The Salsa Instructor's Secret | El Secreto del Instructor
"He teaches dance to pay the bills, but she discovers he's hiding a past that makes him even more irresistible"
The Salsa Instructor's Secret
El Secreto del Instructor
Everyone in class was half in love with Marco, but I was the one who found his secret.
"You left this," I said, handing him a worn notebook after the other students left.
"Oh." His face changed—a flash of something vulnerable. "Thanks. Just notes."
But I'd seen the pages. Sheet music. Original compositions. Songs that looked like they'd been written with tears.
"You're a musician," I said.
"I'm a dance instructor."
"You're both."
Marco started giving me extra attention after that—correcting my form, demonstrating holds personally, keeping me late to "work on technique."
"You're not just teaching me anymore," I observed one night.
"What makes you say that?"
"The way you hold me." I met his eyes. "It stopped being professional three weeks ago."
"Does that bother you?"
"Does me staying late every night answer that question?"
He kissed me in the empty studio, our reflections multiplied in the mirrors.
"I have a rule about students," he said.
"I'm not really a student anymore. I know the basic steps."
"Then what are you?"
"Someone who wants to know why a musician is teaching dance in a strip mall studio."
He told me over drinks at the bar next door. How he'd been a rising star in the Latin music scene. How a scandal—false accusations from a jealous producer—had destroyed his career overnight. How he'd run from everything he loved because it hurt too much to stay.
"The notebook is everything I've written since," he said. "Songs no one will ever hear."
"Why not?"
"Because that life is over."
"Who says?"
I pushed. He resisted. But slowly, he started playing for me—late nights in the studio, his guitar filling the space where dance music usually lived.
"This one's called 'Midnight Lessons,'" he said, playing a melody that made my heart ache.
"It's beautiful."
"I wrote it about you." He set down the guitar. "About meeting someone who makes me remember why I started."
"Then don't let it be just for me," I said. "Share it."
"I can't go back to that world."
"Then create a new one." I took his hands. "Play in small venues. Build from scratch. Let the music exist even if the fame doesn't."
"You make it sound simple."
"It's not. But nothing worth doing is."
He played his first public show six months later—a tiny café, thirty people, me in the front row.
His voice cracked on the first note, but by the second song, he was soaring. When he played "Midnight Lessons," he looked directly at me and mouthed gracias.
The audience demanded three encores.
The music world didn't come back overnight. But it came back—slowly, gig by gig, song by song. The truth about the scandal eventually surfaced, clearing his name.
"Do you regret it?" I asked one night. "The years of hiding?"
"I regret the circumstances. Not the outcome." He pulled me close. "If I hadn't been teaching salsa, I wouldn't have met you."
"That's very romantic."
"I'm a songwriter. Romance is my job."
He still teaches dance—three nights a week, because he loves it. The other nights, he plays. Sometimes I dance in the audience; sometimes I sing backup, badly.
"My muse," he calls me. "My second chance."
"Your pain in the ass," I correct.
"That too." He kisses me before going on stage. "But I wouldn't have it any other way."
The salsa instructor's secret—some hidden talents are worth discovering.
And some loves are worth every midnight lesson.