Winning Moves (Stepping Up 3)

For long seconds, they clung to one another, skin damp, breathing heavy, and he felt her tense, sensed an emotional struggle in her and braced for it. Would it be regret? Anger? Something completely different?

“I love you, too,” she whispered next to his ear.

So softly spoken were those words that Jason didn’t dare believe he’d heard them, until she leaned back and met his stare, repeating the golden words. “I love you, too. I do. You know I do.”

Tenderness and hope filled him. “We’ll make it work out this time.”

“You really think that’s possible? That this time is really different?”

“I don’t think. I know.” But she didn’t. He could see the doubt in her eyes. He had to give her time, had to convince her that the only place he’d ever felt at home was when he was with her. He just hoped he wasn’t too late, that she could still find home with him.

* * *

IT WAS NINE O’CLOCK, hours after Kat had arrived at Jason’s house and she rested on his bed, on her stomach, and wearing his T-shirt. She watched him disappear into the hall, on his way to meet the pizza delivery man at the door, sighing with the pure satisfaction of being with him again. She blocked out any argument that it might be a mistake. She didn’t care. It was too late. She’d done exactly what she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do. Kat had fallen for Jason all over again. It was too late to run, too late to hide, because she simply didn’t want to.

Kat turned her attention back to the huge flat-screen TV. She and Jason had been watching the first season of Stepping Up. The screen flashed from the dancers to the judges’ table.

Kat sucked in a breath and sat up, her spine stiff, watching Jason interact with the other judges. It was the first time she’d seen him on television, aside from a commercial for the show, and she was hit hard with a good dose of reality. He looked good, natural and right on the screen, in the spotlight instead of behind the camera. He belonged on that screen, in the public eye, on that show. He was never going to stay here in Vegas. He would be pulled to bigger and better things, and he deserved those things.

That realization washed away her good mood, and stole the joy of minutes before when she’d been happily watching the program with Jason, pretending fairy tales did come true. She wanted those minutes back, and the hours before them. She liked here and now.

“I grabbed your bag,” Jason said, sauntering into the room with it and a pizza box in hand, his hair rumpled, his broad chest deliciously bare, his jeans slung low on his waist. He set the bag at the foot of the bed. “I think your phone is inside. I heard it ringing.”

“Why would you leave Stepping Up?” she asked, the question exploding from her lips, her urgency for the answer far more important than her growling stomach. “It’s the number-one show on television. That’s a dream come true. It’s security. It’s opportunity. It’s stability going into a fourth season is hard to find in this business. You can’t walk away. Even for a Vegas production.”

He looked surprised by her sudden outburst. Her phone started to ring again, but she ignored it. She didn’t want to pretend everything was roses without thorns, and she almost had. That wasn’t good for him or her. She wanted everything out now, before those thorns tore them apart again.

Jason let out a breath and scrubbed his hand over the light stubble on his jaw before setting the pizza on the bed and out of the way.

“Kat.” He settled onto the mattress in front of her. “It’s a job and it’s money. I don’t need either of those things.”

“It’s a huge show, Jason,” she said. “They’re going to offer you big money to stay. You can’t walk away from that.”

“Why?”

“I told you why. Because you’ll regret it later. What if nothing like this ever comes around again?”

“That’s what we both said every single time one of us had an opportunity. We’re both older and wiser now. We have money and we have work if we want it. We don’t have to walk around in fear that there will never be another ‘big’ opportunity.”

“Tell me you aren’t doing this for me.”

“For us.”

She shook her head, her chest tightened. “No. No. I won’t let you do this. You’ll resent me, and you’ll resent us, later.” Her phone started to ring again and she ground her teeth, silently cursing the interruption. “Good grief, who keeps calling?” She reached into the side pocket of the bag, meaning to turn off her ringer, but hesitating when she noted her mother’s number. Her mother was a former E.R. nurse who, after five years of retirement, still went to bed at eight and got up at five in the morning.