Passionate Persuasion Read online

  Being cornered by Sophie Russell, or so he’d heard from his fraternity brothers, wasn’t always a bad thing. Alex, from the moment he’d seen her waiting to ambush him at his favorite coffee shop, knew he was in nothing but trouble. Sophie had two more years on Greek Row under her belt, so to speak, and she was doubtless where Kiara had gotten her exaggerated ideas about his conquests. But what had started as the cliché “If you hurt my friend I’ll kill you” conversation had ended with Sophie pointing out that Kiara had come from a place where girls routinely married their first loves.

  Even though he knew Kiara had other plans, other cello-shaped plans, it put her emotions in a new perspective. Plus, Sophie was Kiara’s closest friend in Port Calypso. Even if he thought that was the oddest match up ever, why shouldn’t he believe her when she said that continuing their relationship, taking it to the next level, would devastate the small town girl? He’d let himself be persuaded that breaking up with her right away would be the kindest thing to do.

  Kiara was right. That was some seriously jackass advice. And he’d grabbed at it because he’d been a serious jackass. And a big chicken.

  Which was fine when you’re twenty-one and about to graduate from college and go backpacking across Europe and whatever, jackass. But what’s your excuse now?

  There weren’t so many differences between them now. She’d traveled, he’d traveled. She was emotionally and sexually confident. They both realized she was leaving in a year.

  But only he seemed to be lying awake, scared shitless, because if he felt this way about her now, how much more would it hurt to lose her again later?

  Was it something I said?

  Kiara could feel the tension in his chest, imagined she could hear the whirling of his thoughts. She was tempted to offer to leave, except her car was back at the rehearsal hall and she didn’t want to walk home with Magdalena at this hour. Not that it was likely there were roving bands of cello thieves on Waterfront Drive, but…

  But she didn’t want to leave.

  She didn’t want to let him push her away, no matter how tacitly, how gently.

  Even if she knew that’s what he was laying there planning to do.

  Chapter Seven

  The marquee tent had been transformed to a temporary ballroom in the middle of Waterfront Park. A red carpet led to the door, and a chandelier lit the banquet tables and portable parquet floor. If not for the one rolled up side, Kiara would never have known they were at the end of the city’s pier.

  Magdalena knew. The humidity was playing merry hell with her tuning and she and Mr. J.S. Bach were getting along about as well as Kiara’s relationship with Alex Drake: beautiful music that kept trying to go out of tune.

  Things had played out in the last weeks as she’d expected. He was busy, she was busy. Intimate dinners turned strained when talk turned to the future. Then finally, she’d called him on the cold shoulder, or feet, or whatever, and they’d had a fight—or whatever you call a fight when it pretty much consists of “Well, fine, be that way”—and she hadn’t seen him for a week.

  Well, she’d seen him. For a city of its size, Port Calypso could be a really small place. Plus, they were both working on the soiree, so while she was practicing with the quartet, he was delivering alcohol and organizing the wait staff and the bar, marshalling them like an army. An army of loyal, smiling troops.

  She had tried not to notice, just like she’d tried not to notice him there tonight.

  Kiara paused to retune and refocus before the last piece of the set. More Bach. The Suite Number three in D, which would now always make her think of Alex. Also unfortunate, it was an extremely popular piece, so everyone would know if she screwed it up.

  On the plus side, it was all played on one string, so she only had to worry about the G staying in tune.

  The piano began the accompaniment, and Kiara lowered her eyes as she started the first sustained note—one long slide of the bow across the string, then the next, almost as long, then into the turn around. There was both a pastoral sweetness to the tune, and an aching poignancy. The harmonics of the cello were almost like a human voice, which was why she loved it, why she felt like the instrument was a part of her.

  The tent quieted at the first notes of the crowd favorite, but the people didn’t bother her. Playing was the one time Kiara never felt self-conscious. Nervous, right before she got started, and intent on accuracy and artistry. But then she threw herself into the piece, into the music, and bowed bravely. That was the only way she knew how to play.

