The Butterfly and the Violin (16 page)

“I’m at his little sister’s wedding! He invited me—what was I supposed to say?”

“I would have said yes too.” Sera heard a chuckle through the phone.

“Penn, you’re laughing at me.”

“You bet I am. And enjoying it, I might add.”

The irony wasn’t lost on her.

Penny was the one who made impulsive, flighty decisions when it came to men. Why, the girl had had more boyfriends than they had paintings in the gallery. But when it came to having any kind of love life, Sera was the complete opposite. She was guarded and—yes—all work and no play. So the fact that she was shut into one of the Hanovers’ massive estate bathrooms, nervously scrutinizing her appearance and pacing, wasn’t a good sign.

“Penny, this guy hired me—that sort of makes him my boss.” Sera’s strappy black stilettos clicked as she marched back and forth across the marble floor. She stopped when she heard Penny laugh on the other end of the call. “Thanks for taking this seriously.”

“You have to admit, it has a funny ring to it. Sera, you’re huddled in the bathroom of your new employer’s California mansion, calling your assistant—”

“Friend.”

“Okay, friend. The point is, you’re chatting on your cell phone when you should be out there enjoying yourself. Eat cake. Sip champagne. Dance. Laugh and let yourself have a good time for a change! You deserve it.”

“Seriously?” Sera almost shouted, then lowered her voice to a rough whisper when she heard guests moving about in the hall beyond the closed bathroom door. “You know I can’t do that!”

“You can’t enjoy yourself, just for fun’s sake? Do I ever know that.”

“You know what I mean, Penn. I don’t know if this is a date—or what. I’m desperate for some advice here.”

“You’d have to be close to desperation to call me. I had three dates with three different guys last week,” she countered. “I haven’t figured it out either.”

“Then tell me I’ve lost my mind. Tell me I can’t start to like this man. This is business—it’s crazy, right?” When Penny offered no reply, she stopped and lightly stomped her foot. “I am not moving a muscle until you answer me. As your friend I am ordering you to give me one good reason why I should stay. Go ahead. Give me just one.”

There was silence on the other end.

Then Penny said the exact thing Sera would have expected from her younger, much more freethinking assistant: “What’s he look like?”

“Penny!”

“Oh, come on. You can tell me. Is he a looker?” Sera could hear her mad typing in the background. “Forget it. I’m Googling him. It’s faster than trying to get answers out of you.”

“Stop Googling him this instant!”

Penny was about as subtle as a red costume at Christmas. The girl honestly couldn’t restrain herself from saying and doing whatever was flitting around in the recesses of her boy-crazy mind.

“Penn, looking for a picture of this guy isn’t going to help.”

“Oh yeah? I need to know what kind of situation we’re dealing with here. I mean, if he’s gorgeous, then you might never come home and then I’m out of a job. If the guy’s got ears that stick out or a huge nose, then I can at least read a fashion magazine at lunch instead of poring over the classifieds. Besides, I’d like to see the face of the man who’s managed to crack the brick wall around Sera James’s iron-clad heart. This is unprecedented. I am therefore forced to conclude that this guy is tasty enough to be on the cover of
GQ
.”

“No one’s cracked anything,” Sera whisper-shouted, still hearing the clicking of the laptop keyboard in the background. “And he’s not tasty!”

No, he hadn’t managed to break down a single wall. Not at all. Considering she’d run out this afternoon and bought a designer outfit for the occasion and she now stood, smoothing wrinkles out of the tea-length pink dress while she tried to convince herself that she wasn’t a basket case.

After a pause, and the continued staring in the mirror, she caved in to the tug of honesty. “Penn, I bought a dress.”

“You bought a dress for this guy? This is more serious than I thought.”

“Not for the guy—for the wedding!”

The line was silent then, so much that she wondered if the call had been dropped. She then heard a clicking noise in the phone, almost as if Penny was absentmindedly tapping a pen against her teeth.

“You there, Penn?”

“Are you going to tell him about Michael?”

“Michael? Why on earth would I tell him about Michael?”

Penny paused for a moment, then continued, “Oh, I don’t know . . . A new guy might find it interesting that you were hours from walking down the aisle when your fiancé called off the wedding and you’ve sworn off dating since. Like, for more than two years?”

“I haven’t sworn off dating!”

“Could have fooled me,” Penny huffed lightly. “Listen, Sera, you may not realize it, but you’ve shut practically everyone out of your life. You never go out of your apartment except to work. You haven’t gone home to visit your mom in almost a year. And I distinctly remember the last time I set you up on a double date, you called it quits and left the pub by seven thirty, even though I dug up a marginally cute guy who was willing to pay for dinner and a movie. You could have at least stayed through the spinach dip.”

“When was that?” Sera was trying to remember three boyfriends ago. “Was that the date with Brent’s cousin?”

“Yeah. And it wasn’t Brent. It was Brad,” Penny chided. “Beside the point.”

“Then what is the point? I think a line is forming on the other side of the door.” Sera could hear guests clamoring even louder outside in the hall.

“You’re hiding out,” Penny declared.

Was she? The dress was stunning, she hoped. It had taken her more than an hour to find one that she thought would do.

“You’re right, Penn.” She was hiding out from William. Hiding out from having a life. All because she was terrified of getting hurt again.

Had she been hiding out from God too?

“So what are you going to do?”

“The only thing I can do—flee the confines of this bathroom and join the reception.” Sera grabbed up her black alligator clutch from the marble counter. “Off I go.”

“Okay. Call me later if you need to.”

“I will.”

Sera almost hung up, but Penny’s voice chimed through the phone again.

“Oh, and, Sera?”

“Yeah?”

