Roxanne nodded hoping for the best.
* * *
The kitchen smelled wonderful. Roxanne peeked in the oven at the pot roast. Her grandmother chopped salad while Roxanne set the table.
She loved her huge country kitchen. Two sets of French doors opened to a brick patio, pool and spa. A fireplace dominated one wall with two chairs and a sofa flanking it. Over the fireplace hung a flat-screen TV which swung out to reveal the electronics set into the wall behind it. A snack bar separated the family room from the kitchen.
Her favorite colors were green and blue, and they were both reflected in the furnishings and kitchen where the walls were a peacock green contrasting with the stark white cabinets. A door next to the refrigerator led to a walk-through pantry and the formal dining area beyond.
“Do you want me to disappear for the evening?” Donna asked after she covered the salad bowl with plastic wrap and set it in the refrigerator.
Stunned for a moment, she had to think of her answer. Yes, she did, but knew it would be the wrong choice. “This is business, not romance,” Roxanne said. “You don’t have to leave.”
“You like him.”
Roxanne sighed. She was so busted. Impossible to keep much from her grandmother. Most of the time that was a good thing, but at the moment, not so much. “What’s not to like. He’s fun, personable, talented and...”
“Pretty to look at,” her grandma half sang.
“...and nice. He likes to read.”
“He’s perfect. Start having babies with him today.”
She felt herself flush. With embarrassment? The possibility? There was that. “We’re not talking about this anymore,” Roxanne said. “Did you get started researching his mother?”
Her grandmother liked to keep busy and had offered to help with Nick’s project.
“I did,” Donna said. “Grace was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Atlanta after her parents divorced. Her mother remarried, but not her father. Or at least not what I can find. He’s quite interesting. Grace Torres’s father was career air force. He served as a fighter pilot in Korea and Vietnam. He had quite a distinguished career. He retired after Vietnam and came out to California.”
“That’s great info, Grams, thanks.” Roxanne could show Nick that she’d already found some terrific information on his mother.
“I think I’ll call Portia and have dinner with her.” Donna grinned.
“Really, you don’t have to.”
“If somebody doesn’t do something about your love life, you’ll never have one.” She winked as she left, leaving Roxanne speechless.
* * *
Roxanne opened her front door to find Nick there. She caught her breath and couldn’t help but smile at him. “I brought a red and a white,” Nick said handing two bottles of wine to Roxanne.
“We’re having pot roast and salad.” She took the wine, touched by his gesture.
He looked very handsome in gray dress pants and dark blue shirt open at the throat. “How did you like your costume for the first show?”
“Oh, my God,” Roxanne said. “The gown is so beautiful I didn’t want take it off, but it still needed alterations. I had some containment issues.”
He laughed as he followed her down the hall to the kitchen. “The nice thing about being the producer is I get to pick the stars’ outfits, and the fact that Fay threatened me if I didn’t assign you to her was a great incentive.”
“Fay and I worked together on Family Tree.” She put the white wine in the refrigerator to cool and searched for the cork puller in a drawer. She handed the bottle of red wine back to him.
“She told me. I tried to get her to tell me stories about you when you were on the show. She must like you. She didn’t say a word.” Nick uncorked the wine and she pulled out two wineglasses.
“I didn’t behave badly in front of Fay. I’m not dumb.”
Nick poured wine into her glass and then his. She led him into the formal dining room where her charts and preliminary information were spread out over the table.
She forced herself to think about work and not him. He was distracting and captivating. “I have some information you will enjoy.” Roxanne gestured at the dining table covered with charts, two open laptops and a dozen file folders. “My grandmother helps me and she started tracing your maternal grandfather. He was career air force.”
“My grandfather was a car mechanic in Atlanta.”
“No, your grandfather is Lionel Stanton. He served in Korea and the Vietnam war.”
Nick stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.
Roxanne frowned. She glanced at the information spread out on the table. She found a marriage certificate for Leonore Burgess to Lionel Stanton and then the divorce papers dated four years later. She handed them to Nick.
He read through them quickly. “I didn’t know. My mother never talked about this man. She only talks about Grandpa Al.”
“Maybe she thought her father was dead.” Roxanne rustled through a stack of certificates her grandmother had found and printed off one of the registries she used. “From what I see here, your grandmother—Leonore Burgess Stanton—divorced her husband after four years of marriage. Here is a second marriage certificate to Alfred Bridges. At that time your mother was three years old.”
“She’s never said a word,” Nick said with a frown. “I wanted this to be a surprise.” He gestured at the table.
“I think it’s a bigger surprise than you thought,” Roxanne said. “One thing about doing genealogy is all the secrets delving into the past uncovers.”
“I wonder what other secrets my mother has.”
She took a deep breath. She understood that this could be a painful process and sometimes people changed their mind. “Do you want to keep going or scrap the project?”
“I want to keep going.”
“You’ll need to be prepared. Let’s eat dinner and we’ll get back to this.”
