Sophia Cage doesn’t need a protector—she needs a night to pretend her world didn’t splinter. After her world burned, she found herself a single mom, a struggling dance studio owner, and unable to do the one thing that had brought her out of the darkness.
Dance.
When Carson walks into her life, all she can see is the broken person she’d been when they’d first met. She’s stronger than the ghosts of her past, at least that’s what she tells herself. Yet with each accidental encounter with the mysterious and dangerous man who’s inserted himself into the Cage family orbit, she’s finding it harder to walk away.
Carson Woods doesn’t trust people. He’s spent his life protecting his sister from their family and the world all while making sure his businesses are the best in their fields.
Then he meets her.
One wrong move with the shattered yet pieced together Sophia could not only fracture his working relationship with the only friends he has but harm the woman he tells himself he cannot crave.
Pretend it’s Forever is a single mom, who hurt you, opposites attract, contemporary suspense featuring Carson and Sophia in the Cage Family series. Each book can be read as a complete standalone. An HEA is guaranteed!
Excerpt
One year later.
Tiny dancers swirled along the floor, the glossy wood shining underneath the soft steps of the little slippered feet. Giggles filled the room and I smiled, watching my past blend with my present, knowing there couldn’t be a future.
With a frown, I pushed those thoughts from my mind. Today was about joy. Today was about teaching.
Today wasn’t about what could have been. Those thoughts had no place here within the soft laughter and eager learning.
To pretend otherwise would be to forever lie within misery, wondering when one could find peace. And I wasn’t about to find that kind of peace.
“Ms. Cage! Ms. Cage! Do you like my dress?” Meredith asked as she twirled towards me, nearly tripping over her own ballerina shoes.
I moved forward quickly and held her shoulder, keeping her upright. She had more energy than a few children put together, and I adored her.
I knelt down to be at eye level, ignoring the twinge in my knee and sharp pain in my hip. The reminders of that evening would forever be within my body, scarred on my soul, but I wouldn’t let these children know. “I love your dress. You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She preened. “You’re always beautiful. Will you dance for us later?” the eight-year-old asked, and I heard a few of the parents whisper beneath their breath, and I ignored them.
Instead, I looked over at my eager students and nodded. “If we have time, I will at the end, something small. Only because you have all done such a good job today. If we can’t today, I will make sure it’s scheduled for next time. Now, let’s work on our turns, because our recital is coming up.”
“I’m nervous,” another student said as she came forward, and a few others nodded, their eyes wide.
This would be their first ballet recital as a class, as we had started a new year, and I was nervous right along with them. However, nerves were how I succeeded in my life. Or at least, how I had once succeeded in my job.
As long as I lived, breathed, and knew my soul could withstand the truth, I would always be a dancer. No matter how long it took for me to stretch these days, or the idea that I couldn’t put all my weight on the same leg as I once had, or the fact that I was no longer a principal dancer at the Denver Ballet, I would continue to be a dancer at heart. Just like many of these little girls were.
My other classes had a mixture of boys and girls within the class, but this particular one just happened to be filled with only little girls. I hoped that soon, more boys would sign up and attend and had great hopes that they would.
Everybody was welcome to dance here, and between myself and the two instructors I had hired, the studio went from toddler age all the way to high school. I had a few college-age students as well, ones that were more one-on-one to prepare them for auditions, and other things, but for the moment I didn’t have anything beyond that. I once had. I once had been sought after even at my age.
But those dreams had been crushed along with so many other parts of my body.
I swallowed hard, rolled my shoulders back, and reminded myself that I was Sophia Cage. And I could do anything. I might not have been born a Cage precisely, but I had taken the name of my family when the worst had happened.
“Okay, girls, plie.”
I began the next section of the dance. And corrected when needed, praised when warranted—and since I wasn’t the cool teacher that I’d once had, or even the far more strict ones, there were always ways to find praise.
By the end of class, I was grateful that we had run over, but I ignored the guilt from that. “Next time. Next time I promise I will show you a little bit of your performance on my own. I promise,” I reiterated. The girls clapped, while some of the parents gave each other knowing looks. I ignored that.
After the incident, I had lost a few of my favorite students. They had needed an instructor who could perform right alongside them, and someone who hadn’t lost the strength that I had in my dominant leg.
It had taken me a year to get to this point in my life, where I could put on tights and do small parts around the studio, but I would never be again.
Not after I had trusted the wrong person.
About the Author:
NYT and USA Today Bestselling Author Carrie Ann Ryan is the author of over 150 contemporary and paranormal romances where the characters yearn, break your hearts, and make you swoon. If there’s a family of six brothers who need HEAs, she’s your author.
