By him. She wanted to be by him. That was dangerous. She’d be so close to touching him—way, way too close. Touching him was bad and oh-so-good. She’d proven, over and over again, that not only was she putty in Jason’s hands, she enjoyed every second of it.
Jason rose and, pulling the chair out for her, she moved toward him. It was official. Not only was he still tall, lean and muscular, he still made black jeans, a Harley T-shirt and biker boots look like the definition of sin in the city. And she would bet her left arm that somewhere nearby he had a leather jacket, despite the heat of Vegas in July.
“Oh, good grief,” Lana grumbled. “The man doesn’t hold a chair for me and I sit next to him at the judges’ table for months of every year. Do tell, Kat. How exactly do you and Jason know each other?”
Jason glanced at Lana. “If I held your chair for you, you’d just roll it over my foot. I’ve learned to keep my distance.”
Darla nodded in agreement. “Smart man.”
Kat cut her gaze from Jason’s to sit down and gain composure before facing the group, but it didn’t help. He was close, so close, and his all-too-familiar spicy masculine scent flared in her nostrils. He still wore the same cologne, and she remembered burying her nose in his chest to inhale that amazing scent.
He helped her scoot her chair forward and his fingers brushed her shoulders, sending a shock wave of sensations rushing over her, heating her skin.
A knock sounded on the door and a woman walked in. “Ms. Moore’s agent sent over her demo reel.”
“Oh, excellent,” Ellie exclaimed. “Please load it for us.” The woman moved to the end of the table where a pedestal held a television and various electronic equipment. Ellie looked at Kat. “You’re okay with that, right? I know your work, but not everyone else does.”
“Of course,” Kat assured her. “That’s expected.”
The lights went out and the demo began to play, but Jason wasn’t watching it. He was watching her. She could feel his stare, hot and heavy, impossibly hot and heavy. It was all she could do not to turn to him, not to tell him to stop, not to reach out and touch him. She was as conflicted about the man as she’d always been.
The demo ended in seven minutes, though it felt like an hour, and the lights came back on.
“That was fantastic,” Darla commented, and several of the other people in attendance murmured similar comments. “I knew you’d worked with some big names, but you’ve worked with a lot more than I thought.”
“I’ve been blessed with opportunities,” Kat said.
“And some big egos,” Darla said. “How do you manage to teach a routine to a famous pop star who thinks they have nothing to learn?”
“I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with stars who want to stay stars and want to deserve their hype,” Kat answered.
“Lucky is right,” Ellie said. “I haven’t been that lucky.”
“I’ve had more of the power-trip ego issues with dancers who resent a new choreographer getting the job they wanted,” Kat added.
“And how do you handle that?” Darla asked.
Ellie snorted. “Out-dance them and shut them up.”
Kat reluctantly agreed. “I’ve been forced into that position but I don’t like it. I try to enlist their help and stroke their egos.”
Darla studied her a long moment. “You’ve been all over the world. Are you going to be happy here in one place? We really need someone who will stick it out at least a year. And even when we do travel, right now it’s all in the States.”
“Vegas is my home,” Kat explained. “I grew up here. My parents are here. I really am ready to be here as well. I want to put down roots and sleep in my own bed every night.”
“I told you this was perfect timing,” Ellie added, and to Kat, “And girlfriend, I don’t know how you did back-to-back concert tours. I did one and it almost killed me.”
“You have to be at the right place in your life to do it,” Kat said. “I was young and free and I saw the world. Now I’m home.”
“So that’s it?” Jason asked, his question forcing her to look at him. “No more traveling?”
“Not for me,” she said, unintentionally referencing the past history between them, of demanding careers that had separated them, then tore them apart. Kat could have kicked herself for the slip, watching his eyes narrow with understanding. He couldn’t have known she was coming today because he knew, just as she did, that the past was never the past. She just had to survive this interview and get out of here and let Jason deal with how he told everyone she wasn’t the right choice.
