Taming the VIP Playboy / Promoted To Wife?

His low tone was meant only for her ears and she responded to it. She counted the beat so he’d hear it as loudly as she did inside of her head and then she started to move.

Nate, unlike T.J., moved with an innate grace and natural ability that made dancing with him … well, not work. He put his hands in the proper position for the dance. One hand on her hips and the other holding her hand, his eyes met hers and the other people in the room faded away. In that one moment, Nate wasn’t her boss or some local celebrity.

He was her partner, her man, and she let the dance take over. Their gazes met and held as they danced. Nate understood sensuality, and in his arms she realized that she was more than the dance instructor.

The salsa was about heat and sex. It was a seduction, a promise of the evening to come. She felt the barriers she’d been trying to put into place to keep him back start to shake and then fall.

This man wasn’t going to let her keep him away if he wanted to be closer. And as the music faded and they stopped moving, she knew he did want to be near to her, or at least she knew that she wanted to be near to him. She wanted to feel his hands on her hips again. To feel his big hand holding hers and watch his dark obsidian eyes as they moved together to the music.

Nate didn’t know why he felt so possessive toward Jen. She was nothing more than a pretty face and an employee but when she’d touched T.J., he’d seen red. And he didn’t like that.

Once he held her in his arms, he knew what the problem was. He wanted her. And wanting her was complicating his rather simple plans for an enjoyable evening. But dancing together had also shown him that she was interested in him, too. She watched him, her gaze heated under his as they moved and when the music stopped, he started to pull her to a corner of the room.

But the applause stopped him and Jen bit her lower lip as she stepped back.

“That is what we need to see from everyone,” she said. “I’m going to observe you all dancing and then we will be ready for our big debut.”

“I don’t think I’m going to look like that,” T.J. said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nate said. “I’ll take your place. Unless you have an objection, Ms. Miller.”

Jen flushed and shook her head. “You are a very good partner, Mr. Stern.”

“Call me Nate,” he said.

She nodded. She turned her attention back to the class.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had something going with her?” T.J. asked.

“I don’t. That was just a dance.”

“That was sex on a cracker, man. That was so much more than a dance,” T.J. said. “I guess there is no chance for me.”

Nate shrugged. It was a connection, and one that he didn’t feel all the time, but he knew it wasn’t rare. It was just lust. Tonight he was on the prowl. Ms. Miller was attractive and there was something about her that made him curious. Maybe it was her mouth with the full lower lip that he knew would feel right under his. Or her nipped-in waist and long lean dancer’s body that he sensed would feel right in his arms.

Hell, he already knew that it felt right here. That she felt right when she moved with him. He wanted to explore it further but he was aware that he was her boss and long-term relationships weren’t his thing.

Which could make working together in the future a little uncomfortable.

“What are you thinking, man?”

“That women are complicated.”

T.J. laughed. “Understatement of the year. I don’t think I’m ever going to figure them out.”

“The dances?” Jen said coming over to the two of them. “You should probably stop chatting if you want to master them.”

“Sorry,” T.J. said. “I think I’m a lost cause.”

“I’m not ready to give up on you yet. Maybe Nate can help you with the footwork. He seems to know his way around the dance floor.”

“I think I’d rather practice with a beautiful woman than with this retired pitcher.”

“Ditto,” Nate said.

“Well, I have other students who need my attention as well. And I’m not getting through to you,” she said. “Nate, why do you think that is? “

He realized she was being sincere. She wanted to help T.J. and that was the first time he realized that the dance lessons were important to her. He’d been too busy looking at her body and watching her sensual moves to pay attention earlier.

“I’m not sure. T.J. is used to using his body as a blunt instrument and dancing is more subtle, isn’t it?” “Yes, I think you’re right. How about a line dance?”

T.J. groaned. “No. My sisters have tried rather unsuccessfully to get me to Electric Slide with them.”

She laughed. “Does liquor help? Some people can’t let go of their preconception that others are watching them dance until they have a few drinks.”

