The Dance Off Read online

  “What do you say I pay you the full complement of lessons, and we call it a day? Sam needn’t ever have to know.”

  “Great. Fine with me. But when you hit the dance floor on Sam’s wedding day, and all eyes are on you as you trip over Sam’s feet, what shall we tell her then?”

  He wondered for a fanciful fleeting second if the woman might well be a witch. Less than five minutes and she’d struck him right in his Achilles’ heel.

  “You done, Mr Fitzgerald? Because honestly, I teach two-year-olds who put up less of a fuss. You’re a big boy. You can do this.”

  She lifted her arms into a graceful half-circle in front of her, an invitation for him to do the same. But when he did little more than twitch a muscle in his cheek, she swore—and rather colourfully—before she walked the final few paces, took his hands, and, with a strength that belied her lean frame, lifted them into a matching arc.

  Up close he caught glints of auburn in her dark hair. A smattering of tiny freckles dusted the bridge of her nose.

  Though his thoughts dried up as she fitted herself into the space between his arms and dropped his right hand to her hip. His palm found fabric, his fingers found skin. Smooth skin. Hot skin. Her skin.

  She slid her right hand into his left and the heat of the night became trapped between them.

  “Nadia.”

  “Yes, Ryder,” she said, mirroring his serious tone.

  “It’s been a while for me.”

  The teeth that flashed within her smile were sharp enough to have his skin tighten all over.

  “I’ll go easy,” she said. “I promise. You just have to trust me. Do you trust me, Ryder?”

  “Not a bit.”

  The smile became a grin, and then her tongue swished slowly across the edge of her top teeth before she tucked it back away.

  Maybe not a witch, but definitely a sadist, if how much she was enjoying this was anything to go by. “Nadia—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! One last question. One. And then you shut up and dance.”

  Stunning, sadistic, and bossy to boot. An audacious combination. And, as it turned out, dead sexy. Which was why he made sure she was looking right at him, those eyes dark with frustration, before asking, “Who on earth is Patrick Swayze?”

  At that she laughed, threw back her head and let rip. Her hips rocked against his, sending a wave of lust rolling through him. Holy hell.

  Her hand landed firmly against his chest. “Let’s not set the bar quite so high, hey, twinkle toes? My aim is to get you through three minutes of spinning on a parquet floor without embarrassing the bride.” Curling her fingers slightly, she said, “Deal?”

  While his blood thundered through his veins at her scent, her nearness, the press of her hips, her hand at his heart, Ryder’s voice was rough as dry gravel as he uttered the fateful words, “Where do we start?”

  “Where all great dance partnerships start: at the beginning.”

  As the music continued to swell through the huge room she told him to listen to the beat. To sway with it. To let his hips guide him.

  Gritting his teeth, he wished Sam had never been born. That helped for about five seconds before he gave himself a mental slug. While the kid might well be the one disruption in his otherwise structured life, she was also the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  Eleven years old he’d been, only a few months beyond losing his own mother, when his father had remarried. A baby already on the way. Even as a kid, Ryder had understood what that meant—that Fitz hadn’t been true to his mother; a woman with such strength, such heart, such insight. Worst of all she must have known it too, even as she’d been sick and dying.

  When he felt the familiar sense of loathing rise like poison in his gut, Ryder shoved the memories back into the deep dark vault from which they’d bled. And instead hauled his mind to the day Sam was born. The first time he’d looked into his little sister’s big grey eyes had changed everything. He’d vowed to never let her down, knowing already, even so young, that her father—his father—would disappoint, would deprive, would step over her to get ahead every chance he got.

  And still, with that man as her paternal example, the sweet, clueless little kid was out there right now preparing to get married. Married—

  “Concentrate!”

  Ryder came to with a grimace as Nadia pinched the soft skin between his forefinger and thumb. He glared at her and she glared right on back. For a woman who felt like a wisp of air in his arms, she had strength to spare. “Honestly, Nadia, I don’t need this. Show me how to get into and out of a Hollywood dip without pulling a muscle and we’re done.”

  “First,” she said, “it’s Miss Nadia. Dance protocol. And secondly, the sooner you stop bitching and pay attention, the faster the time will go. Cross my heart.” The scoop of her top tugged across her breasts as she crossed herself, the material dipping to expose the bones of her clavicle, the pale skin, the layer of perspiration covering the lot.

  “Yes, Miss Nadia.”

  She liked that, clearly, breaking out in a soft laugh. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “You have no idea.”

  She might have brushed against him, or maybe he’d imagined it. Either way, hard was suddenly an understatement.

  And as the hour wore on it didn’t get any less so. Her hands seemed to be everywhere. Resting on his hips as she nudged them where she wanted them to go. Sliding slowly along his arms as she lifted them into the right position. Resting on his shoulders as she leant in behind him, pressing her knees into the backs of his to move his feet in time.

  It was agony.

  And not only because he wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of such terse instructions. Though there was that too. Several years in charge of his own multimillion-dollar architectural firm, a guy got used to being in charge.

  There was also the occasional waft of heady scent from that cascade of dark hair to contend with. The temptation of that sliver of tight skin above her skirt. And those Arabian Nights eyes tempting, beckoning, inviting him beyond the dance to places dark and sultry.