  She lifted her gaze briefly and found Alex watching her from the far side of the marquee. He wore a tuxedo, and he looked so good in black and white. It suited him the way she knew the scarlet dress she wore suited her.

  She turned her attention back to the notes, to the friction of bow across string. She played for Alex for a few bars, letting the notes tell him that she wished she could fix what was broken, asking him to meet her halfway. Then she broadened her focus and let the audience back in on the song, and when she looked up again, Alex was gone, as if she’d imagined him.

  Or driven him away.

  God, this suite was the longest five minutes of her life.

  Finally it came to the end, and she let the last notes ring, the pianist ending in perfect time and tune. The applause covered Kiara’s exhale of relief. She stood, dipped a small bow of thanks, acknowledged the pianist, and carried Magdalena to her case behind the temporary stage.

  “Well played,” said Tom, the second violin in the quartet, as he stowed his own instrument. “Ready for a break?”

  “Yeah,” she answered. “I’m headed to the green room in a sec.”

  In this case, the green room was a smaller tent set up to house the prep workers and catering staff, as well as the musicians waiting their call to the stage. Kiara didn’t manage to get there, though, before Lydia Benwick caught her. Literally caught her, linking their arms and changing Kiara’s direction toward a table near the side of the tent.

  “Katya, darling! That was beautiful! Come over here with Sylvie and me. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Kiara resigned herself, because she liked Mrs. Benwick, and she was important on the symphony board. She just hoped this introduction of hers went better than the last one.

  “Sylvie” was actually Sophie, who was well into her latest martini, and standing next to a Lady Arts Patron of the Stately Elder variety. The kind who wouldn’t shut up once she started talking.

  Kiara tried to make a break for it, but Lydia Benwick was a force to be reckoned with. “Let me introduce you to Mrs. Kellynch,” said Mrs. Benwick. “She is one of our music lovers here tonight.”

  “So nice to meet you,” Kiara told the lady and her chins. Beside her, Sophie lifted her glass in a “We who are about to die salute you” way that did not bode well.

  It turned out “Nice to meet you” was all Mrs. Kellynch needed to start talking. And talking. And talking more, without stop. Kiara couldn’t figure out why Mrs. Benwick had called her over when a potted plant would have done just as well as the woman’s audience.

  On the plus side, all Kiara had to do was stand there and nod. That’s what she was doing when she heard a familiar voice from the other side of the marquee’s fabric wall.

  “Hand me that flat of highball glasses,” said Alex, “and stop talking about feelings. You’re freaking me out.”

  “Look,” said another man, and she was pretty sure it was Greg. “I’m not saying we should go all girly and braid each other’s hair. I’m saying that you should go talk to her.”

  She could hear them so well, they must be directly on the other side of the tent wall. A suspicious glance at Sophie and Mrs. Benwick revealed nothing but blank faces as they nodded in cadence with Mrs. Kellynch’s monologue.

  “I’m giving her space,” said Alex. His friend must have given him a look, because he amended, “Okay. I’m giving myself space. I was so caught up in… well, in her that I didn’t think a
bout the consequences.”

  “Hang on. Like ‘didn’t use a condom’ consequences?”

  There was a rattle of glassware like Alex might have given his friend the answer that deserved, which Kiara would have appreciated more if she weren’t about to incinerate from embarrassment. Was Sophie hearing this?

  No, she didn’t look like she was. Kiara realized that only she had edged closer to the wall.

  “I mean emotional consequences,” Alex said, like it had been dragged out of him.

  Greg said, “Buddy, it’s been obvious to everyone but you that you’ve been emotional over this woman since she walked into the pub.”

  “I’ve been attracted to her since she walked into the pub,” Alex corrected.

  “Tomayto, tomahto,” said Greg.

