Offsetting Penalties Page 2

  Jenny manipulated his legs and feet into something approximating fifth position. He’s taking ballet lessons?

  Once he—sort of—mastered that, Jenny had him go back to first position, but he tried to force his toes too far out and lost his balance, nearly falling over. Izzy slapped a hand over her mouth to prevent a laugh from escaping. For a moment, she thought about getting out her phone and recording him, but that would be too…

  On second thought… Maybe, just maybe, it could work. Yanking her phone out of her purse, she crept closer to the window and clicked record.

  OMG. This was too good to be true. She could make a ton of money selling this to the highest bidder at school. Sliding the phone inside her bra, she waited for them to finish. The door started to open and she took a step back against the wall so he wouldn’t see her right away.

  “So you’ll practice at home every day, right?” Jenny said as she entered the hallway with Garret right behind her. “Especially the stretches.”

  “Yes, Miss Jenny.” He looked up and caught Izzy’s eye and stopped as if he’d crashed into an invisible wall. His eyes narrowed and he tilted his head. “Do I know you?”

  They didn’t exactly run in the same crowd, but she’d thought he’d at least recognize her. They’d attended the same school since kindergarten.

  “Probably not, but we go to school together.”

  He studied her closely, then recognition showed on his face. “What happened to the purple hair and makeup?”

  Slowly, she removed the pins and clip from her hair and let it cascade over her shoulders and down her back, revealing the purple streaks her thick black hair hid when she put it into a bun.

  He raised a brow. “I’m impressed you’re able to hide it like that. Clever.”

  Garret Mitchell, star of the football team, was being…nice to her. His deep brown eyes were warm, almost hypnotic. She shifted her gaze, reminding herself that he hadn’t spoken a word to her since they were in third grade. She shoved down the guilt rising in her throat, or else she’d never be able to go through with her plan.

  “It’s not that difficult. The color is only on the top, so it disappears when I put it into a bun. Goth hasn’t really taken off in the ballet world yet.”

  While they talked, Jenny had gone back into the studio to grab her purse. She came out the door and shot Izzy a smile. “I can see that you two want to catch up, so I’m going to head out. Can you lock up, Izzy?”

  “Sure.”

  Jenny had completely misinterpreted her exchange with Garret, but it was probably better that there weren’t any witnesses to what she was about to do.

  Garret watched Jenny as if she was paddling the last lifeboat away from the Titanic as she went out the front door, but then he manned up and turned to her. “So you work here?”

  “I guess so. I mean, they don’t pay me, but I teach some classes.” Awkward much?

  He nodded. “Look. I know we don’t know each other very well, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anybody you saw me here.”

  She held his gaze but didn’t say anything, raising her brows slightly. It was a tactic she’d learned from her father. If you stayed quiet, the other person would usually get uncomfortable and keep talking. And it worked.

  “Um, you might have noticed that I had an injury last year, and after the surgery and all…well, Coach suggested that I come here and take ballet lessons to improve my flexibility, and… You won’t tell anybody, right?”

  She had to give him credit. He had the balls to look her in the eyes and ask her not to tell. But he was counting too much on her being nice and doing what he wanted. Being popular, he was used to always getting his way. Not this time.

  “Well, that depends.”

  He shifted his weight away from her and crossed his arms. “Depends on what?”

  She tapped her foot. “Whether you’ll do a little favor for me.”

  “What kind of favor?”

  Ignoring her jumpy stomach, she sucked in a deep breath and said, “If you dance with me in our fall ballet production, I won’t tell anyone.”

  He jerked his head back and his brows lowered. “What? No! No way. That would definitely defeat the purpose of keeping my ballet lessons a secret.”

  Maybe trying to soften his response, he smiled at her, not realizing his tactics would get him nowhere. After all, she lived with a politician.

  “No one from school ever comes here. Except for me, all of the students are from St. Mary’s. Besides which, we’re holding the show over at the Performing Arts Center in Mansfield.”

  He continued to glare at her in suspicion. “Why aren’t there any actual ballet dancers willing to dance with you?”

  Because I’m The Untouchable.

  But she wasn’t. At least not here. They only called her that at school. “Because I’m such a tyrant.”

  He nodded. “That I can believe.”

  She crossed her arms. “Very funny. We don’t have any boys on our ballet company, so we usually hire someone from Northern, but their entire company will be out of town that weekend.”

  “Then just change the date.”

  “Thanks, Sherlock. I already thought of that, but we can’t because we’ve paid the deposit for the auditorium and it’s nonrefundable.”

  He took a step toward her, getting up in her face. “Then just get your daddy to pay for it. Or have him pay a professional dancer from somewhere else to come.”

  That hurt, especially since it was something she had considered for a moment. Whipping her phone out of her bra, she found the video and pressed play. “Maybe this will convince you.” She turned the screen so he could see.

  Once he realized what he was watching, his eyes widened. “You…you…have a lot of nerve.”

  “It’s okay, you can call me whatever you want. I don’t care.”

