“I want to take you to the studio and play the track to you. Some of the guys are due in today for a session, so you can meet them. Will your sax be at the café?”
“Probably.” She forced herself not to shift as her arousal rose with her awareness, to give him any clue that his remarks had turned her on. Far too early to give him the upper hand. She smiled sweetly. “If Jack wasn’t in when they went around, they’d have taken it to my parents’ home. It would have been very late, but he’s an insomniac and he’ll stay late doing the books if he’s having a bad night. I have to go change before I can do anything else, anyhow.” And put up with the comments from the regular customers. Just as well she had her coat because the slinky gold number was wrong in so many ways for daywear in Chicago.
He continued to sip his drink, in no hurry, it seemed, to walk away and give her some privacy. His eyes gleamed and she knew this was some kind of test.
So she finished her coffee, flung back the sheets and walked firmly across the room in the direction of the bathroom. She didn’t turn around at his piercing wolf whistle, nor did she give any indication that she’d heard, apart from giving him the finger before she closed the bathroom door. His shout of delighted laughter warmed her more than it should, but he didn’t follow her in. She didn’t know if she felt happy or relieved about that.
After showering and dressing, she ate the toast he made for her, and they left the apartment. He paused before he helped her into her coat. “Do you like this place?”
She gazed around at the small lobby and the great room beyond. Light streamed into the area from the big windows on the river side. Obviously a luxury apartment, but something was missing. The personal touch she’d noticed was absent in the bathroom last night. “It’s nice. Did you buy it furnished?”
His laugh was distinctly awkward. “Yes, I did. I didn’t have time for décor. I keep planning to get someone in, though. Why, don’t you think it’s me?” He gestured in a deliberately extravagant manner.
With its low-level leather sofas and glass coffee tables, the neutral color scheme with a couple of flashes of brights, the apartment was the epitome of a show home. Somewhere nobody really lived. But she didn’t want to offend him.
The thought that she didn’t know him well enough to know if her comment would upset him or not put the events of last night into perspective. A one-night stand, something that didn’t have to mean much to either of them, although she very much wanted it to. Sure, the sex had been spectacular, but she didn’t know him, even though she felt easy with him, more comfortable than she’d ever felt with Jack.
“Don’t you have any gold discs, stuff like that?”
“Trophies?” He folded her coat around her after she pushed her arms through the sleeves. “I have them, sure. This is a two-bedroom apartment. The second bedroom is full of boxes.” He met her gaze when she turned around to face him, though she couldn’t read much in his guarded expression. So different from the way he’d looked at her last night.
Musician, she reminded herself. She knew the lifestyle, the way they moved on, especially in these days when public appearances provided so much of their income. The band became the family and everything outside it mattered less. She suspected that mindset lingered with him.
Maybe he was mentally closing a door on their encounter, or at least putting distance between them, re-erecting barriers they never should have breached on their first night. In which case she’d better accept it as good common sense. “You didn’t unpack?”
He raised a brow. “Haven’t had time to unpack more than clothes. One day.”
“You move around.”
“All my life.” He turned away, ostensibly to open the door. She stared at his leather-clad back. All his life? He might like it that way, uncomfortable with staying in one place for too long. Some people were like that, natural gypsies. In that case, she didn’t give much chance of his studio succeeding.
That wasn’t her problem, she reminded herself firmly.
He opened the door and waited for her to pass through. Gripping her purse, she walked past him, head held high.
The walk to her café was more tense than their race to bed the night before, but in a different way. Morning-after way. She tried to make conversation, but he seemed on edge and answered in monosyllables barely the right side of politeness.
It was after nine and the café was already doing brisk business. Steam puffed from the milk frother and the scent of fresh coffee filled the air. Home.
Behind the counter, Jack, a fresh cloth draped over one arm, glanced up to see her enter. His gaze lingered over the man behind her and she got a clue that this could be awkward. Why the fuck hadn’t she had a separate entrance put in when they’d renovated? True, there was the fire escape, but she didn’t trust the iron stairway and it smacked uncomfortably of sneaking around. She was part owner of this place, not an errant child.
So she pasted an easy smile on her face. “Morning, Jack.” She nodded to the barista and the new man they’d hired last week to make sandwiches. He was working out pretty well, although maybe “man” was an exaggeration. Chad was barely twenty, but he had a gift for a fresh sandwich. She would have hurried past, but Jack commented, “Just coming in?”
“Yes. And going out again pretty soon. Did my uncle drop off the sax?”
“Yes. Though I don’t know why you bother.”
She felt heat behind her. “Because she’s damned good, that’s why,” came a dark rumble.
Jack tilted his head quizzically. “Yes, she is. But she dabbles, that’s all. Don’t you, sweetheart?”
The possessive term annoyed her more than usual. In many ways Jack treated her as if they were still an item. He hadn’t dated since their breakup as far as she knew, but she’d be glad to see him move on. “I’m still dabbling, Jack. Not that it’s any of your business.”
This time she did pass by, taking Matt with her.
