Naked Angel Read Free

act.
    “Another round of applause for Moxie, the sexiest flapper to grace the stage since Louise Brooks,” said Alec. The audience clapped. “Moxie, come on back out here.”
    “What is he doing?” Mallory asked Bette. “He’s interrupting the whole flow of the show.”
    “Better go humor him,” Bette said. She handed Mallory a black silk robe.
    Mallory quickly covered herself and returned to the stage. A few people stood to applaud her. This was embarrassing. What was Alec thinking?
    “I don’t know how many of you are aware of this, but in addition to being The Painted Lady’s opening performer, Moxie is also the creative director of the club and producer of the show you are seeing tonight. And I’m hoping she might take on one more role—that of my wife!”
    Alec got down on one knee. Mallory looked at him in shock.
    “Oh, my God! What are you doing?”
    He pulled out a small black box and opened it to reveal a beautiful art deco, antique diamond ring.
    “Marry me, Mallory,” he said, his voice low and husky with emotion.
    Mallory wasn’t sure if the low roar she heard was the sound of blood rushing to her head, or if it was the sound of the crowd, or if this was simply what it felt like to be truly shocked for the first time in her life.
    “Oh, my God,” she repeated.
    “What do you say, Mal?” he asked with that wonderful teasing glint in his eyes.
    Was this really happening? After all the years, the mind-blowing sex, the jealousy, fights, uncertainty, missteps, soul-searching, and compromise, could it really culminate in this one perfect moment?
    “Yes,” she managed to breathe. “I’ll marry you.” He stood up and hugged her. Through a blur of tears, she watched him slip the ring on her finger.
    He held her tight, and all she could think was that she didn’t ever want this happiness to end. She had no idea how to leave the stage. She didn’t want to. She didn’t trust the magic of the moment to follow her into “real life.”
    But on the stage, anything was possible.
    Behind the red curtain backstage, Nadia Grant clapped her hands in delight. She was happy for Mallory and, to be perfectly honest, thrilled for the last-minute reprieve from having to perform immediately.
    Not for the first time that night, she wondered if this was madness. Maybe her ballet friends were right: She had no business being on a burlesque stage. One of them, Anna Prince, was at the show tonight to support her, but Anna still was trying to talk her out of performing at The Painted Lady: “You’re a ballet dancer. Even if you can never go
en pointe
again, you can find a place in ballet.”
    Easy for her to say: Anna had scored a spot in the hot new company Ballet Arts, run by one of the youngest choreographers in New York City, Max Jasper. All of her hard work was paying off, while Nadia watched hers go down the drain. How could Anna blame her for becoming intrigued when she’d learned that Mallory, the woman with whom she’d been sharing dance studio practice space for over a year, was a burlesque dancer. And of course the competitive part of her—the part that would not die no matter how bad her injury—whispered,
I can do that
. Hearing that inner voice made her feel hopeful and alive again for the first time since hearing the doctor’s prognosis.
    “You don’t understand,” Nadia told Anna. “If I can’t perform in ballet, I need to do something completely different. Being near it but not a part of it just kills me.”
    But burlesque—now that was something to keep her mind off the tragedy of her lost ballet career. It was daring, it was glamorous, and, best of all, she had a built-in tour guide: Mallory.
    It had been Mallory’s idea. When Nadia had told her she wasn’t going to use the practice space for a while, Mallory had been concerned enough to ask lots of questions. And when Nadia confessed that her ballet career was over, Mallory insisted that she find another outlet for