  And then a knowing smile would shift across her lush mouth just before she counted loud and slow as if he were three damn years old.

  When she finally turned off the music, he asked, “We’re done?”

  “For tonight.”

  Then, as if they hadn’t just spent the better part of an hour about as close as a man and a woman could be without their lowlier natures taking over, she simply walked away.

  At the pink chair she pulled the band from her hair and shook it out, running her hands through it until it was a tumble of shaggy waves. As if she’d sensed him watching she looked over her shoulder as she bound herself in a wrap-around cardigan, and looped a long silver scarf around her neck. “Next time dress in loose pants, a T-shirt, and bring something warm for after. Even though it’s crazy hot outside, your body will cool down dramatically after a workout like this.”

  Ryder didn’t make any promises—he figured a fast cool-down was exactly what he needed. “I’ll walk you down.”

  Her eyebrows disappeared beneath a wave of her hair. “Not necessary. I can handle myself. I’m a child of the mean streets.”

  Richmond was hardly mean, but, growing up with a little sister with a knack for climbing out of bedroom windows, Ryder had a protective instinct that was well honed. “It’s eleven at night. I’m walking you down.”

  She gave him a level stare from those gypsy eyes of hers, then with a smile and a shrug she said, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

  “There’s that too.”

  He nabbed his jacket and tie and held them over his elbow rather than rugging up. She noticed, but said nothing, clearly considering herself off the clock.

  She moved to an anci
ent bank of light switches and flipped the place into darkness, leaving only patches of cloud-shrouded moonlight teeming through the big arched windows, and Ryder’s gaze was once again drawn to the soaring ceilings, the dusty chandeliers, the obnoxious industrial fans, and last but not least the fantastic criss-cross of exposed beams above, the kind people paid top dollar to reproduce.

  Nadia cleared her throat and motioned him out, then with a yank of the door, a bump of the hip and a kick to the skirting board, locked up behind them.

  He followed her down the stairs, the green glow of the old lights creating sickly shadows on the wallpaper peeling from the walls. But from topside looking down, the way the stairs curled around the shaft was actually great design. If the lift actually worked—

  Irrelevant, he thought, with a flare of irritation. In fact the place should probably be condemned.

  But Ryder didn’t need a team of crack psychologists to tell him why the building continued to charm. It was just the kind of place his creative mother would have adored. Her legacy to the world was her wonderful sculptures made from things found, abandoned, forgotten, lost. Her legacy to her son was the knowledge that following your heart led only to heartache.

  Pressing the memories far deeper, he redirected his gaze to the exit.

  “Will I see you next week?” Nadia asked as they spilled out of the door.

  “I fear you will,” said Ryder as he turned on the cracked grey footpath to face her.

  A step higher than he, she swayed sensually, hypnotically, from one foot to the other, as if moving to a rhythm only she could hear. Then she tipped up onto her toes bringing her face level with his. “Sam really has you wrapped around her little finger, doesn’t she? I liked her before, but now I have a new-found respect for the woman.”

  Ryder sniffed out a laugh.

  Then when she moved past him, jogging lightly down the stairs, he shoved his hands in his trouser pockets to keep himself from doing anything dangerous, like finding that slice of hot skin at her hips again and using it to drag her against him. Like losing his fingers in those crazy waves. Like ravaging that smart, soft, tilting mouth till she stopped smiling at him as if she were one up on the scoreboard.

  But Ryder held fast.

  Because, delightful as she was, his only objective for the next few weeks was to survive until Sam’s wedding without hiding her away in the top of a large tower where no man could hurt her. Getting all twisted up with the wilful and wily dance teacher, who he was fast gathering had become his sister’s friend, would not help his cause one bit.

  So instead of drowning in her dark eyes, her lush lips, all that dark sensuality so close within reach, he looked up at the building, past the big red door and up to the big sleeping windows on the third floor. “Do you know who owns this place?”

  “Why?” she asked.

  Because he was changing the subject.

  “Something about the beams,” he said, then glanced back to find Nadia halfway down the block.

  “Don’t ask me,” she said over her shoulder. “I just work here.”

  Ryder watched her until she was swallowed by darkness, leaving him alone on the cracked pavement with his car, his skin cooling quickly in the night air.

  * * *

  Nadia fell into bed a few minutes before midnight. Literally. Standing at the end she let herself flop, fully clothed, face first onto the crumple of unmade sheets.

  And the darkness behind her eyelids became a blank canvas as her memories began to play.

  She could hear the creak of the stairs cutting through the song she’d been free-styling to. Could feel the disorientation of being caught out, leaving her breathless, sweaty, off kilter. Back on solid ground, wiping away the worst of her glow—men sweat, women perspire, ladies glow, her austere grandmother had always said—she’d peeked through the curtains.

  Expecting a male version of Sam—tall, big grin, two left feet, handsome, sure, but slightly goofy with it—she’d been critically mistaken.