  There was a pause, and Kiara had to stop herself from leaning in. Then Alex said, with a soft laugh, “Maybe. She said sort of the same thing. Love and sex have always stayed separate for me, except with her.”

  Why aren’t you telling me this?

  “Why aren’t you telling her this?” Greg asked.

  “Because she didn’t corner me and start hounding me about my feelings like a damn girl, that’s why.”

  “Dude, did you not just hear her play? She laid her feelings out there for everyone to see. She might as well have hung a big sign that said, ‘I am in love with Alex Drake.’ Everyone in there would corner you to find out what you think of that, if they could. But I’m your best friend, so it’s my job.”

  Now she did lean in. She gave up all pretense of listening to Mrs. Chins, to anything else but the conversation on the other side of the wall. It was totally classless and tacky, but she was just a hick from Kansas in a really nice dress and a good hairdo.

  She had to wait an excruciating time for Alex’s answer. It came with a frustrated sigh. “I think it’s easier for women. Everyone expects them to be emotional, and fall in love with someone too soon, and when they get their hearts broken, they’re admired for putting it out there. There’s all those pop songs on the radio about how they get stronger with heartbreak and get their groove back and whatever. But all the songs about men getting their heart broken make us sound kind of pathetic.”

  “You’re kind of pathetic,” said Greg.

  “I guess.”

  “You’re going to let her get away, again, because you’re a wuss?”

  “I’m… evaluating my options.”

  “You’re going to evaluate her into someone else’s arms, you know that, right?”

  “That’s inevitable. She’s leaving at the end of a year.”

  When did I say that? she wondered.

  “When did she say that?” Greg asked, since it was obviously a logical question.

  But Alex didn’t answer it. “I haven’t decided if I can see her casually and then say goodbye when her contract with the symphony is up. She’s an all or nothing girl, and I don’t want to—”

  If he said “break her heart,” Kiara was going to go through the wall and kick his ass.

  But he said, “I don’t want to give her up once… if… she gives me her all.”

  She’d heard enough. She wasn’t going to go through the canvas marquee, but she was going to find him and convince him that giving her all was the only way it was going to be. “Nothing” was not an option.

  She left Sophie—who had stopped pretending not to notice Kiara’s blatant eavesdropping, which convinced Kiara that she was somehow involved in the whole right place, right time thing that had happened there—to deal with Mrs. Benwick and Mrs. Chins. She didn’t excuse herself or explain, which was not ladylike or classy, either.

  Neither was picking up her skirts and hightailing it to the nearest exit, winding through the between-sets crowd going to the bar or the buffet line. She drew stares and a couple of disapproving murmurs, but she didn’t let that stop her.

  He must be in the prep area—despite the fact that he was here as a guest, not a caterer. That wouldn’t stop him from doing what needed doing. Kiara headed that way, but suddenly Mr. Benwick was in her way.

  “Where are you going in such a rush, my dear?”

  Since he was on the symphony board, which made him some percentage of her boss, she had to stop, had to be nice to him. It was in her nature to be nice, but just then, she wanted to barrel over the millionaire and go find Alex.

  She told him part of that. “I’m looking for Alex Drake. Is he out in the green room?”

  “I doubt it,” he said, taking hold of her arm, rather like his wife had, keeping her from running off. “At least, he’d better not be.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, because she was getting the feeling she was on a stage managed reality show. A dating reality show, with half of Port Calypso’s hoity-toity demographic in the audience.

  “I mean,” said Mr. Benwick jovially—and that was no clue, because Mr. Benwick was always jovial, ”that he’s not here to work, he’s here to be a guest and enjoy the festivities. Oh look,” he said, with unconvincing surprise. “There he is now.”

  Kiara turned to see. Across the crowded room—tent, rather, but it might as well be a chessboard, the way they’d been played—was Alex, and he was looking for her.

  “Stay there,” he mouthed, and started through the throng of tables and chairs and bar and buffet lines. Kiara obediently staked out her square foot of open floor, and waited. Mr. Benwick faded out of her notice, like a good stage director should. She thought maybe she should be angry—at him, or his wife, or at Sophie—but she was done being mad about what had happened and was ready to get on with being happy.

