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last night.”
    His words penetrated the haze of pleasure. They had not had sex. Relief and confusion collided in her. Why? Why had they not? He was not noble. Roman took what he wanted. Didn’t he want her? And why did she care?
    Roman was beside her, fully clothed. For the first time her nakedness made her feel vulnerable. Like Eve after the fall, Georgina had sampled the forbidden fruit, and shame was her new companion.
    Roman reached into his pocket and produced a key. Wordlessly he unshackled her and then handed her her dress. Georgina rubbed her tender wrists; she had pulled hard against her bindings as she orgasmed, and now that the pleasure had evaporated all she was left with was the biting pain throughout her body.
    Roman turned away from her. “Vlad is waiting downstairs to take you home. Don’t do anything stupid. It would be a shame to have to kill you.”

Chapter Five
    Georgina needed to start getting ready for the night’s performance, but first she had to speak to her director. She did not bother to knock on Maxim’s office door. She needed to speak to him to tell him she would be dancing tonight. If she knocked, he would tell her to go away, and she wasn’t going anywhere.
    “I have already told Katia she is not needed for tonight’s performance,” Georgina announced as soon as she opened the door. The conversation had been unpleasant, with Katia flaring her nostrils, swearing at her in Russian, and then loudly telling everyone in earshot that Georgina was a fat elk, an interesting choice of animal. She had certainly been called worse. Fat was a dancer’s go-to insult. It lacked creativity. If Georgina had been prone to insulting people, she would have thought up something better, but Georgina never insulted other dancers. It wasn’t because she was especially kind or benevolent; she just preferred to let her dancing speak for her. She could humble other dancers far more with her abilities than her words.
    Maxim looked up from his desk. He was wearing the pinstripe vest that made him look like a Victorian train conductor. “You missed rehearsal. You are not performing tonight. I have not decided about tomorrow.”
    He rose from his chair to show her the door, but Georgina wasn’t going anywhere until she had secured her role. It was ridiculous; it was her role. She was Ondine. If there ever was a role she was destined to play, it was the heartbroken water nymph that loses her lover through tragic though preventable circumstances. There was no acting required from Georgina for the pain of the final act. No one was taking her role from her. “I’m sorry, Maxim. I am seeing a new nutritionist and it ran late.”
    Maxim stopped short, his eyes narrowed. Georgina had picked the only lie that would placate him. He studied her intently with his small, dark eyes. He looked like a rodent, with his close-set eyes, a long nose, and razor-thin lips that never lifted into a smile. He was shorter than Georgina by a good three inches. Her height worked against her in ballet. Five eight was too tall, especially when so many of the male dancers came in at Maxim’s height.
    Maxim ran his hands over her knee and up her thigh, stopping just short of her crotch. “Can she work on these? Too bulky; you are like a mule.”
    Mule, was that better or worse than an elk? Which was thinner? Because that one would be better. Georgina bit back her indignation. There was no such thing as spot reduction; her thighs would only get smaller if the rest of her did and that was not going to happen. She weighed as little as she could to still be able to do her job. Directors seemed to forget that their dancers were human and required occasional feeding. “Yes, she is switching me from salmon to cod. Too much oil in the salmon. It accumulates in the thighs.” She was talking utter shit, but it was exactly what Maxim wanted to hear. He was always looking for new ways to pare down his ballerinas. He would try anything. He would