Seduction by Song (11 page)

“Oh, yeah?” I ask, quirking the corner of my mouth up and I pull my glass of wine to myself. “I bet you were all about the best suites in the best hotels and gourmet meals all day. That’s one way of living, I guess.”

“It’s not my way of living,” he says with a shrug, like the suggestion doesn’t offend him, but is simply untrue. “I was on my own back then, after my mom—before I found my recording company. I stayed in hostels, mostly. I wouldn’t have made it through there for a while if the kind little Mrs. Hornsby didn’t take me in.”

I feel my jaw drop at the sound of that name, because
I
stayed with a lovely old widow by the name of Mrs. Hornsby when I was overseas.

“What?” he asks with an amused grin. “Is it so unbelievable that I’d rough it for a while?”

I stare at him for a moment longer before bursting out laughing, shaking my head and pressing my napkin to my mouth again to keep from pulling a silly face.

“No, no, it’s just—.” I pause to take a deep breath and compose myself before continuing. “I think I’ve actually
met
Mrs. Hornsby. I’ve met
a
Mrs. Hornsby, anyway, when I was over there. What’re the chances, huh?”

“Sounds like fate to me,” he says without a single hint of doubt.

I blink, stunned into silence for a moment. I sip my wine quietly, contemplatively, and try to ignore the warm flush that the idea brings to my cheeks. There was no such thing as fate, not in my mind. It was a funny coincidence, that’s all. Still, the thought of
fate
playing into this…

Well, maybe it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant thought.

“There was this chocolate truffle cake I had in Belgium,” I say, trying to change the subject without sounding
too
awkward about it. “It was the single most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted, I think.”

Romeo pulls a face. “Chocolate
truffle
cake? Sounds like a mess. There’s only one way to do good chocolate cake, and that’s as
chocolate cake
. Sometimes the simpler things in life are better.”

“Well, maybe you just haven’t found the right complication yet,” I say, smiling over the rim of my glass as I watch him across the table.

It’s still surprising to me how easily we’re able to fall into such a companionable silence after such a friendly talk. I suppose that this is progress, that this is
good
. Romeo agrees, or at least I suspect he does with the way he smiles at me over a bite of his food. His smile isn’t too arrogant, isn’t too lecherous—it’s still
Romeo
, but in a way, it’s almost kind.

I relax, a smile sticking to my face.

The rest of the meal is—well, it’s
amazing
. All of the food just melts in my mouth, each bite a little slice of heaven. I compliment Romeo on his cooking, trying not to feel self-conscious about it, until I’m practically blue in the face.

We finish off the bottle of wine between the two of us as he puts some leftovers in a plastic container for me to take home with me, and I listen to him talk about the recipes and how his mother always added her own little thing to each of them. He wouldn’t tell me the secrets of the family recipes, of course, but it was truly a simple, nice conversation that we could have just standing in the kitchen of his suite.

“Sometimes it was the only thing that could get my father to apologize to my mother,” he says as he finishes loading the dishes into the sink. “A hungry stomach and the thought of her good food.”

I feel the smile on my face go a bit sad, because that’s—very similar to the relationship my parents had before their divorce. From what little Romeo said about his parents’ relationship, I could tell that their marriage lasted, though somewhat unhappily, until his mother passed away. I didn’t pry for details, not wanting to make Romeo feel uncomfortable.

The thought of that makes me sigh internally. Since when was this about not wanting
him
to feel uncomfortable? He had made me feel plenty uncomfortable the first few times we met, but—but I suppose that’s no longer the case.

The desire to keep this comfortable air around us consistent isn’t alone in my stomach, though. It’s paired with a growing curiosity of Romeo’s family life. He’s mentioned his mother a few times now and I’m dying to know about the woman that made this complicated man standing in front of me, rolling his sleeves up and washing his hands in the sink.

“Your mother was—you miss her?” I ask. The words come out a bit stilted and awkward as I shift nervously, not wanting to overstep my boundaries.

In my peripheral vision, I see Romeo smile. It isn’t one of his cocky grins
or
one of his kinder smiles, though, but rather an almost bitter twist of his lips.

“Every day,” he says, with a startling amount of honesty in his voice. “I miss her every day. When she got sick—.”

He pauses, turning off the tap. I hold my breath in anticipation, watching his closely.

“Cancer,” he says, spitting the word out like it’s poison. “I was on my first tour, high on the fame and fortune. I was halfway across the world when they diagnosed her with it—stage four. She’d been having the symptoms for ages, but my father never took her to the hospital. Said it wasn’t necessary. Then—at the end—he didn’t even want her to get treatment. He said the chances of her recovery were too slim to waste the money on it.”

“
Christ
,” I say, whispering the word fiercely, rage boiling in my stomach. “What kind of man—.”

Romeo shakes his head, holding a hand up to stop me. “Please. Don’t let that come into this night. I’ve cut all ties with that man, and though I think about my mother every day, I don’t give him a second thought—ever.”

I nod, slowly. I want to ask him how he can do that—not forgive, but forget. I would never forgive my mother if she did such a horrible thing to my dad, and all the times she cheated on him were bad, but not
this
bad. I do respect Romeo’s privacy, though, and simply settle against the counter again.

The conversation dies out as Romeo loads up the dishwasher, and I shift my weight on my feet as I watch him out of the corner of my eye.

