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She looked awkward. ‘You’ve probably worked out already that I’m a bit clumsy.’
Yes, and part of him found it endearing. But being soft on her wouldn’t get the job done. He pushed the thought away. ‘Do you sing or play an instrument?’
‘No.’
Well, it didn’t necessarily mean that she wasn’t musical. Maybe she just hadn’t had the opportunity to learn to play something. ‘OK.’ He remembered what she’d said the previous day. ‘Do you want a coffee before we start?’
She shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I’m already caffeined up.’
He’d just bet she was worrying about spilling her drink. And that smile had turned a little too bright again. He ought to be nice and reassure her. But he’d done his fair share of helping lame ducks in the past, and look where that had got him. Divorced and having to build up his life again from ground zero. He didn’t need any more disruption.
Particularly as he couldn’t deny that he found Polly attractive. Those wide eyes. That perfect rosebud mouth.
Not good. He needed to keep this strictly professional. This was work. He took his iPod from his pocket. ‘Right, let’s start with the basics. I’m going to play you snippets from a few songs, and I want you to tell me if you can hear the beat of the music in each one. Tap it out on your knee or the table, or whatever makes you comfortable. And try to emphasise the strong beat in the bar.’
‘The strong beat?’ She looked mystified.
He was really going to have his work cut out here. ‘The first beat of the bar is the strongest and you’ll hear that more easily than anything else. Don’t worry about the introduction. Just tap your finger when you feel you can hear a strong beat, and count from that until the next strong beat. You’ll hear it as one-two-three, or one-two-three-four.’
‘OK.’
He flicked into the first track, a waltz he’d deliberately chosen to have a clear triple-time beat. When Polly stumbled over tapping out the rhythm and was clearly cross with herself for not being able to do it, he tapped it out for her. ‘Can you hear it now?’ he asked.
‘Sorry,’ she said with a grimace. ‘Obviously I’m tone-deaf as well as clumsy.’
Yeah. For a moment, Liam wished he’d been paired with the pop singer. At least she would’ve been able to grasp the basics. Still, he’d been partnered with Polly and he had to make the best of it. ‘Try and listen to as much different music as you can, listen to the beat and practise.’
‘Right.’
So far, so bad. He stifled a sigh. ‘Ballroom dancing is just following a set pattern of steps and matching them to the music. Let’s start with a basic forward and reverse.’
‘We’re going to dance right now?’ She looked horrified.
Just for a second, Liam found himself wanting to reassure her. Polly was very close to getting under his skin. Which rattled him to the point where he found himself being snippy with her, to stop his thoughts going any further in that direction. ‘Did you think we’d wait until the morning of the show before we started practising?’
Her face went a dull red. ‘No.’ She glanced at the sprung wood floor. ‘Do I need to take my shoes off?’
‘No.’ He looked at her flat shoes. ‘But if you have some shoes with a slight heel that you can bring with you, next time, you’ll find it easier on your calves and ankles.’
‘Do I need to wear a skirt?’
‘As long as it doesn’t restrict your movements, you can wear anything you like.’
Although she’d worked in TV for long enough to know that most people worked hard to maintain an image for the screen, Polly was still disappointed to realise that Liam Flynn wasn’t the sweet, smiling guy he’d always seemed on the show. He was clearly trying to suppress his impatience—OK, so her clumsiness would drive anyone crazy—but he hadn’t even tried to put her at ease.
Well, she’d just have to make the best of this. Even if training turned out to be some nightmare boot camp, she needed to stay on the show. She wanted her perfect life back. And Ballroom Glitz was the best way to get it.
She gave him her brightest smile. ‘So how much time do you think we’ll need for training?’
‘We’ll do four hours today, maybe more tomorrow. Let’s see how it goes. Though we’ll avoid the evenings. I don’t want to cause problems with your partner.’
So he hadn’t been that fully briefed about her, then—and he definitely hadn’t read the gossip rags, or he’d know that Harry had called off the wedding last weekend. Celebrity Life had run a centre spread the previous Thursday entitled ‘Poor Polly’, showing her looking a wreck and Grace looking utterly stunning.
