Strung Out (20 page)

“Where the hell are you?”

If her tone was anything to go by, she’d been trying to get hold of him for a while. “Why does it matter?”

“You’re not at work.” She paused, as though that fact in and of itself was enough to indicate a serious problem. “And Mother is insisting you and Talia go to the museum benefit tonight. She’s convinced it’s the best way to make your couple debut.”

Erik took a breath to speak, but Desiree didn’t give him a chance.

“I keep telling her it isn’t going to matter when or where the two of you make your grand entrance. She still won’t be satisfied with the results.”

Across the room, Talia was facing the wall to have a quiet conversation. There was something utterly satisfying about seeing her in his shirt with the rounded cheeks of her gorgeous ass peeking below the tail. She twirled the long phone cord around two graceful fingers as she talked. She looked almost innocent, but Erik knew what kind of wicked woman lay beneath the surface.

Cutting into Desiree’s diatribe, he ended the conversation. “I appreciate your concern, really. And tell Mother we’ll be there.”

“Wait! What about clothes, and hair, and there’s so much else I should probably be there to handle—” Her voice choked into silence when he snapped the phone shut.

When he lifted his eyes again, Talia was staring at him with a thoughtful expression on her face. His phone went back to the nightstand where he could forget his responsibilities for just a little longer.

“Come back to bed. There’s no reason to waste a perfectly good day with responsibilities.”

The way her hips moved when she walked back toward the bed reminded his cock there was no time for exhaustion. Every motion was grace and beauty spiced with a downright sassy sexiness he found irresistible.

Erik grabbed her hand and tugged her gently to the mattress. “So what has you looking so serious?”

“That was Leslie.” She remained on her knees, pushing him onto his back and lowering her lips to his bare belly. “She wanted to know if I could fill in for Niles tonight. He’s broken his fingers and can’t play violin in their trio.”

He settled his hand on her hip, enjoying the perfect fit. “We’ve already got plans for the evening.”

Talia froze beneath his hand. “What plans?”

“Some benefit or something at the museum. Desiree is the one with the detailed social calendar. I just show up where I’m told.”

She squirmed away from him and leaped lightly to the floor. “You can’t just make plans for me, Erik. It doesn’t work that way.”

Something about the cant of her chin and the defiance in her blue eyes scraped against his masculine pride. He was turning his whole life upside down for her. She could damn well tell her friend to find someone else. Talia wasn’t the only violinist in the Boston area. The two of them knew dozens of starving musicians at that school they’d gone to.

The sound of a drawer slamming shut punctuated his thought. Her jeans were already on, and she was adjusting her breasts into her bra. The woman was about to ditch him there in her apartment. Again.

What the hell?

“Lock up before you leave. If I don’t see you later on tonight, I’ll call you in the morning.” She shoved her feet into a pair of shoes and grabbed a jacket and her purse.

When the door slammed shut, Erik found himself all alone in a rumpled bed without a clue as to how he’d just lost control of a situation he’d have sworn he had well in hand.

Chapter Nineteen

“I get that you haven’t had a lot of practice lately, but you’re more nervous now than you were at our very first school concert.” Leslie arranged her calf-length skirt around the folding chair.

All three of them were wearing black dresses with long skirts. Talia’s entire outfit was borrowed from Leslie. She’d been too angry at Erik to think of grabbing anything while leaving her apartment, and Les had plenty of extras. The plain black clothing was the standard uniform for Leslie’s string trio. The group had been playing together nearly three years with the hope of someday becoming more than locally recognized. Now that they’d replaced Dylan with Jen, they were on the fast track to making things happen.

Talia tried to quit gawking down the length of the second floor Gund Gallery at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. They were tucked into a central alcove of the long room, between two pillars beneath the upstairs galleria. People meandered around the marble floor, viewing several special exhibition pieces and sipping from flutes of bubbly champagne.

“She’s probably thinking she’d rather be drinking and schmoozing than stuck with us.” Jen’s muttered words came from behind a straight curtain of honey-colored hair that hung to one side of the scroll of the cello tucked snug between her legs.

“Would you let up?” Leslie stage-whispered. “She’s here, isn’t she?”

