by Nina Singh
She sucked in her bottom lip, and he felt a wanton urge to leave the bags where they were and lift Ani in his arms and carry her like he had the other day in the square. Then he would carry her straight to his suite rather than showing her to the guest room.
Steady there. Ani was here for some much-needed peace and solitude. Not to be seduced.
He leaned down to pick up the bags once more as a disquieting thought occurred to him. “Just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a piano,” he announced, wondering if he should have thought to tell her that. Or if he needed to invest in one as soon as possible.
Anything to keep that smile of contentment on Ani’s face.
* * *
It hadn’t even occurred to her to ask about a piano.
Ani had to take a moment to process that. When was the last time she’d gone so much as forty-eight hours without practicing her craft? What did it mean that the notion didn’t scare her in the least? In fact, it felt oddly freeing. Foreign and unfamiliar, but freeing nonetheless.
What was happening to her?
It wasn’t like her to accept impromptu invitations to grand estates. And it certainly was uncharacteristic of her to be so blasé about her practice schedule. But somehow, it all felt right. Being here with Adam felt right.
Ani plopped herself down on the king-size bed in the room Adam had led her to. Though “room” was an understatement. The closet alone was the size of her entire bedroom back home.
She’d known he was well-off. But this was a whole other level. Even after these past few days together, she knew so little of the man.
One thing was certain: it was beyond kind of him to bring her here. This would be the mini vacation she was due for, even if it was only for two days. Short but sweet. Hopefully by the end, she’d gain some clarity of mind.
A text message lit up her phone.
Heading down to dinner. No rush. Join me when you’re ready.
Good saints above, she’d been so deep in her thoughts that she hadn’t realized how much time had passed. Ani glanced in the mirror at the windblown disaster of her hair and her disheveled clothing.
This would not do. She’d unexpectedly found herself in one of the most glamorous parts of the world. And she would make herself presentable for dinner.
Adam would just have to wait. Her stomach growled in protest. So she’d have to get ready fairly quickly.
Another way she’d changed. Ani couldn’t recall any time in the past when she would have let her hunger take a back priority to fixing herself up.
By the time she made it downstairs about fifteen minutes later, she had to think she’d made a pretty good effort. She wore a silk summer dress with a flower pattern and butter-soft sandals that she’d bought just for this trip. Her hair was mostly loose, with a small clip at the base of her neck securing it just enough to keep it off her face.
She walked through the foyer at the bottom of the stairs toward a door that led to a brick patio. Adam had given her a quick verbal layout of the house when he’d shown her to her room.
She found him there sitting at a set table studying a spreadsheet.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
He looked her up and down. “I’d say it was quite worth the wait.”
Ani hoped he didn’t see the blush creep up her cheeks as he held out a chair. The night was comfortably warm with just enough of a breeze to feel refreshing. In the distance, the coastline looked like a masterpiece of a painting, majestic and artful.
“This is breathtakingly beautiful, Adam.”
“It beats the army barracks.”
She chuckled. “Tell me something. Did you happen to win the Texas state lottery at some point and neglect to mention it? I know a soldier’s salary didn’t allow you to acquire all this.”
“You could say that. I’ve had a good deal of success with various investments. It’s akin to winning the lottery. One particular tech start-up opportunity paid extraordinarily well. I invested the profits and the jackpot grew from there. Then I founded Steele Security and invested to make that grow.”
He made the statement in a completely nonchalant manner, no hint of pride or boasting. She didn’t know much about the stock market, but she knew enough to figure that this much financial success would require much more than luck. Adam clearly had a head for business and the intelligence to make extremely lucrative decisions.
Her curiosity was beyond piqued. “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you still so involved with the company?” She motioned around her. “It appears you could sit on your laurels for a bit.” He owned a villa on the French Riviera, for heaven’s sake.
He shrugged. “I need to stay occupied. Not quite ready to sit on any laurels just yet.”
Or he was still trying to prove himself. To whom, Ani could venture a guess. Adam had grown up with an aunt and uncle who’d been kind enough to take him in, but not enough to love him. They’d been ready to tell anyone who would listen that his arrival had put an inconvenient dent in their childless lives.
“You joined the army to get away, didn’t you?” she dared to ask, knowing the question was more personal than anything they’d discussed so far.
“Ani, I had nowhere else to go. The day I turned eighteen, my uncle made sure to inform me that his responsibility to me was over.”
Again, the statement was completely matter-of-fact, with no discernible emotion. “You don’t sound bitter.”
“They clothed me and they fed me for years. I had it better than a lot of other orphaned kids.”
That was true. They just hadn’t loved him. Ani itched to stand and walk over to pull him into her embrace. To try to soothe the unwanted teenage boy he must have been. All those years she’d been crushing on him as a teenager, she’d had no clue the depth of emptiness he must have been enduring.
