His Ballerina Bride

Crossing the threshold into the grand lobby of the Plaza was like entering another world. Another decade. She felt like she’d walked into an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. The decor was opulent, gilded with an art deco flavor reminiscent of Jay Gatsby.

Ophelia found it breathtakingly beautiful. If she’d known such a place existed less than a mile from her workplace, she would have been coming here every afternoon with her sketchbook and jotting down ideas. Drawings of geometric pieces with zigzag rows of gemstones that mirrored the glittering Baccarat chandeliers and the gold inlaid design on the gleaming tile floor.

Maybe she’d do those designs. If this meeting went as well as she hoped, maybe she’d end up with a job in the design department and she could come here and sketch to her heart’s content. And maybe she’d actually see some of her designs come to fruition instead of just taking up space in her portfolio.

She tightened her grip on her slim, leather portfolio. It was Louis Vuitton. Vintage. Another treasure she’d found in her grandmother’s belongings. It had been filled to bursting with old photographs from Natalia Baronova’s time at the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Ophelia had spent days studying those photos when she’d come home from her time in the hospital.

In the empty hours when she once would have been at company rehearsal dancing until her toes bled, she’d relived her grandmother’s legendary career instead. Those news clippings, and the faded photographs with her grandmother’s penciled notations on the back, had kept Ophelia going. She’d lost her health, her family, her job. Her life. All she’d had left was school and her grandmother’s memories.

Ophelia had clung to those memories, studied those images until she made them her own by incorporating what she saw into her jewelry designs. The result was an inspired collection that she knew would be a success...if only someone would give her a chance and look at them.

She took a deep breath. If there was any fairness at all in the world, this would be her moment. And that someone would be Artem Drake.

“May I help you, miss?” A man in a pristine white dinner jacket and tuxedo pants smiled at her from behind the concierge desk.

“Yes, actually. I’m meeting someone here. Artem Drake?” She glanced toward the dazzling atrium in the center of the lobby, where tables of patrons sipped glasses of champagne and cups of tea beneath the shade of elegant palm fronds. Artem was nowhere to be seen.

She fought the sinking feeling in her stomach. It doesn’t mean anything. He could simply be running late.

“Mr. Drake is in penthouse number nine. This key will give you elevator access to the eighteenth floor.” The concierge slid a discreet black card key across the desk.

Ophelia stared at it. She’d never been so bitterly disappointed. Finally, finally, she’d thought she’d actually spotted a light at the end of the very dark tunnel that had become her life. But no. There was no light. Just more darkness. And a man who thought she’d meet him at a hotel on her lunch hour just to get ahead.

The irony was that’s exactly what everyone in the company had thought when she’d begun dating Jeremy, the director. The other dancers had rolled their eyes whenever she’d been cast in a lead role. As if she hadn’t earned it. As if she hadn’t been dancing every day until her toes bled through the pink satin of her pointe shoes.

It hadn’t been like that, though. She’d cared for Jeremy. And he’d cared for her, too. Or so she’d thought.

“Miss?” The concierge furrowed his brow. “Is there something else you need?”

Yes, there is. Just a glimmer of hope, if you wouldn’t mind...

“No.” She shook her head woodenly, and reached for the card key. “Thank you for your help.”

She marched toward the elevator, her kitten heels echoing off the gold-trimmed walls of the palatial lobby. She didn’t know why she was so upset. Or even remotely surprised. She’d seen all those photos of Artem in the newspaper, out every night with a different woman on his arm. Of course he’d assumed she’d want to sleep with him. She was probably the only woman in Manhattan who didn’t.

Except she sort of did.

If she was honest with herself—painfully honest—she had to admit that the thought of sex with Artem Drake wasn’t exactly repulsive. On the contrary.

She would never go through with it, of course. Not now. Especially not now. Not ever. It was just difficult to think about Artem without thinking about sex, especially since she went weak in the knees whenever he looked at her with those penetrating eyes of his. Eyes that gave her the sense that he could see straight into her aching, yearning center. Eyes that stirred chaos inside her. Bedroom eyes. And now she was on her way to meet him. In an actual bedroom.

Bed or no bed, she would not be sleeping with him.

The elevator stopped on the uppermost floor. She squared her shoulders and stepped out, prepared to search for the door to penthouse number nine.

She didn’t have to look very hard. It was the only door on the entire floor.

He’d rented a hotel room that encompassed the entire floor? She rolled her eyes and wondered if all his dates got such royal treatment. Then she reminded herself that this was a business meeting, not a date.

If she had any sense at all, she’d turn around and walk directly back to Drake Diamonds. But before she could talk herself into leaving, the door swung open and she was face-to-face with Mr. Bedroom Eyes himself.

“Mr. Drake.” She smiled in a way that she hoped conveyed professionalism and not the fact that she’d somehow gone quite breathless.

“My apologies, Miss Rose. I’m on the phone.” He opened the door wider and beckoned her inside. “Do come in.”

Ophelia had never seen such a large hotel room. She could have fit three of her apartments inside it, and it was absolutely stunning, decorated in cool grays and blues, with sleek, modern furnishings. But the most spectacular feature was its view of Central Park. Horse drawn carriages lined the curb alongside the snow-covered landscape. In the distance, ice skaters moved in a graceful circle over the pond.

Ophelia walked right up to the closest window and looked down on the busy Manhattan streets below. Everything seemed so faraway. The yellow taxicabs looked like tiny toy cars, and she could barely make out the people bundled in dark coats darting along the crowded sidewalks with their scarves trailing behind them like ribbons. Snow danced against the glass in a dizzying waltz of white, drifting downward, blanketing the city below. The effect was rather like standing inside a snow globe. Absolutely breathtaking.