  He stared at her like she was the devil, which was kind of understandable, but she was desperate. Besides, she happened to know he had once screwed over her friend Jeremy, so she didn’t feel as guilty as she might have if it had been someone else.

  “I can’t believe you recorded me. Doesn’t this place have some sort of privacy rules?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Just agree to dance with me, and I promise I won’t tell anyone or show them the video. If you don’t, I’ll have it played on the big screen during the first pep rally for the football team.”

  His face colored and he made a grab for her phone. “Or I could just smash your phone and never come back here again.”

  She stuffed the phone back in her bra. “I can tell you’re thinking about it.” She pointed her chin toward her chest. “Even if you can make the grab, I already uploaded it. I’m not stupid.”

  “Yeah. I get that.” He glared at her. “But why would you want me to dance with you? I’ve had one lesson, and I can assure you I’m not that good.”

  “I need someone who can lift me, and you’re strong enough to do it, and obviously athletic. I can teach you the rest.” It wasn’t that she was heavy, but with her height, it was hard for smaller guys to balance her on the lifts. She’d gone to one football game last year to help run a charity booth, and she’d seen him play a little bit. He was a receiver, and he’d jumped pretty high to catch the ball. She might even be able to teach him a few simple leaps.

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t have time for more lessons. I barely have time now, and school starts in a few weeks.”

  He was making excuses, starting to weaken. He was kind of cute when he got flustered…

  She shook her head. Focus. “No problem. I can take over your lessons with Jenny, and we can combine the two. I’ll work with you on the basics and help you with flexibility, and then we can move on to the lifts.”

  “I still can’t believe it. The Untouchable is a blackmailer.”

  Her face filled with heat. The purple hair and Goth look were mostly to piss off her father, but her appearance, along with Daddy’s money and backgr
ound, had led to the despised nickname.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  The words slipped out before she could stop herself. Now that she’d let him know how much she hated that nickname, he’d use it to his advantage.

  He leaned against the wall, as still as a statue.

  She took a few deep breaths to slow her racing pulse. “You’re paying Jenny the standard thirty an hour for the lessons, right? I’ll do them for free.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he turned and walked away from her then looked back over his shoulder. “Don’t. I had more respect for you when you were just blackmailing me.”

  He smacked the door open and stalked out into the dark.

  She was counting on his ego to convince him to come back, because otherwise she was screwed.

  …

  Garret stormed across the parking lot toward his car.

  That girl was something else. Clearly no one had ever taught her how to ask for a favor from someone. If she’d approached him differently, he might have agreed to it. Well, probably not, but he would’ve at least been nicer about it.

  After whipping the door to his car open, he dropped into the driver’s seat. The locks were broken on his 1965 Mustang. The only place that was secure was the trunk. He’d rescued it from the salvage yard, and it was a work in progress.

  Since he’d parked at the back of the lot, he was able to watch Isabelle as she got into her brand new Volvo sedan and turned out onto the road. He still couldn’t believe she was the same girl from school. They didn’t really have any friends in common, so he’d never paid much attention to her before, but she was beautiful, like the kind of beautiful you only saw on a movie screen.

  He gave himself a mental head slap. Of course. He knew her father had been an actor, but he’d forgotten about her mother. He grabbed his phone and had a picture of her up in seconds. They could be twins. So the black hair at least was probably real, as were her remarkable lavender-gray eyes. He’d figured both were part of Isabelle’s Goth disguise. Scrolling down, he found her mother’s biography and skimmed it.

  Catherine Oster was found unresponsive by her husband and rushed to the hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival.

  He counted backwards from the date of her death. That meant Isabelle couldn’t have been more than a few months old when her mother had died.

  A car drove past the studio, reminding him that he needed to head home before someone got nervous about him being there this late at night. Or worse, someone who recognized his car might see him here. He didn’t trust Isabelle at all, but he could tell she was desperate to find someone to dance with, so he figured she’d stay quiet for now.

  The one advantage to this place was that it sat on the edge of the wrong side of town, the poor side, so it was close to home for him.

  He parked his car to the side of the driveway and entered through the kitchen door.

  “Mom, aren’t you home early?” He gave her a hug and snatched a tomato off the plate she was preparing.

  “No, honey, you’re late. Where have you been?”

  He was so used to coming home in the dark after his second practice that he’d forgotten it was later than usual. He cleared his throat while he debated sharing everything with her.

  “Well, I was taking a ballet lesson.”

  A deep laugh rose from her throat. “Surely you can come up with a better excuse than that.”

  He leaned against the counter. “No, really. Coach suggested it and hooked me up with a teacher.”

  She handed him a plate with a BLT on it, and he told her the rest of the story while they ate, including Isabelle’s demands.

  “But if you agree, you’d get the lessons for free, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Then you should do it. You already spend too much time working at the salvage yard as it is, and it’ll only get harder once school starts. Getting a scholarship won’t matter if you don’t graduate.”

  Of course his mother would give Isabelle the benefit of the doubt, but he knew better. “Yeah, but then I’d be letting her win. Everything would be on her terms.”

  “So make new terms. You know your sister has always wanted to take ballet classes. Maybe you could get her to teach Hannah for free. Then you’re not following her demands. You’re making a counteroffer.”

