Free To Dance with a Prince by Cara Colter Page B

nature,” he said. “I’m reserved. Something in me always holds back.” His eyes fastened on her lips,just for a split second, and she felt her stomach do a loop-the-loop worthy of an acrobatic airplane.
    If he didn’t hold back, would he kiss her? What would his lips taste like? Feel like? Given her resolve to back away from all those delicious things she had felt yesterday, Meredith was shocked by how badly she wanted to know. She was shocked by the sudden temptation to throw herself at him and take those lips, to shock the sensuality out of him.
    But she also needed for both of them to hold back if she was going to keep her professional distance. And she needed just as desperately for him to let go if she was going to feel professional pride in teaching him!
    It was a quandary.
    â€œIs it your nature to be reserved,” she questioned him, “or your role in life?”
    â€œIn my case, those are inextricably intertwined.”
    He said that without apology.
    â€œI understand that, but in dancing there is no holding back. You have to put everything into it, all that you were, all that you have been, all that you hope to be someday.”
    The question was, if he gave her all that, how was she going to walk away undamaged?
    â€œThis is a ten-minute performance at a fund-raiser,” he reminded her, “not the final exam for getting into heaven.”
    But that’s what she wanted him to experience, exactly . She realized for her it had become about more than their performance.
    There was a place when you danced well, where you became part of something larger. It was an incredible feeling. It was a place where you rose above problems.And tragedies. A place where you were free of your past and your heartaches. Yes, just like touching heaven.
    But somehow she could not tell him that. It was too ambitious. He was right. It was a ten-minute performance for the fund-raiser opening of Blossom Week. Meredith was here to teach him a few dance steps, nothing more.
    When had it become her quest to unlock him? To show him something of himself that he had never seen before? To want him to experience that feeling. Of heaven.
    And that she was dying to see?
    It had all become too personal. And she knew that. She had to get her own agenda straight in her head.
    Teach him to do the routine, perform it well, and be satisfied if the final result was passable if not spectacular. The prince putting in a surprising appearance, making a game effort at the steps would be enough. The people of Chatam would love his performance, a chance to see him let his hair down, even if he was somewhat wooden.
    Though, for her, to only accomplish a passable result would feel like a failure of monumental proportions. Especially since she had glimpsed yesterday what he could be.
    Her eyes suddenly fell on two jackets that hung on pegs inside the coat check at the far end of the ballroom. They were the white jackets of the palace housekeeping staff.
    As soon as she saw them, she knew exactly what she had to do.
    And as she contemplated the audacity of her plan, she could have sworn she heard a baby laugh, as if it was so right.
    It was a memory of laughter, nothing more, but she could see the face of the beautiful child who had been taken from her as clearly as though she still had the photo on her chest.
    She was aware again, of something changing in her. Sweetly. Subtly. It wasn’t that she wasn’t sad. It was that the sadness was mixed with something else.
    A great sense of gratitude for having known love so deeply and so completely.
    Meredith was suddenly aware that her experience with love had to make her a better person.
    It had to.
    Her daughter’s legacy to her had to be a beautiful one. That was all she had left to honor her with.
    And if that meant taking a prince to a place where he was not so lonely and not so alone, even briefly, then that was what she had to do.
    It wasn’t about the dance they