waste your pity on me,” she told Suri with a sly smile. “I have a date with Eli Braithwaite.”
Elias “Eli” Braithwaite was one of the most eligible bachelors in New York City. It didn’t hurt that he was the highest-scoring player on the Knicks’ roster. Sports reporters swore the Knicks were having a good year largely because of him.
“You lucky girl!” exclaimed Suri. “I’m so jealous.”
“It’s just a date,” Belana said. “Nothing is going to happen. You know my motto …”
“Never kiss on a first date,” Suri said, laughing. “I don’t understand. How are you going to know whether or not you want to see him again if you don’t kiss him?”
“If you’re drawn to a person, you know it from the moment you meet. You don’t have to kiss to know whether he excites you or not. He can just walk into the room,” Belana avowed. “I know you’ve experienced chemistry with a guy.”
“Yes, but I like to test whether or not the chemistry is real. What if you’re attracted to him but when you kiss him he has bad breath?”
Belana laughed. “If he has bad breath, you’re going to smell it long before you get close enough to kiss him.”
Suri, walking with her to the door, wrinkled her nose in distaste. “True. I guess I just like kissing.”
“No harm in that,” Belana said. “I don’t do it because if I decide I don’t want to see a guy again after the first date, I haven’t given him any encouragement. He can’t say I led him on only to drop him.”
“You should have been a lawyer instead of a dancer,” Suri said with a smile. They hugged again at the door. “You’re still going on vacation with your girlfriends?” she asked as she held the door open for Belana.
“Oh, most definitely,” Belana said. “Elle and Patty and I are going to Greece for a girls-only getaway. What are you planning to do over the break?”
“I can’t tell you,” Suri said in a whisper. “It involves that guy you warned me about.”
Frowning, Belana stepped back into the room and shut the door. She could spare five more minutes for a friend. “Look, Suri, I know you’re young and carefree and you think dating a married man is daring and you’re having the time of your life. But married men rarely leave their wives, especially rich men who have so much to lose. His wife is going to take him for everything he has and ever will have if she finds out about you two. If she still wants him, she’ll bring him to heel. And the first thing he’ll do is drop you.”
Suri shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m having fun. I’m not in it to break up his marriage. It’s just nice to be pursued by such a rich, powerful man.”
Belana dropped her bag on to the floor, grabbed Suri by the arm and dragged her over to a mirror. “Look at yourself!” Suri smiled at her reflection. She was a brunette beauty with wavy hair that fell to her waist, a perfect dancer’s body with long, shapely legs. “There are so many men out there who would treat you just as well as Mr. Moneybags, without the inevitable heartache. Get a grip. Drop him before it stops being just fun and turns into love.”
Suri sighed deeply and stopped smiling. “He says I’m the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“They all say that!” Belana cried vehemently. She turned Suri around and looked her in the eyes. “Has anything I’ve said gotten through?”
Suri lowered her eyes shamefully.
Belana knew when she was beaten. Suri would have to learn the hard way. She threw her hands up and turned and walked away. “Just be careful,” she said in parting. She was gone before Suri could say anything else.
As she quickly walked through the mostly abandoned backstage area and headed to the front of the building where the lobby was located, Belana wondered if anyone actually listened to advice from well-meaning friends when they were involved in illicit love affairs. She supposed the excitement of an affair was simply too hard a thing to resist. To say nothing of the forbidden sex and the subterfuge needed to meet for their assignations without being caught. It was too much drama for her, which was why she avoided married men. Let a married man come on to her and she was quick to cut him off at the knees.
Chapter 2
“I’m sorry your father couldn’t make it,” Belana said to Nona after they’d hugged hello.
Nona, who was five-six, two inches taller than Belana, shrugged her slender shoulders regrettably. “We invited him, but he had to travel for work.”
Belana had once asked Nona about her father’s occupation and the girl had told her he was a lawyer. She had then quickly moved on to another subject, which made Belana think her father was a sore topic of conversation. To further make her suspicious that things were not going well between Nona and her father, one day, when they were practicing in the studio at the community center, Nona had mentioned that she didn’t live with her father. She lived with her grandmother, while he had an apartment in the city. Belana wondered why that was, but didn’t ask. She only knew that if she had a daughter as wonderful as Nona, she wouldn’t palm her off on her mother.
Belana smiled at Nona’s grandmother. “I’m glad you could make it, Mrs. Reed.”
Yvonne Reed was a petite, golden-brown-skinned beauty with silver, naturally wavy hair that she wore cut short and tapered at the nape. She was sixty-eight, but looked years younger. “I wouldn’t have missed it,” she said, dark brown eyes sparkling with excitement. “You were wonderful!”
“Oh, thank you,” Belana said with a warm smile.
“There you are!” Belana heard her brother, Erik, call behind them. She spun around and there he was hurrying toward her and the Reeds. When he reached her he hugged her tightly. “Great job, sis!”
“Thanks, Erik,” Belana said after he’d let her go. She gestured to the Reeds. “I’d like you to meet Nona Reed and her grandmother, Mrs. Yvonne Reed.”
Erik, six-one and athletic, was dressed in a black tailored suit, white shirt, dark gold tie and black wingtips polished to a high shine. He and Belana shared the same dark golden-brown skin tone and coppery brown eyes. He wore his black natural hair shorn very close to the scalp and was clean-shaven. Belana often told him he was ugly as sin, but that was simply a sister bringing a too-confident brother down a peg or two. He was a handsome devil, as both Nona’s and her grandmother’s reaction to his presence attested. They were smiling widely and gazing up at him with open admiration.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ladies,” Erik said as he smiled down at them.
“Did Mom and Dad already leave for the airport?” Belana asked Erik. Her stepmother, Isobel Jones-Whitaker, whom she called Mom, had phoned her to tell her she and her father would have to fly to Zurich for a scientific symposium right after the performance, but wouldn’t dream of missing her final bow as Odette.
“I’m afraid so,” Erik answered, still smiling at the Reeds. “I told them I would wait around and take you to a late dinner.”
“That sounds good,” said Belana. “I’m starving.” She looked at the Reeds. “Would you like to join us? My
