Fallen Stars and Broken Dreams (Rising from Ruin Book 1) Read online

  Both of the guys were both looking at me with dislike, which made no sense. I’ve never met either of them. Why would they come to a showcase to hate on a random ballerina? None of my instructors pulled punches when we trained, so I knew I had a lot of work to do before I was ready for a professional company, but I also knew I was on par with where I should be at this point in my career. It couldn’t be my performance that had offended them. However, I wasn’t about to let them intimidate me, so I matched them glare for glare.

  I was so distracted by the two of them that I hadn’t even noticed that they weren’t alone. A tall blond woman stood at their side with a fake smile on her face as she clung to the arm of her date. He was just as tall as the boys, and I could see a faint resemblance between them – he was probably their father.

  The woman reached out towards me, and I instinctively flinched. I didn’t like being touched by complete strangers.

  The dark-haired guy looked amused, but the blond chuckled with a mean undertone.

  “Looks like she’s not too happy to see you,” he sneered.

  I looked at the Logans to see if the strangers were people that they knew. Mr. Logan’s face was blank, but Mrs. Logan twisted her hands in anxiety.

  “Katya, dear,” Mrs. Logan said quietly. “I thought we would have time to talk about this before she tried to meet you, but-”

  My head whipped back to the blond woman, and I really looked at her this time. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t recognized her the second she walked up, but maybe my mind had blanked in a self-defense mechanism.

  Nina Kotova had been one of the most famous models in the world ten years ago. Her star had been slowly fading since then, and now she was partially retired, only doing select campaigns and high-profile events. After seeing her up close, I doubted that even that would last much longer. The fashion industry loved girls in their teens and maybe their early twenties. Nina had been banking on her big name and coasting by for the last few years, but she had to know the end was near now that she was in her thirties.

  Why did I know so much about a supermodel? Because she was also the mother that abandoned me without a backward glance.

  I narrowed my eyes at Nina, and she swallowed nervously.

  “What brings you here tonight, mother?” I asked her sarcastically.

  The blond guy laughed at Nina. “She’s your daughter? You told Mav and me that she was your sister.”

  My jaw dropped. Unbelievable. She was telling people I was her sister because she was too embarrassed to admit to the child she’d given birth to? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

  “Ryan, let’s change.” I grabbed his arm and tried to pull him along with me, but he resisted.

  “Katya,” he said softly. “Maybe you should hear what she has to say?”

  I snorted but turned around to face Nina and arched an eyebrow. The guys were watching her squirm in obvious enjoyment, but their father looked at her with disappointment.

  My ‘mother’ elegantly placed a hand at her throat as if she were distraught. The way she angled her hand so that the absurdly large diamond on her finger glinted in the light was just one more thing that made me question how genuine she was.

  “Katya, darling,” she said with a shaking voice and even a tear at the corner of her eye. “I’ve been waiting to meet you for so long, but your grandmother-”

  She paused dramatically and appeared to be overwhelmed with emotion, but I doubted her sincerity. The way she glanced back at the older man only cemented my opinion, because she was gauging his reaction – not mine.

  “She didn’t want me to see you,” Nina finally got out in a broken voice.

  I gave up on trying to appear neutral and rolled my eyes at that piece of bullshit.

  “Babulya has lived in the same apartment since the eighties,” I informed her. “A quick google search would have brought up a list of most of my performances and awards, so it wouldn’t have been difficult for you to get in touch with me if you genuinely wanted to.”

  I saw a flash of coldness in her eyes that showed me who she really was under the act. I wondered if anyone else could see through her, or if she had everyone else fooled. I glanced around and saw the two guys didn’t buy it either: the blond looked at Nina disdainfully, and the one with dark hair watched her coldly.

  “There’s still time for us to get to know one another, and I’d like for us to have a relationship,” Nina said as she held out her hands in a pleading manner. She must have taken acting classes at some point in her career, because this was quite the performance.

  “Is this about the will?” I asked bluntly. “Because Babulya officially disinherited you, there’s nothing here for you.”

  “Hardly,” she said haughtily. “Don’t you know who my companion is?” She waved a hand at the middle-aged gentleman, but I looked at her blankly until she told me. “Richard Wilder, of Awake.com?”

  The Logans didn’t look too surprised, but Ryan and I stared with our mouths open. Almost everyone in the country shopped online there – you could buy just about anything. And with a premiere subscription, you could get it brought to you for free within a couple of hours. The company had to be worth billions of dollars – this guy had Bill Gates level money. What the hell was he doing with a snake like Nina? I obviously recognized Richard’s name, but I stayed away from celebrity gossip pages these days, so I’d never seen a picture of him.

  Babulya told me that my parents had died when I was just a baby, but the truth came to light when I was around ten. Ryan’s father was the lawyer who handled Nina’s emancipation, and one of the few people who knew of my relation to her.

  Ryan had let the secret out of the bag after overhearing his parents discussing my situation. After I knew the truth, I would constantly look through the magazines at the checkout lines, hoping to glimpse a picture of the elusive woman that Babulya didn’t want to talk about. I would fantasize that I would write her a letter and she would be shocked to hear that I hadn’t died at birth. She would tell me that she had no idea that I was alive and that she had been staying away from home because the memory of my death was too painful for her. Obviously, that never happened, and my fascination and curiosity turned to hate and bitterness. I now avoided anything that might have her picture or her name.

