Valentine's Day. Nicola MarshЧитать онлайн книгу.
the salsa start position. But the stance they were supposed to assume was the vertical version of the one they’d found themselves in a few nights ago: lying there in the long grass as the sun extinguished in the ocean.
A little bit too familiar.
A little bit too real.
She hovered indecisively. And again, this was his mess to sort out. He was the one who’d failed to control his wandering thoughts and hands that night. He was the one who’d lacked discipline. Folded to his barely acknowledged need for human contact.
He stepped closer to her, kept his body as formal and stiff as he could. Raised his hands. ‘Georgia...?’
Her smile was tight, but she stepped into his hold carefully, and stood—just as stiff, just as formal—close to his body. As the music began he did his best not to brush against her unless essential—out of respect for her and a general aversion to self-torture—and they stepped as they’d been taught, though nowhere near as fluid as it had been in the past.
It was as clunky as them, together, now.
But it was functional.
The instructor drifted around correcting posture, demonstrating steps, voicing words of encouragement, but when he got to the two of them he took one look at their total disconnect, his lips pursed and he said in his thick accent, ‘Not every day is magic. Sometimes this happens. You will have the magic again next week.’
No. There would be no magic next week. There would be no salsa next week. And the guilt in Georgia’s eyes confirmed exactly what he’d suspected. This sudden change to belly dancing was about him.
‘I could have just stopped coming,’ he gritted as she moved close enough to hear his murmur.
She drifted away again. But he knew the steps would bring her right back. He tried to read her face and see if she was going to feign innocence or not.
‘I wanted something that didn’t force us to dance together,’ she breathed, her total honesty pleasing him on some deep level. A level deep beneath the one where he hated what she was suggesting. ‘The only other solo option was pole dancing. Belly dancing seemed like a decent compromise.’
And suddenly his mind was filled with poles and Georgia and seedy, darkened venues. He forced his focus back onto the key issue.
‘What about the segment?’
‘You’ve got more than enough for a salsa segment. In fact, why do you have so much? You’ll never use all of that in a two-minute piece.’
Prime-time air was too expensive to dedicate more than two minutes a month to the Year of Georgia. So why had he spent all that time recording everyone else in the session as well? ‘The laws of documentary-making,’ he hedged. ‘Get ten times more than you think you’ll need.’
‘This isn’t a documentary,’ she reminded him, her breath coming faster with the dancing. ‘It’s a stupid commercial promotion.’
Stupid. Nice.
But he was too distracted remembering the last time she’d been this breathless to argue.
He yanked her towards him as the funky music crescendoed. As usual the whole room was slightly out of synch so what was supposed to be a passionate crash of body against body always looked like a vaguely geriatric Mexican wave.
She pressed against his chest, staring up at him, angry colour staining her cheeks. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’
‘About what?’
‘My reluctance to have a stranger come along with me. You can go back to your paperwork and give me the work-experience kid as far as I’m concerned.’
‘You think our schedules are that elastic? That I can just make a change like that with no warning? Disrupt everyone’s plans every time you change your mind?’
‘It’s called dynamism, Zander,’ she gritted. ‘Maybe your station could use some.’
OK, now she was just picking a fight.
He stopped when he should have twirled her into open position. She stumbled at his misstep. Then he curled his hand around hers and hauled her back towards the door. A few eyes followed them, including the speculative ones of the instructor.
‘Next week!’ he shouted at their backs. ‘Magic!’
She shook free as soon as they hit the cool June air. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What’s going on, Georgia?’
‘Nothing’s going on. I just realised that I needed to be true to myself or this whole thing is a crock.’
‘Which part is being true to yourself? The part where you start switching all our plans around or the part where you’ll do just about anything not to get too close to me.’
‘Aberration,’ she parroted back to him. ‘That was your word, Zander. You wanted things back on a professional footing.’
‘Not at the expense of any civility at all between us.’
Her breath hissed out of her. ‘The changes I’m making are trying to keep things civil. So they don’t end up like this every night.’
Boundaries. She was stacking them up and he kept knocking them down. Why? He should be thanking her. He took two deep, long breaths. ‘We just kissed, Georgia. Heat of the moment, influence of the sunset, romance of the wall. Whatever you want to call it.’
He had to call it something, otherwise he was just a jerk for hitting on her while she was still vulnerable from her breakup with Bradford.
‘Who are you trying to convince, Zander? Me or yourself?’
That was a damned fine question. ‘It doesn’t have to change anything. We just agree to let it go.’
‘Just like that?’
Sure. He was a master at denial. ‘I have a job to do and you have money to spend. Let’s just focus on that.’
‘You don’t object to any of the changes?’
‘I don’t care what you do with the money, I just want you to be—’ he caught himself a half-breath before saying happy ‘—comfortable with it.’
‘I’m hoping I’ll be more comfortable this way. Forcing myself to do things way outside of my usual interests was probably a mistake. I was trying to be someone I’m not.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I thought it was what was expected. What your listeners would expect. What you wanted.’
Her eyes flicked away and he struggled with the deep satisfaction that she’d done any of it for him. ‘Listeners are the first to spot falsity on air. If it’s not of interest to you it’s going to show in the segments.’
She nodded. ‘Well, hopefully we’ve taken care of that now.’
We. He liked her accidental use of the collective. For the same reason he liked coming along to these crazy classes even though he had much more efficient things to be doing with that time. It legitimised his being with Georgia. He could play at relationships without actually being in one. Enjoy her company without the commitment. She was generous with her wonder and excitement doing new things and he could live off that for a whole week back in the soul-destroying environment of the station.
If he spaced it out right.
Kisses... Those he could live off for a year.
She chewed her lip. ‘Should we go back in?’
Her reasons for changing classes were valid. The more he had to put his hands on her, the harder it was going to be taking them off. ‘No. Let’s just call it a night.’
‘Sure.’
Courteous but cool. It bothered him enough to glance