Page 119 of Pas de Trois
EPILOGUE
Anya
3 Years Later
“Are you ready for this?” Ezra grins as brightly as the sun.
My smile is no dimmer. I snatch his hand at my side and squeeze tight, the old, familiar bundle of nerves and excited energy pulsing from within me. I’m practically bouncing with excitement.
The smell of being in an open theater, a nearly full house in the audience, the thrill of the performance to come excites me in a way it never has before. Anxiety grips me, too, in a strange sort of way. I’ve been looking forward to this performance for months, but I never imagined I would be this nervous about it.
Ezra locks our fingers together and squeezes a little tighter. “Whatever happens on that stage, it’s going to be perfect. You know it is.”
I sigh, trying to blow out the anxiety. Ezra’s touch helps to calm me, just as it always has.
The sounds of chattering fade into silence as the performance time nears, as they dim the lights and make the announcement to silence cell phones and enjoy the show. My heart kickstarts in a rush.
It’s okay.
It’s going to be okay.
It’s going to be amazing.
When the curtains on the stage suddenly part down the middle, I gasp, my heart leaping into my throat and stifling my breath.
But it only lasts a moment.
Ezra shifts our two-year-old daughter, Faith, to a more comfortable position on his lap and she giggles in transit, reminding me that everything is okay as long as our family is together. I rub my hand over my pregnant belly, take a deep breath, and smile.
The music begins to play and Brandon’s recital group walks onto the stage in a straight line—well, as straight as a line can be with ten four-year-olds—and their tiny fists are on their hips as they march out.
“There he is!” I whisper excitedly, spotting him at the end of the line.
Brandon looks out at the audience and I wave at him excitedly, knowing that I shouldn’t because he is the most distracted child in history. He spots us sitting there together in the third row and doesn’t see the line stop. He keeps walking and bumps into the little girl in front of him, bouncing back a step. He giggles and the audience does, too. The children perform the steps of their synchronized routine and it’s all lovely and good, but then it’s time for Brandon’s solo. He moves in front of the line of children, now with their hands on their knees, bobbing up and down to the beat of the music, and he starts his routine.
I never could have imagined that the product of Ezra and I—a contemporary dancer and a ballerina—would turn out to be a tiny breakdancing prodigy. Prodigy may be too strong a word, but that’s what he is in my eyes.
Watching him spin and kick and dance and move in his own special way absolutely melts my heart. I remember when I first met Ezra, back when Nikolai wanted me to break him, and I’d mistakenly thought he might be a beat boy, a hip-hop dancer, judging by his clothing and the way he carried himself. But I’d been wrong. Looking at Brandon now, I almost have to wonder if that’s what I had seen in Ezra at first—if I’d already seen the first hints of our future son that day when I looked into his bewitching green eyes.
Brandon and Ezra do look so much alike.
Brandon finishes his solo on the floor, lying on his side, elbow on the stage and his head propped in his hand. It’s the most adorable, casually cool pose for this four-year-old charmer. He points a finger gun at the audience and winks and the house erupts into laughter and cheers. Ezra taught him that move, told him he’d have the audience in the palm of his hand if he did it.
And, of course, he was right.
Faith claps, her tiny little hands slamming together awkwardly as she sits on Ezra’s lap.
This, right here, this moment…it’s everything.
It’s the life I thought I’d never have.
It’s the life I’d been so sure was stolen from me forever.
But Ezra found me in my captivity and saved me. He kept his promise and now we have forever together.
I look at Kostya and Lidia to my right and it still amazes me how quickly and easily they connected—right from the start. He smiles at her, leaning over to whisper something into her ear, and she absolutely lights up. If someone had told me eight years ago that I’d someday be helping my little sister plan her wedding to the man who kept tabs on me for Nikolai, I would have laughed.
But I suppose stranger things have happened…and they have.