She could hear Penny’s snicker through the phone. “Stay away from staring into those baby blues of his.”

“Is everything okay?”

William held the chair out for her and pushed it up behind her when she sat down.

“Yes. I just had to take a quick phone call.”

He sat down next to her. Close. A little too close. She could smell the coolness of his aftershave.

In the midst of twinkling lights and the sound of laughter and joy all around, it was funny to feel like they had a moment to themselves; it was a hopelessly crowded wedding, after all. As they sat there, he quiet and she wondering what in the world he must be thinking, it almost seemed like they were alone.

“May I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why did you say yes? When I asked you to the wedding, I mean. What made you agree to come tonight? Because I almost had the feeling that you’d have rather avoided it.”

Sera thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “Free dinner. A beautiful view. And cake? A lady never turns down cake.”

“Is that right?”

“Famous words of my assistant.” She tilted her chin a bit, offering a light smile, hoping she appeared more in control than she felt. “Or I could always be buttering you up. You know, so you’ll give me the painting when this thing is all over.”

“Buttering me up, huh?”

“That’s right, Mr. Hanover.”

“And tell me, Manhattan.” He turned and looked her dead in the eyes. “Just where did you get that dress?”

Her hands flew up to rest on the collar of the exquisite pink sheath. “My dress?”

Sera swallowed hard.

“It wasn’t lying around in your suitcase, was it?”

She tried to wave him off with as much nonchalance as she could fake.

“Well, a Manhattan suit wouldn’t do for a wedding. It would be a dead giveaway to all of your guests. But lucky for me, California has stores like New York does, and I could quickly walk out with this.”

“Who knew?” He smiled, the sarcasm tinged with her same brand of light humor.

“Right. Who knew? I bought the first dress I saw in the window.”
After I tried on twenty in between
.

He sat back, looking at her with an open stare. And though he looked handsome in his tux and smelled even better, she again reminded herself to shut off any feelings before they started.

A faint ocean breeze blew in. Some of the strands of roped twinkle lights stirred in the vault of the tent above them. The candles on the table flickered. And it rustled her hair, sending a few long waves to dance about her shoulder. She calmed them with one hand, fighting the inclination to let them go in the event he might be bold enough to smooth them himself.

“Do you enjoy being so formal?”

“Formal? I don’t think so.” Her Friday nights were spent eating Chinese takeout while cuddled on the couch in front of an old black-and-white movie. Sera couldn’t help but laugh a bit, thinking of her favorite pair of navy sweats with the small hole in the seam.

“Then we agree you can stop calling me Mr. Hanover? I only hear that at the office and I don’t like it even then. It’s William. Or Will to my family and friends.”

“Ah, are we to be friends now? I hadn’t thought of that.” She tried to sound light and teasing. The serious look on his face didn’t match that one iota.

“I’d like to believe so, Sera. We’ve spent roughly the last forty-eight hours together, haven’t we? Maybe we could be friends in this? I can see this is important to you.”

The breeze danced again, rustling his hair this time. It didn’t break the connection between them. She took a deep breath as the blue eyes searched her face.

Okay, God. Whatever You’re trying to tell me, You’ve got my attention.

When she didn’t answer, William’s face changed. “But there’s more to it, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“Sera,” he whispered, tilting his head to one side. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

She turned her eyes from him, changing her view to the expanse of the starry sky and the illuminated tent overhead. It was a beautiful scene. Too beautiful to darken with a memory she’d kept buried for so long.

The band cued up, breaking the silence she’d put between them.

He must have felt the change, because instead of saying anything further, William stood and removed his tuxedo jacket. He tossed it on the back of his chair, then looked down at her. And with possibly the most tender voice she’d ever heard, he whispered into the space between them, “Dance with me.”

He stretched out his hand.

“What?”

“Come on. You agreed we’d be friends. Friends can dance.”

He kept his hand out to her, though she hadn’t made a move to accept it.

“I haven’t danced in quite a while,” she whispered so no one else would hear, but still couldn’t seem to stop her head from shaking under the embarrassment. Hopefully he couldn’t see that the hands she’d buried in her lap were quivering so badly they were nearly convulsing.

“Good. Neither have I.” When she made no move to accept, he continued with a boyish smile. “I’ll lead with the wrong hand and you can even step on my toes if you want. Come on. We’ll fumble through it together.”

The music began to play, a vintage melody that most guests seemed to know well. He turned his head toward the direction of the stage. A singer began belting out the jazzy tune of “The Very Thought of You” with her silky voice, and they both instinctively smiled.

“Sounds like they’re playing our song,” he said, still waiting, his palm open. “Are you going to tell me no? When I’m standing up and everything?”

Sera stopped thinking. She stopped running and analyzing for once, and did what her heart told her to do. Two years or a hundred—it didn’t matter how long she’d been closed off, hiding her heart away. Maybe she could think about trusting someone again.

Maybe she could trust him.

Sera laid her clutch on the tablecloth and placed her hand in his, walking alongside him as he led her out to the dance floor.

With the slight graze of his fingertips on the small of her back and the other hand cradling her palm, she suddenly felt right. They danced. Swayed with a deliberate softness. Moving without words, melting together, absorbed in the magic of the vintage 1940s song as if they’d danced together for years. And somehow, as he held her, Sera forgot that they weren’t the only two people dancing beneath the blanket of the starry sky. The dance floor was full, but neither noticed.

Somehow her eyes drifted closed as they danced. As he held her. As she was wrapped in the stirring potential of what love
could
be. She worried that her heart would forget it was treading on dangerous ground while waltzing in William Hanover’s arms.

“Do you think they danced to this?” He whispered the question against the hair at her temple. Her eyes popped open.