“Not even a keg of beer could relax me,” T.J. said. “But I appreciate your trying.”

“It’s my job.”

“And you are very good at it,” T.J. said. “I’d put a good word in with your boss but I think he already knows how good you are.”

Jen glanced over at him. “Does he?”

Nate nodded. “You are very good.”

He realized she was flirting with him just a little and he silenced the voice in the back of his head that had said she was off-limits. Her interest was all the permission he needed to pursue her.

She went back to the front of the classroom and told everyone to take a five-minute break. Then they’d practice the dance they were going to do to open the show one more time.

Nate followed Jen out of the room. She stopped in the hallway when she realized he was behind her.

“I’m sorry that T.J. isn’t getting the dance.”

“That’s fine. You’ve gone above and beyond trying to teach him.”

She nodded. “I’m not sure that you and I should dance together.”

“Why not?” he asked, stepping closer to her.

She wrapped one arm around her waist and tipped her head to the side. The high ponytail that held up her pretty brown hair brushed against her shoulder. He reached out to touch the end of it. Her hair was soft.

“That’s why,” she said. “I’m starting to forget you are my boss, Nate. And I like this job.”

“Dancing with me isn’t going to compromise your job,” he said. “Luna Azul doesn’t have a fraternization policy.”

She wrinkled her brow. “I know that. But if something …”

“What?”

“It would be awkward and I really like this job,” she said, then turned and walked away. And he let her leave realizing that she was concerned and that he had no idea who she was beyond a pretty girl that he was attracted to.

Jen wanted to just dance into the night with Nate. To pretend that her actions would have no consequences and that she could give in to the powerful attraction and that everything would be fine.

But she wasn’t the young girl she’d once been. And she’d paid the price for making a bad decision based on her desires before. She wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

It didn’t matter how nice he’d felt when he’d held her in his arms. Or how right they’d fit together as they danced. It didn’t matter.

But it did. She was always looking for a man who made her feel the way that Nate had when they’d danced together. It wasn’t just the dancing but how he’d kept her gaze and how they’d just instinctively found the rhythm of each other. That kind of dancing was rare and she wanted to do more than just salsa with him.

She wanted to pull him close while the soul-sex sounds of Santana played in the background. Stop it.

She needed this job. This was the new Jen Miller. No longer a creature who was ruled by what felt good or right, she now followed the rules. Put family first and was a good girl.

She had to remember that. Marcia had given her a place to stay when she’d needed it and she had promised her sister that she’d changed. That she’d embrace … well, being someone new.

Marcia had always thought that Jen was spoiled and to be honest, she was. She’d had talent from the age of eight. She’d been a dance prodigy and everyone had expected great things from her. And for Jen, those things had come easily.

Crashing at age twenty-six hadn’t been in her plans and leaving the competitive dance world behind hadn’t been, either. If she wanted to dance—and let’s face it, she didn’t know how to do anything else—then she needed to keep this job.

And that meant staying away from Nate Stern.

“You okay?” Alison asked, joining her in the hallway.

“Yes. I’m just trying to catch my breath before we go on.”

“You and Nate …”

“I know. We have dance chemistry.” “In spades. I think you should capitalize on it,” Alison said.

Sure, it was easy for her to say. She didn’t have to go out there and dance a sensual dance with a man who was all wrong for her.

“How?”

“Have him come back every night.”

“I doubt he has time for that. He’s a busy man,” Jen said. “Are you ready?”

“I am. Are you going to hang around and wait for XSU to perform?”

“Probably. You?”

“Yes. My boyfriend is meeting me here.”

“How’s it going with him—Richard, right?”

She nodded. “Pretty good. It’s not a forever thing, but we have fun together.”

Jen wanted that. Some guys she could have fun with and not lose her heart to. But she’d never been able to do it. Maybe it was simply the way she was wired but she didn’t do casual. That’s why Nate worried her.

If she could be like Alison and just have fun with him … why couldn’t she?

She was starting over—why not start over with her attitude toward men? Why not have some fun?

“How do you keep from caring too much?” Jen asked.

