this magnificent hotel to run away,’ he replies simply.
I know it’s true. He does too. And I’m angry with him for it.
He takes in my short, staccato movements as I shift on my stool, drain the last of my wine and prepare to leave.
‘Would you like to dance?’ he asks, surprising me so much I laugh.
I look round the ballroom, at all the people who were actually invited, who actually know this man’s brother and his new wife, and I shake my head. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’
He gives me that long, studying look again. There is a calmness about him that both intrigues and infuriates me. ‘If it really bothers you, you can be my ‘plus one’. I could have brought someone if I had wished to, but I didn’t.’
I glance over at the dance floor. While we’ve been talking the music has changed, and the dance with it. Instead of the upbeat and sassy salsa, everything has slowed into an intense and mysterious tango. Again, it is nothing showy, nothing attention-seeking. Even a couple with silver hair glide round the dance floor, their cheeks lightly touching, the woman’s eyes closed.
I look back at him in panic. I can’t be out there with them. The emotion is tangible, flowing with the music like a second melody. I can’t risk it. What if everything I’ve been feeling since last Saturday starts spilling out of me and I slowly unravel? I’m not sure I know how to put myself back together again.
My voice comes out as if someone is strangling me. ‘I can’t.’
My host takes no notice as he leaves his stool. He just smiles so barely that the expression doesn’t leave his eyes, and then he offers me his hand.
I hug myself. ‘I can’t. I don’t know how.’
His hand remains stretched out to me. ‘Can you walk?’
I nod.
He gives a little shrug. ‘Then that is all you need to know.’ When I don’t respond, he adds. ‘Tango is merely walking with a partner to the music.’
I glance over to the dance floor. Sure, what’s happening there doesn’t look like the version of the tango I’d seen at the ballroom studio when Gareth and I had gone for our trio of lessons in preparation for the wedding. The couples are close together, and while there are no roses between teeth or dramatic head or arm gestures, there are still patterns and small turns, little flicks and pauses that everyone seems to know by instinct. It looks a lot harder than walking to me.
He reaches out and his fingers slide across mine, then he grips my hand. He doesn’t pull, just leaves it there, like a question waiting for an answer. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, reading my mind again. ‘You are a dancer, you will pick it up. And there are no steps to learn. This kind of tango is improvised, and it is my job as the man to lead and yours as the woman to follow.’
Right there I have another good reason to chicken out. ‘I’m not in a very man-trusting kind of mood at the moment,’ I tell him. I trusted one man with the rest of my life and look what he did with it.
I see that almost hidden glimmer of amusement again, but behind it there is something in his expression that tells me, despite his soft words and calm manner, that my would-be partner is just as stubborn as I.
‘The lead is not a command, but an invitation. All you have to do is accept it, surrender to the music, and forget about everything else for a while.’
My ears prick up. That, at least, sounds appealing.
My hand is still in his, warm and encased. I realise I don’t want to let go.
I slide off the stool, watching my feet, then meet his gaze when I have my balance. There is no look of triumph in his eyes, as Gareth would have given me—he always was a bit too competitive for his own good. Instead this man just leads me away from the shadows at the edges of the room and to the fringes of the softly lit dance floor.
My heart begins to pound inside my ribcage as he pulls me close. I’m not sure if it’s nervousness at not knowing the dance or because it feels strange, and maybe just a little thrilling, to be in the arms of a man who isn’t Gareth.
Like the other couples on the floor, our upper bodies are close. His right hand is firm on back, resting at the bottom of my left shoulder blade, and my left arm rests snugly on top of his, my hand on his shoulder. He clasps my other hand and I find my forehead rests naturally against his cheek. He smells wonderful, of sharp citrus and clean cotton.
‘What’s your name?’ I whisper. If we’re going to be this close, I really ought to know his name.
‘Cristian,’ he replies simply.
‘I’m Sophie,’ I say, even though he doesn’t ask.
We begin to move. I have no idea what I’m doing, but somehow I don’t trip us both up. We keep going like that for a while. We’re so close it’s hard to look down at my feet. And he’s right: while I’m busy concentrating on not causing a five-couple pile-up, I haven’t room to think of anything else. It’s delicious. I wonder if I can take him home and hide him in my wardrobe, get him out so I can tango down my landing when things get too much.
‘Sophie?’ he says huskily.
I hesitate, putting us off-balance momentarily. ‘What? Am I doing it wrong?’
‘No…’ he says, and I can hear the humour in his voice. ‘But you are not yet doing it completely right.’
‘Give a girl a chance,’ I mutter under my breath. ‘I’ve only been learning for five minutes.’
This time his laugh is audible. ‘I like it when you speak that way,’ he says into my ear. ‘It shows you have natural fire. Much better than the wet dishrag I met at the bar. And tango is all about emotion—about passion.’
I want to bristle at the dishrag comment, but I can’t really argue with the truth. We carry on dancing in silence for another minute. Somehow I know he’s going to carry on with what he had started to say, that I just need to be patient.
We reach a point where he turns me around him. It’s very clever. I don’t even know it’s coming, but somehow, the way he places his feet, the way he blocks his leg with mine, make the next step clear. He does it again. But this time the movement is larger, more sweeping, and then at the end we both seem to grow taller, hover on the balls of our feet. The moment stretches way longer than feels comfortable, and I move before he does. He tuts softly in my ear.
‘Do not be afraid of these moments,’ he tells me. ‘They are necessary, time to feel the music, work out what it is telling you to do next. You cannot rush them. They reflect how it is in life… There are moments of great complexity and busyness, great drama and emotion. We need the pause after such times, and it is the same with tango.’
I nod, even though I’m not quite sure what he means. The skin of his cheek feels both rough and smooth against my forehead. I feel just the hint of stubble at his jaw. I used to get annoyed at Gareth when he didn’t shave, telling him I didn’t need sandpapering when we were that close,