Jaqueline appeared at that moment with a silver rolling cart. A bottle of red wine sat in the center.
“Bonjour, Miss Ani. I hope you’re hungry.”
Ani patted her midsection. “I’m starving. And that smells heavenly.”
Jaqueline nodded. “Grilled fish caught just today. With a light green salad and freshly baked baguette. I’ve been baking bread all day.”
Adam lifted the bottle and started to pour into their goblets. “Would you care for a glass?” he asked Jaqueline.
She waved away the offer. “Non, merci. I had a bit of rosé at lunch. No more for me today. Is there anything else I can get for you two?”
Adam leaned over to give her a small peck on the cheek. “You’ve done enough on such short notice,” he told her. “Go on home. We’ll take care of the dishes and the cleanup.”
“Au revoir, then,” Jaqueline gave him a grateful smile, waved goodbye to Ani, then turned to leave.
Leaving her alone with the man she was growing increasingly attracted to with each passing minute.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ADAM COULDN’T RECALL the last time he’d had such a pleasurable meal. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever taking a full two hours to eat. Though the dinner itself had gone fairly quickly, they’d both simply sat and talked after finishing their food, slowly sipping on the rich merlot. He’d brought Ani here for her sake, but he had to wonder who was doing the other a favor.
“I think that might be the most tired I’ve ever seen Snowball,” Ani said. Their conversation had veered toward the subject of her pet more than once. “He wasn’t even interested in the bowl of food I set in his pen, just curled up on the pillow I threw in there and started to snore.”
Adam chuckled. “We had a pretty long day of travel.” It occurred to him he might be acting as a bad host. Just because he was enjoying himself didn’t mean Ani wasn’t tired and ready for bed.
“I apologize,” he began, hating tha
t he may be right and that Ani was ready to retire for the evening.
“For what?”
“You must be exhausted. I didn’t mean to keep you up.”
“You’re not keeping me up.” She took a sip of her wine, then glanced at him from under long, dark lashes. “Actually, I find I don’t want this night to end.”
Didn’t she know what it did to him when she said such things? He was barely holding on to control as it was. They may be here in a paradise on earth, but the outside reality hadn’t changed for either of them. He had no business wanting her, he couldn’t offer her what a woman like Ani deserved. He had worldly possessions most men could only dream of. But Ani wasn’t the type of woman who would make wealth any kind of consideration when deciding what she wanted from a relationship.
And he knew better than to pine for any kind of relationship himself.
He waited for her to continue, afraid of saying the wrong thing. Or saying exactly what he was feeling.
She finally spoke after sipping some more wine. “I owe Moira a call some time tomorrow. I promised to let her know if I’d come to any conclusions about adding performance dates.”
Adam nearly laughed out loud. Talk about flattering himself. She didn’t want the night to end because she dreaded the phone call she had to make in the morning. It had nothing to do with him. He shouldn’t have been disappointed. In fact, he should have been relieved.
Focus.
“I still don’t know what I’m going to tell her,” she said, staring off into the distance. The sun was beginning to set, slowly turning the sky from aqua blue to a deep, dark navy.
“Ani, if you’re not ready for a career move like that just yet, you have to respect that.”
She toyed with the stem of her wineglass. “What if another opportunity like this doesn’t come again?”
She really had no idea of the depth of her ability and talent. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. I have no doubt the music world will be waiting for you with open arms whenever you’re ready.”
Ani finally glanced at him, and the turmoil in her eyes had him aching to reach for her. “What if I’m never ready? What if I’m not cut out for the limelight and the life of a celebrity?”
“Then you should respect that, as well.”
“Maybe. I’d have to live with the knowledge that I may have thrown away an opportunity most artists can only dream of.”
He couldn’t argue with that. What if questions always had a way of following one through life. But there was an opposite side to that particular coin. “If you go forward and you’re miserable, you’ll have the same questions.”
She took a small sip of her wine. Adam got the impression she wasn’t really tasting it, too deep in thought. There was something else weighing on her mind and impacting her decision about what path to take. The answer came when she spoke again. “I keep thinking about what Mom would think. Music was such a large part of her life. She was my first piano instructor. Some of my earliest memories involve stroking the keys while sitting on her lap.”
Ah, so that was the missing piece. He should have known. Ani was afraid of disappointing a parent she’d lost long ago. It appeared they had much more in common than he’d ever known. But the difference was, Ani’s mother was a loving and caring nurturer who doted on both her children. He’d heard enough about her from Brant to know that for a fact.
Adam had never experienced such affection. He really had no business trying to give her any advice about the matter, given his total lack of ability to relate. But he wanted desperately to ease some of Ani’s turmoil.
“I wonder if I’d be disappointing her if I say no,” she continued. “It’s silly, I know. But I can’t help but believe she’d want me to embrace this chance I’ve been given.”
