LITMIR.BIZ

       Two

      Sofia had mentally prepared to be approached by a suitor. She had not expected a marriage proposal.

      In all the years she’d danced Balanchine on toes that bled right through the calluses, all the times she’d churned out bravura fouetté turns fearing she’d fall in front of a live audience, she’d never been so disoriented as she was staring up at the tall, dark-haired man bearing flowers and...a ring?

      The way she chose to handle this encounter would surely be recorded for posterity and nitpicked by those who would love nothing more than to see her make a misstep offstage. Or lose a chance at the lead in Fortier’s first new ballet in two years.

      In the strained silence, the wind blew Sofia’s scarf off her shoulders to smother half her face. She could hear Antonia whispering behind her back. And giggling.

      “For pity’s sake, man, let’s take this inside.” Sofia’s father was the first to speak.

      Vitaly Koslov maintained his outward composure, but Sofia knew him well enough to hear the surprise in his tone. Was it possible he hadn’t foreseen such a rash action from a suitor when he arranged for a matchmaker for her without her consent? The more she thought about it, the more she fumed. How dare this man corner her with his marriage offer in a public place?

      She stepped out of the wind into the bright lobby, wishing she could just keep on walking out the front exit. But the camerawoman still trailed her. Sofia needed to wake up and get on top of this before a silly airport proposal took the focus of the Dance magazine story away from her dancing.

      “Ladies.” Sofia turned a performer’s smile on the reporters, willing away her exhaustion with the steely determination that got her through seven-hour rehearsals. “I’m so sorry. I forgot I have a brief personal appointment. If you would be so kind as to give me a few moments?”

      “Oh, but we’ve got such a good story going.” The slim, delicately built reporter was surely a former dancer herself. She smiled with the same cobra-like grace of so many of Sofia’s colleagues—a frightening show of sweetness that could precede a venomous strike. “Sofia, you never mentioned someone special in your life in our preliminary interview.”

      The camera turned toward the man who’d just proposed to her and the even more staggeringly handsome man beside him—another dark-haired, blue-eyed stranger, who wasn’t as absurdly tall as her suitor. They had to be related. The second man’s blue eyes were darker, frank and assessing. And he had a different kind of appeal from the well-muscled male dancers she worked with daily who honed their bodies for their art. Thicker in the shoulders and arms, he appeared strong enough to lift multiple ballerinas at once. With ease.

      Tearing her eyes from him, she pushed aside the wayward thoughts. Then she promised the reporter the best incentive she could think of to obtain the respite she needed.

      “If I can have a few moments to speak privately with my friend, you can film my audition for Idris Fortier.” Sofia recalled the magazine had been angling for a connection to the famous choreographer. As much as she didn’t want that moment on public record—especially if she failed to capture the lead role—she needed to get those cameras switched off now.

      Her father wasn’t going to run this show.

      After a quick exchange of glances, the reporter with the camera lowered the lens and the pair retreated to a leather sofa in the almost empty waiting area. In the meantime, the rest of the troupe who had traveled with Sofia lingered.

      “May we have a moment, ladies?” her father asked the bunch. And though some pouting followed, they went and joined the reporters, leaving Sofia and her father with the tall man, still holding a ring box, and his even more handsome relation.

      Belatedly she realized she had mindlessly taken the orchids the stranger had offered her. She could only imagine how she looked in the pictures and video already captured by the magazine’s photographer.

      The same woman her publicist warned her moonlighted for the paparazzi. How fast would her story make the rounds?

      “Sofia.” The tall man leaned forward into her line of vision. “I’m Cameron McNeill. I hope our matchmaker let you know I’d be here to take you home?” Even now, he didn’t lower his voice, but he had a puzzled expression.

      She resisted the urge to glare at her father, afraid the reporter could use a long range-lens to film this conversation. Instead, Sofia gestured to some couches far removed from the others, but her suitor didn’t budge as he studied her.

      His companion, still watching her with those assessing blue eyes, said something quietly in the tall man’s ear. A warning? A note of caution? He surreptitiously checked his phone.

      “How do I know that name? McNeill?” Her father’s chin jutted forward in challenge.

      “Dad, please.” After a life on stage studying the nuances of expressions to better emote in dance, Sofia knew how easily body language could tell a story. Especially to her fellow dancers. “May I?” Without waiting for an answer she turned back to Cameron. “Could we sit down for a moment?”

      Her father snapped his fingers before anyone moved.

      “McNeill Resorts?”

      As soon as he uttered the words, the quiet man at Cameron’s shoulder stepped forward with an air of command. He seemed a more approachable six foot two, something she could guess easily given the emphasis on paring the right dance partners in the ballet. Sofia’s tired mind couldn’t help a moment’s romantic thought that this man would be a better fit for her. Purely from a dance perspective, of course.

      He wore the overcoat and suit of a well-heeled Wall Street man, she thought. Yet there was a glint in his midnight-blue eyes, a fierceness she recognized as a subtler brand of passion.

      Like hers.

      “Vitaly Koslov?” Just by stepping forward into the small, awkward group, he somehow took charge. “I’m Quinn McNeill. We spoke briefly at the Met Gala two years ago.”

      A brother, she thought.

      A very enticing brother. One who hadn’t approached her with a marriage proposal in front of a journalist’s camera. She approved of him more already, even as she wondered what these McNeill men were about.

      She needed to think quickly and carefully.

      “Sofia’s got family in New York,” Cameron informed Quinn, as if picking up a conversation they’d been in the middle of. “I knew she wasn’t some kind of mail-order bride.” He smiled down at Sofia with a grin too practiced for her taste. “The reporters must be doing some kind of story on you? I saw their media badges were from Dance magazine.”

      “Mail-order bride?” Her father’s raised voice made even a few seen-it-all New Yorkers turn to stare, if only for a second. “I’ll sue your family from here to Sunday, McNeill, if you’re insinuating—”

      “I knew she wasn’t looking for a green card,” Cameron argued, pulling out his phone while Sofia wished she could start this day all over again. “It was Quinn who thought that our meeting was a scam. But I got her picture from my matchmaker—”

      “There’s been a mix-up.” Quinn stood between the two men, making her grateful she hadn’t pulled the referee duty herself. “I told my brother as much before we realized who Sofia was.”

      Sofia couldn’t decide if she was more incensed that she’d been mistaken for a bride for hire or that one of them wanted to marry her based on a photo. But frustration was building and the walls damn well had ears. She peered around nervously.

      “Who is she?” Cameron asked Quinn, setting the conspicuous velvet box on a nearby table. Sofia felt all the eyes of her fellow dancers drawn to it like a magnet even from halfway across the

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