A jolt of nervous electricity hit Talia like a whip when Desiree clacked by in her designer heels less than thirty yards away. Erik had to be somewhere in the gallery. The only questions would be how long it took him to notice her and how pissed off he would be when he did.

“Okay.” Leslie pulled out sheet music. “So let’s start with the Mozart piece like we talked about earlier. And then we’ll go into the traditional Beethoven. We’re supposed to be complementing the artwork from the Romantic era.”

Romance? Hah! Try World War III!

The three of them tuned their strings in unison, bouncing sound from one instrument to the next while using the tiny fine tuners at the bottom of each string to perfect the sound. When all were satisfied, Jen and Leslie looked to Talia to begin. Playing violin, her music carried the bulk of the melody. Which meant distractions were not an option.

The stress of the past four days bled out between the bar lines on the page. Talia’s mind focused on the notes and the nuances of the separate parts that were woven so perfectly by a master whose work had been moving listeners since its creation in the late seventeen hundreds. The fingers of her left hand flew over the strings, the palm wavering in perfect time with the pulsating pitch of vibrato as her bow arm moved in a graceful arc. Time lost meaning. Mozart ended, and they drifted right into the first of six movements in one of Beethoven’s most beautiful pieces.

A dramatic gasp ripped Talia from the music and thrust her back into the conflict that had become her life.

“You can’t be serious.” Erik’s sister, Selena, ducked behind a pillar in an exaggerated gesture of secrecy. “What are you doing?”

Jen’s bow skidded to a halt on the cello’s thick strings, causing a rip of sound to echo across the gallery. The noise had every eye in the room turning to find the source. But Talia didn’t really care about them. It was Leslie’s accusatory stare that mattered.

Leslie stood and set her viola on the chair. “Take five, Jen.”

“Les, wait!” Talia reached for her friend’s arm but was stopped by Selena’s iron grip.

“What are you doing? Wait! Don’t answer that. You’re making fools out of us. Do you have any idea how this looks for Erik?”

Selena’s words lit a fire in Talia’s gut. “Erik? You’re worried how this will look for Erik after
you’ve
made a spectacle of yourself? I’m not the one picking the wrong time and place for this conversation. I was hired to do a job, and I’m doing it.”

“Aasens don’t marry the hired help.”

The haughty tilt of her head and the indignation of her words turned Talia’s stomach. Ripping her arm away from Selena’s manicured grip, she ran in the direction of Leslie’s retreat.

The full skirt of her friend’s plain black dress disappeared down a corridor heading for the medieval collection. Rounding a set of Corinthian columns, she was whirled about by someone’s hard grip. Her foot caught, and she stumbled up against a column’s smooth white stone.

“Now do you see?” Courteney Colton stepped into the open. Her ice-princess mask was gone, replaced by festering hatred.

Talia ran her tongue across her paper-dry lips. “See what?”

“Why you aren’t meant to live in our world. Look at you! Hiring yourself out like some rent girl. You’d have done better as his mistress. There’s no way in hell you’re good enough to be his wife.”

She knew better than to let the petty words get to her. But that didn’t mean they didn’t hurt. Talia was already feeling insecure, as if she didn’t quite belong in this life. Because there was only one Erik Aasen she belonged with. And he wasn’t the one who could probably be found ordering Jack & Coke from the bar at the back of the gallery.

Tears stung her eyes, building on her lashes despite her efforts to hold them in. Letting the ice princess see her cry wasn’t going to solve anything. So she turned and ran instead.

This time she wasn’t following a dress but running blindly. Whipping around a corner, she ran straight into the giant body of Seth Overton. Her shorter form bounced right off his hard body and would’ve continued to the ground if not for his steadying grip on her shoulders.

“Careful where you’re going in such a hurry, ma’am.” Seth’s face broke into an easy grin when he recognized her. “Hey there, Talia. Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

“Anywhere but here.”

A frown creased his forehead, and he leaned back against a pillar, looking like a casual statue come to life. “Are you here for business or pleasure?”

She couldn’t choke back the bitter laugh. “You know, until recently I’d have said both because I love playing music more than anything else in the world. And I always thought I was pretty lucky it was my job.”

“And now?”

