All For Love

by Lucy Kevin

  “I’m glad to hear it. Because if today was anything to go by, I fully understand that you mean to kick my butt until I get this dance thing down. And, speaking of butts, I have to tell you that mine is killing me right now.”

  “You’ll become a much better dancer than you were today,” Paige promised him, laughing at his joke. Though he was serious, given that every muscle in his body was screaming. “I’ll make sure that you do.”

  Christian knew she was serious, too. It had been intriguing to watch her work today and to see just how much her work meant to her. She was an excellent teacher, even if things had seemed a little strained between them at times during the day.

  However, as much as he might want to pretend otherwise, his intentions for coming over tonight hadn’t been entirely about the dancing. How could they be, when he found himself so drawn to Paige whenever they were in the same room? And when he couldn’t take his eyes off of her?

  Their day together had made the attraction he felt for her only stronger. The dance studio was where Paige seemed at her most natural and confident, her every movement graceful, smooth, and elegant. Sexy, too, whether she knew it or not. She hadn’t even danced with him, but she’d been incredible all the same as she’d demonstrated how to perform each movement.

  “Have a seat,” Paige said, moving over to the DVD player.

  He was gripped by the need to simply be near her, which wouldn’t be easy if she picked a chair on the opposite corner of the room rather than the couch. On the other hand, he did have the food.

  Christian almost laughed out loud at that thought. Here he was, a TV star and yet he was relying on a bag of Chinese takeout to ensure that he could get a seat close to Paige. Fortunately, his prayers were answered when Paige did sit beside him on the sofa, reaching out to help unpack the cartons of food.

  They were both ravenous, and as they dug into the food, they talked easily. Paige’s walls, it seemed, were starting to come down.

  He couldn’t have been more pleased.

  When their conversation came around to Morgan’s career, he said, “Your sister must have taken you around a few movie sets before now.”

  “Actually, Morgan was always off the island while she was doing makeup for movies, so we didn’t ever get a chance to see any set—or her, either—for lots of years. Far too many years, actually.”

  “It’s never easy, being away from your family for work, no matter how glamorous the work looks from the outside,” he agreed. “I imagine it’s tough on Brian when Morgan is away.”

  “Fortunately, she’s able to shoot her makeover show at the new studio on her property most of the time,” Paige told him. She studied his face for a moment and added, “You must be missing your own family terribly this Christmas.”

  “I am missing them,” he said, “but at the same time, I don’t regret being here. I might not be with my own family, but it sure feels like I’ve landed in the middle of a really nice one.”

  “Grams and my sisters are always so welcoming,” Paige agreed.

  Didn’t Paige see that she was the one who made his breath come quicker from just looking at her? Couldn’t she see that she was the reason he would never regret coming here? Because if he hadn’t, he would never have met her, and even after having known her such a short while, he already knew she was everything he could ever have hoped for in a woman: talented and beautiful, patient and clever.

  Simply amazing.

  Paige put her chopsticks down to pick up the remote and click the play button to start the movie. “What’s your favorite scene?”

  Christian found himself feeling more than a little embarrassed as he confessed, “Actually, I haven’t seen the whole thing. I researched the history of the movie, of course, and I have watched some of the dance sections to get a feel for them. But I was hesitant to watch the whole thing because I was afraid that watching it might make me more inclined to outright copy Fred Astaire’s mannerisms and inflections rather than putting my own spin on the character.”

  Paige didn’t respond straight away, and Christian had the feeling that rather than immediately judging him for not having yet watched, she was actually mulling over his reasons.

  “Are you sure you’d like to watch it for the first time with me?” she finally asked.

  Christian nodded. “I am.”

  “Even though you wanted to avoid seeing it before now?”

  “There are some movies where, if I worked on the remake, it would probably make sense not to watch the film. But after working with you today, I’ve started to see that Shall We Dance probably isn’t one of them. And what better time to watch it than with an expert like you?”

  Her mouth curved up a tiny bit at the corners right before she said, “I wouldn’t call myself an expert.”

  Of course she wouldn’t. Paige was clearly the last person to ever sing her own praises. “How many times have you watched this movie?”

  Paige paused before giving him the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. One that actually stole his breath as she said, “Quite a few.” Her smile grew even bigger as she amended that to, “A few dozen, actually.”

  “I expected the number to be big, but that is seriously impressive.”

  “I know it might sound crazy,” she admitted cheerfully, “but I’m always happy to watch it again.” As the film began, she said, “The opening sequence doesn’t often get a lot of attention, but this lift is just perfect.”

  With that, they settled deeper into the couch to watch the movie.

  The styles of acting had changed a lot since Shall We Dance was filmed in the 1930s, and he could tell that Astaire had been brought up on stage rather than with a camera a few inches away capturing a close-up. The plot was pretty light, too, but was it any sillier than half the Hollywood blockbusters or romcoms being released? In fact, the deeper they got into the film, the more he realized just how delightfully whimsical and captivating the plot twists and turns were.

