too. Longing for a pair of deep brown eyes and a crinkly smile, for a life of adventure that could never be hers. She poured it all in there and when they’d finished that section she was drained.

She broke away from Stephen and headed for her water bottle on the floor near the mirrors, then she picked up her towel and wiped the sweat off her face, neck and shoulders.

She turned to find Damien surveying her with hard eyes.

‘I can see you’re trying, Allegra, but it’s not enough. I need more.’ He nodded to the pianist. ‘From the start of the adagio … ‘

Allegra walked over to Stephen, a slight twinge in her right ankle making her favour the other foot, and they assumed the starting position for their pas de deux. The pianist pounded the keys and Allegra closed her eyes, told her exhausted body it could do this and started to move.

After no more than ten bars of music Damien interrupted them. ‘More, Allegra! I need more!’ he yelled as she turned and jumped, spun and balanced.

‘More!’ he shouted as Stephen propelled her into the air, turned her upside down and then swung her back to the ground.

Damien stamped his foot in time to the music, driving them on through the final and most physically demanding section. ‘More! ‘

I don’t have anything more to give, Allegra thought, her body on the verge of collapse. Surely this has to be enough.

The music ended and she and Stephen slid apart and sank to the floor, panting. The choreographer marched over and stood towering above them. Allegra looked up.

‘Not good enough, Allegra. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you’d better buck your ideas up by tomorrow’s rehearsal or I’ll replace you and Stephen in Saturday’s performance with Tamzin and Valeri. I will not have months of my hard work undone by one lukewarm ballerina. Now get out of my rehearsal and don’t come back until you’re truly prepared to commit to this role!’

His face was pink now. Allegra was speechless. She looked at the clock. They still had half an hour. He couldn’t really be—

‘Get out,’ Damien said, and pointed to the door.

So Allegra left. She quickly changed her shoes and pulled on her stretchy black trousers, then she picked up her things, pushed the studio door open with her hip and walked out.

And she kept on walking. Out of the rehearsal studio, out of the building and out of her life.

CHAPTER FOUR

ALLEGRA’S brain was swimming. She’d just jumped out of a helicopter and onto Finn McLeod! And now he was standing over her, grinning like a maniac while the wind whipped around them, offering his hand.

She took it. How could she have done anything else?

She couldn’t tell if this was better or worse than her late-night fantasies when she’d been stuck on an island with no one but Fearless Finn for company—and entertainment. A big blob of water fell out of the sky and crashed onto her scalp, but Allegra was only aware of it in a distant, out-of-body kind of way.

The awareness that came from the warm hand clasped around her own? Now that was very much up-close and immediate, and definitely, definitely in her body. Just that simple action had caused her flesh to tingle and her pulse to do a series of jetés.

She was touching Finn McLeod. Actually holding his hand.

And as she looked into his eyes once again she realised that while TV Finn was just plain gorgeous, In The Flesh Finn had the kind of presence that made a girl’s nerve endings sizzle and her eyes water.

Or could that have something to do with the rain?

To be honest, she didn’t really care. She didn’t care about anything now; she was a million miles away from her life and Finn McLeod was holding her hand and talking to her in that beautiful Scottish accent of his. All she wanted to do was stare into those impossibly deep brown eyes …

Oh.

He’d been talking.

And now he’d stopped. He was also frowning at her. Why?

She suddenly became aware of the tension in his arm muscles, of the tugging sensation in her shoulder socket. He was pulling her. She was supposed to moving, getting up. Not letting her behind get damp on the sand. Not gawping at the most gorgeous-looking man she’d ever seen in real life.

Thankfully, she was well used to telling her body to do things it had no real inclination to do. She issued a command to her feet and legs and they obligingly pushed down into the sand, levering her upwards with the help of Finn’s hand, until she was standing opposite him.

Nobody moved for a few seconds. Not even the guy with the camera.

She’d done what he’d wanted, hadn’t she? She’d stood up. So why was he staring at her as if he wasn’t sure if she was human or not?

The downside to not being able to tear her gaze away from the deep brown eyes was that she was now privy to the slideshow of emotions flashing through them.

Bewilderment. Concern. Uncertainty.

And since he hadn’t looked anywhere else but right back at her since she’d sent him crashing onto the moist sand, the only conclusion she could come to was that he must be feeling all of those things about her.

Not good, Allegra. Pull yourself together. You know how to do that, don’t you? You should do. Part of the training. It should come as naturally as the other basics, like pliés and tendus.

She wrenched her gaze from his and stared out to sea, fixed it on the retreating black blob of the helicopter flying low over the water. It was much farther away than she’d thought it would be. Just how long had she been sitting on the beach, staring into Finn’s eyes?

‘Okay,’ she heard Finn say. ‘We’d better start sorting out some kind of shelter before it gets dark, or tonight will be our most miserable on the planet.'

She turned to face the land and watched him as he trudged up the beach towards the dense green vegetation fringing its edge. The camera guy, however, didn’t move. He just kept pointing his lens at Allegra, his feet braced into the sand.

She’d forgotten about the unseen bodies behind the camera when she’d phoned Finn’s producer back and agreed to do this. When the show aired it often seemed as if Finn was totally alone in whatever strange and exotic world he was exploring. And that was what she’d latched onto when she’d marched out of the rehearsal studio and had dug for her phone in her pocket—the chance of her very own private adventure with Fearless Finn.

Another drop of rain hit her scalp, as fat as a water bomb. She stared back at the camera lens, doing nothing, saying nothing. Just what exactly had she got herself into?

‘Come on, Dave,’ Finn yelled from under a huge palm tree as the water bombs began to multiply. Allegra couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as if someone up there was aiming them directly at her, and they were an awfully good shot. Her long-sleeved shirt only had a few dry patches on it now, and water was dripping from her shorts down her bare legs.

Dave merely adjusted the focus ring on his camera, keeping it pointed straight at Allegra. ‘Not my job, mate!’ he yelled back. ‘I’m here to capture you two battling to survive the elements.'

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