LITMIR.BIZ

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they didn’t,” he said. “You have a lifeline. We have a lifeline. Which means—” The elevator door opened, and several people were waiting to enter. “Let’s talk about this outside.”

      She inhaled and nodded, and they exited the elevator. The minute Sam was in the lobby, one of his staff rushed into his path.

      “Just the man I was looking for,” Josh Strong said. A twenty-eight-year-old former navy SEAL who’d gone civilian to care for a sick mother, Josh never missed a beat. Sam was damn lucky to have hired the man. “I’ve compiled that list of properties you wanted, as potentials for the dance show.”

      Sam intended to involve Meagan in the conversation, but he was too late. She was already gone, on the move, speeding away from him so fast that she was leaving a trail of smoke.

      “Hold on to those for a few minutes,” Sam said. “I’ll catch up with you.” He headed for Meagan with fire in his step. Avoiding him wasn’t an option if they were going to make this work, and he was done with the tiptoeing around what was between them anyway.

      Sam caught up with Meagan in the parking lot, just in time to press his hand to the door of her Acura, and keep her from opening it. The wind shifted, light brown strands of vanilla-and-honey-scented hair brushing his cheek, his groin tightened uncomfortably.

      “We need to talk, Meagan,” he insisted.

      “Sam,” she ground out, tilting her chin up, bringing that kissable mouth inches from his. “Don’t hold my door like I’m your captive. And yes, we need to talk, but not now. I have to get back to the hotel and edit film and check on my dancers. And just so we’re straight—

      you don’t get to decide when we talk or do anything. You ask, and we discuss and decide together. Got it?”

      Oh yeah, he got it all right. “It” being a rush of pure male need. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

      “That doesn’t sound like a question,” she rebutted.

      “And if it had been a question, would you have said yes?”

      She hesitated, her lashes lowering and then lifting, defiance glinting in her eyes, as she replied, “No.”

      He didn’t miss the hesitation, or the fact that she hadn’t complained about his nearness—so close he could lean in and touch her as he had the night before. And he wanted to. Oh yeah, he wanted to in a bad way.

      “What if I said I’m bringing the real-estate listings for the housing options?”

      “That’s bribery,” she said. “You could email me the listings.”

      The truth was, with their limited timeframe, he wanted to review the properties and narrow the list right away, but he didn’t tell her that. “Guilty as charged,” he agreed and pushed off the car, but he held his position close to her, soaking in the heat of her body, the scent of her hair still teasing his nostrils. “We need to have this talk. Make a truce and set some boundaries, so we can make those great ratings that you want to happen.”

      “Fine, then,” she agreed. “Dinner will include a lesson on the difference between a question and an order.”

      He laughed. “Fair enough.” He loved the way this woman kept him on his toes.

      Her expression softened. “I do appreciate you saving the show, Sam.”

      “Two thank yous in a matter of hours,” he said. “I do believe we’re making progress.”

      “Short lived if you forget that I’m in control of my set, Sam, for even one moment. If you want to make changes to procedures, or anything else, you come to me. You talk to me. Then we make changes.”

      “Understood,” he said willingly. “With the exception of anything I see as an immediate threat to someone’s safety.”

      She inclined her head. “I can live with that.”

      They gazed at each other, electricity sparking in the air. Sam leaned in, lowered his head intimately, to softly say, “I expect you’ll be surprised just how much greatness we have between us,” he said, and then he pulled back before he did something crazy and kissed her in public. Surely doing so would get him a great big smack in the face. “I’ll see you at seven.” He turned and sauntered back toward the building, feeling her eyes on him.

      “Sam,” she called. “Make that seven-fifteen.”

      He laughed and waved in agreement. She was letting him know nothing with her would come easily. She remained a challenge—but then anything worth having was a challenge. And Meagan was one of the most interesting, impossible-to-resist challenges he’d ever encountered.

      He headed back to the offices, only to find Sabrina walking toward him, her purse and her keys in hand.

      “I’ve debated telling you something,” she said, “and I don’t want it to get out.”

      “I’m listening.”

      “When the higher-ups green-lit Meagan’s show, they insisted on attaching a few people to it. One of them was Kiki Reynolds. You might want to keep an eye on her.”

      “Could she be a real problem?”

      “Could be.”

      Sam nodded, grateful for the tip, and he and Sabrina parted ways.

      It seemed Meagan was going to be fighting 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

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