Page 53 of Sway

I don’t know what else to say. “Iza, it didn’t happen while you were together, I swear . . .”

She looks up. Her normally hazel eyes are now a piercing shade of green. The blinding lights of the cameras are still going off, trying to get a picture of Iza and me. The fucking ambulance chasers! As if this situation isn’t bad enough, . . .as if I actually did something wrong! For Christ’s sake, they weren’t even together anymore! Iza and those fucking baby doe eyes—she’d do this to me in a heartbeat if she thought Genya would have her back.

I snap.

“But so what if I slept with Genya.” All I’ve ever been is decent and now everyone is turning on me. Some thanks I get. “Everyone screws everyone else in this business, anyway! I hate it! This partner screwing that partner stealing the other partner . . . Hell, Vika married a man old enough to be her grandpa just to get to the top. Don’t you see this is different? I love him. I love him. And I don’t care even if he did say all those things about me. I hurt him so much. And he still loves me. And you know what?” I level Little Miss Victim with my hardest Evil Eye. “He was mine first.”

“Enough!” Nicole blurts. She looks at me with disgust.

Who needs Nicole and her I-have-the-perfect-ballroom-marriage shit? “I’m sorry, Niki, but we all can’t be as perfect as you and Eric.” I pause but then figure, what the hell? “Though maybe you should take a closer look at your own marriage before you get involved in my life.”

Her eyes narrow, then she turns to Iza. “C’mon, luv, let’s go clean up. We still have to film this video.” She takes Iza by the hand and leads her out of the lobby, not looking at me again.

I watch them go, nearly panting with exhausted rage. That’s right—GO. Who needs you, anyway?

Diana leaps off the sofa with a weird look on her face, like she’s just come to some profound realization. “Don’t worry, Salomé. Iza will be okay. You did what you had to do. Nothing works out perfectly in the ballroom world.” She smiles and prances out the room.

What the hell is she up to? She’s been acting really distant since she was kicked off the show.

Vika is the last one on the couch. She sits there, eyeing me.

My rage is draining away by the second, leaving just emptiness and guilt. “Alright, Vika, go ahead. Fire away.” I finally remember the stupid babushka and rip it off. “Everyone else has taken their shot. You’ve never been one to abstain from a good bitch burning.”

“No, I don’t suppose I have.” She stands up, straightens her workout shorts, and then levels a stony face my way. “You don’t see irony, do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you, ten years ago, bitching me out for hooking up with Benny. Just like Iza flipped on you. But it wasn’t because you wanted Benny, that’s for sure. You just thought me marrying Benny would hurt your result. And it did.” She smiles grimly. “Fuckin’ sucks, doesn’t it?” Then she walks right past me, following the rest of the girls into the studio behind me.

“My result?” I shout at the empty room. “What are you talking about my result?” Vika’s got it all wrong. How can she think that’s why I was so mad at her about getting with Benny? I did bitch her out back then, yes, but not because I thought it would hurt my result. I just didn’t want her to spend her life in a loveless marriage. Plus she didn’t need to marry Benny. She’s a good enough dancer to make it without lying on the ballroom casting couch.

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

God what have I done?Iza shouldn’t have found out like this. Genya wanted to tell her but he decided to wait awhile until they had some space. And I probably just ruined Nicole’s marriage, if it wasn’t already destroyed. They have a baby, for Christ’s sake.

I walk over to the couch and drop into it, more exhausted than I’ve ever been in my whole life. My ballroom career is over. I’ve screwed myself politically, and now I’ll probably be on the cover of Star magazine. For Genya? I love him, I know I do. But I also know that he’s going to leave me the second he realizes I don’t want to compete again. Ever.

My life is over.

“Salomé—NOW!” the director yells. The beat of a techno tango rips through the speakers. In a few minutes I’ll have to smile for the camera like life is just a peach. A happy, joy-joy, this-is-so-fucking-fun peach.

Shit.