  Ryder Fitzgerald was tall but that was where the similarities ended. Handsome had nothing on the guy—he was simply stunning. In that midnight suit, snowy white shirt, not a hair out of place, not a scuff on his beautiful shoes, he was big, dark, sleek, and razor-sharp. And to top it off, shimmering at the edges of all that relentless perfection was an aura of rough and raw sex appeal, as if the guy left behind an unapologetic testosterone wake.

  When she’d ducked back behind the curtain her hands had been shaking. Shaking! Her breaths had shortened. Her stomach had curled tight and hot while her blood had thwacked against the walls of her veins. And all she had been able to think was, Oh, no.

  With the grace of hindsight she could hardly blame herself. It had been over a year since she’d broken up with her ex after all. And if she was honest, longer again since she’d felt anything near that kind of all out, sweet, sinful, wonderful, carnal reaction to a man. For a woman whose entire life had been spent learning her body, knowing her body, celebrating her body, the fact that her body had become some sort of neutral zone had been damn near unnatural.

  So much so, in her more wavery moments she’d wondered if something more than a two-year relationship had been damaged during the whole sordid mess. Even more than a bruised ego and a crumpled career.

  But no, she was a Kent, and Kent women didn’t cry over broken relationships—or broken bones for that matter. They got over it. Which she had admirably, thank you very much.

  And then—right when she was doing so great, when she was dancing better than she had in her entire life, when she was mere weeks away from having the chance to reclaim all that she’d given up—right then was when the old flame had to flicker back to life?

  Groaning, she rolled over and pulled a pillow tight over the thumping in her chest. It didn’t help. Even with her eyes wide open she could still feel the play of muscle beneath the man’s prosaic white shirt—hard, strong, a surprise. As had been his latent heat. All she’d had to do was touch him and she’d felt it pulsing beneath his skin. The exact same heat that had thudded incessantly through her for the entire hour straight.

  Let it go, she thought. The man’s immaterial. And heard her mother’s voice.

  Her mother who’d taken one look at Nadia when she’d turned up on her doorstep a year before with nothing but a suitcase and a sad story...and smiled. Not because she was glad to see her only child, oh, no. Claudia Kent’s own ballet career had been ruined over a guy, and, seeing the product of that mistake in the same sorry position, she’d found herself looking down the blissful barrel of karmic payback.

  Nadia gripped the pillow tighter, this time to stifle the woozy sensation in her belly.

  Her mother might be completely devoid of any maternal genes, but at least Nadia had learnt early on how to cope with rejection, which for a jobbing hoofer was pure gold. One couldn’t be precious and be a dancer. It was the tough and the damned. Ethel Barrymore had once said to be a success as an actress a woman had to have the face of Venus, the brains of Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros. Working dancers needed all that and to be able to do the splits on cue.

  Nadia had all that going for her and more. Yet if she didn’t nail the fast-approaching chance to get her life back in a few weeks’ time, she’d have deserved that contempt as she’d made the same mistake her mother did before her.

  Well, not the exact same mistake—at least Nadia hadn’t fallen pregnant.

  With that wicked little kick of ascendancy fuelling her, she reached into her bedside table and found her notebook. For the next few minutes she pushed everything else from her mind and sketched out the moves she’d added to her routine that night before Ryder Fitzgerald had arrived.

  In her early twenties she’d lived on natural talent, on chutzpah, and maybe even on
her mother’s name. A year out of the spotlight and that momentum was gone, and every day away younger, fitter, hungrier dancers were pouring into the void, eager and ready to take her spot. But what those hungry little dancers didn’t know was that this time Nadia had an edge—she didn’t simply want their jobs; this time she really had something to prove.

  Sketches done, she slumped back to the bed. She’d shower in the morning. And since she didn’t start work till two the next day, she’d have time to attend a couple of classes of her own—maybe a contemporary class in South Yarra, or trapeze in that converted warehouse in Notting Hill. Either way she’d kill it. Because look out, world, Nadia Kent was back, baby.

  Despite the late hour, the last whispers of adrenalin still pulsed through her system, so she grabbed her TV remote and scrolled through the movies on her hard drive till she found what she was looking for.

  The strains of Be My Baby buzzed from the dodgy speakers in her second-hand TV, and grainy black and white dancers writhed on the screen. When Patrick Swayze’s name loomed in that sexy pink font, Nadia tucked herself under her covers and sighed.

  Yep, things were still on track. So long as she didn’t do anything stupid. Again.

  Sliding into sleep, she couldn’t be sure if it was her mother’s voice she’d heard at the last, or her own.

  TWO

  “So how was it? Was it amazing? Aren’t you glad I made you go?”

  Ryder pressed the phone harder to one ear to better hear Sam, and plugged a finger in his other ear to ward off the sounds of the construction site. “It was...” Excruciating. Hot. A lesson in extreme—patience. He tugged his hard hat lower over his forehead, and growled, “It was fine.”

  “Told you. And how cool is the studio? And the ceilings. I knew you’d love the ceilings.”

  No need to fudge the truth there. The beams were stunning. Old school. The exact kind of feature he’d once upon a time have sold his soul to study. He glanced about the modern web of metal spikes and cold concrete slabs around him, the foundations of what would in many months be a sleek, silver, skyscraping tower—as far from the slumped thick red-brick building as architecturally possible.