Alison shrugged. “He’s not the one so it’s just fun. I don’t think about anything except having a good time with him. If he’s too busy to make it to something I’m doing, I call someone else.”

Jen didn’t know if she could do that. She wanted to.

“Why?”

“I … I wish I could be like that.”

“You don’t even date,” Alison said. “We’ve known each other for eighteen months now and you haven’t met a guy for coffee.”

“I know. I’m just not into the casual scene but maybe I should be. I mean, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone.”

Alison smiled. “Want to come and hang with Richard and me tonight?”

Jen shook her head, then realized that she needed to do something different. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Good. Richard always has his posse with him and there are at least two guys I know who will be interested in you.”

She swallowed. “What if I can’t do it?”

“Then it’s no biggie. They aren’t exactly looking for a commitment.”

She reentered the rehearsal room. Nate was standing off to one side, talking on his cell phone and she stared at him. And it hit her.

She didn’t want to just learn how to lighten up and have fun with any friend of Richard’s. She wanted to do it with Nate. He was the only reason why she was even considering changing her ways.

She wanted to spend more time with him but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Nate wasn’t a long-term dating kind of guy. He always had a new woman on his arm and he was always in the papers. He was an arm-candy kind of guy and she’d never been an arm-candy kind of girl.

Wanting to be with him was understandable. He was hot and flirty. He made dancing feel the way she wanted it to. And he had the kind of dark eyes that she could lose herself in. But that didn’t mean that she should pursue this any further than on the dance floor.

Hell, for all she knew he didn’t want her for anything other than publicity for the club. Shaking her head, she put on “Mambo No. 5” and got the class ready to conga out into the crowd as she heard Manuel, the deejay for the open-air room, start warming them up.

“Everyone get ready.”

“I know I am,” Nate said. She felt his hands on her hips and she stumbled over her first step. She stumbled! That never happened.

But Nate caught her, and his hands on her hips as she led the way into the main room were all she thought of. She knew whether it was wise or not she wasn’t going to deny herself the chance to get to know Nate better.

Because he was exactly her kind of man.

Three

Nate glanced around the crowded balcony club area and spotted just enough A-listers to make the party interesting. Leaning forward, he whispered in Jen’s ear.

“That’s Hutch Damien over there. Let’s get him in this conga line.”

“I don’t know him.”

“I do. Head over that way,” Nate said.

He directed Jen as the line snaked through the tables. She had no microphone on, the deejay did all the talking in this club getting patrons on their feet. She left the conga line and approached the velvet ropes.

“Wanna dance?” she asked in that flirty way of hers.

“I never turn a pretty lady down,” Hutch said with a grin. He hopped up and Nate moved back in the conga line to make room for him. The music swelled and Jen snaked through the room gathering up many of the people who all wanted to say they danced with Hutch Damien.

Hutch was a bona fide Hollywood superstar who’d started his career as a teenage rapper, but not with that hard-edged gangster rap—more of a sophisticated and fun sound that had him climbing the pop charts. He had movie-star good looks that he capitalized on to make films that people loved. And he was a genial guy.

Nate and he went way back to before his playing days when they’d both been rich boys at prep school. Since that image didn’t jibe with Hutch’s public persona of a rapper who made good, they seldom mentioned that fact to anyone.

Jen led them into the middle of the dance floor and then moved off to the side as the music ended and the deejay played “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira.

Nate left T.J. and Hutch on the dance floor as a group of women came up to dance with them and probably grab a picture or two on their cell phones.

Jen was nowhere to be seen forty-five minutes later. He sent a message to Cam checking in to see if there was anything he needed from him. Then he tweeted about the club, talking up Hutch and T.J. on the dance floor.

He pocketed his phone and sought out his friends in the VIP section. He quickly found Hutch and T.J. and sat down with them. But Nate couldn’t stay up here all night; he needed to make sure that there were celebrities throughout the club.

Nighttime was his busiest time but he loved it.

“Where you going?” Hutch asked him when he got up.

“We have a band performing downstairs.”

