“Choreographers do not earn the kind of paycheck I’m earning,” she argued. “After another couple of years with this show, ratings be with us, my child, and my child’s child, and that child’s children, will be taken care of forever. How do I not make that happen, if I can?”
“You’re not just a choreographer,” Jason countered without missing a beat. “This show has let you demonstrate that. You, unlike me, are a television personality.”
Ellie shook her head, utterly baffled. “How do you not see yourself as the star you are?” She glanced at Kat. “How does he not see it? Because I know he really doesn’t.”
Kat noticed Jason and she knew exactly why. She even went so far as to let herself, for the first time, believe it was true. “He knows what he wants and it’s not the show,” she said. Jason’s eyes warmed with her obvious understanding, and she added, “He wants to direct. He doesn’t want the spotlight.” She refocused on Ellie. “But if you want to host, or judge, or whatever it is you want to do, you’ll get to do it. There’s always an opportunity for someone great and you are great, Ellie. I’ve worked with you. Many big-name stars have worked with you. Everyone sings your praises. The studio knows you’re worth waiting for.”
Ellie swallowed hard, looking pale and strained. “David wants to quit his job to be with me. I don’t want him to quit. His career is important, too. What if he blames me for losing opportunities that may never come up again?”
Jason’s cell phone rang and he glanced at it. “That’s our producer checking on Ellie. I’ll take it outside.”
He headed out of the room and when the door was shut, Ellie asked, “What do I do, Kat? I don’t know how to make this work. What did you do when it was you and Jason?”
Everything wrong, Kat thought. She’d done everything wrong, and so how could she dare offer advice to Ellie, when she herself had failed in the same circumstances? But how did she sit back and watch Ellie make the same mistakes?
Kat let out a breath. “You go with your heart, not your ambition, and only you know where that is. But more than anything, you take care of yourself and you take care of your baby.”
“I don’t want to lose my baby or my husband, and I’ve worked so hard for my career. I thought I could have it all. Maybe that was overly ambitious.”
“You can have it all,” Kat assured her. “Just don’t let yourself get wrapped up in the fear factor this business creates. You and your husband sit down and think about how to make your dreams come true, but don’t forget that dreams are to be shared with the person, and people, you love. Don’t make rash decisions. Talk to David. Really talk to him about your actions and how they impact both you and your family. Then listen to his thoughts, his feelings, his needs. Both of you have to voice your fears. Don’t hold them inside. Don’t assume the other one knows what they are.”
The phone rang and Ellie answered it, and Kat quickly realized it was David. Kat stood up and headed to the hallway, exhausted to the bone, and didn’t see Jason anywhere. It was three in the morning and Jason would be leaving that afternoon. She sank down into a chair. In only a few hours, he would get on a plane and fly to Denver.
Kat rested her elbows on her knees and dropped her face to her hands. This situation with Ellie was like reliving her past with Jason. She couldn’t help but let her thoughts travel to the biggest regret of their relationship, and the one moment that had changed everything. To a hotel room and a phone call that had led to “the end.”
Suddenly, Jason was there, kneeling in front of her. “We aren’t them,” he said, one hand stroking over her hair and the other resting on her leg, strong and comforting in a way only his touch could be.
She lifted her head, trailing her fingers over his cheek, feeling the anguish of her memories. “I should have come to Europe. We wanted to go to Europe.”
He covered her hand with his and brought it to his lap. “We still can. We have the rest of our lives.”
“I should have gone then.”
“And I should have been confident enough in myself as a director to ask for a few days to think about the Europe project. I could have flown to you and talked to you in person. I should have made sure we decided our next move together.”
“I guess we both have a lot of regrets. Ellie is going to have them, too, and I don’t know how to help her.”
“Be there for her. Give her someone to talk to who understands her situation. Not everyone does but you do. I’m not sure there’s much else you, or I, can do for her.”
“I’m scared that I’ll tell her the wrong things and I’ll be to blame for something else that goes wrong.”
