Private Dancer by Nevea Lane Read Free Book Online

ago. I just finished my studies and this city reminded me of the city I grew up in. Tell me about you Marise, where did you grow up?” Kasen said, quickly changing the subject. He knew about himself, he was aching to know more about her.
    “Here, this is my home. Although I did go to Paris for a few weeks before I started college.” Marise said with a shrug of a shoulder. That seemed as though all she was going to share.
    “Why then and why Paris?” Kasen was curious about everything about her.
    “I needed an adventure before college I think. I wanted to see something new. Since I took French for years, it seemed like the most reasonable solutions.”
    “I see. Any brothers or sisters?” Kasen loved his large family. They were loud, rambunctious but still full of hugs and kisses and smiles. Everyone except his father. His father was the exception to the rule, but Kasen realized in his twenties that is what probably brought his brothers and sisters the closest together. Their mutual disdain for the Captain.
    “No,” sighing Marise picked up her mug. “I was an only child and sometimes it felt more like an orphan child. My father was hardly ever around and my mother treated me like a nuisance.”
    “Only child blues?” Kasen wanted more than anything to hear her laugh again. She was beautiful when the light reached her eyes.
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    “I have the only child blues, as you call it, but only sometimes. After all, I had a husband to keep me occupied.” Marise smiled a little and stared at him.
    Kasen didn’t miss the past tense way she referred to her husband. She’d never even mentioned her husband’s name. There was trouble brewing and he could feel it surrounding her like a cloak.
    “Had?” Kasen needed to keep on pressing her, if he didn’t; she’d keep it all in like she did when she was stripping. He didn’t want that. Correction, he couldn’t live with that.
    “Today was my anniversary. But now it is my divorce date. I caught Darryl with someone else.
    Well two other people. In my bed, in my room, on my anniversary.” Kasen waited for the tears to start, the uncontrollable crying and the hysterics that usually follow an announcement like that. Nothing. Marise grabbed another apple slice and bit into it.
    As she looked at the honey dribbling down her Kasen wondered where the emotion was. She just stared at her fingers.
    “Marise?” Marise looked up at him and cocked her head to the side. She regarded him with sleepy lids and a slight smile. Is she about to go hysterical , Kasen thought, as he watched a lazy grin form on her face.
    “Kasen, have you ever had your heart broken?” Marise said, calmly, as if she was trying to figure out the speed of light. Maybe she was in hysterics, but she didn’t know what to compare the feeling to.
    “Only once. A broken engagement, years ago. Why?” Kasen didn’t like where this was going.
    “What does it feel like? I’ve never had to experience anything like this, but I don’t think that my heart is breaking. I’m waiting for the bottom to fall out, for something to crack, and nothing. Is that normal?”
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    Private Dancer
    “I think you are in shock. That is all it could be. Do you want to talk about it?” Kasen didn’t want to be dragged into the middle of this, but at the same time, if Darryl had laid a hand on her then Kasen would personally lay him out.
    “There is nothing to talk about really, it is over. He was in my bed with another man and a woman. How can you possibly cheat twice in the same moment?” Marise laughed as she picked up the empty mug and took it to the sink.
    She was washing the mug with a vigor that Kasen could tell she was welling up with something.
    Yet, he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
    Kasen could feel tell Marise was on the edge of anger. Anger, he was well acquainted with.
    “Marise, it is normal to be angry.” Kasen had walked to the side of the