He reached across the table and took her hand in his. “Ani, I believe more than anything else that she’d want you to be happy.”
* * *
“I should go check on Snowball,” Ani proclaimed, then stood suddenly. She knew she was running from the conversation. But she wasn’t ready to confront some of these feelings just yet. And she certainly wasn’t used to sharing so much of herself with another person. In fact, it scared her how much she’d just shared with Adam.
She’d never told another soul, not even Brant or her father, the extent of her internal anxiety about letting her mother down when it came to her playing.
Adam slowly nodded. “All right. I’ll be right here if you’d like to come back down.”
Did she? Earlier she’d told him that she didn’t want the night to end. The ocean air, the richly delicious wine and the magnetism of the man sitting across from her was a scene right out of a fairy tale that she wanted to continue forever. But then the conversation had veered in a direction she hadn’t been prepared for.
“But I will understand if you don’t,” Adam added.
No pressure, and she was thankful for it. But part of her wished he would push her just a bit, take some of the decisions out of her hands.
He could ask her to stay with him. See where things might lead. But Adam was too much of a gentleman. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?
She mumbled a thank-you before rushing upstairs.
As expected, Snowball was still out cold in the safety of his puppy pen. Too bad. She could have used an attentive ear right about now.
You just fled from the one person you’ve ever felt comfortable confiding in.
She had her reasons. She was just having trouble articulating what they were. Part of the issue was that Adam himself was so closed off, holding himself at a distance. Despite having known him most of her life, she didn’t actually know him. Not even the most basic details of his background. Years ago, she’d asked Brant how Adam had come to live with his aunt and uncle, but her brother had shut her down, telling her it was none of her business and to stay out of his friend’s business. Then he’d given her a serious noogie.
Ani dropped down on the bed and released a deep sigh. It bothered her more than she cared to admit that Adam wasn’t ready to divulge anything real about himself to her. While she’d grown to trust him implicitly. The dichotomy made her feel lacking, inadequate. Shouldn’t he trust her a little bit, too, at this point?
One thing was certain—she wasn’t going to find out anything holed up in this room. Bouncing upright, she freshened up in the bathroom and went back downstairs.
Adam was in the kitchen, elbow deep in suds, washing dishes. His back to her, he had his shirt sleeves rolled up and a kitchen towel draped over his left shoulder. Ani’s heart did a flip in her chest. It had never occurred to her how sexy she would find a man in the middle of a household chore.
Not just any man. Adam Steele.
She figured she would probably find him sexy doing most anything.
She walked over and removed the towel from his shoulder. “I’ll dry.”
“How’s the bunny rabbit?” he asked with a sideways glance as she lifted the first plate off the rack.
“Ha ha. My dog is resting comfortably, thank you very much.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I suppose any dog you ever get would be much fiercer. The size of a small car, perhaps?”
“At least.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
Adam chuckled. “I worked with a canine unit for a while in the army. A German shepherd. He was trained to sniff out explosives.”
Finally, a small tidbit of information about his past. As innocuous as it was, it was something. She’d take it.
“What happened to him?”
He shrugged, dipped another plate into the suds, then wiped it with a thick sponge. “Reassigned. He wasn’t actually my dog.”
“Do you miss him?”
He snorted. “About all I miss from those days.” He dropped the last plate ont
o the rack a little too forcefully. “Brant was the one who gave you Snowball, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he rescued him from a local pound about three years ago when he was just a few weeks old. Just a tiny puppy.”
“Brant was worried about you. Mentioned you were going through a tough time.”
“I’d just been dumped. My on-and-off boyfriend of about a year decided our relationship needed to remain in the off status.”
“What happened?”
She took the cutting knife he’d just cleaned, and dried it off with the towel before placing it on the counter. “The usual. He felt we’d grown apart. He said I never had any time for him, between my constant practice schedule and my volunteer work at the center.”
“Brant told me he never liked him. He was obviously a blind and selfish fool.”
Ani stilled in front of the counter. So she’d been a topic of discussion between Adam and Brant. The notion sent a hum over her skin. “Oh?”
“I asked about you from time to time.”
“I see,” she responded, taking a fork he’d just washed.
“You know, small talk during those long, boring patrols.”
It appeared an opportunity had presented itself. Ani took the chance it offered. “You know, it just so happens I asked him about you as well.”
Adam paused ever so slightly. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. Brant told me to mind my own business.”
He reached into the sink to remove the plug and drain it. Several beats passed and he hadn’t said anything in response to her comment. Ani concluded he wasn’t going to when he turned to face her, leaning his hip against the counter.
“That’s because Brant’s a good friend. One who can be trusted to keep confidences that shouldn’t be told.”
She wasn’t surprised by that answer, but she was sorely disappointed. She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t come up with anything to say. He tilted her chin with the tip of his finger.
“Good night, kitten. I’ll see you in the morning.”
* * *
