Page 143 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

“Thank my mother for that.”

“Piano is a little odd for someone like you, isn’t it?”

“My father plays, too. My mother always said that sitting me down at the piano was the only thing that would make me stay still for longer than five minutes. She used that to her advantage.”

“Do you remember learning how to play?”

Cross shook his head. “No, but I do remember when I first started learning guitar with an instructor—I was six. I had already been having piano lessons for quite a while before that. I was starting to read music by then, and not just copy what my mother was doing, or play a bit by ear.”

“So … you’ve basically been playing piano for longer than you can remember?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Do you play often?” Catherine asked.

Cross lifted a single shoulder. “For the last year, sure. Especially since Calisto dragged me to an antique shop after he found this piano, and then forced me to buy it.”

“You really look like someone who can be forced to do something, Cross.”

His smirk deepened. “That’s my story.”

“I wish you would have played for me years ago.”

“I didn’t play at all for a period of time. More so when I was a teenager. I had better things to do, you know?”

“I think you told me once that I was the better things you were doing.”

He laughed huskily.

She grinned.

Cross thought he might like to get that pretty mouth of hers doing something else. “You were definitely one of the better things I was doing, Catherine.”

Catherine reached up to brush the few strands of hair that had fallen into Cross’s eyes out of the way. He watched her all the while; his hands never once stopped moving along the keys. The melody he created relaxed him almost as much as her touch did.

“What is it you’re playing, exactly?”

“It’s a piece from the sixth volume of Songs Without Words,” he said.

“The sixth volume?”

“There’s eight altogether.”

“Huh,” she whispered. “Well, this is very unfair, Cross.”

His hands stilled, and the last notes he played echoed through the penthouse before silence took its place.

“What’s unfair?” he asked.

“You.”

“Me?”

“You,” Catherine repeated with a nod.

“Explain, Catty.”

Catherine started ticking things off with her fingers. “Guitar. Piano. Guns. Style. Cooking. Driving, and cars. Money. Looks. Oh, let’s not forget sex, too.”