  “This is such a good part,” Paige said, breaking in with another bit of commentary as Astaire launched into a dance number in the engine room of the steamship, every movement seeming to coordinate with the movement of the pistons. Christian had seen fragments of the sequence before, but now that he understood the context around it, its sense of style and timing were even more impressive.

  Doing a good job in this role mattered more than ever now. Not only because he always strove to do better and better with each project, but also because it mattered so much to Paige. Christian could see the rapt attention on her face as she watched the film closely—at least when she wasn’t glancing over at him to see if he was taking it all in.

  “It looks like there are many different types of dance going on in this,” Christian ventured.

  Paige’s face lit up in a smile. “Well spotted. It was something Fred Astaire was trying to do at this stage of his career—blending tap, jazz, ballet. In fact, they had to bring in an extra ballet choreographer to help with that. These days, that blending is normal, but back then, it was something really special and unique.”

  Christian would have known just how special it was from the animated way Paige spoke about it. Throughout, she kept looking like she wanted to get up from the couch and dance along with the film.

  He felt a nice kind of camaraderie being here with her, something he hadn’t felt with another woman. It was as if the two of them were a unit, just them against…well, against all the dance steps that were to come, perhaps.

  “Can I get you something to drink—a beer or a soda?” Paige asked.

  “That would be great. Soy sauce always makes me thirsty.”

  She put the movie on pause and went into the kitchen to grab some drinks. When she came back, she had also brought in a tray of Christmas cookies. “Emily has been baking up a storm, and there are cookies and truffles and squares for days. Somebody has to eat all this stuff, and after all the calories you burned off today, a few wouldn’t hurt.”

  When they s
ettled back down on the sofa this time, they were sitting a little closer together. Close enough that he couldn’t help but feel hyperaware of her—her breathing, her concentration, even just the simple fact that she was there with him.

  Christian continued to watch the movie, with Paige providing a wonderful counterpoint to it, everything on the screen triggering some small reaction from her, whether it was drumming her fingers in time to the music or her tiny sounds of happiness as Fred Astaire delivered the key lines.

  It felt so right to simply be curled up on the sofa with her enjoying a movie that she’d seen so many times she knew it by heart. Even more than that, it felt like home. Being here on Walker Island, in this big rambling old house with Paige Walker captivating him more and more with every moment that passed, was nothing less than perfect.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dance practice went better the next day. Much better.

  “You’re doing a great job, Christian. Watching the movie must have really inspired you last night.”

  “The movie helped,” he agreed, “but I just so happen to have a great teacher, too.”

  Now that they were actually dancing together, his posture had improved, his holds were so much better, and he could sustain them for much longer. She hardly had to remind him to change or fix anything today.

  “For this next sequence, you’ll need to stay as close to me as possible.”

  Christian looked down into her eyes and smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

  When he smiled at her like that, it was hard not to get distracted and simply stare back at him like a love-struck girl. But every time her mind started to wander away from dancing, she reminded herself just how much there was for them to get through...and how little time they had.

  Today, the plan was to work through a couple of sequences from the movie. It had been a leap of faith on her part that today would go better than yesterday had—well enough for them to actually be able to dance—but fortunately it had been the right decision. Even if they were soon both covered in sweat, breathing hard from the sheer effort of trying to do everything the dance required.

  Something else was making it difficult, though: the two of them, pressed together, with Christian in his workout clothes and Paige in her leotard and tights. She had danced with many other partners, but it had never felt this intimate before. Not even, she was surprised to realize, with Patrice.

  They worked alone in the studio until it almost seemed like the outside world didn’t exist, pushing ahead even when they both were exhausted. They danced until Paige finally looked at her watch and saw that it was long past dinnertime.

  “We’ve been working really, really hard. We should probably call it a day.”

  “Do you want to get something to eat?” Christian asked. “Takeout, maybe?”

  If he hadn’t added the word takeout, Paige might not have agreed to it. Because after spending the entire day staring into his eyes as they danced—and working like crazy to keep her heart from fluttering faster from every moment she spent in his strong arms—she would have been worried that a dinner out meant more than it really did.

  Yet takeout was the magic word that meant they were still nothing more than teacher and student. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She felt that they were becoming friends.

  And friends was—and would have to be—good enough for her.

  * * *

  They ended up back at her house again, this time with seafood and a copy of Flying Down to Rio, another Fred and Ginger movie from the 30s. Emily and Grams were home, but they were both too busy wrapping presents to do more than say hello.

  “Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers look so natural together,” Christian said as they watched the two actors move effortlessly across the dance floor in the film. “It’s as if they’ve been dancing together forever.”

  He was sitting next to her on the couch, as close as he’d been the night before—although it wasn’t anywhere near as close as they’d been to one another all day. By now, she was surprised that it felt perfectly natural to have Christian so near.

  “Actually, this was the first time they ever danced together on screen,” Paige told him. “In fact, it’s the first time Ginger Rogers ever danced with a partner.”