Her apartment was so different from his. Smaller, for a start, and crammed with memorabilia and personal items. Seeing it anew today, she realized just how small it was. But she’d called it cozy before, and enjoyed the ambience. She still did, she told herself.
He cleared his throat, stood by the sofa with his hands stuck in his pockets. “So tell me about Jack. Should I be careful around him?”
Her eyes widened. “You think…?” Yeah. She’d called him her partner and they hadn’t exactly gone into many details last night.
“I warn you, V, I don’t do backdoor man.”
“Good.” That wasn’t what she wanted, wasn’t something she could live with. He deserved to know. “Jack and I were an item a few years back, and he bought into the café then. When we split as a couple, we decided to carry on the business. We didn’t have a rough separation, we just agreed we were better friends than lovers. He’s a lawyer, but doesn’t get enough business to keep him busy full-time. I wanted to have a bit of time for my music, and the café pays enough for both of us to take a cut. We halve the work and it works for us.”
He stared at her, his mouth compressed, then he nodded. “I see. It sounds good.” He didn’t sound convinced, but that was his business. He’d have to decide if he wanted to believe her or not, but she wouldn’t do more than set out the situation for him.
“I’ll go change.” She circuited a table to get to her bedroom door. “I shouldn’t keep you waiting too long. Make yourself at home.”
He was too big for this place, but he did his best, spreading out on the single sofa. She bolted through to her bedroom.
She emerged ten minutes later to discover him studying the pictures hung on the wall near the window. “You?” he asked, pointing to her graduation photo.
“Have I changed that much?”
He smiled at her and she relaxed. She couldn’t help it, that smile would charm the pants off anybody. She’d certainly not been immune. “Some. Your hair is longer now, and you’ve lost the beaming innocence.”
She traced the
edge of her cheek. “And I lost the spots.”
“Can’t say I can see them. Like most kids, I wonder if you exaggerated them.” He grinned. “I bet people were too busy looking at the rest of you to notice.”
She pulled a face. “Sexist.” Glancing at the photo again, she saw a pretty girl, bright with happiness, and recalled that day. “I was always too skinny too.”
“You’re gorgeous.” He reached for her, put his hands on her waist. “You’re not overgenerous.”
She loved that description. “No, I’m not. Average. I’ve always been average. The spotty stage didn’t last long enough for me to get a complex about them, and in any case, my family wouldn’t have allowed it. The complex, not the spots. Mom gave me some special soap and some lotion and they cleared up after a year or two.”
He stared at the other pictures. “They’re not all your family, are they?”
Laughing, she had to confess that they were. “My pop invented a gadget about thirty years ago. Something for a car.”
His eyes widened. “The Hamid Regulator?”
“How did you know my name was Hamid?” As soon as she’d said it, she laughed. “The café.” The sign was so much part of her life she hardly remembered it was there anymore. They’d renamed the café Hamid’s, but most people called it “The Neat Street Café”, after the alleyway by the side of the place.
He nodded. “That’s it.” A sense of wonder permeated his eyes. “It’s been years,” he murmured as if to himself. “I haven’t slept with anybody— I’m sorry.”
She enjoyed his embarrassment. Better than that tension she barely understood, so much more powerful than she’d felt with anyone else. “Since you slept with someone without knowing their full name? I wouldn’t have known yours if I hadn’t known who you were. I didn’t ask any more than you did.”
She took a risk, turned and kissed him.
She meant it to be brief, but the flash of scalding heat that passed between them shocked her into immobility. Long enough for him to pull her closer and plunder.
It happened again. She lost all sense of time and place. Fuck, this man was steaming hot, better than anyone else. Was it practice, or did it come naturally? Right now she didn’t give a fuck. She just wanted more.
He broke the kiss and touched his lips to the tip of her nose. “Do you want this? Your choice.”
Like a gentleman, he’d given her breathing space, a chance to regain her senses. She appreciated that. “We should go.” Her shaky laugh revealed her state of mind. “I thought— I had no—”
“Tell me.” His hold on her gentled but he didn’t let go.
“Well, we got so carried away that I thought, well, you know, it was just one of those things, a night. And you are so fucking cool I thought, yeah, well, at least I can say I fucked one famous person in my life. And now I’m a groupie.” It had meant much more to her, but she didn’t know if she was ready to admit it to anyone else yet. This was so intense she was losing herself. Treating it flippantly might help her to regain her equilibrium.
His laugh broke the remaining tension and she relaxed into his hold. “Except, darling Violet, I’m the groupie and you’re the musician.”
“No, I didn’t—” She broke off and gave a self-deprecating grin. “Yes I did.”
He held her firmly, gazing down into her face. “Look, V. You want a one-nighter, then that’s what you’ll have. I won’t push you for more if you don’t want it. Like I said last night, the business part of it ended outside the café. It can start again this morning, if you want, and we can be just colleagues.”
She swallowed. He meant it. “You’d do that?”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
“Is my playing on the track so important to you?” She could feel his intensity, and it wasn’t all for her. Little signs of nervousness, the way the muscles around his mouth had tightened, a look of tension that was different from the way they’d appeared last night.