  I guess it wasn’t too shocking that Richard Wilder would want to be with a supermodel, but I would think he could get one of the ones at the top of her game. I doubted he had to settle for an aging one that was almost completely out of the spotlight. Maybe he wanted someone who was closer to age-appropriate for his forty-something years?

  “Why are you here now?” I was embarrassed that my voice came out a little too high-pitched, but I kept my face blank. Despite my exhaustion after a challenging performance, anger was creeping up. It leaked through the wall that kept my emotions at bay.

  Nina, because I refused to call her my mother, gave a sad sigh. “I want to get to know my beautiful daughter.”

  I just stared blankly at her and waited for her to break character. I wasn’t going to play along with this charade. Her eyes grew harder as the seconds ticked by, and I remained silent. What was her game? What could she possibly have to gain from being here?

  Richard cleared his throat. “Ekaterina, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He extended a hand toward me, and I felt obligated to break eye contact with Nina to return his greeting. I might hate my mother, but I wasn’t going to be a bitch to a stranger just because I didn’t like his choice in bedmates.

  “Likewise,” I murmured as we shook hands. “I go by Katya.”

  “These are my sons, Kingston and Maverik.”

  The blond one, Kingston, was texting on his phone and completely ignoring me. Maverik was simply staring, his face expressionless, but his eyes were dark with challenge. He looked like he hated me just as much as I hated my mother.

  If the two of them had been the usual pretentious rich boys, I would have laughed at their elitist names. However, these guys had an edge of swagger. They might be spoiled, but they weren’t soft or weak.

  “Um, hi,” I said awkwardly before turning back to Richard. “Mr. Wilder-”

  “Please call me Richard,” he interrupted.

  I gave him a small smile. “Richard, it was very nice to meet you, but this is a lot for me to handle right now. I never expected to meet my mother, or…any of you.”

  I had been completely oblivious to the fact that the infamous Richard Wilder had sons around my age, but none of that really mattered. My classmates would probably be thrilled to hear that a famous billionaire and a supermodel had watched us dance. But me? I resented their presence here. What gave them the right to invade my life without warning? To ruin what should have been one of the highlights of my year? I wanted them gone.

  Kingston looked up from his phone. “No hug for your new brother?” He held out his hands expectantly with a teasing grin on his face, but I could see a hard edge in his eyes that made me nervous. The friendly face was just a mask hiding whatever ugliness hid beneath. Ugliness that I had no desire to get near. “C’mon sis, don’t leave me hanging.”

  I reluctantly stepped forward and leaned towards him, intending to give him an air hug that would last less than a second. He had other intentions, and pulled me tight against him, crushing my tutu between us.

  “At least my dad hasn’t asked you to call him daddy…yet,” he whispered into my ear. I pushed away from him angrily, but he just kept an amused look on his face as he let me go.

  “Maybe we could have dinner next time you’re in town,” I said stiffly to my mother. Hell would freeze over before that happened, but I hoped a vague promise would get me out of this miserable situation. I knew enough about Richard to know that his company was based
on the west coast and far from New York.

  “We plan on being here for few days,” Richard said to my dismay. “I’ve cleared my schedule for tomorrow evening, so I’ll have a car sent for you around seven. We have a lot to discuss.”

  “He cleared his schedule for you,” Kingston said mockingly. “You should be honored, since you’re the only one he’s done that for in years.”

  “Kingston…” Richard said in a warning voice.

  Kingston stopped talking, but he didn’t wipe the smirk off his face. Maverik hadn’t said a word, just watched me with steely gray eyes that seemed to pierce right through the shell I wore on the outside, and into the vulnerable girl that lay underneath. A girl that needed to stay buried and forgotten. I shot him a hateful look to get him to back off, but the corner of his mouth tipped up in the beginning of a smirk. Asshole.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow,” Nina stated amiably, as if our entire fifteen-minute interaction hadn’t been torturous.

  She turned to go, but there was no way I was going out to dinner with those people on my own. “Does the dinner invite come with a plus one?” I called out after them.

  Maverik’s eyes dropped down to where Ryan and I held hands, but Richard had a frown on his face. “This is a family dinner,” he said firmly.

  “Ryan is family,” I told him with a stubborn look that meant I wasn’t going to let this go.

  “Let her bring her boyfriend,” Nina murmured as she ran a hand over his arm. “It might help her relax a little.”

  Richard gave me a sharp nod, which must have been the stamp of approval. Before the oddest family in the room could make it to the door, the director of the school cut Richard off. “Mr. Wilder, I had no idea you were in the audience. If I knew, I would have made sure you had the best seats.”

  “The auditorium looked full,” Richard said dryly. “I wouldn’t have wanted to take anyone else’s seat.”

  Alexander looked nervous but decided to push forward. “I hoped you enjoyed the performance? You know, we have a lot of very talented young dancers and an excellent scholarship program.”

  “But it could be even better with an endowment from me?” Richard asked bluntly.

