josieloustories
Soho, London - 1978
Melanie Jo Frazier is the perfect daughter of a mining tycoon, known as the Ice Queen of Mayfair, she is poised, beautiful and utterly untouchable. To the world, her life looks like a choreographed dream, full of high society galas and an upcoming, prestigious marriage. But underneath the polished facade and the heavy sapphire on her finger, Mel is suffocating. Six years after a scandal that nearly destroyed her, she is one Waltz away from redemption... or a final, shattering break.
Donnie Milton is a cynical ballroom prodigy from the North who hates everything the Fraziers stand for - especially after the accident that ruined his father's life. He doesn't care about the glitz and the glamour, and he swears blind he certainly does not care for that 'rich lass' Melanie Jo Frazier who he has been hired to train. All he cares about is uncovering the scandal and ruining the rich men who ruined his family. To him, Melanie is just a means to an end. A way inside. A necessary sacrifice.
But beneath the fading gold leaf of the Elysium, their arrangement turns into a dangerous game of secrets. As Donnie teaches Mel to find the heartbeat she's spent years suppressing, he finds himself choking on the guilt of his own deception. In the sweat-slicked reality of Soho, the Ice Queen begins to thaw, but Donnie's revenge is a fire that threatens to consume them both.
They must decide: is this dance a bridge to a new life, or the very trap that will they bury themselves in the ruins of their past?