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The rumble of his voice rolled through her once more, deep and delicious. Her fingers tightened on her glass as butterflies fluttered in her stomach.
Down, girl.
“The first time I heard one was in the subway. I was walking and heard music. It was incredible.”
The memory of it washed over her. She’d only been with Constanza a few weeks and had been pushing her then foster mother away with biting insults or cold silences. That Constanza had replied with a table heaped with traditional Haitian foods, freshly laundered clothes and a gentle smile had made her feel guilty, which had made her angrier. The walls she’d built over the years had trembled with every kind gesture, and damn it, she hadn’t wanted that. She hadn’t wanted to get attached when she could’ve been yanked away at any moment.
Which had made the deep tug in her chest as she’d heard the first haunting strains of the cello in the tunnels more powerful, as if someone was calling to her who finally understood all of her pain, her heartache and loss.
She’d followed the music through the people crowding the tunnels at rush hour. Everything else had faded: the rumble of the trains, the cacophony of voices, the incessant beeping and ringing of phones.
There had only been the music.
“Like angels singing?”
She blinked and refocused on the man with a frown.
“No, the opposite. He was...” Her hand came up, her fingers moving in the air as she mimicked the movements she’d seen the day her world had changed. The day she’d stopped surviving and started living. “He was making the cello weep.”
“Weep?”
She took another drink to cover her wince. Not the most PR-friendly way of describing the beginning of her music career. These people wanted glitz and glamour, not sad and depressing.
But something in the way he looked at her, with an intensity that made her feel as if he could see beneath all the years of practice, made her want to tell him. To share what had led her from a tiny two-bedroom apartment in East Harlem to performing in a string orchestra in one of the ritziest hotels in New York City.
Don’t do it.
Hadn’t she learned her lesson over the years? Trusting and confiding in someone opened the door to getting one’s hopes up. To getting hurt. Constanza had been a miracle, a gift she’d never expected to receive, but also a rarity. No one before or since had been there for her.
The reminder helped her rein in her memories. She let out a light laugh.
“Musicians can be a bit dramatic. I enjoyed the music. The cellist was kind enough to answer my questions after he played. I started taking lessons, and here I am,” she finished with a gesture to one of the nearby glass cocktail tables topped off with white blooms and flickering candles.
The man’s frown deepened. “That’s not what you were going to say.”
Now it was her turn to frown, partially at his firm tone and partially at his bold words. Had she misread him?
“Excuse me?”
He leaned in, but unlike with Harry, his closeness didn’t inspire disgust. It made her breath catch in her chest and that damned heat burn hotter, intoxicating even as she silently cursed it. She did not want to be attracted to anyone, let alone a rich playboy who probably dated models and actresses and politicians.
Someone who would never look twice at someone like her.
The urge to flee descended on her rapidly. Her pulse started to flutter, and she cast about for a reason to leave as the lead singer of the band called everyone to join him on the dance floor. Her lips parted, some inane excuse drifting up. She nearly dropped her own drink when his fingers closed firmly about her hand. Her head jerked up, and she read in his eyes that he knew she’d been about to walk away.
“Dance with me.”
Evolet had always thought nothing could be more seductive than the sounds of her cello. More than one man had accused her of being a cold fish, a criticism she’d taken in stride because no man had ever enticed her beyond a second date or an unsatisfying kiss good-night. Ever since she’d wandered down a subway tunnel at fifteen in search of a song that had called to her, only two things had mattered to her in the world: Constanza and her cello.
But now, as his invitation penetrated her shock, she had the unsettling feeling of her world shifting. If she said yes, it would shift even further. She wouldn’t see this man beyond this night. Yet she would always carry the memory of his touch, the remembrance of his hand wrapped possessively around hers.
And the lingering memory of what a dance with him would have been like.
“All right.”
Before she questioned her own judgment, before she could even blink, he plucked her drink from her hand, set it back down on the bar and, with a light touch of fingers on the small of her back that burned through the material of her dress, whisked her onto the dance floor.
“You’ve done that before.”
