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She eyed him uncertainly. ‘The concerts, right? I mean...the audience didn’t really go for it today—’
‘They would have if you’d done what you were supposed to, and sung your song.’ He spoke without rancour, but she still prickled.
‘They would have gone for it even less.’
‘Yet you weren’t willing to risk that. I’m sorry for that too. I should have spoken to you before you went onstage. I was trying to keep my distance because—’ He stopped, blew out a weary breath. ‘Because it seemed simpler. Easier. But I think I just made it harder for you. I’m sorry I let you down.’ She didn’t answer. This conversation had gone way outside her comfort zone. She had no comebacks, no words at all. ‘But I wasn’t apologising for the concerts,’ Luke continued quietly. ‘I’m not cancelling them. I still think you can turn this around.’
‘You do?’ She felt a stirring of hope, like a baby’s first breath, infinitesimally small and yet sustaining life.
‘Yes. But I don’t want to talk about that.’ He gazed straight at her then, and she saw the hard blaze of his eyes, golden glints amid the deep brown. ‘I want to talk about us.’
‘Us—’ The word ended on a breath. She had no others.
‘Yes, us. I’m still attracted to you.’ Aurelie felt her heart lurch with some nameless emotion, although whether it was fear or hope or something else entirely she couldn’t say.
‘So it is about sex.’
Luke said nothing for a moment. He gazed out of the window, the sky turning dark, twinkling with the myriad lights of the city. ‘Do you know how many women I’ve slept with?’ he finally asked.
‘I’m not sure how I would have come by that information—’
‘Three.’ He glanced back at her with a rueful smile, his eyes still dark. ‘Three, four if I include our rather mangled attempt.’
‘Right.’ She had no idea what to make of that.
‘I’ve had three relationships. Relationships. They all lasted months or even years. And the women involved were the only women I’ve ever had sex with.’
‘So you really are a Boy Scout.’ She felt incredibly jaded, with way too much bad experience behind her.
‘No, I just...I’ve just always taken sex seriously. It’s meant something to me. Emotionally.’
‘Except with me.’
Luke was silent for so long Aurelie wondered if he’d heard her. She sought for something to say, something light and wry to show him she didn’t care, it didn’t matter, but it was too late for that. He’d already seen and heard too much.
‘It did mean something,’ he finally said, his voice so low she almost didn’t hear him. ‘From the moment I saw you slumped on the floor from what I thought—assumed—was an overdose. You opened your eyes and I...I felt something.’
‘Felt something?’ she managed, still trying for wryness. ‘What, annoyance?’
‘No.’ He glanced up at her, and she saw the honesty blazing in his eyes. ‘I don’t know what it was. Is. But I can’t pretend I don’t feel something—for you. For the you hiding underneath the pop star persona, the you who wrote that song.’
She swallowed. ‘But you didn’t even hear that song until—’
‘I saw it in your eyes.’
She looked away. ‘I never took you for a romantic.’
‘I didn’t, either.’
Aurelie could feel her heart beating so hard it hurt. She felt dizzy and weirdly high, as if she were floating somewhere up near the ceiling. And she felt scared. Really scared, because she didn’t know what Luke was trying to tell her.
She licked her lips, found a voice. ‘So what...what are you saying exactly?’
‘I don’t even know.’ He raked a hand through his hair, let out a weary laugh. ‘Part of me thinks we should keep this strictly professional, get through the next nine days, and never see each other again.’
‘That would probably be the smartest move,’ she agreed, trying to keep her voice light even as her mouth dried and her heart hammered and she hoped. Yet for what?