“Tell her that,” he said. “Tell her you can share your experiences, but she has to make her own choices.” He gently cupped her face. “Just please remember that we aren’t them. We’ve been there, yes, but we’re here now, together, and we can choose to be better and stronger than our past. I need you to promise me that when I get on that plane, you won’t forget that. It’s the only way I’m going to be able to get on that flight.”
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’ll be okay with this, Jason. We’re okay.”
“Kat!” came Ellie’s shout from the room.
Jason and Kat were both on their feet in an instant. They rushed into the room and Kat brought a smiling Ellie into focus. “I have an idea!” Ellie declared.
Kat and Jason both let out a breath and joined Ellie by her bed. “Good gosh, woman,” Kat chided. “Don’t yell like that and scare me or I might need a bed rolled in here for me.”
Ellie grinned. “Sorry about that. I just got really excited. I was talking to David and I was fretting that the studio would have guest judges fill in for me, and they’d all be pining for my job.”
“You mean my job,” Jason corrected. “I’m leaving the show.”
She waved that off. “We’ll see about that. Anyway. I said there was only one person that I not only thought would be a great judge, but that I knew didn’t want my job. And that person is Kat.”
“Me?” Kat repeated, stunned by the announcement. “I’m not a television personality.”
“Welcome to my world,” Jason said. “Neither am I, but I’ve made it work. I love the idea.”
“We could change roles until the local filming begins for Stepping Up, Kat,” Ellie added eagerly, sounding more excited by the second. “David is going to try to arrange to be here for the next six weeks, so he can help out, too.”
Kat didn’t know what to say. “I…no. That won’t work.”
“Why not?” Ellie asked as Jason arched a brow in question.
“Because…it won’t work.” Because she needed to know that she and Jason could survive this. He needed to know that, too. She needed to overcome this one last fear to say “I do” a second time. Distance had destroyed them once before. If it could do it again, it was best they found out now.
* * *
JASON PULLED KAT’S BMW into her garage right at four in the morning. He was bone tired and his flight left at three that afternoon, but sleep was the last thing on his mind. He glanced at Kat, who was curled on the seat with her eyes shut, only he wasn’t sure she was sleeping. Or if she was, he was pretty sure it was to avoid talking. She hadn’t made eye contact with him since Ellie had suggested she become a guest judge.
On their walk to the garage to get Kat’s car, he’d gotten a call. By the time he got off the phone, Kat had snuggled into the seat, and was sleeping with her hand curled under her cheek. Later, he hit the remote to Kat’s garage, watching the door rise, and thinking about car shopping with her a few days before.
She’d been adorably excited while they’d shopped. Even more excited when she’d been able to drive the new car off the lot. He pulled into the garage, a smile tugging at his lips as he thought of their celebration, and of her climbing into his lap in this very parking spot.
He put the car in Park and hit the remote to shut the garage. The door ground its way to a close, and still Kat didn?
??t move. He sat there, not moving, just thinking. He’d paid for her car in cash, though she didn’t know it. She thought it was financed. And it was, for all of a few hours.
He’d planned to make it a surprise engagement gift, but knew he had to get her to agree to put a ring on her finger before he could get her to really accept the car. He’d thought that was just a matter of getting past these auditions, but her complete rejection of the idea that she should judge in Ellie’s place baffled him. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. He was pretty darn sure though that it was somehow directly connected to his ability to get said ring on her finger.
Jason opened his door and rounded the vehicle to Kat’s side of the car. She didn’t twitch a muscle when he reached for her. He carried her inside and thought about her comment. You’re always picking me up. Then his reply. So you can’t run from me. Was she running from him? Was he fooling himself into thinking everything was going to work out?
He set Kat on her bed and went so far as to remove her shoes and cover her. Still she slept. She was exhausted, he knew. She’d been tireless for weeks and it had clearly all just hit her now.
