Seduction by Song (6 page)

Logan nods, appeased for the moment. “You’d better return it. That crap doesn’t look cheap, and Dad’s birthday is coming up.”

“She’s not returning
anything
,” April snaps, finally unable to control herself any longer. I could tell she wanted to say much,
much
more, in what would probably be
much
fouler language, but she simply shrugs after a moment. “I bought it. It’s mine.”

“Of course it is,” Logan mutters snidely under his breath.

“
What
did you just say?” April’s eyes narrow as she stands from the table.

“Logan!” I say, interrupting loudly before they could get into a proper fight right here in the food court. “It’s—it was really good seeing you. Are you here to find a birthday present for Dad?”

Logan looks over my shoulder, still skeptical of April’s presence in my life. He liked her just about as much as she liked him—which was to say, not very much at all. He always thought that she was a bad influence and it had always been an uphill battle to keep him out of my business.

“Yeah,” he says, finally. “He could use some new power tools.”

I cringe. Dad really,
really
couldn’t use some new power tools. I mean, sure, he would probably appreciate them—he would appreciate anything we got him just because we were his kids. But what kind of work was
he
going to do around the house? He was a retired chef for God’s sake.

I don’t say any of that to Logan, though. He was a man’s man, and wanted Dad to be the same. Instead, I ask, “Can I come with? I still need to pick something up for him, too.”

Even though I already had a gift for him—a book of recipes I put together with April’s help—and even though spending more time with Logan was the last thing I wanted, I hoped that I might be able to talk him into getting something more practical for Dad.

“April, you can get home alright, right?” I ask when Logan nods to my request.

April opens her mouth, looking like she wants to protest, but clenches her jaw shut after a second and nods tightly. “Sure. Take care, Erin. I’ll see you at home for dinner?”

I nod and smile as reassuringly as I can, giving her a quick hug before letting Logan lead me away.

After subtly convincing Logan to get a set of fireplace pokers (Dad loved reading by the fire, stoking it every once in a while like they did in the old movies) instead of the power tools, making him think it was
his
idea in the first place, I make some excuses about having some work to do that night and have him drop me off at my apartment.

April tries to talk to me about the way I am around Logan—she, and practically everyone else in my life, tells me I’m too timid around him and that I should stand up for myself like I do with everyone else in my life. I can’t explain to her that it’s just not the same, that I just want to make those close to me happy while avoiding as much trouble as I can.

So, instead, I just avoid the subject, suggesting instead that we get an early night’s sleep—I had a big night tomorrow, after all.

She seems to have forgotten about the whole thing in the morning, or she’s at least trying to put it out of her mind. I try to insist that she doesn’t have to pamper me all day, but she insists even harder on helping me with my hair and makeup.

“It almost feels like we’re trying
too
hard,” I say as I wrinkle my nose, laughing as some powder she applies to my face tickles for a second.

“He’s going to be
devastated
,” is her typical answer.

As I look at myself in the full-length mirror in the bathroom, I have to agree. I haven’t looked so good in ages, and it feels pretty damn nice to see the way the dress accentuates the curve of my hips.

April drops me off a block away from the coffee shop, wishing me luck as I step out of the car.

“Thank you,” I say as my gaze drifts towards the coffee shop where a long dark limo is parked.

Luck, huh?

I’ll sure as hell need it.

Romeo is
nowhere in sight as I approach the coffee shop, a few minutes before the time we agreed on. (Or, rather, the time
Romeo
decided and I agreed
to
for reasons that were becoming less and less clear by the second.) I doubt this is someone
else’s
limo that just happens to be parked outside, though, so I hoist my purse, a tiny thing just big enough for my wallet and phone that April let me borrow, higher up on my shoulder as I stop by the vehicle to wait.

In five minutes, right on the hour, Romeo appears. He’s backing out of the coffee shop, laughing and smiling like he’d just come out of a great intimate party with his closest friends. Inside, I could swear I hear Lydia laughing as well, calling out and telling him to come back anytime.

Oh,
God
. He got to her, too?”

Romeo stops in his tracks when he turns, finally laying eyes on me. He rakes his eyes down my body, slow and intimate as I stand perfectly still, feeling more and more self-conscious by the second.

Then, to make things worse, he whistles, low and long.

Things were
not
off to a good start. In all of thirty seconds, he had managed to remind me of every reason I had to not enjoy his company. I had been so caught up in preparing for the date that I had even started to look forward to it—well, all that excitement was gone in an instant.

Romeo grins appreciatively as he brings his eyes back to meet mine, making some sort of gesture to his side that makes a driver appear to open the door for us.

“Shall we,
bonita
?”

He sweeps his hand in front of himself as he moves to station himself next to the door after our silent driver disappears into the limo again. I ignore his hand and bypass him completely on my way into the vehicle, settling down in the backseat as far to my side as possible. The plush leather seats are more comfortable than anything I’d sat in, and a faint new car smell permeates the air as though this were a brand new limousine.

“Cristal,” he says as he reaches for the bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket just in front of the seat he takes. “You got dressed up all for me, did you?”

I resist the urge to tell him
no
, I got dressed up for
me
, and instead settle peer out of the window as we begin moving, taking an unfamiliar turn away from my coffee shop as we roll down the empty night streets.

The pop of the champagne startles me into looking back to Romeo, and I accept silently as he holds out a flute of champagne to me.