Well, she wasn’t going to bring up the subject of her wedding-that-wasn’t. She didn’t want Liam’s pity. This was her new life, and she wasn’t letting any of her old life spill into this one and get in the way. ‘I’m single.’ She hadn’t cried about the break-up yet and she wasn’t going to start now. She lifted her chin and gave him another brilliant smile. ‘So it isn’t a problem.’
‘Good. We’ll start with the frame. If you watched the show before, you might’ve heard the judges talk about the “frame”.’
‘Yes.’
‘The frame is what helps me lead you round the dance floor. It means our movements are synchronised and in time.’ He stood in front of her, both arms bent at the elbow and resting against her sides.
Her pulse kicked up a notch at the contact. Unexpected, and scary at the same time; she hadn’t even reacted physically like this to Harry, and she’d been going to marry him.
Nerves. It had to be nerves, she told herself, and her brain was so scrambled that it was misinterpreting her reactions. This wasn’t attraction. It couldn’t be. She didn’t even like the man.
‘With your left hand, you’re going to make a vee with your thumb and middle finger,’ he said, ‘and you’re going to rest that on the vee in my muscles.’
It was suddenly hard to breathe. She was up close and personal with Liam Flynn. On TV, he was gorgeous. In the flesh, he was really something. She’d just have to remember that his charm was only for the cameras. And charm wasn’t something she trusted any more. Not after the way Harry had let her down.
‘Start at my elbow and push your hand up until you find the vee,’ Liam instructed.
And now she was touching him. Running her fingers over his bare skin, because he was wearing a vest-type T-shirt. And every nerve in her body felt as if it had just sat up and begged.
Oh, help. Looking at and appreciating a fine male form was perfectly acceptable—expected, even, in her world—but getting this warm, sensual coil of desire in her belly … That was scary. Not what she needed or wanted right now.
And it made her cross with herself. She was being pathetic and needy, on the rebound and desperate for some affection from anyone who was in the slightest bit kind to her—and Liam hadn’t exactly been kind. He hadn’t even so much as smiled at her.
‘I’ve found the vee,’ she said.
‘Now lift your third and index fingers up as if they’re a butterfly’s wings,’ he said.
She was all too aware of the narrow band of white on her left ring finger, but he made no comment.
‘Now, your right hand.’ He moved his left arm, pivoting from the elbow, so that his palm was facing her and his thumb was lifted. ‘Sometimes you see people dancing with their fingers laced together. It doesn’t work in ballroom, because when you want to do a turn you’ll end up in a tangle if your fingers are linked. So instead you rest your fingers over mine, and curve your thumb round mine, so you can turn your hand in mine when you need to.’ He talked her through the hold.
He really hadn’t been prepared for the touch of her skin against his. How it would make him feel. That it would make him want to slip out of the ballroom hold and tangle his fingers properly with hers.
This was supposed to be work. He really shouldn’t be letting himself get so distracted by her. Attracted by her.
Annoyance at his reaction to her made him sharp. ‘And that’s it.’
Except now she had to move her feet. Which might be a problem.
‘OK. Now the feet.’ He dropped her hands. ‘One small step back with your right foot.’ He blew out a breath as she took a step back with her left foot. ‘Your right foot, Polly.’
‘Is it any wonder I can’t tell my right from my left, when you’re glaring at me like that?’ She shook her head. ‘I thought you’d be different.’
He frowned. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Maybe I’ve been spoiled, because the boys on Monday Mash-up are the same offscreen as they are onscreen. But you’re not. I used to watch Ballroom Glitz and you were nice. Supportive.’
Liam lifted his chin. ‘I am being supportive.’
‘Right,’ she scoffed. ‘You haven’t said a single encouraging word to me.’
‘What do you want me to do? Tell you how marvellous you are while you’re doing something wrong? That’s not going to help you improve, is it?’
‘No, but it wouldn’t kill you to smile.’
‘Says the woman who smiles all the time and pretends everything’s perfect.’
It wasn’t pretend. If she tried hard enough, it became real. ‘Haven’t you ever heard the saying, “smile and the world smiles with you”?’
‘It’s fake.’
