Stars, Love And Pirouettes (Dance 'n' Luv Series) (10 page)

But how could he not realize their magical night together had nothing to do with any of that? When they lay in bed murmuring sweet things and talking about their lives, she’d told him he pulled her out of a numb place she’d been caught in. And he’d said an imprisoning wall of grief had surrounded him until she kissed him.

How stupid to throw that away because she thought some story he was writing was about him. He hadn’t exactly helped with that secrecy act he wrapped around himself.

And then something struck her.

When she’d first told Aiden she knew who he really was, he hadn’t acted at all confused or asked what she was talking about. Instead he’d asked how she found out. He hadn’t even scoffed at the idea of people looking for him.

“You’ll see him again,” Lexi said. “He’ll be back.

“I hope so,” Jenna said.

Because it was clear to her now that Aiden Flynn did have a secret. And she intended to find out what it was.

Chapter Fourteen

Aiden snatched the tabloid from the wire rack and stood in the checkout line of the supermarket on Sixty-Eighth and Broadway. He stared at the photo on the cover, a storm of emotions whirling inside.

Jenna Richardson.

With Sean Risk. The new hot celebrity couple.

Would it have been different if he’d stuck around? Would Jenna be his lady now instead of Sean’s?

Or would the stargazing schoolteacher have amounted to nothing more than a minor blip on Ms. Richardson’s radar? An accidental anomaly caught in her snare while she was going for much bigger game.

Thought she was getting a roll in the sack with a dangerous secret agent. Another mover and shaker to add to her list of conquests.

But then, why had she called him? He’d listened to her voicemail message at least twenty times over the past week.

“
Aiden, I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I know I can really bungle things up, but you’re not exactly being fair to me. Let’s talk
.”

He’d hit reply three times, but quickly deleted the call before it went through. And then he’d gone and watched
Sunrise Lane
a few nights ago.

He hated the role they gave her. A hard, cold bitch. The antithesis of his fairy princess. But she did such a good job of it Aiden lay awake wondering which one was the real Jenna.

And thanks to sharing those stargazing moments with her, he robbed himself of the one thing he’d found to cure his insomnia. She’d even invaded his work on the new thriller. He couldn’t help imagining what she’d think if she saw certain passages on his computer. He pictured her laughing. She was so darn cute. He just didn’t know if he could trust her with his feelings.

He’d spent the last week traveling the country, stopping in some of the poorest neighborhoods to work with school kids for the Wendy Brice Flynn Foundation he’d created to give underprivileged students a chance for a future. Normally he left that outreach work to the staff he’d hired to run the program. But after Nick Stiebler and his screaming toddler opened Aiden’s old family wounds, and Jenna reached into the heart he’d closed after Wendy’s death, he needed the kind of healing he got from giving hope where there was none.

“That’ll be $14.70, sir. Sir?”

“Oh. Sorry.” Aiden roused himself from his thoughts, paid the cashier and walked back to his apartment with his groceries, Jenna’s eyes peeking at him over the rim of the shopping bag.

**

Jenna found it kind of silly. But you don’t argue with your publicist or your agent or the powers that be on a successful TV series who say your job is to not only perform on screen but off screen as well. In this case, giving the public a glimpse of the show’s new star gallivanting around Long Island and Manhattan with its romantic lead.

Lovebirds having fun.

Some dependable members of the press would be on hand to ensure the right kind of coverage. Although there’d be no controlling the renegade masses armed with phone cams.

“Anything to keep those ratings up,” super agent Marvin Davitz told her. “Get out there with Sean. Make yourself known. Not just for the show, sweetheart. Bilk this thing and you’ve got yourself a career.”

A golden Prometheus adrift on a ring of blazing light bestowed the gift of fire in his right hand as a blessing to the cold plane of ice at his feet. There in the shadows of 30 Rock and legendary Radio City, the skating rink at Rockefeller Center hummed with life. In fact, it had an extra buzz today with two stars from
Sunrise Lane
circling the ice.