“To this one night,” he says, apparently perfectly at ease with my silence. He raises his glass and waits patiently for me to clink the side of my glass against his.

It isn’t until after I’ve taken a sip that he adds, “And many more.”

If I could have, I would have spit the champagne back out. The
nerve
of this guy, really! The champagne wasn’t even especially good—rather, I’m sure it
was
good, but I was no expert and it didn’t taste much different to me than the champagne I had on a few rare occasions before.

“So—,” I start, barely able to get even that word out of my mouth before he interrupts.

“
Aw
. Is the silent treatment over already? I was enjoying it.”

I feel my face flushing hot as I frown at him, setting my glass down on a counter in front of myself. “I didn’t think it was possible for you to be
more
obnoxious, but—.”

He interrupts once more, holding up a hand as he grins. “I simply meant silence was actually quite an appropriate theme for the first part of the night.”

I frown, not understanding. He doesn’t explain, but also doesn’t leave me to wait long. Within a few short minutes, we had stopped in front of what seemed to be our first destination. As I step out of the limo, I realize that we’ve come to the local theater where I watched all the new releases on Wednesday nights during the school year when university students got in for the heavily discounted rate of just three bucks.

“
So
,” I start again as though he never interrupted minutes ago. “What, dinner and a movie?”

He smiles cryptically and holds out an arm to me. He was dressed in dark slacks and a button-up shirt, more formal than I’d ever seen him. His coat looked rather simple, not too fancy, but impossibly expensive at the same time. He certainly wasn’t
dressed
for something as mundane as dinner and a movie.

“Something like that,” he says, answering and not answering my question all at once.

I sigh and step forward, reluctantly threading my arm through his. He leads me into the theater and I notice, at once, the eerie silence spread throughout the place.

“It’s empty,” I say before I can stop myself. I feel my cheeks warm immediately afterwards. I was never one for stating this obvious and, well, that was about as obvious of an observation as I’ve ever made.

“Smart girl,” Romeo says, teasingly but not maliciously. He leads me through the theater as though he owns the place, which—now that I think about it—might actually be the case.

“
Why
is it empty?” I ask after a moment as he holds the door to one of the screening rooms open for me.

He waits until he’s led me to two of the seats in the center of the theater. He releases my arm, but not before bringing my hand up to his lips to press a warm kiss to my knuckles.

“Privacy,” he says as he lets go of my hand, taking the seat to my left. “Intimacy. Any number of reasons—take your pick.”

I frown at the non-answer, but take my seat. “This cryptic bullshit isn’t like you.”

“Ah, but you’ve yet to get to
know
me,” he says, grinning as though pleased with himself—as though this conversation was going exactly how he wanted it to go. “This is the point of the night, isn’t it?”

I sigh and relax in my seat. The ground is surprisingly clean beneath my feet, not at all sticky like it usually is in this place. Freshly scrubbed, no doubt. The screen lights up in front of us, playing footage of some calming scenery along with a soundtrack of background noises.

“I thought the point of the night was to
possess
me,” I say sarcastically, making a point to make sure he hears
exactly
what I think of that idea in the tone of my voice.

If he gets the hint, he completely ignores it. “Oh, don’t worry—I
will
possess you. Not immediately. Perhaps not even tonight.”

He isn’t given a chance to elaborate when a man I start to recognize as his driver appears with a tray of snacks that couldn’t possibly have come from the concession stand. There’s a platter of chocolate-dipped strawberries and two flutes of wine along with a single red rose lying across a selection of small pastries.

Around us, the lights dim. A film begins to roll in black and white, and I blink in surprise at the old-timey effect of it. Classical movies were my favorite, but there was no way Romeo would have known that. I expected him to pick some trashy rom-com for us to watch, but this actually looked half decent.

“What—.”

I interrupt myself this time, stopping to gasp when I realize that this was
the
film I had been searching for high and low for
ages
. A colleague had told me it would be perfect, even instrumental, to my research, but all I had managed to find was one corrupted VHS that didn’t help at all. The film was so old and obscure that I thought it would be lost to history, but it was right here, playing out in front of us on the silver screen. The footage wasn’t perfect—a bit shaky, but clear enough.

“How did you know?” I ask breathlessly.

Romeo laughs as he wraps an arm around my shoulders. I’m so distracted by the film, taking in every second of it, that I don’t even think to protest when he pulls me close to his side.

“It was written all over those notes you had when we met for coffee,” he says, reaching down to pick up the largest strawberry on the place and holding it up to my mouth. “It wasn’t hard to find it afterwards.”

Had I not been so distracted by the film, I would have argued that we didn’t
meet
for coffee—he ambushed me while I was hard at work avoiding him. I might even have had the presence of mind to argue that it must have been a pain to find, because I hadn’t had any luck in the whole year that I’d been looking for it. Instead, riveted by the scene unfolding in front of me, I even open my mouth obediently and take a bite of the strawberry he presses carefully to my lips.

As we watch the film, Romeo curling his fingers at my shoulders and sliding them down my bare arm once in a while, effectively keeping me close and warm at the same time, it’s so easy to tolerate his proximity that I don’t even notice I’m doing it. It’s only when the film ends, satisfying a curiosity that had been plaguing me for months, that I realize he had somehow gotten me to lay my head down on his shoulder.