Dance With Me Read Online Free PDF

thumb against the steering wheel, watching the leather dimple under the pressure. “Say, Vicky, would you happen to have a phone number for Ed Maurer you could give me?”
    “Shit. What the hell did he do to you now?”
    “Nothing, nothing,” Laurie said quickly. “We just—” He sighed. “It's complicated. He was going to do something for me, but I changed my mind, and I need to let him know.”
    “Sure,” she said, still sounding surprised. “I don't have it handy, though. Can I text it to you?”
    “That'd be fine.” He glanced at the dashboard clock and grimaced. “I need to get going, unfortunately. It's later than I thought. But I'd really appreciate the phone number.”
    “You got it.” She paused. “You sure everything's okay? He didn't do something the other night to your class?”
    Everything wasn't fine, but he didn't want to get into that now. “It's okay, Vicky, really.”
    “Well, if you need me to kick his cocky ass for you, just let me know.”
    Laurie smiled. “I'll bear that in mind. Thanks.”
    “Anytime, hon.”
    Hanging up the phone, Laurie lingered a few more minutes with his wrist resting on the wheel as he stared out over the water. A beep on his phone drew him out of his reverie, and he looked down to see the display announce he had a new text. He clicked it, saw Ed's number, and replaced the phone in its space in the console.
    Pulling out of the beach parking, Laurie turned the radio back on and aimed himself back on course to “home.”
    Even when Laurie had been in school, everyone in the area had called his family's house and grounds “the Parker estate,” which he'd thought was cool until he was fourteen and his mother had taken him to a mansion in upstate New York to meet a dancing master. Once he came home from seeing a life of real opulence, his family's wealth, while not inconsiderable, suddenly seemed mundane. And after all the traveling he had done over the years he'd spent touring, Medina had become shabbier and shabbier, nothing more than a copycat playing at the success of the rest of the world.
    But to his parents’ friends, the Parker home, estate or otherwise, was a crown jewel of the neighborhood, and everyone was always eager to receive an invitation there. Frequently these “little parties” turned into champagne-drenched fetes of fifty people or more. It was only a moderate crowd tonight, judging by the number of expensive cars in the driveway, which temporarily relieved Laurie, but once he'd parked his own vehicle and headed for the front door, he got a glimpse of the guests inside and knew his apprehension hadn't been misplaced.
    It wasn't the number of guests that was so worrying this time; it was the content. There were a few locals, and Oliver and his partner, of course, but almost everyone else was someone Laurie didn't recognize. Worst of all, several of them he would swear were dancers. No one he knew, thank God, but they had The Look about them. And if his mother had invited dancers to her party, this was a gathering Laurie knew he did not want to be a part of. At all.
    “Darling!” Caroline Parker appeared from a crowd in the living room and came forward to embrace him lightly with a cheek pressed to his instead of a kiss. “You're late,” she teased, which made the guests nearby laugh, but the tighter-than-necessary grip on his arm made clear she was not amused by his attempt at delay and suspected it had been deliberate.
    The Parkers did not have servants beyond a housekeeper who came in three times a week, but for events of any importance Laurie's mother always hired staff, and one of those employees hired for this evening came forward to politely ask Laurie if he could take his coat before Caroline took Laurie's arm and led him around.
    The party had been a move well played in his mother's eternal campaign, Laurie decided. Yes, almost everyone present was connected to the dancing world in some way, and those who weren't were witnesses to