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Edo tugged at his tie, then pulled it off and tossed it on the bed. It was just a little dance, nothing formal—so why was he wanting to get so dressed up?
The easy answer, of course, was that he wanted to take Samantha on a nice date. She was the first girl he'd been interested in for a long time, and if he did something, he always liked to do it right.
But there was more to the anxious way he had been perusing his closet for the last twenty minutes than just his new interest in Samantha.
It would have to be dancing. And it had to be here.
Edo growled a little under his breath and undid the top button of his black shirt, running a hand through his gelled hair to make it a little rumpled and more casual. He stared at himself in the mirror for a moment, then turned and walked out of his room and along the halls to Samantha's suite.
He looked at his watch; was he supposed to meet her here, or downstairs? He'd forgotten to specify, and he didn't even have her number to text her and ask. Tugging once more at the neckline of his shirt, he raised his hand to knock.
Before his knuckles could hit, the door swung open, and he was left standing awkwardly in the doorway with his hand raised, staring at a girl who no longer looked like the too-young college kid Edo had tried to tell himself he should not be interested in.
Samantha seemed to have gone all-out in a fancy, flowing dress of deep purple chiffon and a pair of sparkly, dangling earrings that brushed the side of her neck as she looked up at him. A satin ribbon tied in a high waist and ran down the side, and she’d pulled her hair up in some kind of complicated swirly arrangement. It made her look a little taller and made the lines of her neck and shoulders more pronounced—and those collarbones would have been dangerously elegant even without the hair-thin silver chain glinting on them.
Edo swallowed hard and wished he'd kept his tie on.
Samantha brought a hand to her hair and looked down self-consciously. “Ready?”
Edo gave himself a mental shake and offered her his arm in escort. “You look lovely.” It was an understatement, but a safe compliment. It was the kind of thing you were expected to say when your date got all dressed up.
“You do too. I mean—you look nice, not lovely. Handsome.” Her cheeks and neck both flushed a little red, and with her hair up, Edo could see that the red went right up her ears. Suddenly he wanted to tease her so that she’d blush more.
“I have to ask; do you always travel with such a nice dress? Were you planning to convince someone to take you dancing as an excuse to wear it?”
“Actually,” Samantha said, looking at the wall away from Edo and clearing her throat, “I borrowed it from your mother.”
Edo tripped. His mother had always managed to retain her slim, elegant figure, but Edo would never have pictured her in something this stylish, nor would he have expected it to fit Samantha.
When he didn't say anything, Samantha continued, her voice a little awkward. “She said she bought it for a formal night on the cruise your father is supposed to take her on. She hadn't worn it before, and she pinned it up a little for me.”
Leaning back just a little, Edo could see the nearly invisible gathers along the side seams where his mother had taken the dress in.
“Stop it,” Samantha said, elbowing him.
Now it was Edo's turn to be embarrassed. “I wasn't—”
Samantha cut him off. “You can't win right now, no matter which way you protest—either you were checking me out obviously, like a creep, or you weren’t checking me out, in which case getting all glammed up wouldn't have been worth it.” She still had the tiniest bit of a blush at her own boldness, but the confidence he'd seen in her the other morning before she’d grabbed his hand was back.
“It’s a nice dress. I think you wear it better than my mother would.”
“I won't tell her you said that.”
“Grazie.”
They almost made it out of the castle without seeing his mother, but he should've known she’d never allow that. She came bustling up as they walked out the door, and exclaimed over both of them. She urged them both to have a wonderful time, and to stay out as long as they liked. Edo felt strangely like a teenager again.
It wasn't until they got to the ballroom that Edo’s unease from earlier returned. As he walked Samantha towards the entrance, an overwhelming wave of memories crashed into him. How many times had he and Paola come here? He'd learned to dance for her, and he’d brought her here faithfully every month. Sometimes they'd even ridden the bus into the big city on other nights in order to go to a ballroom that was open every week.
As they walked through the doorway, Edo took a slow, shaky breath. Nothing had changed. The same picture hung on the wall of the man and woman dancing while their servants tried to hold umbrellas; the velvet-backed chairs still stood along the wall of the foyer; the scrollwork coat rack still stood in the corner.
He could see Paola's face everywhere—hear her laugh mixed with the laughter coming from the open door to the ballroom itself.
Suddenly he panicked. This had been Paola’s favorite place. What if she was here tonight? What if he had to see her—he wasn't ready; he hadn't planned for it—he should have thought—
Smooth, soft fingers slipped between his own, and Edo jerked out of his thoughts to see Samantha looking up at him questioningly. Samantha, who was barely older than he had been when he'd last seen Paola.
Edo blinked several times to clear those thoughts from his head. Samantha was not as young as he had been—she was also here, now, and he needed to not neglect her. He needed to let her banish the ghosts from his past.
She squeezed his hand again and eyed the ballroom, then looked sideways back at him. “Confession... I don't really know how to dance.”
Edo stared at her in surprise. Why had she been so quick to jump at his mother's suggestion if she didn't know how to dance? “Not at all?”
Samantha let go of his hand and took a step back toward the door, looking suddenly uncertain. “Not really. I was kind of hoping you could teach me, but we should probably just—”
Edo reached out and grabbed Samantha's hand again, pulling her toward the ballroom. He grinned. “Oh no. You let my mother's schemes run away with her, and now you're going to deal with the consequences.”
Samantha let out a little gasp of laughter as he tugged her through the open doorway into the ballroom. Here, too, things were as he remembered, with the exception of a new coat of blue paint on the walls instead of the peach they'd been when he left. Tables and chairs clung to the walls around this end, while the rest of the floor was left open for the couples that were currently swirling around it in a waltz. It had been years since he’d danced, but as Edo watched the couples traveling and turning, he still recognized many of the figures. Hopefully he'd be able to reproduce them with Samantha.
He turned and slid his right arm around her, pulling her closer to him. Both of them sucked in a breath as his fingertips brushed skin where the back of her dress dipped into a square neckline across her shoulder blades. Edo quickly used his left hand to claim her right one, and raised them to her eye level beside them. “This is our dance frame,” he said, working to make his voice sound entirely normal. “If I come toward you, you move away.”
She looked up at him through her lashes, and her voice was airy but teasing as she said, “Oh, is that how flirting is supposed to work? I always wondered.”
Edo fought back a sudden urge to kiss her just to see what her reaction would be—to show her he could be just as bold as she’d been. Instead, he took a little step into her space, sending her backward. “One.” He stepped to the side, bringing her along with him. “Two.” He met her gaze as he drew his free foot in, and the jolt he felt as their eyes made contact made his words freeze.
“Three,” she said for him, a little smile playing on those much-too-tempting lips.
It was going to be a miracle if he remembered any dance steps tonight at all.