  Now if she could just persuade Alex to cooperate.

  He reached her as the next set of musicians struck up a waltz. Not Some Enchanted Evening, which was a bit of a disappointment. But maybe that would be a little too on the nose.

  “Hi,” Alex said.

  “Hey,” she said, and then stopped to see what he would do. Or more importantly, say.

  “I heard you were looking for me.” He said it like he wanted it to be true.

  “Really?” she answered with a bit of a smile. “You looked like you were looking for me.”

  His answering smile was a little sheepish. “Maybe I was.”

  “Good.” She poked a finger, hard, on his lapel. “Because I want to tell you, this is not easier for me, Alex Drake. Not because I’m a woman, you sexist, or for any other reason.”

  All around them were people pretending they weren’t watching the quiet drama in the middle of the dance floor. Or maybe it was a farce. Kiara wasn’t quite sure yet.

  Alex blinked in surprise. “How did you hear that?”

  “I may have been standing on the other side of the tent wall.” She raised her hands in innocence. “Not on purpose. At least, that’s not how I got there in the first place, but I may have stayed when I heard you and Greg talking. I have a feeling we’ve been played like a cheap deck of cards.”

  He turned to glare over his shoulder at Greg, who stood by the second entrance and gave him an exaggerated thumbs up of encouragement. With a resigned, but not at all angry, sigh, Alex turned back to Kiara.

  “I shouldn’t have said easier. I should have said it comes more natural. Not because you’re female,” he hastily added. “But because of that.”

  He pointed to the stage, and even though it was full of the dance orchestra now, she knew he meant because of the way she played the cello. “You put your heart into your music every day.”

  “Don’t you put your heart into your pub? Into all your businesses, but especially into the pub?”

  “That’s different,” he said, taking her hands as if worried she’d run away. Or throw something at him. But she was unarmed. “I can control the business.”

  “Oh really. You can control the economy, and the weather, and the competition…” He made a “Point taken” face, and she squeezed his hands, as if she could squeeze her conviction into him. “Alex, you put your heart into Port Cal
ypso. This is your home, and you want to make it better.”

  He hadn’t seen the parallel, obviously, though he’d clearly given the rest of it a lot of thought. “It is, and I do. But you’re only here for a year.”

  “What made you think that?”

  “Your contract is up at the end of the year.”

  “Yeah. And contracts can be renewed. And people can rack up frequent flier miles—especially with a cello, because you have to buy a seat for it on the plane.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  “The unpressurized hold is pretty much stringed instrument death…”

  He laughed, which was what she wanted. She wanted to hear that again, wanted to see that flash of smile, that glint of devil in him. “No. I mean, you’d really stay here. With me.”

  “I’m pretty sure that if anyone could persuade me,” she said, letting him see the devil in her, “it would be you.”

  He pulled her a step closer, tucked her hands against his chest. She half-noticed that the people nearest them had stopped dancing, stopped pretending not to watch. She was pretty sure Alex hadn’t noticed at all. Or maybe he didn’t care.

  “You should know, I’m not good at throwing my heart into things. But you’re different. I mean, I’m different with you. That’s why I lied to get a date with you. That’s why I can be such an ass around you. It’s like my want short circuits my brain and these stupid things come out of my mouth—”

  “You’re going to have to get over that, you know, if you want a life in public office.”

  “It’s okay. It only happens with you.”

  “Oh, that makes me feel better.”

  “It should.” He lifted her hands and put them around his neck. “Now shut up and listen. Whatever happened in the past is the past. All I know now is that until you came back into my life, I’ve been satisfied, but I haven’t really been happy.”

  For a few crucial seconds, she couldn’t speak at all past the lump in her throat. “You say that like it’s not a lot. Like it’s not everything to hear you say that.”