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From the corner of my eye, I can see Sasha looking at me, her gaze asking me a million questions. Questions I don’t want to answer.
What are you doing? What are you thinking? What are you feeling?
But she doesn’t ask. A barrier blankets the space between us. Sasha would need a wrecking ball and divine intervention to bring it down because I’m not ready to share my past. That would be admitting to her how much I care about her.
Too damn much.
She hums the melody of the bells. “If you pay attention, everything has its own cadence. Its own music. These float between four octaves. D2 through D6. It’s breathtaking.” She sighs. “I wish I had my cello.”
Sasha looks lost in her own world—of bells, whistling notes, and humming—when I wrap my hand around the nape of her neck, curling around her throat.
“Do that again.” My voice sounds harsh, but I need to hear it.
Need to relive the past. Need to remind myself why my work is important.
Her eyes fly open, and she’s met with me, hovering mere inches in front of her face.
“Do what again?”
“That melody.”
She hums the bells’ song. The notes vibrate against my palm. My eyes shut, forehead coming down to meet hers. Words tumble from my mouth, and I don’t even have the energy to fight it.
“When my dad kicked me out, I struggled to find food.”
She doesn’t stop humming. The melody seeps between us as I share more than I’ve ever shared before, and Sasha never once interrupts me. She does as I asked, and later, I’ll dissect whether that has something to do with me opening up.
“There was a street with a dozen restaurants, and each week, when the bells started ringing, the owners and staff would congregate in one place for a meeting, leaving the stores unattended. I would take advantage of that fact.”
My hand loosens around the column of her neck. “Often, it was the only time I would eat.”
Her breath hitches, and I feel a tear drop from her chin onto my hand.
The first true sign Sasha cares. For me.
33
SASHA
His words playon an endless loop in my mind, and my heart aches at the thought.
The only times he ate was when he would sneak into stores and steal food. Now all the times he was concerned with my eating make sense. He went hungry, and he doesn’t want me to.
This is a weak spot. A loose brick in his façade.
The thing is, where in the past I might have wanted to exploit this, I don’t want to now.
I’ve seen brief glimpses of Gideon Byrne, and I know there is more to him than the persona of a ruthless boss.
And I never could have admitted it or imagined it before, but I want to know everything there is about him. And not for my survival, but because I’m interested in him.
Which is a good thing since I just let him finger me in Lincoln Center.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
“Yep, just peachy,” I respond as I follow him toward the door to the restaurant. The smell of the city still lingers in my nose as Gideon swings it open, and we step inside.
It’s beautiful. Elegant but quaint. It’s dim, the lights low and sensuous. The walls are a deep shade of blue, like the depths of a deep ocean.