Wearing a red waist-length jacket, red earmuffs and tight stretch jeans, Jenna skated along in the icy cold afternoon, holding hands with Sean. Her dancer body craved to do more than just put one foot in front of the other. She began gliding on one leg, lifting the other behind her in an arabesque. Different from ballet, where a dancer needed to turn her feet outward, in skating it was clear she had to keep the toe pointing in the direction she was going.

One thing she’d learned from her years as a dance pro: a supportive partner means everything. A dancer could overcome a slippery stage or awkward footing if an attentive partner had her back. With Sean, well, she could feel his irritation when a few people applauded her moves. At one point she even thought he tugged on her hand extra hard, pulling her off balance. But she managed to recover.

“Okay, Ms. Dancer, let’s see what you got. Try this.” Sean let go of her hand, pivoted, and skated backward, then turned out his feet, shifting to the deep outside edge of his skates, leaning into gliding arcs.

Applause.

When he returned, Jenna said, “Not bad. Now try this.”

She remembered a spinning move she’d taught herself one winter when she was about fifteen. Reaching her arms wide, she used them for momentum, but tucked them close to her body once she went into a fast spin that to this day gave her a thrill.

She’d always been somewhat compulsive and had practiced it over and over back then, analyzing the tricks to staying on balance, even figuring out how to lift one leg without falling. So, of course, when Sean tried it she could see he’d be in trouble.

“Dammit.” He nearly went down, but caught himself in an ungainly lurch.

“Try to keep your weight over—”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to do it.”

He tried again, this time with way too much force. With a scrape and a thud, Sean landed on the ice in a not-too-sexy position that garnered a few embarrassing laughs. She just hoped it didn’t make it to YouTube.

Jenna skated over and offered him a hand-up. Which he refused.

When Sean managed to get to his feet, he said, “Try not to let it all go to your head.”

“Excuse me?”

“Telling me how to skate. Like you’re the big expert. All of a sudden you’re superior to me.”

“I’m what?”

“Yeah, you were a big hit with the viewers. Making a good first impression is always nice. We’re all very pleased. But that doesn’t make you the big star.” He brushed ice off his pants, giving her a hostile look. “My muscles are just sore today.”

Jenna’s arms itched to give him a shove that would send him back down to the ice. Instead, she lowered her voice and said through clenched her teeth, “One: I do not consider myself a ‘big star.’ And two: what does that have to do with ice skating?”

“You’re trying to make me look like a fool in front of all these people.”

“No, Sean, you’re doing quite a good job of that without my help.”

He leaned close to her ear, his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t forget, we’ve got company. Let’s keep a nice smile and show our fans how adorable we are together. So just check the ego.” Sean gave her a peck on the cheek and said to Jenna for the benefit of onlookers, “Want to get some hot chocolate?”

“Not with you.”

Chapter Fifteen

Aiden held the paper CD jacket in his hand. A title was scrawled across it in black ink:
Chi il bel sogno di Doretta from La Rondine — Kiri Te Kanawa

“Since when did you go from the Four Tops to this?”

Buster Cotes sat there, shoulders bunched into a slump inside the gray leather wing chair. “What? A brother can’t add a little opera to his list?”

“And may I ask what inspired such a drastic change in genres?” Aiden took a seat in the matching chair directly across from his old friend.

“We’ll cover that later. First let me be the one to ask the questions. I want to know what’s cookin’ with you. The world’s loneliest man. Soon not to be. Least I hope.”

“Ya know, visiting you is like a trip to the dentist. Got the old drill ready to go probing those tender areas.”

“I may have touched a nerve, but I got no drill. Just want see a smile on your face.”

“I’m that bad, huh?”

Buster chuckled. “Last time I saw you, you looked high as a wild-eyed Coney Island junkie.”

“Geezus, Cote. Is that the best you can do for an analogy?”

“Never mind my way of putting it. Just tell me what happened with that girl who sent you to the moon and back.”

Aiden took a breath and shut his eyes. “Sure you want hear all this man-meets- woman glop?”

“Up to me to keep an eye on you. So don’t go making my job any harder than it already is. And don’t be calling it glop. Remember that glop is what makes the world go round. Now start talking.”