“Not until ten,” Hutch said, glancing pointedly at his watch.

Nate grinned sheepishly at his friend.

“There’s a girl …” T.J. said.

“There’s always a girl for our Nate.”

“Yes, there is always a girl. I think you’ll like her.”

“So she’s for me?”

“No,” Nate said. “She’s mine.”

“Fair enough, who is she?” Hutch asked.

T.J. took a sip of his rum and Coke and leaned over the edge of the table, his eyes skimming the dance floor. Jen was in the middle doing a flamenco dance. “There she is. The dark-haired one dressed in red.”

“Nice,” Hutch said. “She works here?”

“Yes,” Nate said, leaning back against the padding of the banquette. “Dance teacher.”

“What’s her name?” Hutch asked.

“Jen,” Nate said.

The fact that he was going to bring her up here said more than he wanted it to. His friends understood that he rarely invited someone who wasn’t a part of their group to join them. They were the same way. But Jen was different.

“I like her,” T.J. said. “She’s funny and knows how to move her body. And this one got jealous when she touched me.”

“I am not jealous of you,” Nate said.

That was one thing he’d never been. Even when he had been injured and had to quit playing ball he’d never envied those who still played. He didn’t waste time dreaming about what might have been. He lived his life to the fullest and if that sometimes meant he had to course correct then he did it.

“I know, man, just joshing with you. Go get your girl before she disappears,” T.J. said.

Nate glanced back at the dance floor. Sure enough, Jen and her assistant Alison were taking bows and leaving the club. For the night, he knew.

Nate stood up and walked through throngs of people in the club. He stopped to sign autographs for Yankees fans and posed for pictures with scantily clad women. He kept his smile in place even though he was impatient and wanted to get to Jen.

Cam texted him that there was some kind of problem with the guest list and Nate knew he needed to get down and take care of it, but he was afraid to miss Jen.

Afraid?

He shook his head and began making his way to the front desk instead of waiting for her. He walked down the grand staircase and looked at all the people crowding the dance floor and tried to take some satisfaction from it. This was his life. Luna Azul—the blue moon. Which had been the name of their father’s boat when they’d been growing up.

They spent long lazy summer days on that yacht, just his dad and his brothers. Away from their shrew mother’s demanding voice. Away from the shore where everyone wanted a piece of Jackson Stern, the PGA golf phenom. Away from the real world on the ocean where they could just be themselves.

And Nate had thought naming the club after that childhood oasis had been a stroke of genius, but then Cam was good about doing those kinds of things. Finding a connection between the past and the present.

He got to the VIP desk just as he caught a whiff of a familiar flowery scent. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Jen standing there.

“Sorry about this. I was told my sister and her friend would be able to get in tonight if I left their names here.”

“Of course they can,” he said, realizing that this was fate. Jen and he were destined to spend this night together.

Jen had been trying to avoid Nate. Having his hands on her hips during the conga had made her too aware of him. And she knew that she was on the verge of doing something stupid once again so, of course, there’d be a problem with Marcia and her friend getting into the club tonight. And it seemed fitting that Nate would be the one man they’d call to fix it.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again.

“It’s not a problem,” Nate said. He turned to Marcia and smiled at her. “I’m Nate Stern.”

“Marcia Miller, and this is my friend Courtney.”

“Pleasure, ladies. Give me a few minutes and I will get this straightened out,” he said.

He walked back over to the VIP desk and Jen wanted to disappear now while she still could. This was embarrassing. She didn’t want to bother him.

“Is this okay?” Marcia asked.

“Yes, it’s fine. Nate will take care of it.”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble,” Courtney said.

“I won’t,” Jen said. She hoped she was right. The club policy was that two comp tickets a month were issued to the employees and she hadn’t ever used hers. So she knew that she was technically in the right.

“It’s fine,” she said again.

Marcia reached over and rubbed her arm. “Nate Stern? Is he your boss?”

“Sort of. You know who Nate is, Marcia, don’t pretend you don’t.”

