High Stakes Read Free Page A

one another. He’d learned that long ago.
    When they headed out, the cacophony in front of the townhouse grew louder. Dylan carried Angel close to his heart, Mitch Calloway held Rory by the hand, and Bailey cuddled Tyler. She was flanked by Kip Michaels, her other agent.
    Even though the crowd had increased, he found Rachel among the reporters and cursed himself for searching for her. She was snapping pictures of Bailey but lowered the camera when they reached the bulletproof vehicle. She raised her brows at him and shrugged her shoulders.
    He made sure his gaze was glacial, then ducked to get into the SUV. But he carried that look of chagrin with him all the way to the vice presidential residence on Observatory Way.
    oOo
    Before her students arrived, Rachel stood in front of the mirror at DanceWorks, grateful that the owner rented her this space. The overhead lights shone down, creating an ethereal glow around her. She’d spent all of yesterday in mourning after reading the scathing column Dylan had written. The indictment hurt, more so because the words came from him. Damn it to hell! She didn’t want to think about him, especially after the column he’d written about her. A deep sense of loss invaded her.
    You can’t lose something you never had,
she thought, remembering how her parents’ had treated her all their lives. There was much she’d never gotten from them and still felt the pain of it.
    Pay attention to your warm-up.
As natural as walking, her arms drifted low in front of her body, barely touching her black, knee-length dance skirt. Palms rose in the air, thumbs turned inward, fingers supple, arms tracing an ellipse. She held the pose as she had thousands of times in the past. Then she went into first position. Her arms extended forward horizontally, hands at the level of her chest, fingers kept curved. Her shoulders remained low and her chin stayed steady.
    Rachel continued to watch herself as she went through the arm and foot movements of third, fourth and fifth positions. And thoughts of Dylan returned. Not about the column, this time. About how charming he’d been on Valentine’s Day. How skilled he was in bed. How he’d made her feel like the most desirable woman in the world. Warm now with those memories, she removed the light pink sweater she wore over her black leotard. Then she began the head movements with a
téte de face,
face toward the front. When she went to
profil
, head to the right in profile, she pretended Dylan was watching her. She danced though he was miles away in Washington D.C. with his sister. She envied his family to the point of sin. She’d give anything for what they had together.
    Ironically, that family was her ticket to success, as she’d narrowly defined it. If she could just get the acting president of the United States to accept her, she wouldn’t have to do things like sneak into the wedding. She’d gone after that opportunity only because her boss demanded something on the O’Neils that the public wasn’t privy to. And he’d wanted it ASAP.
    In the glass, she caught sight of the first little treasure who came through the door. “Miss Rachel,” Kammy said demurely and walked to her.
    Bending down, Rachel gave her a hug. “Hello, sweetie.”
    “You look so beautiful, dancing.”
    “Thank you.”
    A second girl, then a third, then all eight of them arrived. In order to be part of this class, she’d instructed the parents that they had to provide punctual rides to the studio, send the girls up to the second-floor studio alone and either wait for them downstairs or come back in ninety minutes.
    “Now, ladies, let’s form a line and start with the positions.”
    They padded to the barre in their shiny, new leotards and crisp ballet shoes. As Rachel watched them, she took pleasure in the fact that at least she’d done this right.
    oOo
    The vice presidential residence was a fortress nestled inside the Naval Observatory grounds on Embassy Row in north