Winning Moves (Stepping Up 3)

“What? Why? We’re here.”

“Because I’ve made you believe my world is more important than yours and it’s not.”

“No,” she said, her fingers curling in his shirt. “I don’t think that.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m just going to make sure you don’t feel that now and I know I can’t expect to prove that to you overnight. So I’m going to make a deal with you, or I hope I am, if you’ll agree.” He brushed the hair from her eyes. “I’ll stay with you until I leave for the auditions. We’ll live in the present. Then, Kat, when I’m back next month, when you know I’m really back, I’m going to ask you to marry me again.”

Shock slid over her face. “Jason—”

He kissed her, and her moment of resistance melted into a soft, sensual joining of tongues.

“Don’t respond,” he said. “I’ll take the living in the ‘now’ if that’s what you want. But know this. I hope the ‘now’ is still going on in fifty years.”

13

WEEKS LATER, KAT stood inside a busy, oversized dressing room, where a group of twenty dancers, as well as makeup, hair and costume people, were preparing for a live television special inside the hotel’s Blue Moon nightclub, with Jason and a list of special superstar guests hosting. Kat knew the guest list, but few of the others did, for security reasons.

Nicole Smith, a rising star who’d been an opening act for Marcus on Kat’s last tour, would be there. The idea was to promote the stage show and the new season of Stepping Up. The TV show would begin auditions in a week, and Jason would leave with it.

Kat’s fingers tightened on the clipboard she held. She told herself to stop thinking about “the end” when it came to her and Jason. Over and over, she had to remind herself to enjoy what time they had together, not to regret living outside the present.

“I need my female understudies now,” Kat shouted into the room. Three excited dancers rushed forward. Kat felt they’d earned their own special moment on stage, and choreographed a unique performance for them.

Kat frowned as her fourth dancer failed to appear. “Where’s Marissa?”

The room turned to a murmur with shouts for Marissa randomly being heard, but Marissa simply wasn’t present.

“She’s been gone a good half an hour,” one of the hairdressers commented. “She got a phone call and left.”

“Kat!”

Kat turned at the sound of Ellie’s voice behind her. “We have a problem,” Ellie said, entering the room.

“What problem?” Aside from Marissa being nowhere to be found, Kat thought grimly.

“Marissa says she’s too sick to dance,” Ellie said, as if replying to Kat’s unspoken concerns.

“I can fill in for her,” Tabitha said, stepping into the room, dressed in sweats and a tee. “Kate taught me the routine.”

Why would Tabitha have one of the understudies teach her this routine? Warning bells went off in Kat’s head, and her gaze brushed Ellie’s. The look on the other choreographer’s face told her that Ellie heard those bells as well.

“Where’s Marissa?” Kat asked Ellie, repeating her earlier question to someone who hopefully could give her an answer.

“In the bathroom right off the stage,” Ellie said. “She says she can’t come out without throwing up.” She laughed without humor. “I asked her if she was pregnant.” She held up a hand. “Don’t worry. She said she isn’t.” Her gaze brushed the three dancers’ skimpy outfits. “And a good thing in those outfits. Yowza, they’re sexy.” She sighed and rubbed her stomach. “I better cut back on the chocolate or I’ll never be able to wear anything but a clown costume again.”

Tabitha snorted. “That doesn’t stop a few dancers I know from indulging.”

Kat’s gaze flicked to Tabitha, who’d just barely contained her nastiness to Marissa since their talk a month before. Kat had heard a few too loudly spoken remarks from Tabitha and her slender frame compared to Marissa’s more Kim Kardashian-type figure, not to know who she was talking about. “How did you know to be here, Tabitha? You were off tonight.”

“Marissa called me and told me she needed me to fill in for her.”

“Marissa called you,” Kat said flatly, her gaze boring into Tabitha’s. She didn’t believe her, not for a New York minute. She watched the young dancer, waiting for her to break under scrutiny, but quickly surmised that wasn’t going to happen. Tabitha was an ice witch, after fame at all costs. Kat was pretty sure Marissa was the one paying, or she would be, if Kat let it happen. Kat glanced at Ellie. “Jason wants the featured dancers on stage to meet Nicole before we go live.”

“Should I get into costume?” Tabitha called from behind Kat.

Kat turned at the door, grinding her teeth at that question because her gut said that Tabitha was up to no good. “Yes,” she said, pausing. “As a precautionary measure.”