Prima Donna Read Online Free PDF Page A

saw her, I wouldn’t be able to see you,’ he winked.
    ‘God, you shouldn’t be missing Mary just to come and sit for me,’ she gasped. ‘It’s not like it’s for an exhibition or anything. I mean, no one will ever even
see it and . . .’
    ‘I’m not missing Mary,’ he smiled, laying a warm hand on her arm and twisting her words. ‘And anyway, it’s not bad. I just need to get some ice on it before
tomorrow.’
    ‘Well look, there’s an ice machine in the hall. One of the
considerable
perks of being on this floor,’ she said wryly. ‘At least let me get some for
you.’
    ‘Thanks, that’d be great,’ he said, dropping his kitbag on the floor.
    Sophie grabbed the plastic ice bucket and walked out into the hallway. As the ice machine rumbled into life, she checked her appearance nervously in the glass of the fire cabinet. She’d
spent the best part of two hours trying to get her hair sleek and she’d put on a new tinted lip gloss – she checked there was none on her teeth. She felt ridiculously nervous, hardly
able to believe that Adam was sitting in her room. He was always so
nice
to her but he’d been her fantasy lover for so long, and every day watching him train and perform with Pia was
filled with emotional drama – titillation when he caught her staring and grinned at her; despair when she caught him staring, with the same wistfulness, at Pia.
    Everybody knew he was mad about Pia; everybody except Pia, it seemed. She horsed around with him in class and looked lovingly in his eyes during performances, but as soon as the rehearsal was
over or the curtain dropped she raced off to be with her latest lover. No one had ever known Pia to stay for a single drink, not for celebration’s sake and certainly not to socialize. She
didn’t need to make friends with the staff. She was the star. And although Adam had the talent to shine as brightly as she did, he lacked the attitude. He was too affable, too approachable,
too ready to smile – and so, as far as Pia was concerned, once the work was done he was lumped together with the rest of them.
    But only to Pia. To Sophie, he might be a team player but there was nothing pedestrian about him. She sighed as the ice clattered into the bucket. She didn’t blame him for not noticing
her. She never had stood out – well, not in the ways that counted anyway. She was skinny, not slender; lanky not statuesque; pale but with a ferocious blush on her. She was always popular but
never the leader, and she harboured no illusions about one day being the cleverest or the prettiest girl in the room – she moved like Olive Oyl, for starters.
    Still, her overall grace and grooming had come on in leaps and bounds in the three years she’d been working for Pia. She knew now that sparkly eyes, glowing skin, glossy hair and a perky
walk came from facials at Bliss, olive-oil hair soaks, Bobbi Brown eyeshadow, ice baths and hot sex, and although Pia led the last two by example only, Sophie had absorbed the rest by osmosis.
    She trotted back to the room, cheered that he had at least agreed to help her out today. In fact, he’d been really interested when she’d accosted him at the first night after-show
party and tipsily asked if she could draw him.
    ‘Here you g—’ She trailed off, dropping the bucket.
    Adam had stripped down and was walking naked towards the bathroom. He turned and her jaw dropped as deep as a
plié
.
    ‘You don’t mind if I take a quick shower, do you?’ he asked. ‘I stink.’
    Sophie shook her head mutely.
    ‘Besides, I figure if you’re going to be drawing me in the buff, there’s no point in me being coy, is there?’
    Sophie shook her head again. Who’d said anything about drawing him nude? He must have just assumed it. Then again, ballet dancers viewed their bodies as the tools of their craft –
although Pia was preternaturally aware that hers also doubled as a weapon of mass seduction – and, as such, they didn’t share