“What?” Frowning, he stared at her, then his brow cleared. “Fuck, yes. I want to be honest with you. Yes, it means a lot to me. I let the band down, badly, a couple of years back and this is my chance to make it up to them. I want this album to be the best I can make it, and it’s fucking good already. Can I be frank?”
“You can be Harry if it helps.”
Her mild joke released his smile. “For you I’ll be anything you like. Okay, then. When I left the band, it wasn’t under the best circumstances. I was wasted, unreliable. What was reported in the press—it wasn’t the half of it. All I did in the band was sing and play harmonica, although they put my name down on a few songs as writer. Truth is, I didn’t write any of them. I did learn production and discovered I liked it, but my songwriting is feeble at best. They left my name on the songs, which was a pretty cool thing to do.
“My share of the royalties paid for my rehab. But when I left the band, it wasn’t voluntary like they reported. They said I’d left for a few months to go into rehab and I’d be back, but it wasn’t the truth. The band fired me. They had to.” He met her eyes steadily, and all she saw in his now was honesty. And a simmer of desire, something she’d thought he’d burned out on. She was glad to see its return. “Jace took me to the facility and shoved me inside. That was after I ODed for the last time.”
“So if not for Jace, you’d be dead.” She remembered Jace, the lead guitarist with Murder City Ravens. Tall, dark and sultry. Or sulky, they both worked for him.
“Yeah. I thought he’d taken away my life and I was bitter for a long time. Too long.” He sighed. “In the facility, they taught me to face my own problems and take responsibility for my own mistakes. That was when I called each member of the band and apologized. Thank fuck Jace took his call, because I’d missed him. We started to be friends again. This recording session is a way for us to start over professionally. The press has been nosing around, but we’re sticking to our story that I left voluntarily when my bad habits got the better of me, and started a new career here.”
Heady, for him to give her that much power. All she had to do was make a call, and their carefully constructed story would be in the toilet. The press loved rumors and she could start the circus with the information he’d just given her.
So this gig was far more important to him than he’d told her. “Am I your secret weapon?”
He gave her a long, lingering kiss. “More than you know. After last night it’s far more than that.” She swallowed, and he saw it, his attention going to her vulnerable throat. He bent and touched a kiss to one side of her neck. “You can back out from the job if you want, but I want to see you again personally, if you’re willing. We started something last night and we’re not done yet.”
She had to know one thing before she agreed to anything more. “The junk? You’re off it?”
“I didn’t even drink for a year. Alcohol was never my problem, although God knows I enjoyed a bottle of bourbon with my junk. But I could stop drinking whenever I wanted to, and I did, just to give the band some shit when they told me to quit. I stopped because I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t need anything at all, that I could live my life totally sober. I even think twice before popping aspirin. I swear it.”
She had to believe him. Either that or walk away. “My family has been in the music business on and off for years. Now it’s just the club, but at one time it was more. My uncle Reggie, Claud’s brother, died of, well, everything.”
His face clouded. “I’m sorry.”
“In his case the stuff he took killed his gift. He played the sax, like me, but he went the whole Charlie Parker length and paid for it. He was never as brilliant as Bird, but he wanted to be, and when he was high, he thought he was.” She shrugged. “He died before I was born, but Claud always reminded me about that after I started to play.”
“You’re good,” he assured her. “Not like Bird though. Your gift is different. Shall we go and use it?”
She glanced around, saw her instrument case propped ag
ainst one wall. She really should ask for her key back from Jack. They were in business together, but that didn’t mean he could come and go here anymore.
But today, she had to admit it was useful. She found her jacket and picked up her case. “I’m ready when you are.”
Chapter Four
They got a cab to his studio, which was, like the club, in the blues district. V had heard of the enterprise, the news had made quite a stir in the music industry, but she’d never been there before.
The studio turned out to be a nondescript building, a shiny brass plaque outside the only indication of the function the building now fulfilled. But on opening the door, all doubt was eliminated. A receptionist sat behind a glass-topped desk, and behind it was a proud display that read “Kismet Studios”.
“Fate?” she queried, turning to him with a smile.
He shrugged. “It sounded good. Don’t you think?”
“Sure.” It could, after all, be as simple as that.
“Teresa, this is V. Put her name down on the list. V Hamid.”
“List?” she asked.
“People allowed straight through. You’ll have to sign the guest list, but you can come and go as you wish after that.”
This was a privileged world. As a musician amongst musicians, she took the world for granted, but people hounded by the press and others would come to this place. A studio should provide them with a degree of peace, since it was their place of work. She was stepping into a different position here, maybe into a new part of her life.
What happened last night had nothing to do with it, at least that was what she told herself. Until she felt his presence at her back and knew she was lying to herself.
“Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it.”
Just like acquaintances who’d never touched each other’s bodies in the deep of night, they walked side by side through to a studio at the back.
It wasn’t V’s first time in a recording studio, so the relative smallness of the control booth and the studio beyond didn’t bother her. Her uncle Claud had sometimes recorded in a tiny place that had closed down five years ago.
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