My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 522

Chapter 522

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The way a daughter reaches for her mother, the way a child reaches for home, the way you reach for someone you love even when you know they cannot stay forever.

My fingers stretched toward the darkness above and for one impossible second…

I could almost see her, not sick, not in a wheelchair, just Mom, laughing, smiling looking at me the way she always did like I hung the moon.

The tears finally escaped, one rolled down my cheek, then another. I smiled through them then slowly… very slowly… I lowered my hand.

The music released its final note.

I bowed my head, curtsied and accepted what neither love nor money nor hope could change.

The spotlight vanished and everything went black.

After the blackout, I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything either, the entire world felt suspended then the theater exploded.

The applause hit me like a physical force. A wave of sound crashed over the stage. Thousands of people, clapping, cheering.

I stood frozen in the darkness. I wasn’t expecting that, the lights slowly returned. The audience came back into view, rows and rows of people, an ocean of faces.

Claire, Maddie and Jules stood up cheering the loudest, then more stood, then even more. The noise grew louder and louder until it filled every corner of the theater.

I bowed again automatically because years of ballet training took over when my brain stopped working.

The curtain began to close, then immediately opened again, another bow, more applause. The noise somehow grew louder.

I looked toward the front rows, toward the section where my family was sitting and there she was.

Mom in a wheelchair, crying and smiling, trying her best to clap but she couldn’t move her hands fast enough.

Jules was crying, not cute little tears. She was wiping at her eyes with both hands. Claire and Madeleine had tears running down their faces.

Salvatore wasn’t crying but his expression looked tight in a way that made my chest hurt.

Then my eyes found Mom again and the sight nearly broke me. I pressed a hand over my mouth. Mom lifted her hand and slowly blew me a kiss. I immediately laughed through my tears.

The curtain finally closed, the second it did, my legs almost gave out.

Several dancers rushed toward me, someone hugged me, then another person, then another. Voices filled the backstage area.

“That was incredible.”

“You were amazing.”

“I’ve never seen the audience react like that.”

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“Gianna…”

my ballet instructor, Lucien appeared in front of me and then he grabbed both sides of my face, “You changed the third section.”

My stomach dropped.

Uh oh.

“You changed it.”

“Yes… I can-”

“It was better.”

I blinked, “What?”

“It hurt to watch.”

I laughed weakly, “I don’t know if that’s a compliment.”

“It is.”

Before I could say anything else, he pulled me into a hug so suddenly and so tightly that my feet nearly left the ground.

Then everything happened at once. People surrounded me from every direction, photographers, stage managers, other dancers.

Questions flew at me faster than I could answer them. Congratulations, handshakes, flowers, so many flowers. Someone shoved another bouquet into my arms, then another, then another.

I smiled when I was supposed to smile, and answered when I was supposed to answer. I thanked people when I was supposed to thank them but my attention kept drifting.

My eyes searched over shoulders, past the crowds, toward every doorway, every hallway, every corner backstage, looking for one person.

Raphael.

He wasn’t there. The realization settled strangely in my chest. I adjusted the flowers in my arms and turned in another slow circle.

My fingers rose instinctively to the necklace resting against my throat. The tiny diamond caught beneath my fingertips, warm from my skin.

I swallowed, a strange mixture of confusion and frustration twisted inside me.

What was that supposed to mean?

He had shown up without telling anyone, crossed half the country, handed me something that had belonged to his mother, stood backstage and told me exactly what those words engraved on the pendant meant.

Then vanished before I could even properly talk to him.

I curled my fingers around the necklace. My heart was still racing from the performance or maybe not entirely from the performance.

“Raphael fucking frustrating Capone,” I muttered under my breath.

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