“I do. It’s odd that he seems to be handling operational things. I thought he was a playboy.”

Jen shrugged. “That’s his image and it works for the club but he’s doesn’t strike me as someone who’s just loafing around waiting for a free ride.”

“That’s reassuring,” Marcia said.

“I know it is.”

“How do you know him?” Courtney asked.

“He was in my dance class tonight … one of his friends had signed up and I guess he tagged along to make sure it went smoothly.”

“Has he done that before?” Marcia asked.

“No and I’ve had bigger celebs than T. J. Martinez in the class.”

“You had T.J.—”

“Yes, stop drooling, Courtney.”

“Ha. I’m not drooling, but he’s hot. You have the best job.”

“You’re just saying that because all you do is Excel spreadsheets all day.”

“Very true,” Courtney said. “He’s coming back.”

Jen glanced over her shoulder to see Nate walking toward them. He held up two tickets, which he handed to Courtney and Marcia. “Have fun, ladies.”

“We will. Thank you, Mr. Stern,” Marcia said.

“Call me Nate. And you should thank your sister. There was just a mix-up with the list you were on,” he said.

“Thanks, Jen,” Marcia said. “Are you coming with us?”

She nodded.

“Can I have a word before you go in?” Nate asked.

“I will meet you both inside in a few minutes,” she said to Marcia and Courtney.

As they left, she turned to Nate. “What’s up?”

“Do you have plans for this evening?”

She wrinkled her brow. “I’m meeting my sister and her friend.”

“I guess that sounded stupid,” he said.

“Just a little bit. Why did you ask?”

“I want you to join me.”

“Why?” she asked.

“I think you would be fun to hang with.”

She tipped her head to the side to study him. She wanted to say yes and thought about what Alison had said earlier about just having fun. She couldn’t ask for someone who knew how to party better than Nate.

“Okay.”

“Wow, did you really have to think on it?” “Yes,” she said. “I’m not … I don’t make snap decisions.”

“I’ll remember that. Do you need to check in with your sister?”

“Yes. Why don’t you come and hang with us for a little while?”

“That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“What did you have in mind?” she asked. She had no idea why she’d agreed to this and she might be in over her head. She should have eased herself back into the dating scene with one of Courtney’s financial analyst friends or someone that worked at her sister’s law office instead of jumping straight from stay at home every night to Nate Stern.

“You and me burning up the dance floor.”

She looked up at him. “I’m not your kind of girl, you know that, right?”

“No, I don’t. I think you and I are going to get along very well.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said under her breath. But in for a penny in for a pound, she thought. She wanted this night and this man so she was going to go for it.

“Come on, Nate. See if you can keep up.”

He laughed a full robust laugh. It made her smile just to hear it. He was that kind of guy. The kind that knew how to enjoy life, and she realized she needed someone like that. She needed to learn how to go with the flow.

He took her hand in his big one and led the way into the club, over to where Marcia and Courtney waited. She tried to tell herself that she was in control of this but she had the feeling that Nate was and she wasn’t sure what the outcome would be.

Marcia and Courtney left at midnight but Nate wasn’t ready to let Jen go yet.

“Stay,” he said when they were in the lobby under the beautiful Chihuly glass sculpture depicting the night sky.

“I’m not sure that is wise,” she said. “I have to work tomorrow.”

“Not until the evening. Stay and play with me, Jen,” he said.

“I … okay, why not? What will we do now?”

“There’s an after-party for the band. It’s up in your court—the rooftop club.”

“Okay. But I can’t stay past two,” she said.

“I won’t hold it against you if you change your mind.”

“Are you really that confident of yourself?” she asked.

“Of course. I know that you are enjoying yourself and your sister told me that you don’t have enough fun.” “She said that?”

“Yes.”

“What else did she say?”

“That you were her little sister and she’d hurt me if I hurt you.”

Jen flushed. “She’s just overprotective. Our mom worked a lot when we were growing up and Marcia was the one who always had to watch me.”

“Some habits never die,” Nate said. “It’s the same with Cam and me.”