It was strange how
comfortable
I felt in his space, with him in mine.

I blink at
that
thought, startling when I realize just how
much
in my space he was. I had been leaning against the kitchen counters as he worked, refusing to even let me help clean up, and he was now standing no more than a foot or two in front of me, watching me like I’m something truly riveting.

It was flattering, the heat of his gaze, but it was also—it was too much. I shift back against the counter, drawing myself in as much as possible.

“I’d like to see you at my next concert,” he says, not shifting back, but not moving forward to crowd me even more, either. “I’ve set aside tickets for you and your friends.”

“Thank you,” I say, reflexively, but flinch when I realize that I hadn’t meant to actually
agree
to that. “I mean—thank you for the thought, but I don’t think we’ll be going.”

He raises one eyebrow, finally moving to lean against the counter next to me. “No?”

“No,” I confirm, as firmly as I can manage. “I’d like to be involved with the music video, but I think that’ll be all. I don’t think we should spend too much time together, Romeo.”

“You don’t, do you,” he says, a smile creeping back onto his face. I could tell that he wasn’t taking me very seriously, that he found all this
hilarious
. And maybe he was right to—I could feel my resolve shaking more with every passing second.

“I don’t,” I say, as though I need to hear it myself. “I don’t think I should be there.”

Romeo hums thoughtfully, reaching up to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. The smallest gesture that would have set me off days ago sends a pleasant shiver down my spine down.

“I think you will be there,” he says. “I think you’re dying for another chance up on the stage with me, another chance to do it right.”

I shiver again, just from the words this time. The thought of being up there with him again, maybe more receptive to his overtures, was—well, it wasn’t entirely a horrifying thought.

No
, I tell myself. Then, out loud, I say, “No.”

Romeo still looks skeptical.

“Look, Romeo,” I start, struggling to find the right words and hesitating in pushing them out.

“It’s my last show in Florida for a while,” he says. “The first in a worldwide tour.”

I freeze, then relax. Of course. I should have expected that. He was a famous rock star, after all. He couldn’t keep chasing me, couldn’t keep existing in this small bubble of comfort that I’ve developed around him. I smile, then, because it’s suddenly so much easier to make my decision.

“
Definitely
no, then,” I say, voice more firm and steady. “Romeo, this has been nice. It really has. You’ve shared a side of yourself that I’m sure you don’t share with many people, and I’m flattered that it was to me. If you’d like to keep in touch, I think we can be friends, but—but I just don’t think we can be more. I said before that you’re just not the kind of guy I’m interested in, and that’s—.”

I pause, hesitating. That’s not necessarily
true
anymore, really, because I do think I’d like to get to know him better and maybe even come to
be
interested in him, but even if I did want that, and even if I
was
ready to admit to myself that I wanted that, he was going away on his tour and we wouldn’t exactly have time to do that.

“You’re still the same cocky rock star I met at that first concert,” I say, steeling my heart against any other feelings I might have. “Maybe if I got to know you—but there’s no time for that, now is there? I can’t do this unless I know you’ll be putting
me
first, and—.”

“And I will,” Romeo interrupts. He shrugs, like it’s just that simple. “I’ll cancel the tour. Or reschedule it, whatever. You can’t possibly think it’s more important than you.”

I feel my jaw dropping again as I stare at him, my eyes going wider and wider until I have to squeeze them shut and shake my head.

“You’re
kidding
,” I say, hearing my voice waver a little as I peek out at him. “Right?”

The look on his face says
wrong
. The look on his face says he’s dead serious about this, about me, and I can’t help but just stare until the impact of that hits home.

“Oh, God,” I say, breathing the words out under my breath. “You’re—you’re serious. You’d do that for me?”

He nods, the barest tip of his head as he brings his hands up to curl his fingers at my cheeks, tilting my face up towards his.

Warmth floods my chest as I’m guided to stare straight into his eyes, straight into the passion that’s there. Passion from him, to me—
for
me. I hear myself gasp, sharp and breathless like I’m a teenager and falling in love for the first time all over again.

“Don’t,” I whisper, shaking my head as much as I can without shaking his hands loose. “You don’t have to do that for me. I’ll be at your show. I promise. I’ll—I’ll be there, for you.”

The
as yours
goes unspoken, but I think he might know it because he smiles, warm and genuine.

His lips part as he slowly bridges the distance before us, our lips moving closer and closer
.

“
Your last chance to push me away before it’s too late,’ he whispers.

Mesmerized, I stay in a trance until his lips meet mine.

And he does make me
melt
right into, just like that.

Chapter Fifteen

The moment his lips touch mine, I feel my breath catch in my throat. For one perfect second it’s hard to remember why I resisted this long, why we haven’t been doing this for
days
—because perfect is exactly what it is. His mouth is warm and his lips are ever so slightly chapped, giving the kiss just the right amount of friction as he tilts his head to lick at my mouth.

I let him in with a breathy moan, which makes him growl low in the back of his throat. The sound sends shivers shooting straight down my spine and I’m suddenly aching to be closer. He wraps his arms around me and drags me in closer, licking at my mouth again, more demanding this time.

He sweeps his tongue into my mouth as soon as I part my lips, and I find myself bringing my hands up to cling to his shoulders as he practically devours my mouth in the most passionate kiss I’ve ever had.