Jason didn’t lie down. He walked to the bathroom, cracked the door only slightly in case Kat called for him, and turned on the hot water. He pressed his hands on the sink and stared in the mirror. Directing had taught him that he could only do his best, and then what followed was what followed. Once something was on film, it was done, and he couldn’t change it. He’d applied that rule to his life and it had served him well. Except with Kat. He replayed the past far too often. She was right. He had regrets.
He stripped down and stepped under the water, letting it pour over him, trying to relax, when suddenly the curtain was pulled back and Kat, naked and beautiful, joined him. She wrapped her arms around him.
“I don’t want to go with you because I need you to know you can leave and I’ll still be here. And I need you to know that I’m not the same person I was when we divorced. I’ll understand. I’ll go to Europe this time, Jason, or wherever life leads us.”
“But you won’t take the judge’s job?”
“It hasn’t even been offered.”
“I can make it happen,” he said. “I think you know that. I want to make it happen.”
“Then how will you know that I’ll be okay the next time you have to leave?”
“Don’t you mean, how will you know?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.”
“You’re making this an obstacle course it doesn’t have to be. You’re scared, baby. I’m scared, too. Let’s be scared together. Say you’ll take the job.”
She scraped her bottom lip, a fretful look on her face, but she nodded her acceptance. “Yes. Yes, I’ll take it.”
Jason wasn’t sure if Kat had ever made him as happy as she did with those words. He held her in his arms and kissed her, having absolutely no intentions of sleeping, or allowing her to sleep, before he got on the plane later that day.
19
KAT WOKE CURLED at Jason’s side, her head on his shoulder. She inhaled, drawing in the rich male scent that was so him, so perfect, so… Suddenly, she realized a cell phone was ringing and she blinked into sunlight. Sunlight. She sat straight up, ignoring her nudity. “What time is it?”
Jason pressed to his elbows, his hair a rumpled, sexy mess, his eyes heavy with slumber. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
The phone kept buzzing. Kat scrambled over Jason, and grabbed it from the nightstand, and in the process, she launched her bare backside in the air. Jason smacked it.
“Hey!” she yelled over her shoulder, noting the clock with a cringe.
“I will happily wake up this way every day of my life,” he said, leaning up to kiss one cheek of her backside.
Kat snatched her phone and answered it. “Ellie. Hold on a second.” Kat covered the receiver and slid off Jason. “It’s noon. We have three hours until you leave.”
“Oh, crap,” he ground out. “Say it isn’t so.”
“I wish I could.” She didn’t even remember how they’d ended up asleep when they’d vowed not to. They’d made love. They’d made love again. They’d…fallen asleep talking.
“Are you okay, Ellie?” Kat asked, watching Jason scramble off the bed to pull on a pair of boxers.
“I’m fine,” she said. “David’s here and I’m busting out of this place any minute now.”
“You’re not going to the auditions?” Kat asked.
Jason tossed his bag on the bed. “Surely not?”
“No,” Ellie said and Kat shook her head to Jason’s question as Ellie continued, “I’m released to work but the doctor here doesn’t want me traveling and my regular doctor agrees. I’m supposed to limit my hours.”
“You can’t push it, Ellie,” Kat chided. “We just talked about this.”
“David got approval this morning to work here in Vegas from the production location for the live shows until we start filming. He’ll be around if Ronnie needs him, too. He says he’s happy to help if it will get me to slow down.”
“Your own personal bodyguard,” Kat said with approval. “I can see you enjoying that.”
“Don’t you know it,” Ellie agreed.
“This is all good,” Kat said. “It really is.”
“I know,” she chimed quickly. “And I do get carried away. It’s better that I’ll have David here to tie me down if needed.” She laughed and Kat heard her add, “I didn’t mean that literally, David,” before she spoke into the phone again. “I’ve told David that even if you aren’t here, now that the show is together, I won’t need to work around the clock. David’s still waiting for a call back about you and I switching places.”
“Jason talked to one of the studio executives at eight this morning,” Kat said. “He thinks it’s going to happen.”
