Chapter 4

Valentin

The decision was made the moment my car began to move and her figure disappeared from my line of sight.

I had Marcus pull everything on her through official channels — twenty-two years old, soloist with NYM Ballet, born in a small town outside Savannah, Georgia, winner of an international competition at seventeen, after which she had stayed in New York. The file included a photograph from the company's promotional materials: her gaze angled slightly away from the lens, her expression carrying the cultivated composure particular to trained ballet dancers, though her eyes still held something unguarded, something that belonged entirely to her youth.

I had intended to wait until the following day before making any arrangements. I didn't want to move too quickly, didn't want an approach that felt unearned to startle her. Then I watched her walk into the hotel beside her boyfriend, and as their figures vanished from my field of vision, I found I had no patience left for tomorrow.

I told Marcus to contact NYM Ballet.

"What reason do I give?" he asked.

I told him it didn't matter — anything that would get her back to the theater immediately, without a moment's delay. He made the call. When he hung up, he told me the stage manager, Nadine, had agreed to handle it: the story was that the lighting system had crashed five seconds ago, all positioning data wiped, and they needed her back to walk through her marks again. Marcus and I exchanged a look and said nothing. I told him to have the second car brought around to the hotel's main entrance.

Marcus sat beside me and kept to his usual silence. About six minutes in, he broke it with a single question. "Mr. Radu, is today truly the first time you've seen her?"

I didn't answer directly. I kept my eyes on the hotel's revolving door and, after a moment, asked him instead, "Do you think she'll leave alone?"

He answered without hesitation. "If that boyfriend of hers has any claim to calling himself a man, he shouldn't let his girlfriend walk out into the rain by herself."

It was not the answer I wanted to hear — my aim was for her to leave the hotel alone and go to the theater alone, not with him in tow.

"Is there any way to get rid of him as well?" I asked.

Marcus frowned, looking genuinely puzzled for a few seconds before muttering, "I could go in and pull him away myself, if it comes to that."

I was caught between two things I didn't want: Tyler escorting her to the theater, or her going alone at this hour. I was still working through what instructions to give the driver when Solange came through the main entrance by herself. The driver moved to meet her the instant he saw her. I felt something unknot in my chest, and only then did I notice how rigid I'd been holding myself. I settled back against the seat and said to Marcus, with perhaps more satisfaction than was warranted, "Apparently her boyfriend doesn't quite meet the standard."

Marcus smiled. Neither of us said anything more.

Through the intercom, I caught fragments of the exchange between Solange and the driver in the other car — she was pressing him for confirmation, clearly unconvinced that the company would send something like this for a lighting issue. He went through it patiently, several times over, before she finally got in.

We reached the theater ahead of her. The head of Westfield Capital's contracts division was already waiting at the entrance and introduced me to Nadine — a woman in her mid-fifties, brisk in her movements, the kind of person who had dealt with enough wealthy patrons to remain unimpressed by any of them.

She led me toward the center of the main floor, the most prominent position in the house, visible and conspicuous. I told her I'd prefer not to be seen tonight. She paused, then brought me up to the second level, to a box on the right side of the stage. The sightlines were excellent — from the stage, the box would be invisible; from the box, the entire performance area lay open below. While she sorted out the final details, I pulled Marcus aside and asked him to find me flowers.

"What kind?" he asked, with a slight smile that bordered on amusement. "Red roses?"

I considered it. "White tulips, to me, she's as beautiful as white tulips."

Eleven minutes later, Solange walked into the theater.

From the second level, I watched her speak with Nadine on the floor below, then move through the wing and into the wash of the work lights. She had changed into rehearsal clothes, her hair pinned up with the kind of speed that comes from years of repetition made automatic.

On stage, she carried herself with an ease that was entirely different from how she'd moved outside — there was a cleanness to it, a self-possession that seemed to belong specifically to a space she considered her own. She moved through the marked positions across the stage, checking each lighting cue in turn, occasionally holding a pose to verify the angle of a particular source.