  “The first time?” Christian looked shocked. “Amazing.”

  It occurred to Paige that there was probably a lesson here she could use. “Fred Astaire said later that when they started out together, there were a lot of things Ginger couldn’t do. She couldn’t tap, for example.”

  “But she obviously worked twice as hard with her instructor and she got better?” Christian guessed, a really cute smile on his face as he said it.

  Paige laughed. “I’m sure she did. Although what I’m trying to say is that while Ginger wasn’t the most technical partner Fred Astaire ever worked with, she was able to make it look so perfectly natural when they danced together, because she could act her way through it. She was such a great actress that she could get across the intimacy between them despite the dancing skill she might have lacked. And that’s why they ultimately ended up having such perfect chemistry together.”

  Christian watched Ginger and Fred dance on screen for a few more seconds before he turned back to Paige. “That’s what I need to focus on when I dance, isn’t it? More intimacy and all the emotions that come with it?”

  The thought of becoming more intimate with him as they danced made a flush of heat rise around her face. “I’m going to do everything I can to give you technical dance skills, but the main thing you need to remember is that the acting doesn’t stop just because the music has started. With dance, there’s nowhere you can hide. You have to put everything you are into it. You have to throw in all your passion, all your energy. When you’re dancing and you’re in the zone, people quickly see what’s there. You have the bonus of being able to take people through a range of emotions. Combine that with the skills I’m teaching you, and I think you’ll be amazing in the movie.”

  * * *

  The next day in the studio, Paige felt a new kind of intensity from him. One that felt deeply intimate and connected to her as his dance partner. They were working on one of the big numbers toward the end of the film that Christian really needed to acquire the skills for, and she decided to give almost the whole day over to it, stopping only when he started to drag.

  Maybe his fatigue was part of his newfound intensity. Or maybe it was the sheer number of steps he needed to master. The choreographer on the movie would undoubtedly do plenty of work with him, and from what Paige understood, he was going to have a separate tap instructor. Yet there were still so many dance sequences in the original movie, and there was no reason to believe that any of them would be excluded in the remake.

  Whatever it was, by the middle of the afternoon, his fatigue was hard to ignore. Truthfully, she was feeling it herself. Although she taught every day, there was a big difference between standing in front of a class giving instructions and demonstrations and working closely with someone as a dance partner. If they’d had the time, she might have called a halt for the day, but they couldn’t afford to lose any more time. And she was more than a little concerned that he still wasn’t leading the way he should.

  She’d been playing around with an idea in her head all day, one that took only a quick phone call during their water break to solidify.

  “Come on,” she told him. “We’re going on a field trip.”

  “A field trip? Where are you taking me?”

  “I was hoping you would take us, actually,” she told him with a smile. “Our destination isn’t far, but I thought it might be nice to get off our feet for a few minutes, if you wouldn’t mind driving.”

  She directed him to the location she had in mind, enjoying the look on Christian’s face once he saw the sign next to the parking lot she asked him to turn into.

  “You’re taking me to a roller-skating rink?”

  “Where else are we going to practice the parts for Let’
s Call the Whole Thing Off?” She gave him a mischievous smile. “The owners have gone to Seattle for the holidays, but their daughter said she would unlock it for me.”

  They went inside, and Karen was there to help them pick out some roller skates, the other woman’s jaw dropping when she realized who Christian was. He instantly smiled, putting Karen at ease and even agreeing to let her take a selfie with him.

  “Thanks so much. Paige, when you’re done, can you lock up here? I need to get home.”

  After Karen left, Paige looked back at Christian and said, “She clearly couldn’t wait to tell everyone about this. I suspect the news that you’re here skating is probably going to be all around the island by the time we’re done.”

  Christian just laughed. He didn’t seem to mind. “What matters is that we’re here and ready to dance.”

  That was probably a little overly optimistic. At first, they were barely able to stand up. Christian slipped as they moved out onto the rink, at which point Paige promptly fell on top of him as her feet skidded out from under her, too. Christian felt so solid—and so good—beneath her, that she tried to scramble back to her feet again to put at least a tiny bit of space between them so that she could get her breath back. Of course, she managed only to fall right back down again.

  After a few minutes, thankfully, they both managed to get to their feet and stay there! Paige had spent her life dancing, but clearly, dancing and roller-skating were two very different things. Her feet seemed to have minds of their own, wanting to go in every direction but the ones she actually wanted them to go in. She started to fall over again, grabbing for the side wall in desperation.

  Christian seemed to be having the same problems, but that didn’t stop him from having a good laugh over their clumsiness. It was fun, she realized, watching him being out of control but perfectly happy about it—and letting herself feel the same way as laughter bubbled up and out of her, too.

  “Maybe skating wasn’t such a great idea,” Paige said as she took another step and nearly skidded off her feet again. “I thought it would be a nice way to get out of the studio for a while and work on our balance, but…” She laughed. “Now I just think we should get out of these skates before we hurt ourselves!”