After a few more seconds of chatter, Kat said goodbye to Ellie and ended the call. Jason gave her an inquiring look. “This is all starting to sound too good to be true,” Kat told him.
Jason zipped his bag and settled onto the bed, taking her with him. “Don’t you think we deserve ‘too good to be true’ after everything we’ve been through?”
“Yeah,” she said, running her fingers through his hair. “I do.”
“The way I see it,” he continued, the playfulness in his voice barely masking the rasp of desire in its depths. “I have an hour and thirty minutes to try my best to get enough of you to last through my Denver trip.” He brushed his mouth over hers, slid his tongue past her lips and teased her with a quick taste of masculine spice before he added, “It’s never going to be enough.”
His kiss was passionate, deep, dragging her into escape. The last thing she remembered beyond pure bliss for at least an hour and twenty-nine minutes was thinking how hard it was going to be to watch him get on that plane.
* * *
KAT’S FEELINGS WERE in knots when she and Jason walked hand in hand through the airport and stopped in front of the security area. Thankfully though, due to the private, studio-owned plane that Jason was flying on, Kat was able to make it to this point in the airport. She’d take every extra second she could get with him. They had yet to receive studio approval for Kat to fill-in for Ellie and travel with Jason.
Jason dropped his baseball hat and sunglasses in a bin to be x-rayed. Both items were used as a disguise and meant to prevent unwanted attention. He’d grumbled the explanation when she’d inquired, and made his dislike of having to hide from the press evident. I don’t mind fans, he’d said. It’s the paparazzi that drive me crazy.
Kat watched Jason put his boots and belt back on, and tuck his glasses and hat into the bag he carried.
“Jason,” she said. Anything else she might have added slid away, and they were lost in each other’s eyes. Neither one of them made any attempt to move, and Kat felt like her chest was going to explode with the swell of emotion.
“I don’t want to go,” he said, his voice low, rough with his own dose of emotion
. “I’m not going to go.”
He meant it. She saw it in his face, heard it in his voice. He was going to do something crazy, like ruin his reputation with the studio. “I don’t want you to go, but you have to.” She took her hand in his, and tugged him along. “Let’s go and get this over with so you can come home.” A large clock hanging from above a desk at one of the gates caught Kat’s attention. “You leave in ten minutes. We are really pushing it.”
“Kat,” he repeated, stopping near his gate and pulling her to face him, his hands on her shoulders. “I—”
“Sir,” the attendant said. “We’re ready to get you on board and prepare for takeoff. We have another stop on the way to Denver.”
“I’ll be right there,” Jason said.
“You have to go,” Kat urged. “They’re waiting on you and we both know this is necessary. I’m fine, Jason. It’s a few weeks that will protect your career. And in case you start thinking too hard on that plane, I don’t think you’re choosing your career over me, and I regret ever saying that to you. You’re doing this for us. I know that.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed. “I’m going to leave but I’m coming back.”
“I know,” she said, lacing her words with confidence, determined to be strong right up until the second he was on that plane and out of sight. Afterward, she was fairly certain that she was going to have her second meltdown, like the one when Marcus had shown up.
Jason kissed her, and it wasn’t some proper public peck, either. He kissed her Hollywood style, with everything he had, wrapped her in his arms, and tasted her like a starving man who hungered for her and only her.
“I love you,” he growled near her ear, and started walking away, as if he was afraid he wouldn’t if he didn’t go right then. Too quickly, he went out to the tarmac, and didn’t look back.
Kat ran to the window to watch him walk toward the plane. Her eyes prickled. She could feel the tears burning to escape and she fought them. Jason stopped at the stairs and turned to her, waving when she knew he couldn’t see her. But he knew she was there. She inhaled and she thought she was okay, but when he stepped onto that plane and disappeared again, the tears spilled down her cheeks. She backed up and sat down in a chair, burying her face in her hands to try and pull herself together.