“Are you going where I think you’re going with this?” he asked, sounding strangled as he looked at her, making it clear he wasn’t looking away any time soon. When she eventually caved and met those icy blue eyes, she saw it there plain as day. The thing she’d been dreading.
Hope.
“Probably,” she said, lifting one shoulder like this was a completely normal creative decision and not a live grenade wrapped in pop-synth. The track wasn’t casual. It was punchy and current, exactly the song that would make the judges sit upand the audience lose their collective minds. Which meant it was smart, and that was the point.
She wasn’t picking it because of the lyrics, or the subtext, or whatever he was thinking that put this heartbreaking puppy-dog expression on his face. She was picking it because she needed to win.End of story.
Because nothing saidwe’re emotionally stable adultslike aggressively flirt-dancing while pretending you’re not in love. The Cha Cha wassupposedto be bright and flirty, with infectious wink-at-the-camera energy. It was sparkle and sass and hips that lied for a living, and Holly knew she’d be safe here. She could do this with her eyes closed.
“You pickedthis?”
The way he said it unlocked something inside of her brain. He wasn’t mad, or making fun of her. Just… searching. Like he was squinting through the emotional fog lying between them trying to locate Holly Martinez: Certified Menace™ behind the professional façade.
She kept her face schooled into something HR-approved.
“Judges love a strong concept,” she said smoothly, like she hadn’t just selected a song that was one metaphor away from publicly airing her emotional tax returns. “It’s fun, current. It’ll play.”
Translation:I’m fine. This is strategic. I’ m a winner who absolutely doesnothave unresolved feelings marinating in my ribcage like slow-cooked brisket.
But Nate didn’t buy it. She could tell from the way watched her as if she’d handed him a puzzle and then quickly hidden the corner pieces in her bra.
“Okay,” he drawled, like he wasn’t completely sure about this. “Show me.”
Why was that worse than arguing? Why was compliance so hot and also emotionally destabilizing? She turned to the mirror before her face betrayed her.
“Start in hold,” she said briskly. “We sell this from the first eight counts.”
He stepped in front of her, hands settling carefully at her waist as though she was fine china he’d dropped once and was now terrified of chipping again. Holly resisted the urge to clench her teeth, because Cha Cha wasn’t careful. It was 110% risk driving a hundred miles an hour in a school zone.
“Okay, no,” she said before she could stop herself. “That’s… not it.”
His hands stilled instantly, like she’d told him he was standing on a landmine.
She exhaled. “You’re holding me like I’m going to shatter.”
A flicker crossed his face. Guilt? Fear?Both?
“It’s Cha Cha,” she continued, forcing lightness into her tone. “It’s not Victorian courtship. It’s chaos. It’s cocky. It’s—” she snapped her fingers near his chest, “—dangerous.”
She stepped in closer on purpose, letting her thigh brush his with contact lingering a beat too long to be entirely accidental.
“You don’task permissionin Cha Cha,” she said quietly. “You take space. And you take mewithyou.”
She reached down, caught his wrist, and physically slid hishand higher on her waist.Firmer.“Here,” she instructed. “Like you actually want to be touching me.”
The second the words left her mouth she realized she’d said the wrong thing, but she was committed to the bit now, and it was too damn late to back down.
“Connect,” she said, softer. “If we’re selling this, you can’t look like you’re afraid of me.”
I’m the one who’s afraid.Holly tilted her chin up, daring her inner saboteur to carry on with that thought. She held Nate’s gaze this time, refusing to let him hide in politeness no matter what was going on (or not going on) between them. She had way too much riding on this to let it all fall apart on the floor now.
“Again,” she murmured. “This time, don’t be careful.”
He settled into the hold, his hand firm, his body present in the space. She nodded approvingly, then showed him the first sequence.
It snapped. The footwork was clean, the timing crisp. It had bite already, energy that saidwe are very hot and definitely not in the middle of an emotional civil war.
Nate’s eyes tracked her in the mirror like she was the only variable in the equation. He never quite met her gaze, just hovered near it as though eye contact required a permission slip she hadn’t signed. When she rolled through her hip, his grip tightened for half a second when her thigh brushed his again. And then he corrected himself and pulled away from her.