They sat at the kitchen table. Roxanne wasn’t a great cook, but she did a few things really well and pot roast was one of her best dishes.
“I had a meeting with Levi Goldblum today.” Nick helped himself to a generous helping of the food.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” She took a deep breath, preparing herself. Bad news was going to happen. She could handle this. And from the glint in his beautiful eyes, she could tell he was upset. “Okay, right between the eyes.”
“The situation isn’t as bad as you think.” He paused to think through what he was going to say. “Levi is interested in a television movie your parents want you to star in. He thinks the movie is the perfect vehicle for you.”
“And of course, he smells the money.” The situation could have been a lot worse. Levi could have insisted she reconcile with her parents.
Nick shrugged. “Show business.”
Oh, she knew. “I always heard he was an...egotistic, narcissistic, money-grubbing pain in the butt. And I’m saying this as nicely as I can.” She finished with what she hoped was a bedazzling smile. “Though he does have the ‘nose.’”
Nick grinned at her. “He is all of those things, but he was a fan of Family Tree. He remembers you fondly.”
“Really,” she said. “I’m kind of surprised someone like him remembers me. He’s inundated by people every day.”
“He does remember you and can shoot your star into the stratosphere.”
“They did send me the script and I glanced through it. Surprisingly enough it was good—lots of commercial appeal. But I don’t want to work with them. I don’t even want to be in the same building with them.”
“From what I’m hearing, they want to move into producing and get away from agenting.” Potentially there was more money in producing though it was a riskier investment.
“I
have to think about this. I really like playing a corpse. The role is uncomplicated and all I really have to do is look dead and hold my breath.”
“Don’t you want to stretch yourself?”
“Holding your breath is hard and unnatural. Besides, I believe launching my own genealogy business is me stretching myself. Let’s set this topic aside for the moment and eat.”
“Everything smells delicious.”
“I can’t compete with your parents, but I do have a few dishes I can do well and pot roast is one of them.” She spooned salad onto her plate and drizzled dressing across it. “So tell me, when did you know you wanted to dance?”
“From the first time I saw Singin’ in the Rain with Gene Kelly.”
“How old were you?”
“Six,” Nick replied. “My mom signed me up for dance lessons the very next day.”
“I can relate,” Roxanne offered. “I always wanted to be an actress. At least until it stopped being fun.” She’d been four when she told her parents she wanted to be on TV. She made her first commercial six months later. Six months after that she was cast for Family Tree.
“When did the change happen?”
“By the time I was eleven, I wanted to quit.”
“Why did your parents make you keep going?”
“Because they didn’t want to get real jobs. I was the moneymaker and they made sure I knew if I wasn’t working the family would starve.”
“What about their other clients?”
Roxanne shook her head sadly. “They only received a 15 percent management fee for their work, but as my parents they managed all of my money.”
“That’s a heavy burden for a kid.”
“A kid has no rights and guilt is a great control mechanism.” Even though she loved the people she worked with, she’d started to resent the hours she spent on the set. Even with the child labor limitations it was more than she wanted. “If not for my grandmother, I probably would have gone off the deep end. My grandmother sat me down and kept me busy with my studies so I didn’t have time to be depressed. My grandmother loves history and she made me love it, too.” And that love had started her on her quest to find out more about her ancestors. “What a surprise when I found out I’m a direct descendant of Alexandre Dumas through one of his many mistresses.” Nearly forty at last count.
“He was French. That’s what they do.”
Roxanne started laughing. Nick always seemed to know how to lighten a moment. She sobered a bit. “You seemed to just glaze over this thing with my parents.”
“What can you do? Your parents are a fact of life.”
“I don’t want them back in my life.” Roxanne felt guilty for not liking her parents. “They always make me feel like a commodity and not a daughter. And seeing what they’ve done to my brother and sister...”
“I think that’s sad.”
Roxanne just nodded. “I guess I should thank Levi for his enlightened self-interest.”
“He’s thinking about the bottom line.”
Roxanne shrugged. “That’s the Hollywood way.”
They’d finished the rest of their meal with lighter small talk and Nick helped Roxanne clear the table. After setting the dishes in the sink, he rinsed and she placed them in the dishwasher.
“Show business can be so callous. There’s a lot of ugliness in the background.” Roxanne closed the dishwasher and stood with her hands on her hips. She studied Nick.
“I really like you and watching you have to rehash the past with your family is hard.”
“Wow. Thank you.” She felt oddly pleased. With those words she was totally committed to Celebrity Dance. She wasn’t going to let Nick down.
“Will you think about the movie?”
“How about if I think about thinking about it?”
Nick slid his hand on top of her hand. “Thank you.”