  He grinned. He liked that idea, but it aggravated him that Isabelle thought she could trap him so easily. Besides, he didn’t want to make a deal with her. No matter what she offered, he was not going to dance with her in public.

  Chapter Three

  Loud barks sounded from inside the house as Izzy steered her car into the garage. The rest of the space stood empty, the plain white walls reflecting back at her. Pushing off her disappointment that Daddy still hadn’t returned despite his promises, she grabbed her dance bag and headed inside, where she was accosted by her two best friends.

  “You’re a good boy, Dozer. Yes, you are.” She turned to pet Roley, the other mastiff. Both dogs were her constant, and most of the time only, companions. Roley flopped onto the tile to get a good belly rub.

  “There you are. I was starting to worry.”

  Izzy frowned at her friend and housekeeper. “Anna Maria, you’re not supposed to be here this late.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “And you are supposed to be home by ten. Call it even?”

  Izzy smiled and nodded.

  “Are you hungry?”

  She shook her head, still dividing her attention between the two dogs. “I had a protein bar before my last class.”

  “I figured that’s what you’d say. Come on, I made a salad.”

  She led the way to the kitchen, and Izzy and the dogs followed. Her father had hired Anna Maria three years ago to keep an eye on her when he was out of town and to manage the house. In exchange, she had her own apartment over the garage, he paid her tuition to the University of Texas at Permian Basin, and if he was elected to the U.S. Senate, she would have a place on his staff in Washington. Her father spent more time in Austin than he did here, and though Izzy resented having what amounted to a babysitter, she enjoyed Anna Maria’s company. She was the closest thing to a sister Izzy would ever have.

  She sat on one of the stools at the kitchen counter, and Dozer and Roley settled at her feet. Anna Maria dropped a plate in front of her. “Mixed greens, cucumber, pomegranate seeds, chicken breast, and vinaigrette. We’re out of tomatoes.”

  Izzy bit back a smile. She was a finicky eater but was lucky not to have to worry about her weight. If anything, she was too thin, but as tall as she was, she needed to be light or none of the guys would be able to lift her.

  Her conscience wavered. It really wasn’t fair to blackmail Garret, who just happened to be at the wrong place at the right time. But if he wouldn’t dance with her, she was out of options. She had to figure out a way to convince him to do it. She pushed the salad around on her plate.

  “How did you and Tanner meet?”

  “I’ve already told you this story, Izzy. We met in biology class.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I mean, how exactly did you met? Did he just come up and ask you out, or were you lab partners or something?”

  “Actually, we were competing against each other to get one of the professor’s teaching assistant slots.”

  Izzy suddenly got more interested. “What happened?”

  “We were pretty evenly matched, so it came down to which one of us scored higher on the final exam.”

  After about ten seconds, she prompted her. “Well?”

  “We both had a perfect score and the professor picked me.” She pushed her hair behind her ear. “After crowing about it for a few days, I decided to let him have it, but he wouldn’t take it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. He said it didn’t mean anything if he hadn’t earned it, and he accused me of kissing up to the professor to get the job. I let him sulk for a few days then suggested we talk to the professor together and convince him
that we both deserved it and he needed two TAs. It worked.”

  “You weren’t mad that he’d thought you cheated?”

  “I was at first, but then I thought about how I’d feel if I were him, and I decided to do the right thing. Besides, he had already apologized for being an ass before I suggested we could both be TAs.”

  Izzy slid off the stool and dumped the rest of her salad into the trash can then put the plate in the dishwasher.

  If Anna Maria could forgive Tanner, maybe Garret could forgive her for forcing him to dance. Not right away, of course, but someday. Maybe.

  …

  Being stung by a thousand bees was preferable to dancing. Being trampled by an elephant was preferable to dancing on stage. Being eaten—slowly—by a tiger was preferable to having even one of his friends see him dancing.

  Garret banged his head against the steering wheel. Making his little sister happy was worth it. Being more flexible and impressing college scouts was worth it. Not having to kill himself working extra shifts while playing football and keeping his grades up was also worth it. But there had to be another way to make this work. He was not going to agree to dance with Isabelle.

  Mentally preparing himself for battle, he straightened his shoulders and got out of the car. It was way too soon for him to give her even a hint that he might be willing to negotiate.

  The curtains were open in the studio they’d used last night. It was full of little girls dressed in princess outfits, running around screaming and giggling while the devil herself chased them. Okay, Isabelle wasn’t the devil, but he was willing to believe she was at least a distant cousin. Yet here she was, laughing and playing and looking…happy to be doing it. Just when he’d thought he had her figured out, she showed another side of herself.

  A horde of parents arrived to pick up the girls, and it wasn’t long before he and Isabelle were alone in the studio. He’d thought maybe Miss Jenny would be here to teach him, but Isabelle must’ve already made arrangements with her to take over, despite the fact that he hadn’t agreed to anything. At least she looked a bit hesitant when she finally came out of the classroom with her hands clasped in front of her. She met his eyes but didn’t speak, which was fine with him.