sighed. ‘He couldn’t help falling in love with someone else. He hated himself for breaking up with me. But he couldn’t live a lie. We would both have ended up being miserable.’
‘Are you telling me you’re still friends?’ Liam couldn’t keep the note of disbelief from his voice.
‘Not right now, no. But one day, we will be. We were friends before we got engaged. Good friends. We liked each other.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I thought that would make the difference and would mean that our marriage would last, because we had more than just some kind of fleeting passion. Except …’ She shrugged. ‘That wasn’t what he wanted in the end. He wanted the kaboom.’
He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. ‘What’s the kaboom?’
‘Harry says it’s like fireworks going off in your head when you meet the right one.’
‘Hmm.’ Liam couldn’t remember now if he’d had fireworks in his head with Bianca. Everything that came afterwards had kind of wiped that out. ‘So is that why you’re not working on Monday Mash-up any more?’
She nodded. ‘I resigned. I couldn’t face it.’
‘Seeing him every day, you mean?’
‘No.’ She coughed. ‘Seeing the producer’s new assistant.’
Liam made the connection instantly. ‘Surely she should’ve been the one to go, not you?’
‘It was easier for everyone this way. It was my choice to leave.’
‘Constructive dismissal, my brother would say—he’s a lawyer,’ Liam added. He remembered she’d said something about a new flat. Clearly she’d been living with Harry, before. ‘So you were forced out of your engagement, your home and your job, all at the same time.’ Pretty much how he’d been. Except he’d lost his marriage, his flat and his career because of a road accident, not someone else’s selfishness.
She shrugged. ‘It’s character-building. Don’t they say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?’
Yeah. He knew all about that.
She pinned a huge smile to her face. ‘Anyway, I’m fine now. Thanks for the break. And for—well, for being kind. I didn’t expect that.’
‘I’m not a total jerk, Polly.’
‘I didn’t mean that. But—well, you keep yourself separate.’
‘Yes.’ Because it was safe.
And he knew she was letting him off explaining when she said brightly, ‘Let’s go back and practise those steps.’
‘Pol—’
‘No pity, remember?’ she cut in.
‘No pity,’ Liam agreed. ‘I know what it feels like when you can see it in people’s eyes when they look at you, and you know they’re desperately glad it’s not them in your shoes.’ He held her gaze. ‘I assume you know about my accident.’
‘That you were badly injured and you recovered, yes. But it’s none of my business.’ She bit her lip. ‘Except I worry that I’m going to trip and it’ll jar your back and do some damage.’
He resisted the urge to touch her cheek to comfort. Just. Which in itself was worrying. He hadn’t wanted contact like this for more than a year, not since Bianca. Why now? Why Polly? ‘Thank you for thinking of me, but you really don’t have to worry. You’re not going to hurt my back, even if you do trip over me.’
‘I take it that’s how you know about pity?’
‘That, and when Bianca dumped me for her new dancing partner. We didn’t know if I’d recover enough to dance again at all, let alone in world-class competitions, and it would have been stupid to let the accident wipe out her career as well as mine. I was happy for her to dance with someone else. It made sense.’ He gave an awkward shrug. ‘I just wasn’t expecting her to fall in love with the guy. Especially so fast. And then she left me for him.’ And crushed what was left of his heart. Something he kept a thick barrier round now.
Except Polly’s tears had unexpectedly put a crack in that barrier. He needed to put that right, the second she left his studio. But her eyes were still wet and he couldn’t bring himself to suggest that she went home. He’d been that lonely and miserable, once. And, even though his head told him not to get involved, this was just too much for him to resist.
Polly hadn’t expected Liam to open up to her like this; but she guessed this was his way of telling her that he understood exactly how she was feeling right now. ‘You’ve already been here.’
‘It’s not the best feeling in the world.’
‘But moping about it doesn’t make it better.’ She’d been there before. Crying didn’t help.
‘I’ll tell you what does make it better,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘As they said in the old Fred Astaire movie, let’s face the music and dance. We’ll forget my routine for now—I’ll work up another one with a different song and we’ll do that tomorrow.’
She grimaced. ‘I feel guilty that you’ve wasted all that work.’
‘I’ll use it somewhere else. Anyway, I like choreographing.’ He gave her another of those rare smiles, and it made her feel warm inside. As if the sun had just come out. Which was ridiculous—they were indoors and it was evening. And they barely knew each other. And today she’d been supposed to be getting married to someone else. This was all so wrong.
‘Trust me, it gets easier with time,’ he said. ‘Like dancing, you just have to work at it a bit.’
To Polly’s surprise, she really did feel better when they’d spent the next hour dancing, practising the steps he’d taught her during the week; he kept to upbeat, happy music, and she loved it when they did the whirling turns all the way down one side of the room and then the other. She could imagine how this would feel in a posh frock, with the skirt spinning out as they danced. Glitzy, ritzy, shiny and happy. Like a princess in her perfect world.
‘Thanks—you’re right, dancing does help to make it better,’ she said when the last song had ended. She went to change her shoes. ‘I’d better get out of your hair now and let you have at least some of your Saturday evening.’
Which was his cue to let her go. Except he wasn’t quite ready to do that. After what she’d just told him, he couldn’t help feeling protective towards her. Wanting to look after her a little bit. Which was dangerous for his peace of mind; if he had any sense, he’d just make some anodyne remark and let her go.
But his mouth had other ideas. ‘I wasn’t doing anything in particular, tonight.’ He paused. ‘I assume you’re going back to an empty flat?’
She nodded. ‘I spent today scrubbing it. Not that I’ve lived there long enough to make much mess, and Fliss—my best friend—helped me move my stuff and clean it, the day I got the flat.’ She shrugged. ‘Still. It’s a new start. And I have a new job to keep