Before she knew it she leaned in and didn’t stop until she felt her lips meet his. His mouth was soft and yielding and his lips opened to her. His tongue slowly slid into her mouth and she felt his warmth and tasted his slightly minty breath. Her heart could have leapt from her chest. Their kiss was passionate yet soft. He moved his mouth over hers and she felt his hand move around her neck. She gave herself over and let him lead the way. For a few moments she thought their kiss would never end. She didn’t want it to. Finally, he pulled back.
“Wow,” he whispered.
Yeah, wow. She laughed. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. I’m not.”
“Well, thank you for being in my corner.” God, she hoped she didn’t sound as awkward as she felt.
No, that wasn’t right. She wanted that kiss. She wanted him.
He leaned back and shrugged. “Not a hardship.”
“I promise I’ll think about it. I’ll even read the script all the way through...” She let her words trail off.
He gave her a strange smile. “Thank you.”
Roxanne stood. “Let’s get back to work.”
Chapter 5
The dress rehearsal was perfect. Roxanne didn’t step on Nick’s foot even once. She’d twirled and dipped with such perfection he could tell she was on a high. He watched the playback on the monitor. The dress moved beautifully. Nothing fell out that wasn’t supposed to. Nick’s tuxedo contrasted perfectly with her scarlet dress. She was going to be okay.
For the first time all the contestants were together. Nick and Roxanne had the number four slot out of ten.
Backstage, Roxanne sat watching a monitor as the audience streamed into the studio.
Nick sat next to her. “I don’t want to bug you, but...”
She grinned at him. “I finished the script. And it’s as good as I originally thought. But I don’t know if it’s good enough to tempt me. And making a decision is going to take longer.”
“They’ve been calling Levi daily since I told him you’d read it. They’re very brave to tackle Levi.”
“They even leaked it to Variety that I’m planning my comeback project with this film.”
“Ouch. Sorry about that.”
She pointed at her brother as he walked into the studio. A woman reached for him and he stopped to autograph her shoulder, the point of the pen dipping down toward her breast. Nick frowned.
“Have you talked to my brother yet?”
“The appointment is next week, but I’m hoping something will come up between now and then so I’ll be able to cancel.”
Roxanne’s parents entered and stopped to take selfies, as though they were royalty with various audience members. And from the tapping they did on their phone, Nick figured they were uploading the photos to Instagram. That annoyed him more than he thought it would.
Roxanne watched her parents, her lips tight with irritation.
The audience was finally seated. Cameras moved into position around the dance floor. The judges entered to the audience applause. Music was cued and the show started with Nancy, who acted as host, introducing the first set of contestants.
* * *
Roxanne had practiced her butt off and now that she was watching the first dancers, a sinking feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. No matter how much Nick had rehearsed and praised her, she wasn’t going to be able to top their performances, or even be in their neighborhood. And the fact that her parents were in the audience was also unsettling.
How had they even scored seats?
She watched the monitors. Each pair of dancers seemed flawless even though the judges pointed out the flaws in each performance. Panic rose in her. She glanced at Nick.
“You need to just take a moment and enjoy this,” he said.
“Five gazillion people are watching this and my shoes are uncomfortable. I can’t relax.”
“Take deep breaths and clear your mind. Don’t think about rabbits.”
“What?” she asked.
“Don’t think about rabbits.”
“Why are we thinking about rabbits?” She didn’t get it.
“It’s a tactic to get you to stop thinking about dancing and divert your thoughts to rabbits.”
“But you told me not to think about rabbits.”
“What are you thinking about right now?” A smile spread across his face.
“Rabbits. I don’t want to think about rabbits.”
“Rabbits are cute, furry and loveable,” Nick continued. “Don’t think about them.”
“Now that’s all I can think of,” Roxanne complained.
“I’ve done my job.”
The third set of dancers completed their routine and faced the judges. Roxanne frowned. She couldn’t get the thought of rabbits out of her head.
When their names were called Nick grabbed her hand. “Head up, shoulders straight. We’re on. Smile.”
The music started and he led her to the dance floor.
“I’m still thinking about rabbits when I...”
He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. “Now, it’s time to dance.”
A smile spread across her face. She squared her shoulders and in the next moment she was whirled about.
One, two, three, step and slide. One, two, three, step and slide. Whirl. Whirl. She hadn’t stepped on Nick’s foot yet. Smile. Smile. Head up. Shoulders square. Step. Step. Step. Twirl. Smile.
Her dress swayed around her and she concentrated on Nick. He nodded at her. Okay, she was doing all right. Smile. Smile. Step. Step. Stay in step with the music.
And then the dance ended, the music trailing away. The audience clapped enthusiastically. She glanced at her parents and saw her mother frowning and shaking her head.
She was breathless. She hadn’t stepped on Nick’s foot once.
He turned her to face the three judges.
Emily Gray was a slim woman who had started her career with the San Francisco Ballet. William Eddings had been a dance instructor before heading to Broadway. According to Nick, William had taught him everything he needed to know about dance. Simon Pierce was a champion ballroom dancer.
Love Tango Page 7