“Kat,” Darla said, drawing Kat’s attention back to the present. Darla then led her into the first of a series of questions that seemed to come from everyone but Jason. As a former casting director, Darla was tough and detailed, but Kat liked her quite a lot and they hit if off quickly.
A good forty-five minutes later, Darla leaned back in her chair and said, “You have my vote, honey. You rock.”
“For once we agree,” Lana said. “I’m sold. We obviously need to talk amongst ourselves but I’m going on record as a ‘yes.’” Murmurs of agreement followed around the table.
“Thank you, ladies,” Kat said, feeling her stomach twist with regret. She liked these people. She could get excited about this job.
Ellie clapped, always youthful by nature. “Now we just need our director to give the okay.”
“Who’s the director?” Kat asked, mostly out of curiosity. She wasn’t taking this job.
“I am,” Jason said softly, drawing her shocked gaze. “And I know what Kat is capable of. She’d be perfect.”
Kat sucked in a breath at Jason’s double meaning, and the very idea that Jason was suggesting they work together. She turned her head so the others couldn’t see her, giving him an “are you crazy?” look before deciding she was missing something. “How can you direct this show and do Stepping Up? You have auditions and filming in L.A.”
“We’re filming the entire season here in the hotel this year,” he said, leaning back in his seat. In other words, he’d be here, with her, far more than he’d be gone. No. Not with her. She wasn’t with him. She wouldn’t be with him. His lips curved. “As far as I’m concerned, you have the job. We’ll contact your agent with an offer right away.”
She couldn’t seem to form any words. Her and Jason, both in Vegas, both working on the same show. She tore her gaze from his and pushed to her feet. “Thanks, everyone, for your time and consideration. I sincerely enjoyed meeting you all. Darla—” she offered her hand to Darla, who stood up to shake it “—let’s have lunch sometime soon.”
Darla gave her a keen look. “Because we aren’t going to be working together, are we?”
“I hope we will work together, yes,” she said.
“But not now,” Darla pushed.
“I have some conflicts I need to talk to my agent about,” she said honestly, refusing to look at Jason, who was still seated. She maneuvered around the chair and waved at the group, telling them goodbye, and finally darted for the exit.
She shut the door behind her and raced down the hall, her heart in her throat, choking her. She made it to the ticket booth when Jason’s hand gently shackled her arm. Suddenly, she was in a small hallway behind the booth, back against the wall, his hand on the surface above her head. She could smell his damnable cologne, feel the heat of his body, and it made her mad.
“Did you know I was coming?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t warn me?”
“Would you have come?”
“You wanted me to come?”
“Yes.”
“Yes? That’s all you’re going to say? Just ‘yes’?”
“It’s not complicated. It doesn’t require a long explanation. Yes. Yes, I wanted you to come.”
“You know we can’t work together.”
“We work great together. No one gets my creative vision more than you.”
“No,”
she said. “No. This won’t work.” She leaned away from the wall.
“Come on, KandyKat,” he said sincerely. His hand closed on her shoulder, sending a rush of heat all the way to her toes. “We’re good together. You know we are. We’ll rock this show in a big way.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, referring to the old nick-name that only he used. “And ‘good together’ doesn’t make us good for each other.”
“The show needs you. I need you.”
I need you. His words shuddered through her, and she knew she was in trouble. In trouble, because she wanted him to mean something beyond the show.
“No.” She stepped around him. “I’m not doing this with you again.” She took off walking, and this time he let her. Just like he had two years before. Just like he always did.
* * *
JASON KNEW THE minute he’d said he needed her, he’d screwed up and sent her running for the hills like she always did. But not this time. He’d let her go before, and regretted it every day since.
He rounded the corner and entered the hallway, then walked back into the interview room. The room went silent, everyone was staring at him. He went to his seat and grabbed his notebook.
“We’re done,” he said. “And Kat’s in. I’ll get her.”
“Do you need her agent’s number?” Ellie asked.
“I know Michael,” he said. “I’ll talk to him.”
He headed to the door. The minute he’d been told about this project, he knew it was meant to be. That it had come to him—to him and Kat—at the right time. They were both home, where they belonged. Together.
