Except great sex.
“Earth to Shanna,” Kristoff joked. “Are you with me?”
“Yes. Sorry. I have a headache.” That wasn’t a lie actually…just not the whole truth.
“Sorry. What should we do next about…the problem? Perhaps you should seek out a new partner.”
He looked so sad at the prospect. Something in her chest twinged, and she shoved it aside.
“We don’t have time to talk about this now. You have to be at work in two hours, and I have to meet with the costumer shortly. Let’s focus on today.”
“It would not hurt you to talk to me. Do you want to replace me? Do you want to talk about what happened at Sneak Peek?”
As her brothers would say, oh, hell no. “Talking will not win us any
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trophies. From the top.”
Using the remote control, she started the music again and got into position. Sighing, Kristoff assumed his pose and they danced for another grueling half hour.
Until the door to the studio swung open unexpectedly. Alejandro strolled into the studio looking dark and yummy and like a man with an agenda in mind—that started with getting her out of her clothes.
Shanna sucked in a breath. “What are you doing here?”
“I assume your phone is broken, since you have not returned my calls.” He arched a brow. “So I decided to find you.”
“We’re practicing.”
The protest was automatic. His presence here, so unexpected, raised her defenses. Thank God. She needed those barriers against him. Another hour with the man, feeling as weak as she had while he touched her, and she’d collapse against him and…
Shiver
. She’d admit that she cared. Be vulnerable to him.
Not on her agenda. In fact, it was totally unacceptable.
“You will win because we will discover exactly who has been blackmailing you,” Alejandro vowed.
“The security tapes turned up nothing, you said.”
“That is true. And I assume the blackmailer has not contacted you, or you would have let me know.”
“Yes, I would have.” And she would, no matter how much talking to him would have tempted her to do more…much like he was doing now.
“But nothing so far. So we have nothing else to say.”
Alejandro looked like he could see right through her bluster and wasn’t put off in the least. Damn him! Why couldn’t he cringe, like most people?
“How did you find out when and where we were practicing?” she
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demanded.
With a sweep of his hand, Alejandro outted Kristoff as the culprit. She whirled on her partner angrily. “This is practice time, not social hour. What the hell were you thinking?”
“That if I did not tell him how to find you, he would end my privileges at Sneak Peek.”
Shanna gritted her teeth. Fabulous. Yet another shining example of a man thinking with his penis. Apparently, it had never occurred to him—
or he didn’t care—that she had not wished for Alejandro to find her.
“I have been thinking,” Kristoff said, “since your first effort to draw out the blackmailer did not solve the problem, you should try again.”
“Try again?” Her jaw dropped.
Kristoff nodded. “Stage another public scene. The word about it is out now. People in the community are buzzing about you two. If you give advance warning, I believe the person responsible will come.”
Shanna considered Kristoff’s words with dread—and excitement. More of Alejandro’s touches, his wild sort of lovemaking… So very tempting. She hadn’t just liked what they’d done together; she had basked in it. And had been aching for more since. No. More of Alejandro would only addict her further to the man. And while she didn’t know him well, she doubted he would settle for a woman whose schedule was as demanding as hers. Someone who spent nearly every day dancing in very suggestive ways with another man. And Alejandro would expect a great deal emotionally of the woman he called his—certainly more than she was comfortable giving. He had to see her limitations.
So why was Alejandro pursuing her?
As much as she’d like to give in to her fears and dismiss Alejandro, what Kristoff said made sense. Maybe the blackmailer had not acted last time because he hadn’t known about the scene. She and Alejandro had
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done nothing to spread the word beforehand. The audience who had witnessed her coming apart in his arms had all been there purely by chance.
“I agree,” Alejandro said. “I want to catch this bastard. But the choice is Shanna’s.”
She bit her lip. With the competition in three days, her options were running thin. And throwing away more than fifteen years of training, sweating and suffering to avoid having sex with Alejandro seemed beyond stupid, even if something in her gut was telling her to run like hell. Before she could overrule logic, Shanna nodded. “I’ll be there tonight.”
Alejandro shook his head. “Tomorrow night. Give me time to spread the suggestion that there may be a repeat performance, just in case the scum does not have his ear to the ground, so to speak.”
Shanna released the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She wanted desperately to be with him. And, at the same time, she didn’t. It was so unlike her to be indecisive and conflicted, damn it. She had to regain balance, regain control.
“Fine,” she announced. “I will be there at eight. We’ll commence at eight-thirty. I need to be home by ten.”
Turning away with a dismissive whirl, she reached for the remote control, intent on starting the music, resuming practice…and ignoring Alejandro before he noticed her trembling and made her completely insane with those hungry stares of his.
Instead, he grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. “You will be there at eight-thirty. We will commence at nine. If it takes a whole night of public performances, you will stay until we know who and what we are dealing with.”
She jerked from his grasp. “Don’t presume to tell me what to do.”
“Shanna, can you really afford to be impractical and put on your
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bitch armor with me?”
No.
“I know that is not you, and I seek only to help you,” he murmured. Still, she raised her chin, refusing to back down. “Whatever. If it amuses you to play the caveman—”
“No,” he leaned into her and whispered for her ears only, “but it amuses me to see you hide from me and the absolute pleasure you know I am going to give you when I have you naked and under me again.”
Hours later, Shanna had showered, changed, and run errands. Life was normal…and yet she was still both seething and uncertain about Alejandro’s comments. Arrogant comments. How could the man manage to irritate and arouse her in a single sentence? For that matter, why did he always incite conflict inside her?
Argh!
