a whole lot more than her attraction to him in the next few months and Sam vowed he’d be by her side every step of the way.
4
SAM KELLAR WAS MEAGAN’S nemesis, proven once again by the fact that she was thinking about him rather than the on-camera contestant interviews she was supervising. She pressed her hands into her temples. She still wore her skirt, though she’d managed to trade her heels for flats, she hadn’t made time to change, but she seemed to have plenty of time to think about things she shouldn’t be thinking about. Sam and his too-blue eyes and his hard, tempting body.
She didn’t want to work with him, and she absolutely didn’t want to live with him for the duration of the show. That was too close for comfort. She knew darn good and well that if she had even a moment of weakness, Sam would take over her bed, and her life would follow.
She focused on the lounge area of the show’s private hotel floor, now newly converted into their interview set. The studio wanted drama, so she was working on giving them drama. She was the producer and mastermind of the show, and should have had a say in Sam’s involvement in the show. Still, they weren’t cancelled. Her dream of this program’s success, and these dancers’ dreams of exciting careers, were still alive. That was what counted.
Derek Rogers, the show’s young, hot host, was busy interviewing one of the last female dancers. They were finally about to wrap for the night, which meant Meagan would soon meet Sam for dinner.
Maybe she’d get the male dancers on set for interviews, instead of tomorrow as planned, and just skip dinner. And she really did need to squeeze in some footage of Ginger and DJ talking about the events of the night before. They were, after all, not only choreographing the contestants’ routines, but helping to supervise the contestants.
“What were you thinking when the fire alarm went off?” Derek asked Tabitha Ready, who at twenty-eight, was the oldest female dancer competing. Many of the other contestants looked up to her. She was a pretty brunette with loads of talent. She was also an absolute drama queen who was so paranoid about, well, everything, that she seemed better suited as a cast member of Scream than of a dance show. And she was making some of the girls act the same way.
In response to the question, Tabitha seemed to sink deeper in the leather chair she occupied, crossing her arms in front of her pink sweat jacket. “I just knew we were all going to die. We keep having these things happen on the set and I…Just thank God, Jensen was there.” Jensen being the male dancer who clearly had a crush on Tabitha. The public was going to eat this up.
Derek, looking every bit the handsome model even in his jeans and Stepping Up T-shirt, cast a discreet glance at Meagan that said he, too, believed, this footage was a ratings grabber.
“Jensen carried you out of the house, I understand,” Derek prodded, urging her to continue on this path of conversation.
“Oh yes!” she said. “It was horrible. We didn’t see fire, but we could smell smoke. We knew any second everything would just blow up.” She lowered her voice. “You know. We have a curse on the set.”
Meagan cringed every time the word curse came up, despite the studio’s explicit instructions to play it up. She’d planned for drama to unfold in the house with the dancers—in fact, that concept had been pitched with the show—so one would think a curse would excite Meagan as much as it did the studio, but it didn’t. A curse was something that would mess with the dancers’ heads and their performances. And ultimately, the dancing had to win the public’s hearts. But “the curse” had been given new life and new breath by the house fire, exciting the executives with the promise of ratings. Sure enough, every single dancer had brought it up in their interview. Tabitha, however, seemed determined to own the curse.
“We’re afraid of what will happen next,” she said. “None of us are going to sleep tonight. I don’t know how we’ll dance under such circumstances.”
The cameraman zoomed in on Derek’s deadpan look before he said, “Then you know what you should do?”
Meagan exchanged a “here it comes” look with Shayla White, the director, who was fast becoming a close friend. Hiring Derek, an ex-pro quarterback and sportscaster, for a dance show had been a risk, especially considering he’d lived up to his reputation for saying whatever came to mind. If Stepping Up was to succeed where other dance shows had failed, it meant they needed originality, and Derek was nothing if not that.
Derek continued, “Get a lucky charm like us athletes do. In my case, I’d get a pair of lucky briefs.”
“Briefs?” Tabitha asked, skeptically. “Eww.”
Derek grinned and held up his hands. “Hey, don’t tell me you haven’t got a pair of lucky underwear.”
It took a second but finally Tabitha, and everyone else on set burst into laughter. “Well, maybe I do,” she said, clearly giving it some serious thought.
Derek assured her, “At least five guys on my NFL team had ‘game day’ lucky boxers. They swore they’d screw up on the field without them. They believed those transformed them into men of steel, and so they did.” He tapped his forehead. “It’s all in your head. It’s what you believe.”
Tabitha smiled slyly. “And if I don’t wear underwear?”
If Derek caught her flirty remarks, and he was a smart guy so surely he had, he didn’t show it, nor did he miss a beat. “Socks. They’re the next best thing.” The entire crew erupted in laughter, and Meagan could just imagine the audience doing the same thing. “But really, Tabitha, whatever works for you. Just make sure that your lucky charm is something you can always have with you. Heck, I knew a guy who had to kiss his wife right before the game or he messed up every play he was in. When she didn’t travel with him, he was worthless.”
“So maybe I should kiss Jensen.” Tabitha beamed.
“Then what happens when one of you gets sent home?”
The air seemed to crackle, the silence thick. It was a brilliant moment that had evolved from a talk of curse, and shown human vulnerability that every viewer could relate to on some level. Tabitha seemed devastated. But it was short-lived. She recovered promptly, showing herself to be a pro at flirtation. “Then maybe you should be my lucky charm.”
Derek grinned and gave her his cheek, tapping it with his finger. She kissed him, and the crew all broke out in grins.
A few questions later, the interview ended. And just when Meagan thought she’d wrap the night’s shooting with a laugh rather than with the curse, Tabitha walked to the edge of the set and went tumbling forward, smack onto her face.
AT 6:45 P.M., THIRTY MINUTES before his dinner with Meagan, Sam completed his check-in at the hotel, sliding a healthy tip, compliments of the studio, into the doorman’s hand to ensure his bag was delivered to his room for him. With way too much eagerness in his step to suit him—considering Sam knew it had nothing to do with duty, and everything to do with seeing Meagan—Sam headed toward the bank of elevators, rather than the restaurant. He knew Meagan wouldn’t be there, and he had no intention of sitting around and waiting for her. Not when he’d bet money on her being intentionally late, and then claiming work as an excuse.
It was a control thing to her—her desire to have it and keep it from him. Fine by him. This was her show, and she was in charge and deserved that respect.
