it gave it weight. Substance. A foundation she could stand on while the rest of the world trembled with uncertainty. ‘Do you think she’d do it? Ruin opening night to get back at me?’
‘Do you want me to have a chat with her?’
She gave him a horrified look. ‘No!’
‘You’re not really frightened of her, are you?’
Kat tossed her hair back off her shoulders—a gesture of bravado straight out of the actor’s handbook. She just wished she felt the indifference she was portraying. ‘Of course not.’
‘How about we go out to dinner tonight?’
Kat frowned. ‘Dinner?’
‘To celebrate you getting the part.’
She chewed at her lip. ‘I don’t know...’
‘Ouch.’
Kat looked up at him in concern. ‘Is your foot okay?’
He grinned at her. ‘That was my ego, not my foot. How many times does a guy have to beg a girl to go out to dinner with him?’
She looked at him narrowly. ‘Just dinner?’
‘I’d offer to take you dancing, but can you see me burning up the dance floor on these sticks?’
Kat’s conscience and willpower went into battle again.
Dinner will be fine.
You think?
Of course it will. We’ll have a drink, eat a meal. Go home. Simple.
You’ll sip champagne while gazing into his dreamboat eyes and start planning how many of his babies you’ll have.
I will not. Anyway, he’s not the settling down type.
But you are.
Am not. I want a career. Stardom. My name up in lights.
And then what?
And then I’ll be happy.
Yeah?
Kat forced a smile. ‘I’m not much of a dancer myself. I’ve never been able to get through a waltz without pulping my partner’s toes.’
He smiled with his eyes, making her stomach free-fall. ‘Sounds like you just haven’t found the right partner.’
* * *
The restaurant Flynn took her to in a cab was owned by one of his clients. They were given the best table in the house in a romantic corner that gave them privacy from the other diners. Flynn ordered champagne and, once it was poured, raised his glass to hers in a toast. ‘To your brilliant career.’
Kat took a sip of the delicious bubbles whilst looking into his eyes that were dark as pitch, yet soft and melting. How on earth was she going to stop herself from falling in love with him when he looked at her like that?
You’re well on your way.
No, I’m not. I’m just aware it could be a danger, that’s all.
Stop looking at his mouth. Dead giveaway.
Kat put her glass down and shifted in her seat, keeping her gaze trained on the cleft in his chin. ‘So...how was your day?’
‘Look at me, Kat.’
She looked. Felt her heart kick at the way his knowing smile curved up the corners of his mouth. The mouth that had kissed hers—kissed it and made it hungry for more. So hungry it was all she could do to keep herself on her side of the table. Her knees bumped against his, sending a shockwave of awareness through her body, concentrating in the heated core of her womanhood. Warmth flooded her, need oozing, the ache of lust building with every beat of the silence as his gaze tethered hers. ‘Wh-what?’
‘You’re nervous.’
‘I’m not.’
‘When was the last time you went out to dinner with a guy?’
Kat let out a long sigh and looked at the salt-and-pepper shakers on the crisp snow-white tablecloth. ‘September last year. Charles the creep. I was so ashamed I was physically sick when I found out he had a wife and three little kids, one of them only a few weeks old.’ She brought her gaze back up to his. ‘How can men do that to their wives?’
Flynn made a twisting movement with his mouth. ‘There are some prize jerks out there, that’s for sure. I come across them all the time in my line of work. You’d be shocked at how many men try and wriggle out of paying for their kids once their relationship with their mother is over.’
Kat fiddled with the stem of her glass. ‘I just hate how I didn’t see it. That I didn’t see through him. How could I have got it so wrong?’
He placed his hand over her restive one, the warmth and steadiness of it moving through her entire body like a soothing wave of a calming, cleansing drug. ‘You did the right thing by getting out of it as soon as you found out. But I can see how it would make you cautious.’
She looked at their entwined hands, hers so light against the tan of his. ‘I’ve always prided myself that I’m nothing like my mother. She was hopeless at reading men. She was in and out of dysfunctional relationships all through my childhood. I never knew who would be there when I got home from school. Sometimes it was so scary. I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t see the innate badness in some of the men she brought home. I could see it and I was just a kid.’
Flynn’s expression was gravely serious. ‘Were you ever in danger? Did any of your mother’s men friends hurt or interfere with you?’
Kat pulled her hand out of his light hold on the pretence of brushing back a wayward strand of hair. She didn’t trust herself to touch him for too long. His touch made her body hunger for him. Hunger and ache. ‘A couple of times I had to fight off some unwanted attention, mostly when I was a teenager. It was worse when Mum was drinking. She just didn’t pick up on stuff. I couldn’t talk to her about it, as she would get angry and blame me for being too mouthy or whatever.’
His frown formed a bridge between his eyes. ‘But in spite of it all you still loved her?’
She gave him a crooked smile. ‘Yeah, well, that’s what kids do, isn’t it? Their survival depends on it—loving their caregivers. Not that she was great at caregiving or anything. But, yes, I loved her.’
‘Is that why you don’t want kids?’ he said after a moment. ‘Are you worried you won’t do a good job of mothering your own kids?’
Kat picked up her glass for something to do with her hands. ‘I guess on some level... But I really want to achieve what I set out to achieve first. If I get tied down with kids and marriage, I’ll never reach my goal.’
‘What if fame isn’t everything you think it will be?’
‘It’s not just the fame,’ Kat said. ‘I’ve wanted to act for as long as I can remember. I know I won’t be satisfied until I exhaust every opportunity to make it onstage. It’s not like I want to prove it to anyone else. I need to prove it to myself.’
‘It’s a tough life, working for weeks and then nothing for months,’ Flynn said. ‘There are good years and bad years. Plays fold without notice or run for season after season until you’re bored out of your brain for the want of something fresh and more challenging. Then there are the great reviews and the awful ones. You have to have a tough skin.’
She met his dark gaze across the table. ‘And you don’t think I have one?’
‘Underneath that tough exterior is a girl with a soft heart. I see it. Cricket sees it. Miranda and Jaz saw it. Probably Elisabetta saw it, which is why you’re feeling so threatened by her.’
Kat had always prided herself on the impenetrable armour she wore around her heart. But in his presence she could feel it falling away, piece