She needed to get him out of her mind. Her doorbell rang. Oh, hell. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Probably someone trying to sell her something. Maybe Girl Scout cookies. One of the neighbor girls had been selling them yesterday, and the thought of indulging in mindless sugar perked her up.
Shanna opened the door.
Someone stood on the other side, all right. It sure wasn’t a Girl Scout.
“Alejandro.” His name slipped out as a whisper.
“Good evening,
querida
.”
When he called her that, she melted. Every time. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why does it bother you that I call you darling?”
“I am not your darling. We are working together to solve a common problem.”
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“Hmm. We are. But I fail to see how that must be the end of it.”
Shanna opened her mouth to set him straight, but Alejandro cut her off. “I am sure you will find some reason, but for now, let’s not argue. I came to talk to you.”
With narrowed eyes, she tried to gauge his sincerity. “Talk?”
“Nothing more.”
She didn’t quite believe him, but he had roused her curiosity. What could he possibly want to talk about with her?
“Come in.” She stepped back to admit him.
Alejandro shook his head and held out his hand. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Not the club,” she warned him.
“Not the club.”
Now, against her better judgment, she was
really
curious. Sliding into the sandals she kept by the door, she grabbed her purse and keys off the nearby table. “Will it take long?”
“Hot date tonight?”
His words mocked her. As if he knew that she could hardly wrap her mind around her interest in him, much less imagine being attracted to anyone else right now.
“With Dreamland, yes. I’m tired.”
“And I am here to cheer you up.” He held out his hand to her again. This time she took it and let herself out the door. “Where are we going?”
“The nature of a surprise is that you should be surprised.”
“You won’t tell me?”
He shook his head, sending her a dazzling, unrepentant smile as they walked toward the condo complex’s parking lot.
“You know that pisses me off.”
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“I know you are used to being in control and making all the decisions. A little relaxation will be good for you.”
People had been saying that to her for years. Generally, she ignored them.
“That’s your opinion.”
“You cannot change it.”
“Okay, but you’re wrong.”
“How about humoring me, then? Pretend.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Alejandro sliced her a little smile of victory, but wisely said nothing more.
When they reached the parking lot, he lifted his key fob and pressed a button. A red, late-model Mercedes convertible beeped and flashed its lights a few feet away.
Business at the club must be
very
good to afford the old place that housed their business and four-wheeled trinkets like this. He assisted her into the car, then rounded the car to the driver’s side, and eased in. “My father was a wealthy man.”
“What?”
“I saw the way you looked at my car. I believe you had similar thoughts about the club. I am answering your unspoken question. My father was a wealthy man, and he left me his fortune.”
“Not your mother?”
He shrugged and started the car. “I am the only part of him my mother will have anything to do with.”
“They divorced?”
“In the Catholic church, no. They separated when I was twelve.” He backed out of the parking space and steered into the gorgeous summer night.
“Why are you telling me this?”
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“You cannot like someone you do not know.”
He wanted her to like him?
“My father was a philandering bastard, if you wished to know why they split up. I remember my mother’s tears many nights when my father did not come home. They became my tears, too. He acted as if his affairs were both common practice and acceptable. Perhaps that was so in their generation… Perhaps it was accepted in his native Argentina…”
Alejandro was sharing something so shockingly private with her. Why?
“I do not agree,” he stated. “If you speak vows and make a commitment, it should be solid. You should mean those words.”
“True.” Was he trying to tell her he’d be faithful? Why did he think it mattered to her?
The fact he wanted to make his opinion known unnerved her. But, being honest, it also thrilled her treacherous soft side. Having a man like Alejandro in her life full time would be wonderful…but distracting. Indulging was
not
an option. Their search for this blackmailing bastard and her need to win the California Dance Star consumed her every thought and waking moment. Her commitment was to winning. Romance would just interfere.
“Take my friendship with Del,” he went on. “Del and I met in college. We quickly became friends—both outcasts to some degree, being foreignexchange students with somewhat poor English here in Los Angeles. We discovered we shared a lot of similar interests and passions.
“So after graduation, we decided to put our degrees to work on something mutually satisfying. Del used his marketing degree and social skills to spread word of the club and promote it all around. I used my finance degree to secure the funding, run the back end, invest our profits. We operate in the black, and each year is more profitable than the last. But two years ago, I had the opportunity to sell out my half for
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triple the amount I paid to get in.” He shrugged. “Long ago, I promised Del I would stay in until we were both ready for a change. I declined the opportunity.”
“That cost you a lot of money, I’m sure.”
“Losing the friendship would have cost me more.”
“You can afford to say that; you have your father’s money.”
“Not anymore. I put it in a trust for my mother. She thinks I set it up with my money. But the bastard owed her more than he could ever repay. I thought this was fitting.”
Shanna stared at Alejandro as if seeing him for the first time. In a way, she was. It was hard not to like him when he was protecting his mother and defending his friendships.
A moment later, they stopped in front of a local ice cream shop, quaint and family-owned. In a few hours, after dinner, this place would be crawling with families. But during the dinner hour, it was nearly empty.
“Ice cream?”
“I assume you like it.”
“I haven’t eaten dinner yet. I was planning to cook before you came over…”
He climbed out of the car and helped her out. “Who needs dinner when there is ice cream?”
“Who doesn’t need protein and nutrients? Ice cream isn’t a dinner food.”
Alejandro slipped an arm around her, and Shanna tried not to melt against the tempting heat of his body. Why did he have to be so damn sexy?
“I will not tell your mother if you won’t,” he teased.
“My mother died when I was four.”
She found herself choking out the words. She shouldn’t have opened
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her mouth; it was only making her more vulnerable to him. But holding the truth after he’d confessed all about his parents seemed petty.