2
TWO DAYS LATER, on a Friday afternoon, Kat sat on her overstuffed brown couch with her feet bare, wearing blue jeans, a tank and minus a bra or makeup. The idea was to indulge in a leisurely afternoon in her cozy, too-often-unoccupied home, and to stop the constant replay of her encounter with Jason in her mind. Her current effort to distract herself had her with a book in her hand and a movie playing on her flat-screen television.
Her cell phone rang and she ignored it. She knew who it was. Her agent. Michael had called her ten times today, begging her to take the job with Jason, which wasn’t making her efforts to forget her ex any easier.
The doorbell rang and she hit the mute button on the remote control. She grabbed the forty bucks she’d put on the glossy maple coffee table for the teenage sisters who lived next-door who had hit her up for their school chocolate sale. She’d made them squeal when she’d told them she’d take forty bars. Kat’s mom and dad loved candy and she loved seeing the kids get excited. The bell rang again and she smiled. Eager teenage girls. Gotta love ’em.
Kat padded across the marble tiled floor to open the door, and before she even opened the screen, she flashed the money. “I have the cash.”
Jason grinned and leaned on the door frame, muscles flexing under a plain black T-shirt that didn’t look plain on him at all. “That’s not enough to make me go away,” he said, eying the two twenties in her hand. His gaze slid over her pink tank top and then lifted. “Not even close.”
She growled and shoved the money into her pocket, then crossed her arms in front of her chest as she inadvertently noted his clean-shaven jaw, all smooth and ready…for her skin. That little bad girl thought made her as angry as she was eternally hot for the man. “I’m going to kill Michael for giving you my address.”
“Your parents,” Jason supplied.
She rolled her eyes and dropped her arms in frustration. “Oh, good grief.”
“They always liked me.”
Oh, didn’t she know it. They loved the man almost as much as she did. “Why are you here?”
“You know why.”
“Save your breath.”
“Not a chance. Invite me in.”
“Not happening.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
He stared at her, his green eyes cutting through the screen like a diamond on glass. “Kat,” he said softly, pressing his hand on the screen. “Let me in.” The words vibrated with a plea, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the door anymore.
“I can’t,” she whispered, unable to stop herself from flattening her hand against his. Warmth spread up her arm and over her chest. His head dropped to the screen and so did hers. She could feel him everywhere he wasn’t touching, everywhere he wasn’t—shouldn’t—be. She wanted to rip the screen away, to hold him and to feel him hold her—to get lost in him just one last time. It was always just one last time.
“I can’t do this again. This is what happens. The door is the only thing keeping it from happening now.”
“I’m not going to tell you we won’t end up in bed together,” he said after a long pause.
“That’s not helping your case if you want me to take this job,” she said, wondering why his assurance that they might end up between the sheets was comforting rather than the opposite.
“I’ve never lied to you, Kat,” he said, his voice thickening. “I’m not going to start now. I want you. I never stopped wanting you. And I want you involved in the show. Enough that I used my pull to double the salary offer originally sent to your agent’s office.”
She pulled back to gape. “What? That’s an insane amount of money.” She shook her head. “This isn’t about money to me. You know money isn’t why I do what I do.”
“You love spoiling your parents rotten, and you know it. This will let you do it in a big way. This is security for them and for you.”
“I spoil them because we spent a lot of years struggling when I was growing up.”
“You don’t have to justify it to me of all people. You know I love your parents, I know how they struggled. I was there when they were helping you through college, remember?”
Yes, oh yes, she remembered. Love, marriage and his career that started two years before hers and tore them apart.
“I admire you for what you do for them,” he continued. “You know I spoil mine as well. Look, Kat, I have to get you in or out by Monday. We have open call tomorrow and Sunday and with seventy spots to fill. Ellie can handle it, but if you’re in, I know you. You’ll want to cherry-pick the dancers. At least come to the set and observe. See how you feel being there with me. And if it’s still a ‘no,’ I’ll let this go. Just give me one day.”