‘Fake it until you make it,’ Polly said. ‘Don’t knock it. It works.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘I need you to concentrate on learning these steps. I assume you actually want to stay in the competition?’
‘I can’t afford not to,’ she admitted.
‘Then concentrate, Polly. Right foot back.’
She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘The papers said you were planning to start master-classes on dancing, for actors and what have you.’
He frowned again. ‘Yes.’
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ she said. ‘Because, the way you are with people, they won’t want to come back for a second less on.’
‘Or maybe they’ll be professional and concentrate their energies on learning the steps instead of grinning inanely.’
She could walk out of that door, right now.
But the show was her best chance of finding another job and getting her life back to normal. Back to perfect. So walking out wasn’t a real option.
She gritted her teeth. ‘Just in case it hasn’t occurred to you, I know I’m massively clumsy. I’m scared I’m going to make a mess of this. And your attitude isn’t helping. Here’s the deal. You try to be less abrasive, and I’ll try harder to do what you tell me and get it right.’
Liam hadn’t expected Little Miss Sweetness-and-Light to have that much of a backbone.
Maybe there was more to her than that super-bright smile.
And maybe she had a point. In the past, he’d been kind to his partners on Ballroom Glitz, and that had helped him teach them the trickier steps. OK, so he’d been in a different place then, and he was still angry that he had to build his career up from scratch again, but taking out his anger on Polly—particularly because his body’s reaction to her threw him—wasn’t going to help either of them.
‘I’m sorry. I haven’t been fair to you,’ he said. ‘I guess it’s daunting if you haven’t danced before.’
‘Thank you for acknowledging that. And it must be frustrating if the person you’re teaching doesn’t get it and you think it’s because they’re not paying attention.’
She understood that? He echoed her words. ‘Thank you for acknowledging that.’ He looked at her. ‘I think we’ve got off on the wrong foot.’
‘Literally.’ She smiled at him.
Genuinely, this time. So he made the effort to smile back. ‘Shall we start again? And maybe you’ll find it easier if we’re in hold and I’m leading you.’
‘You feel too close,’ she said, ‘in hold. I’m not used to being that close to someone I barely know.’
And that worried her? Did she think he was going to come on to her? ‘Is this where I do the Johnny Castle line about my space and your space?’ he asked lightly.
Her eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘I love that film. But I’m never going to dance like Baby. If you make me do steps on a tree-trunk, I’ll fall off and break my ankle.’
‘Firstly, we’re sticking to a dance floor. No tree-trunks. Secondly, Baby and Johnny weren’t dancing ballroom. And, thirdly, you need to forget what you think you can’t do and trust me.’
‘I don’t know you. How can I trust you?’
Fair point. He didn’t trust her, either. He didn’t trust anyone. ‘What was that you were saying about fake it until you make it?’ It came out slightly more caustic than he’d intended, and he felt a throb of guilt when she flinched.
‘OK. I’ll pretend I trust you.’
‘Good. Back in hold, then.’ He squeezed her right hand. ‘You start with the leg on this side. Your right. One step back.’
It was a truce, of sorts. Polly decided to accept it.
‘Left leg back the same amount.’
She followed his instructions carefully.
‘Now a tiny step to the side with your right leg—’ he squeezed her right hand again ‘—and then bring your left leg across to join it so your feet are together.’
Step, step.
‘That’s it. You’ve just done your first basic.’
She coughed.
‘What?’
‘Well done?’ she prompted.
He rolled his eyes. ‘Polly, it was four steps. If you want a “well done”, you have to earn it.’
She should’ve expected that. ‘Right.’
‘And now we’re going to do the next one—this time, you’re the one who moves forward. Ready? Forward, forward, side, side.’ He talked her through it—and it actually worked. She hadn’t stood on his toes or tripped. You need to forget what you think you can’t do and trust me. Maybe he was right. Even if he didn’t smile.
‘We’ll do a forward and a back now, to make a complete set.’
She wasn’t sure if she was more surprised or thrilled that she managed eight whole steps without tripping. And it was all thanks to him talking her through it. Being patient. Making more of an effort.
‘Now, let’s look at the rhythm. It’s slow, slow, quick-quick. And it’s a lot easier to do it to music, so let me go and sort that out.’
