If The Ring Fits.... Kate Hardy

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СКАЧАТЬ Liam buzzed the delivery boy up, taking crockery and cutlery from cupboards and drawers while they waited, and then Polly helped him unpack the box at the kitchen table. Several times her fingers brushed against his and it sent an odd frisson down her spine.

      ‘Help yourself,’ he said when they’d opened the last carton.

      Polly couldn’t resist the dim sum.

      ‘Good?’ he asked.

      ‘Try some.’ Without thinking, she leaned across the table, offering him one of the tiny steamed dumplings on her fork.

      Colour stained his cheeks and his eyes widened.

      Oh, help. What on earth did she think she was doing? They were practically strangers, and she was treating him like a best friend-cum-hot date. Not good. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I, um, forgot where I was.’ She snatched her fork back.

      Liam couldn’t remember the last time he’d shared a meal with someone in such an intimate way. And he was oh, so tempted to lean across the table and draw her hand up towards his mouth, so he could finish what she’d just started. Worse still, he could imagine himself feeding her a morsel. Breakfast. In bed. A new-season strawberry, still warm from the sun—making her reach up for it, then tasting the juice of the fruit on her lips.

      Oh, help. He needed to get a grip. And somehow defuse the tension in the room; it felt as if all the air had been sucked out.

      ‘Do you—?’ she began, at the same time as he said, ‘Have you—?’

      ‘Sorry. You first,’ she said.

      ‘No, you’re my guest.’

      She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember what I was going to say now. But thanks. For bailing me out and not making me feel even more of an idiot.’

      ‘You’re not an idiot. Most women would’ve screamed and wailed about it long before now.’

      ‘I don’t scream. Ever.’ Polly had lived through too many fights and too much screaming. ‘It doesn’t change things.’

      ‘“Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,”‘ he quoted.

      Polly felt her eyes widen. ‘I didn’t peg you as a culture vulture.’

      ‘Not all dancers are vain airheads,’ he pointed out.

      ‘Says the man who works in a room covered with mirrors.’ For a moment, she thought she’d gone too far. And then he laughed. She hadn’t heard him laugh before, and it was a revelation. A rich, amused chuckle that made her toes curl with pleasure. And she was shockingly aware of how attractive Liam was. The man he could be, when he didn’t keep himself locked up. Though, given what he’d told her about Bianca, she could understand why he kept himself separate. She was planning to do that herself where her love life was concerned.

      Liam wouldn’t let her wash up, afterwards, but made them both a mug of coffee while she sorted out her half of the bill. Then her phone beeped, signalling a text message.

      ‘Are you going to answer that?’ Liam asked.

      She wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t want to be rude.’

      ‘It might be important.’

      ‘It’s probably just Fliss—my best friend—checking that I’m OK.’ She grabbed her phone from her handbag, checked the screen and typed in a rapid answer to reassure Fliss. ‘Sorry about that. She worries about me. So do the Monday Mash-up boys.’ She swallowed hard. She was not going to cry all over him again. ‘I guess Danny, Charlie and Mike are like the brothers I don’t have.’

      ‘So that’s why your phone beeps for ages when you switch it back on after a training session? They’re all checking you’re OK?’

      She nodded. ‘Sorry. It must be annoying for you.’

      ‘No. It’s good to have friends looking out for you.’

      Something in his tone alerted her. ‘Didn’t your friends do that, after your accident?’

      ‘Yes and no.’ He grimaced. ‘A lot of them were worried about seeing me. They thought it’d be like rubbing it in, because they could still dance and I couldn’t.’

      She frowned. ‘I know I only met you a week ago, but that doesn’t sound like the way you’d react.’

      ‘It isn’t. I guess they didn’t know me as well as I thought they did. It was good just to talk about dancing—and, even if I couldn’t dance again, I still intended to be involved in dance. Choreography.’

      ‘Is that what you want to do after the competition—choreograph things?’ she asked.

      He nodded. ‘I want to choreograph a musical for Broadway or the West End. I’ve done most of the routines for the professionals on Ballroom Glitz, this series.’

      ‘So you need to win the competition, to get the producers to notice you.’

      He shrugged. ‘Being in the final would do.’

      ‘No pressure, then,’ she said wryly.

      ‘What about you?’ he asked.

      ‘Hopefully, being on Ballroom Glitz will bring me to the attention of another producer and give me a chance to do something else in children’s TV. Or maybe … It’s probably a bit too ambitious, given that I’m not exactly an A-lister, but I’ve had enough experience now to know what works with kids. I might put together a proposal for a show and pitch it to the networks.’

      ‘Another children’s show?’

      At her nod, he said, ‘So you prefer working with kids rather than, say, acting onstage or on screen?’

      ‘Absolutely. You get really spontaneous reactions from kids, much more than you do with adults, and it makes the live shows more interesting. You have to think on your feet.’

      ‘Was the whole show live?’ He grimaced. ‘Sorry, that’s rude. I ought to know that.’

      She laughed. ‘You’re hardly our target audience. Most of the people who watch us are aged between nine and about fourteen.’

      ‘And I don’t have kids,’ he said. ‘Though Amanda says her kids love the show.’

      ‘Thank you.’ She remembered his question. ‘About two-thirds of it’s live; the rest is pre-recorded. We all have different slots. “Charlie’s Charts” is where he goes through the new music releases that week, with video clips. “Mike’s Movies” is—well, obvious.’ She smiled. ‘“Danny’s Dance” is where he teaches some of the kids in the studio a street-dance move, and then I have “Challenge Polly Anna”. It started off as “Polly’s Puzzles”, where I’d give everyone a brain teaser to solve, but then one day one of the kids in the studio gave me a challenge in return, and it snowballed from there. So I’ve done everything from being able to eat a doughnut without licking my lips, through to juggling raw eggs.’

      Liam raised an eyebrow. ‘How СКАЧАТЬ