“Why are you pushing so hard to make this happen?”
“Do you remember when we went to San Francisco and we got down to the pier and we couldn’t get a cab back to the hotel, and the trams were shut down?”
The weekend he’d proposed. “You know I remember that weekend.” She thought of that panicked moment on the pier and found herself smiling in spite of everything. “My feet were killing me and we just had to keep walking.”
“I carried you.”
“And fell down.”
“And you pulled me back to my feet, spotted a midnight movie joint, where we ate too much popcorn, and then the cabs were free. We worked it out together, just like we’ll work this out. We’re older, wiser and more mature. We’re both professionals.” He touched the screen again. “Tomorrow, Kat. 6:00 a.m. Please. Be there.” He backed up, his eyes holding hers. Her cell phone began to ring. “And take your agent’s calls. He might have something to say worth listening to.” He turned and started walking away.
Kat stared after him, watching his sexy, loose-legged swagger as he headed to his motorcycle, fighting the urge to go drag him back and rip off his clothes and have her wicked way with him.
With a frustrated sound, she rushed back to the living room, away from the door and the hot man on the bike. Her phone had stopped ringing, but Jason’s words played in her mind. Take your agent’s calls. He might have something to say worth listening to. She frowned and reached over the couch to snap up her cell. Jason didn’t say anything without a purpose. Kat hit her voice mail button and listened to the most recent message from Michael.
“I know you’re a perfectionist even when it
comes to being stubborn, but listen up.” Kat ground her teeth. Michael had been with her through her painful split from Jason. He knew good, darn well she was trying to be smart and keep her personal and professional lives separate. That wasn’t stubborn, it was smart. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and Jason, but he wants you on this job in a big way. He gave the studio an ultimatum, Kat. He insisted they do whatever it takes to get you—including doubling your offer—or he’ll pay back his signing bonus and walk. I know Jason’s involvement is messing with your head, but if you won’t call me back, call him. Call one of us.”
Kat dropped the phone and stared at it like it was a snake about to bite her. A second later, she launched herself into action and ran for the door, yanking it and the screen open, just in time to see Jason’s motorcycle turn the corner.
“What are you doing, Jason?” she whispered, at the same moment her eyes caught on something sitting on top of the porch stairs. Her heart skipped a beat as she forced her bare feet to cross the porch and pick up the KandyKat bar, all too aware of the memory it was meant to stir. You’re sweeter than candy, Jason used to say, right before he proceeded to prove he meant it. He had no intention of keeping his hands off of her. That was the message now. He wanted her to show up tomorrow with her eyes wide open.
Kat turned and went back inside, shutting the door behind her, trying to shut out temptation, the memories, to shut out him. She fumbled to find her phone to call Jason, and then stopped. If she called, he’d know years hadn’t erased his number from her memory any more than they had erased him from her heart. Not that he didn’t know that. He knew. She didn’t hide how affected she was by him. She couldn’t if she tried, so she just didn’t try. Still, she hesitated. Jason had threatened to quit over her. She glanced down at the Kit Kat bar. She didn’t understand what was going on with him, only that she had to talk to him. She had to understand. Kat dropped her face into her hands. She was going to the auditions tomorrow.
* * *
IT WAS SIX O’CLOCK on the dot the next morning and Jason sat at a long table beneath the stage with Darla and Lana to his left, when the odd sixth sense he’d always had for Kat shot through him. He turned on the pretense of surveying the rows of stadium seating filled with hopeful dancers waiting to audition. He scanned and found her inside the entrance, off to the right of the doors, leaning against the wall. Jason smiled to himself and turned back around. He picked up his coffee and took a sip, savoring more than the caffeine. She was here, that was what counted. And he knew his Kat. She wouldn’t be against that back wall for long, especially considering Ellie and her assistant choreographer for the day were calling the first group of dancers to the stage. No, she would stand back there, adrenaline pumping with the desire to be in the mix of things. He gave her an hour, tops, before she was on the stage.