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Crashing at age twenty-six hadn’t been in her plans and leaving the competitive dance world behind hadn’t been, either. If she wanted to dance—and let’s face it, she didn’t know how to do anything else—then she needed to keep this job.
And that meant staying away from Nate Stern.
“You okay?” Alison asked, joining her in the hallway.
“Yes. I’m just trying to catch my breath before we go on.”
“You and Nate…”
“I know. We have dance chemistry.”
“In spades. I think you should capitalize on it,” Alison said.
Sure, it was easy for her to say. She didn’t have to go out there and dance a sensual dance with a man who was all wrong for her.
“How?”
“Have him come back every night.”
“I doubt he has time for that. He’s a busy man,” Jen said. “Are you ready?”
“I am. Are you going to hang around and wait for XSU to perform?”
“Probably. You?”
“Yes. My boyfriend is meeting me here.”
“How’s it going with him—Richard, right?”
She nodded. “Pretty good. It’s not a forever thing, but we have fun together.”
Jen wanted that. Some guys she could have fun with and not lose her heart to. But she’d never been able to do it. Maybe it was simply the way she was wired but she didn’t do casual. That’s why Nate worried her.
If she could be like Alison and just have fun with him…why couldn’t she?
She was starting over—why not start over with her attitude toward men? Why not have some fun?
“How do you keep from caring too much?” Jen asked.
Alison shrugged. “He’s not the one so it’s just fun. I don’t think about anything except having a good time with him. If he’s too busy to make it to something I’m doing, I call someone else.”
Jen didn’t know if she could do that. She wanted to.
“Why?”
“I…I wish I could be like that.”
“You don’t even date,” Alison said. “We’ve known each other for eighteen months now and you haven’t met a guy for coffee.”
“I know. I’m just not into the casual scene but maybe I should be. I mean, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone.”
Alison smiled. “Want to come and hang with Richard and me tonight?”
Jen shook her head, then realized that she needed to do something different. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
“Good. Richard always has his posse with him and there are at least two guys I know who will be interested in you.”
She swallowed. “What if I can’t do it?”
“Then it’s no biggie. They aren’t exactly looking for a commitment.”
She reentered the rehearsal room. Nate was standing off to one side, talking on his cell phone and she stared at him. And it hit her.
She didn’t want to just learn how to lighten up and have fun with any friend of Richard’s. She wanted to do it with Nate. He was the only reason why she was even considering changing her ways.
She wanted to spend more time with him but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Nate wasn’t a long-term dating kind of guy. He always had a new woman on his arm and he was always in the papers. He was an arm-candy kind of guy and she’d never been an arm-candy kind of girl.
Wanting to be with him was understandable. He was hot and flirty. He made dancing feel the way she wanted it to. And he had the kind of dark eyes that she could lose herself in. But that didn’t mean that she should pursue this any further than on the dance floor.
Hell, for all she knew he didn’t want her for anything other than publicity for the club. Shaking her head, she put on “Mambo No. 5” and got the class ready to conga out into the crowd as she heard Manuel, the deejay for the open-air room, start warming them up.
“Everyone get ready.”
“I know I am,” Nate said. She felt his hands on her hips and she stumbled over her first step. She stumbled! That never happened.
But Nate caught her, and his hands on her hips as she led the way into the main room were all she thought of. She knew whether it was wise or not she wasn’t going to deny herself the chance to get to know Nate better.
Because he was exactly her kind of man.
Three
Nate glanced around the crowded balcony club area and spotted just enough A-listers to make the party interesting. Leaning forward, he whispered in Jen’s ear.
“That’s Hutch Damien over there. Let’s get him in this conga line.”
“I don’t know him.”
“I do. Head over that way,” Nate said.
