“Sorry to say this, but you’re a ballet dancer, right?” He shook his head. “I’m not doing fancy ballet moves.”
“Neither am I. This is ballroom, Luc. Have you ever seen ballroom dancing?”
He shook his head. Heard her quiet “Oh dear”.
Yep. Exactly as he’d feared. He should’ve pushed the club to triple the charity donation for this to be worth his humiliation. “Look, I don’t want my hockey rep to suffer because I look like an idiot. I’ve built a career on being tough, so I want to look tough, not the wussy flappy shirt guy.”
She laughed, and he almost smiled as her amusement rippled through his chest. She had a pretty laugh, like bells or birds or something, even if it was at his expense.
At his expense. His stomach fell, and he shook his head at himself. See? He couldn’t afford to be too honest with her, as she’d just laugh at him.
“Anything else I need to be aware of?” she asked gently.
“I’m great on the ice, but sometimes I have two left feet, so you’ll probably need steel-capped boots.”
“Noted. Anything more?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know who makes the decisions about what we wear, but I really don’t want to lose my Samson strength by having my hair cut off.”
She studied him a long moment, eyeing his hair like she thought a haircut really wouldn’t be a loss. But it would be. He liked his flow, the lettuce, as some called great heads of hair. It was about the only nice quality he had, apart from his muscles, and there was no way in heaven or the other place he’d go shirtless on national TV.
“Are you a player?” she finally asked.
“What? No. Why would you say that?”
“Samson had a problem with women, and—”
“Hey, I don’t have a problem with women.”
She eyed him. “As in too many of them. Samson was a bit of a lusty burger who—”
“Wait—a what?”
“A lusty burger,” she repeated, “who had a series of women and then got played by Delilah because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.”
Wow. No tiptoeing around things with her. “I’m not like that at all.” Then it struck him. “You know about Samson?”
“I’m a Christian, okay?”
Oh. Okay.
Oh! Okay…
He snuck another look at her. She was staring at her pink nails, like she wasn’t sure what to do with him. Which made two of them. He wasn’t sure what to do with her. For despite that clause in the contract, and the knowledge that the only reason the two of them were even in this mess was because the previous celebrity and pro dancer had engaged in an affair, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe God Himself had brought them together for a different reason. That was, if she was single.
He eyed her hand. Nope. No ring. She hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend or anything. Would it—could it—be possible? Like, after the five weeks or whatever this took? Enough so she could earn her money and he could escape back into pre-season training. He rubbed a hand over his forehead. What the heck was he doing, thinking like this? He wasn’t looking for a woman to distract him. He needed to focus. Do this dumb dance thing, then get back to manly stuff like hockey, leading Winnipeg to the postseason, and one day, Lord Stanley’s Cup.
She glanced up at him, her blue eyes piercing, then her expression softened. “Hey, you don’t need to worry.”
“I’m not worried,” he lied. Now she’d talked up her teaching, he wasn’t so worried about his dancing—a man could only go up from having rock-bottom skills, right? But maybe he was just a smidge concerned about protecting his heart.
“You’ll be fine. I promise.”
He nodded. He sure hoped so. God, You better help me out here.
CHAPTER 4
Bailey was wrong. Luc was not fine. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but it sure wasn’t this. The guy hadn’t been kidding. He was as stiff as a board, the sample dance moves they were supposed to do for the Dance Off in-studio film crew and photographers revealing the man likely hadn’t wiggled his hips for maybe two decades.
The assistant producer groaned. “Come on. Luc, can you try one more time?”
Bailey stifled a giggle at the expression on the bear man’s face, exactly like Mikey, the four-year-old she’d been teaching hip-hop, when he couldn’t remember a step.
She stepped forward, grabbed Luc’s hand. He twitched, like her touch was hot. “How about we do this together?” she suggested.
“It’s supposed to be just him,” the producer complained.
“And once he’s relaxed a little more, then he’ll be able to do it, okay?”
She lifted Luc’s hand—his paw, really, because the man was like a bear—and swiveled her hips as she held up his arm and danced and spun beneath it.
He stared at her, just like he had since she’d sashayed from the changerooms in her little silver fringed outfit. She was pretty sure his gulp would’ve been heard on the cameras. “Is that what you’re wearing?” he’d murmured.
“Yep.” She’d smiled, loving the way the lights hit the silver and made the tassels glimmer and sparkle. She sure wasn’t wearing traditional ballet leotards anymore. This outfit wasn’t as formfitting as a leotard, but wasn’t tame by any means. Good thing her dad wasn’t here. He’d be having kittens.
“Come on.” She spun into his chest, his silver jacket and black T-shirt-covered, very broad chest, and whispered, “You need to look alive now, and not like a stunned fish.”
