The Broken Ballerina's Secret Paris Escape

The wind on 51st Street was biting, whipping strands of hair across Ariel's face.

She made it ten yards before the pain in her leg forced her to stop. She leaned against a cold lamppost, gasping for air. Her knee felt like it was filled with ground glass.

The heavy door of the restaurant swung open again.

"Ariel! Stop!"

It was Fielding. He was striding toward her, his face a mask of indignation. Corinna trotted behind him, clutching her shawl, looking like a worried puppy.

He grabbed Ariel's wrist. His grip was tight, bruising.

"Let go of me," Ariel said. Her voice was low, dangerous.

"You don't get to walk away from me when I'm speaking to you," Fielding snarled. "You embarrassed me in there. Archer is one of my biggest investors."

"I embarrassed you?" Ariel yanked her arm back. "You embarrassed yourself, Fielding. You and your... mistress."

"We are friends!" Fielding shouted. "Why is your mind so twisted? Corinna has been nothing but supportive of you."

"Supportive?" Ariel laughed. It was a jagged sound. "She calls me a cripple to my face, Fielding. She wears the ring you bought with our money."

Fielding froze. "The ring... that was..."

"Don't lie," Ariel cut him off. She pointed a shaking finger at Corinna. "Show him the ring, Corinna. Show him the inscription inside. Does it say 'For the Client'?"

Corinna hid her hand behind her back. "Ariel, you're being paranoid. Fielding gave this to me because... because I've been going through a divorce and he wanted to cheer me up."

Fielding's expression softened instantly as he looked at Corinna. In his mind, she was the fragile victim of a cruel world-her husband had been a brute, or so she said, and her divorce was a tragedy that required his strength to fix. He saw himself as the knight protecting the damsel, conveniently forgetting that the damsel was wearing his wife's diamonds.

"Cheer you up with a fifty-thousand-dollar pink diamond?" Ariel looked at Fielding. "Do you think I'm stupid? Or do you just not care?"

"I care about you!" Fielding insisted, though his eyes kept darting to the people watching on the sidewalk. "I have taken care of you for five years! I paid for the surgeries! I paid for the therapy!"

"You paid for your guilt!" Ariel screamed.

The sound echoed off the stone buildings.

"You kept me in a golden cage because every time you looked at my leg, you remembered that you were the one driving that car! You were the one speeding!"

Fielding recoiled as if she had slapped him. "That was an accident."

"And keeping me small? Keeping me dependent? Was that an accident too?" Ariel stepped closer to Corinna. "And you. You 'Pick-me' girl."

Corinna gasped. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. You hover around him, playing the victim, stroking his ego, pretending you're so fragile so he can feel like a big strong man. You're pathetic."

Corinna's face crumbled. She let out a sob and buried her face in Fielding's chest. "Fielding, make her stop! She's so cruel!"

Fielding's eyes went black. He raised his hand.

It was a reflex. A flash of dominance.

Ariel didn't flinch. She didn't cower. She stared straight at the raised palm.

"Do it," she whispered. "Hit me. Finish the job the car started."

Fielding's hand trembled in the air.

Time seemed to stretch. A passerby stopped. A taxi slowed down.

Fielding looked at his hand, then at Ariel's face. He saw no fear. Only a terrifying, blank resolve.

He lowered his hand slowly, defeated by his own cowardice.

"You're crazy," he muttered. "You need help."

"I don't need help," Ariel said. "I need a divorce."

The word hung in the air between them, heavy and absolute.

Fielding blinked. "You... you can't survive without me. You have nothing."

"Watch me."

A yellow taxi pulled up to the curb, sensing the drama.

Ariel opened the door.

"If you get in that car," Fielding warned, "don't bother coming home."

"Home?" Ariel looked at the penthouse towering in the distance, then at the man she had dragged out of a burning wreck. "Fielding, I haven't had a home in five years."

She slid into the backseat and slammed the door.

"Drive," she told the driver.

As the taxi pulled away, she looked in the rearview mirror.

Fielding was standing on the curb, Corinna clinging to his arm. He looked smaller than she remembered.

She pulled out her phone.

Contact: Fielding.

Block Caller.

The screen went dark.

The silence in the cab was the loudest thing she had ever heard.