Watching her navigate the stage's coordinate system, I found myself reaching for something I had never quite named when looking at anyone else — a quality of complete self-sufficiency, as though wherever she moved, she absorbed that space into her own territory.

The lighting technician asked if she could run through the climactic passage in full so they could cross-check the parameters for each zone. She nodded without hesitation and walked to center stage.

The work lights went dark. The dimmer board brought the full rig up slowly, and then a single follow spot dropped from above and found her, and she began to move with the music.

I had seen enough performances, enough different kinds of performances, to have developed something close to immunity against being moved. What I had not accounted for was this: an empty stage, no audience, no orchestra, only one woman and one light — and the complete inability to look away. It wasn't simply the technical command of her dancing. It was the quality of attention she gave to each moment, a concentration so total that everything beyond the edge of the light lost its substance entirely.

She moved into the final passage and her motion began to slow. I turned to Nadine behind me.

"I'd like to discuss support for the company," I said. "I'm considering a significant expansion of the current sponsorship structure."

She registered the shift — a brief, barely visible pause — before composing herself. "How significant, Mr. Radu?" she asked.

I named a figure, watching her face to gauge where her expectations had been sitting.

"Two million?" Her voice carried a note of excitement she didn't entirely conceal.

"Twenty million," I said, with a measured smile. "For a mid-sized company like yours, that should be enough to establish exclusive sponsorship."

"Certainly, Mr. Radu."

I let a moment of apparent hesitation enter my expression, as though the thought had only just occurred to me. "What does the company's touring schedule look like going forward?"

"This year we're focused primarily on Giselle and Sleeping Beauty. For early next year, we have Swan Lake and The Nutcracker planned, both with international touring dates."

I returned my gaze to center stage. Solange had finished and was near the wing, speaking quietly with the lighting technician.

"If Solange is already the principal for Giselle —" I let a slight furrow cross my brow, as though the thought were only half-formed, "I wonder whether she has any interest in the other productions."

"Swan Lake has always been close to her heart," Nadine said. "She's wanted to dance Odette for a long time."

"And does she have the ability to carry it?"

"She is one of the first names we confirmed when we set the program, Mr. Radu. We had her in mind for Odette from the moment we committed to the production."

I nodded. "Good."

Nadine took that as the end of the conversation and had already closed her notepad.

"The contract terms," I said. "There are two conditions I'd like added."

She opened it again and waited.

"First, the right to health disclosure for the principal dancer." My tone was the same one I used for any commercial negotiation — even, unhurried. "During the performance season, if the principal experiences any change in health that affects her ability to perform, I require immediate notification and the right to participate in decisions regarding any additional medical support. This is a basic protection for the investor. I will not be the last to know if the principal is unable to appear."

The request was entirely reasonable. Nadine nodded and wrote it down.

"Second, the right to attend private rehearsals." I continued. "The sponsoring party may request to observe closed rehearsals in full, no more than twice per month, with advance notice given each time. This is standard quality oversight for an investment of this scale and a reasonable accountability measure."

Nadine looked up at me briefly, said nothing, and added a few more lines to her notes. "I'll have legal review it. I don't anticipate any issues."

"Thank you."

Both clauses were, on their face, without fault. Any lawyer reviewing them would approve them without comment. Any company would accept them.

They were simply terms that protected the interests of the primary investor.

I knew what they actually were: the first step toward Solange.

In the corridor, Marcus was already waiting with the tulips. I took the small card attached to the bouquet, turned it over, uncapped my pen, and wrote a single line on the back.

Looking forward to tomorrow evening's performance.

I signed my name beneath it, pressed the card back against the stems, and had them sent to the stage entrance.

Outside the theater, the night air had turned cool. I got into the car and watched the city's lights begin to stream past the window, and I found, without any particular surprise, that I was already looking forward to tomorrow night.