  Alexander looked embarrassed. “Well, I…”

  “No,” Richard told him flatly. “I’m not donating money to your school today.” Richard led Nina and his sons past the distraught director and out the door. The crowd parted for them as they left, and people stared as if they were celebrities. Which, I guess, they actually were.

  Faces turned towards me, and the whispers started, but I ignored it all.

  I let out a breath as soon as Nina and crew had left the building. I regretted giving in and agreeing to dinner. I should have thought of some way out of it.

  “Please tell me that you aren’t going to make me go to the family reunion from hell,” Ryan pleaded with me. “They obviously didn’t want me to come.”

  “You love drama,” I told him firmly. “And this is some TMZ level drama playing out right in front of you.”

  “I love to watch drama,” he corrected me. “Preferably from a distance and with popcorn. I don’t want to be a part of it.”

  I gave him an exasperated look and turned to Mrs. Logan with sad puppy eyes. She stepped in, just like I knew she would.

  “Ryan,” she scolded him. “It’s just dinner.”

  He sighed. “Fine. But it better be a restaurant that’s too fancy to think about carding me before serving wine.”

  “Ryan!” Mrs. Logan cried out as she swatted his arm.

  He rubbed his arm sheepishly. “I’m joking. Katya and I are going to get changed, and then we’ll meet you back here?”

  We said our goodbyes to the Logans and went back to the dressing rooms. I sat in front of the mirror and peeled off my fake eyelashes before I wiped my face free of stage makeup. Makeup remover wipes were fine in a pinch, but I couldn’t wait to get home and scrub down in the shower. My adrenaline from our performance and my mother’s ambush started to wear off, and I yawned.

  Ryan smacked my arm playfully for the yawn. “That’s contagious.”

  The pain in my feet and soreness in my muscles started to set in, and I found myself relaxing into the pain, savoring it. God, I was fucked up. The physical pain eased the anger that burned inside me at the sight of my delinquent mother, and I felt myself sliding back into the comfortable void that left me blissfully numb of any inner turmoil.

  When I opened my eyes again, I slid my happy Katya mask back on, hiding everything that lay beneath the surface.

  “Sorry,” I groaned. “These past few weeks have been a whirlwind, and this is the first night we can finally relax. We’re done.” I attempted a happy smile for him.

  “Are we going to ignore the fact that your new dad is a famous billionaire?” Ryan asked curiously.

  “Yup. And he’s not my dad. Nina just called him her ‘companion.’” I made a face to show him what I thought about that.

  “She was wearing an engagement ring,” Ryan pointed out. “And the hotties called you their new sister.”

  I shot him a dirty look. “Let’s just forget all the weirdness and pretend it never happened.”

  Ryan shrugged. “Okay.”

  That’s what I loved about Ryan. No matter what, he would always have my back and support me in any decision I made. I was even more grateful later that night when he didn’t say a word about how I took a little more Benadryl than I should to help me get to sleep. I added some pain meds along with it to help my aching body. Ryan was already really good at ignoring the things that neither of us wanted to be forced to discuss.

  Chapter 6

  Katya

  I was shocked when both Ryan and I managed to sleep in Monday morning. We had been in class, rehearsing, or nursing our sore bodies for a few weeks straight to get ready for our performances. Now that it was all over, we had a week of lounging around ahead of us. We would usually catch up on all the Netflix we had missed out on during the semester and eat all the unhealthy stuff we had to avoid during the performance season. A chocolate milkshake in your tummy would only weigh you down when you were trying to increase the height of your jumps. The only thing I had to worry about now was sitting on the couch.

  Ryan and I slept in until almost noon, and I stayed in bed for as long as my bladder could stand it. I hobbled to the bathroom on aching legs.

  “Let’s do yoga today!” I yelled at Ryan. “I need to stretch out my muscles.”

  What I really needed was a workout, but after the intensive program we had just finished, we were due for a light week to let our bodies recover. Unfortunately for Ryan, my brain only calmed down when I was too tired to think. He was going to be in for a busy week.

  Ryan hadn’t moved by the time I got back to our room, so I pounced on top of him and tried to pull away the pillow that was hiding the sun from his eyes.

  “C’mon grumpy bear,” I teased him. “You’ll feel better once you get some food in your stomach.”

  “Come back with an omelet, and I’ll consider it,” he said with a muffled voice. I gave up trying to tug the pillow away from his face and went in search of food.

  Ryan eventually wandered out to the kitchen when he smelled the food cooking - just like I knew he would. Because it was Monday morning, both of his parents were at work, and we had the apartment to ourselves.

  I sat a plate piled high with delicious food in front of Ryan and waited until he had demolished half of it before I tried to talk to him again.

  “Do you want to see if we can do yoga in the park?” I asked hopefully.

  We had to take it easy this week to let our bodies recover, but I was already antsy, and it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours.

  “It’s going to be too hot in the afternoon,” Ryan grumbled. “Let’s get up early tomorrow to do that.”

  I shrugged. “We need to stretch our muscles so they don’t tighten up.” I wanted to shake him to communicate the urgency that I was feeling, but I tried to stay calm.