Promises in the Night: A Classic Romance - Book 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

around in the glass. “Many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I wasn’t very good.”
    Her blunt statement surprised him. “Bad dancers don’t work for the Empire.”
    “Oh, I held my own, I grant you that. I was every bit as good as any other dancer in the corps.” Her smile was bittersweet and slightly self-mocking. “And that was the trouble. I was given the soul of a prima ballerina and the talent of an ensemble dancer. One of life’s little ironies.”
    “So you quit the company, just like that?”
    Larkin snapped her slender fingers. “Just like that. One day I realized I’d never be anything special and I quit that afternoon.”
    “Are you usually that impulsive?”
    “It sounds more impulsive than it actually was. I’d always known I didn’t want to be one of those pathetic old dancers of thirty-five who cling to the company because they don’t know anything else. I decided to get out before that could happen to me.”
    “Interesting.” More than interesting. He tucked the information away for future reference. “Then what did you do?”
    She drained her glass “I feel like I’m being interviewed again.”
    Alex withdrew his notebook and pen. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Would you mind?”
    “Yes, I would. I’m too tired to censor myself, and I’d hate to see anything untoward in print.”
    He put the notebook back in his breast pocket. “Everything’s off the record.”
    “I’m going to hold you to that, Alex.” It was the first time she’d said his name, and he liked the way it sounded. She leaned forward and rested her chin in her hands. “Old dancers find it tough to kick the habit cold turkey, so I joined the Rockettes for a while.”
    She told him about her mother, who had performed with the famed precision dancers at one time.
    “And why did you leave them?”
    Silence for a long moment. “I hurt my knee. I had surgery and could have gone back, but I’d had my fill of pain and decided to hang up my tap shoes permanently.”
    “Regrets?”
    “Not a one.” She smiled at him. “Once I decided I didn’t have to live with pain, the rest came easy.”
    Alex looked at her sharply. Psychologists worked as much on intuition as intellect, and his intuition told him that Larkin Walker was neither as uncomplicated nor quite as happy as she had seemed at first glance.
    “It takes most people years to realize they don’t have to live with pain,” he said, smiling back at her. “My profession is predicated on that truth.”
    “Most people aren’t dancers.” She pushed the heavy waves of amber hair from her narrow face. “We understand pain intimately.” Her eyes lingered on his a bit longer than he had expected; the look in them told Alex that she recognized that he saw more than she cared to reveal.
    The waiter brought Larkin a fresh glass of club soda with a twist of lime and another vodka for Alex.
    “And so, Dr. Jakobs,” she said, leaning back in her seat and fastening those wonderful eyes on him, “we turn the spotlight on you. It would seem you are a man of many talents: doctor, writer—” she grinned “—football player.”
    “Scratch the last one. At my age, players are being retired, not drafted.”
    Larkin narrowed her eyes as she appraised him. “You have a little silver at the temples and a few laugh lines here and there, but all in all, you don’t seem in any danger of running out of steam yet.” He frowned at her and she laughed. “What are you—thirty-five?”
    “Thirty-six. And the least you could do is say I’m well-preserved.”
    “You’re very well preserved, Doctor. I’d like your secret.”
    He was about to invent a regimen of yogurt and vitamins when a small, round red-haired woman rushed up to the table. She glanced at Alex once, briefly, then turned back and appraised him in a manner that was so blatantly sexual that he had to laugh.
    “This is Patti Franklin,” Larkin said, with a what-can-I-do look on her