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understanding,” Christian said. “I really didn’t want to quit practice early on my first day.”
    Paige looked at his sweat-soaked form. “I think you’ve been working hard enough for a first day, and I know we’re absolutely going to kill it tomorrow. So go on. The FedEx office closes in an hour, which means that you should have just enough time to find some really tacky gifts at one of the little tourist shops on the same stretch of downtown.”
    “Come with me, Paige,” he asked. “I could use the help.”
    She was tempted—so very tempted. But in the end, she knew better than to spend any more time with Christian than was absolutely necessary. Already, he’d managed to chip away at the walls she’d built up around her heart to protect herself from getting hurt again by a big star. She couldn’t allow the walls to crumble any further. Not if she wanted her heart to remain in one intact piece when he left at the end of the week.
    “I’ve got to take care of some work here,” she said, “but have fun. And good work today.”
    She could see that he was disappointed that she wasn’t going with him, but he didn’t try to push her. Neither, she noted, did he rush out of the studio. Instead, he stared into her eyes long enough, and intensely enough, for her to wonder if he might be about to kiss her.
    In the end, he simply said, “Thank you, Paige. I couldn’t ask for a better dance teacher than you.” Even though he hadn’t given her the kiss that she could no longer deny she wanted, her heart was fluttering wildly in her chest as she watched him go.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    Thanks to Christian’s dash to a souvenir shop and the FedEx office, Paige got home much earlier than she had anticipated. She went straight upstairs, heading for the shower, hoping the hot water would help to wash away some of the day, too.
    “Not touching him.” Paige shook her head at the foolishness of that approach.
    Now that she didn’t have those piercing green eyes on her, it was easy to see just how silly she had been. Besides, what had she been doing, allowing herself to be unsettled by a man who was spending time with her only because he needed to learn to dance? How could she have wasted a whole day of practice when they needed every second of serious dancing time they could get?
    Face to face, cheek to cheek, that was how they needed to be dancing together. But even as she thought it, a vision came of what it would be like to be held against his strong muscles, pressing close to him as they danced…
    “Stop it,” Paige told herself as she stepped out of the shower. While she had spent all day looking at Christian and thinking about how handsome he was, how wonderful, how sweet—she knew all he could have possibly seen when he looked back at her was nothing more than a dance instructor ready to put him through Fred Astaire boot camp over Christmas.
    She’d been so busy trying to avoid looking like the cliché of the island girl falling for the big star that she’d become a paralyzed star-struck fan instead. Which was especially crazy considering she didn’t even idolize Christian Greer. Until a couple of weeks ago, she hadn’t really known much about him or his TV show. Well, not unless her father was over at the house and grabbed the remote to put on Christian’s show, or when Grams felt like watching it. Not more than a few times a month, at most.
    “So I should have absolutely no problem with touching him,” Paige said to herself as she settled on a soft, flowing skirt and a royal blue sweater, leaving her hair down for once to let the soft waves bounce naturally.
    Really, she thought now that she had the benefit of a little distance from it all, it wasn’t like either of them was suddenly going to fall head over heels in love with the other. Fortunately, she had an entire night to pull herself together and get used to the idea of working closely with Christian on a purely professional basis.
    When Paige went