Aiden went on to recount how he and Jenna had a magical conversation under the stars, gone to the observatory, had a dreamy dinner by the harbor and ended up in his room making love in a way that sent him beyond the moon all the way to Jupiter. But when he reached the details of their little dispute involving her mistaking Aiden for a government operative, Coty slapped his leg and blurted out, “A secret agent? Damn.”

“I know,” Aiden said, shaking his head with discouraged eyes. “Can you believe it?”

“You locked horns over that?”

“She seemed so disappointed when I told her the truth.”

Coty’s brows jumped. “She never heard of K.Z. Knight?”

“I told her I was a school teacher.”

“A noble profession. Just one problem. It ain’t true. You haven’t taught school in six years. Last we spoke I said you’d have to come out of hiding sooner or later. Instead you want to keep playing games. Now what exactly are you trying to prove?”

“I want someone to want me for who I am.”

“Why are you so hooked on that?”

“Because that’s the way it was when I first met Wendy.” His eyes welled up and his voice quaked. “I want somebody who will take me as is. Not somebody who wants a celebrity or James Bond.”

Buster leaned forward in his chair and dropped his voice. Enunciating his words with the tenderness of a loving father. The kind Aiden never had. “Go back to this lady, son. Apologize and give her a chance. I’ll bet you my personally autographed Mike Tyson boxing glove that she’ll want you just for who you are.”

Aiden snickered and glanced over his shoulder at the worn, red leather eighteen-ounce glove hanging on the wall. “Get outta here. You’d never give that up.”

“Not gonna have to. ”

“Hope you’re right.”

“I am. And when you lose, you bring her over here to sit back and listen to some of these new tunes I got going. Do we got ourselves a bet?”

“On one condition. You tell me why you’re listening to opera.”

Coty sat back. “Had a little problem with my bowels. So they run some tests. Turns out I got something going down there. Doc wants to open me up. Remove some of my intestines. Don’t know how much. We’ll find out three days from now.” He paused and tilted his head. “Anyway I was told classical music is good for easing the mind. Got a whole stack of CDs from one of the nurses. A way of preparing myself in case.”

The news caught Aiden like a sledgehammer to the chest. Could it be that the two most important people in his life would be taken by the same dreaded disease? Unbidden tears snuck out. He wiped some drops from his cheeks.

“Don’t you go crying on account of me. I ain’t dead yet. And nothing’s gonna take me out easy. Learning how to fight to survive is something we both have in common.”

Aiden reached forward, clutched Buster Cote’s hand and squeezed. “You’ve been my best friend, my father, my teacher…”

“Enough,” Coty said. “That lady? She made you smile. And you need that in your life. Now do the right thing before it’s too late. Show her some sweetness.”

Chapter Sixteen

“Not in the mood? Oh, come on. Not this again. For the past couple weeks all we do is play cute in public. But in private it’s always no.”

Jenna glanced at Sean, the same man she’d only minutes ago been kissing during today’s shoot for
Sunrise Lane
. She’d put her all into the kiss for the camera, just as she’d done her best for that stupid lovebirds campaign their publicist had arranged. But ever since she realized she had feelings for Aiden she couldn’t bear the thought of being intimate with Sean.

Today after they finished shooting their scene and Jenna was crossing the parking lot to her car, he approached her again. And once again she refused his advances. Making sure there were no spectators, Jenna said, “We need to talk.”

“So talk.”

“From now on I think we should keep our relationship strictly professional. Otherwise it will only create problems.”

“Problems?” he said, moving in for a nibble on her ear. “I don’t have any problems with it.”

“Yeah, well maybe I do.” Jenna pushed him away.” Let’s chill out. For the sake of the show.”

“In other words, you don’t want to sleep with me.”

“Right.”

He smirked, an expression she’d seen more often on him since they’d recently been forced to spend so much time together. Two weeks where she discovered she didn’t like him very much. “Let me guess. Sophie told you about my list. Well, she’s just jealous because you moved her down to number three on my active file.”

List
?
Active File
?
Why am I not surprised
? “No, Sean. We never agreed to be exclusive, anyway. It’s more than that. We’re just not a good fit.”