“You’re all lunatics,” she announced. “Like Erik. He hates his job and his family, but he still works himself half to death for them. You’re all like a bunch of crazy rats in a maze. It’s insane.”

Seth’s deep chuckle and warm grin made her like him all the more. She wasn’t attracted to him. In fact, as sexy as he was, he didn’t affect her at all. But there was something likeable about him all the same. “You know, you’re pretty well right. We are miserable. And I bet it does look insane to a free spirit like you. But most of us gain some kind of satisfaction from our job. We either like the lifestyle, the work, or just the adrenaline we get from making a deal. It’s hard to say.”

Talia sized him up. “You don’t seem like that.”

“I’m a lawyer. I’m never what I seem.”

She felt cold inside. “Erik isn’t what he seems either.”

“Don’t give up on him. Whatever you’re doing to him is for the best.”

“Talia?”

She turned to find Leslie approaching from the direction of the gallery. Her friend’s normally friendly features were blotchy from a bout of tears, and she hugged herself as though she were afraid she’d fall to pieces.

“I’ll leave you two.” Seth bowed his head and offered Leslie a startlingly brilliant smile before meandering back in the direction of the gallery. As he passed Leslie, he paused. “Someone whose music inspires joy shouldn’t be sad. Remember to keep some of that happiness for yourself, little one.”

Leslie’s eyes widened, her head turning to follow Seth’s progress down the corridor. It was several moments before she turned back to Talia and the problem at hand. It was obvious she was trying to get her thoughts together.

“All day I kept telling myself that things hadn’t really changed, Tallie.” Leslie brushed at the stray strands of her bright red hair. “We rehearsed for four hours. It sort of shocked me that you hadn’t played in days. I can’t remember a time when you turned your back on your music. But you didn’t seem different today. Just a little distracted. So I figured it was because you’re getting married. But now I’m not so sure.”

“I had an amazing time today, Les.” Talia struggled with what she had to say. “I felt like myself.”

“But now you’re here, and this new family of yours is crazy, Tallie. I know you never had a family. Honestly, I didn’t have much of one either. But these people have some screwed-up priorities. And I’m not going to pretend it’s okay.”

“It’s them, not Erik. You can’t judge him because of something stupid they did. He isn’t like that when he’s with me.”

“They’re his family! The way they act is all he knows. And if he can’t be the same person in both places, then you’d better get ready for whiplash, because that can’t work for very long. Someday he’ll decide where he belongs, and you’ll just be along for the ride.” Leslie turned away, her shoes clicking on the marble floor as she started the long walk back to the gallery.

“You promised to be my maid of honor just like I did for you, Les! I need you with me.”

Leslie stopped but didn’t turn. “I’m not going to pretend to support something that’s wrong. I’m sorry, Tallie.”

“What about this gig?”

“Just go home. We’re better off without you.”

The words cut like a knife, hurting more deeply than she could have imagined. It was as if she’d stopped belonging anywhere at all. And now she was more alone than she had been at five when her mother had traded a daughter for freedom.

Chapter Twenty

“This Talia thing isn’t going to work, Erik.”

He was getting distinctly tired of hearing that. But he’d expected better from Desiree. She’d promised to be supportive if he followed her lead on maintaining the delicate balance of their household harmony. Obviously something had happened to rock the boat.

She snatched the tumbler from his hand and drained the last of his Jack & Coke. “Ugh, what is that?”

“Next time ask before you guzzle.” Across the room, Courteney caught his eye before turning flirtatiously toward a tall young man Erik didn’t recognize. She was obviously trying to show him what he was missing.

“
She’s
here.”

Courteney laid her hand on the man’s bicep, nudging him with her shoulder and dipping her head like some blushing virgin. Erik wondered if the guy had any idea what a practiced flirt she really was. “I know; I can see her.”

Desiree thunked him on the back of the head. “Not Courteney, you idiot. Talia.”

She now had his full attention. “Talia is here?”

“She was playing with the trio.” His sister was all but vibrating with indignation. “Nobody would’ve thought twice about it until Selena got involved and acted like a complete ass. Poor Talia seems to have made herself scarce. It’s probably for the best. I about sank through the floor when Rupert Colton mentioned he’d seen the argument. The bastard wouldn’t quit saying how at home Talia looked playing with the trio.”