“It wasn’t your choice. Anyway, I figure you can get some basic training in and then I’m going to turn over the sex talks from now on. I have no penis, as you may have noticed, so the recent discussions were harder. Since you have one, you’re more qualified.”

What a completely odd conversation to be having after a scorching-hot sex session. And yet, it felt—for want of a better word—normal. Natural.

“He doesn’t have any men in his life?” On one hand, he wanted her to say no. Didn’t want to have to come out from the shadow of anyone else. But on the other, he hoped Miles had had male role models because it would be better for him.

“Cal and Ryan have been in his life since he was about six months old, actually. They live up the road a ways. Or they did. But I see them both all the time and Ryan teaches at the middle school. Cal’s my attorney.”

Something less than pleasant slid through his gut. “What about dating?”

One of her brows rose imperiously. “I don’t think Miles should date until he’s fifteen and then in groups.”

Blasted woman was going to make him say it?

“Ha-ha. I mean you. Do you date around? Anything serious?”

“I date from time to time. The man has to be very special for a number of reasons.”

And she left it at that, which made him crazy. But he’d find out those reasons soon enough. For the time being, she was his and that’s all that mattered.

And in a lot of ways, this sort of quiet thing they were building here was like a sweet secret. He liked that.

He took the wineglass from her fingers and put it down. “We’ve got two more condoms. I think we should use all our resources.”

He rolled on top of her and her legs wrapped around him, bringing him right up against her cunt.

“I hope you don’t need a lot of sleep to get through your day.”

10

“Can you show me one more time?”

Gillian nodded as she scooted over on the bench to play. “Rach-maninoff comes from here.” She placed a palm over her belly. “It might be different for you. But if you want to play him, you have to find a way to translate all that power. You can hit all the correct keys in the correct order and still, if you don’t feel it, it’s going to sound cold and perfunctory.”

“Do you think I should play a different piece for the audition?” Shannon, one of her advanced students asked, clearly nervous.

“I think you have all the talent you need to play this piece. It’s not as technically difficult as some other pieces you could use. But the key is your spin, your interpretation, and that means you have to feel it.”

“If you say so. You make it look easy.”

Gillian laughed. “I have been playing piano longer than you’ve been alive. At Juilliard I played this piece for hours every single day. I’d better make it look easy.”

Shannon moved off the bench. “I’ll watch from here.”

Smiling, Gillian centered herself, slid her fingertips over the keys and found that place inside, opening herself up to it. And began to play.

The start—slow to draw the notes, to paint with the sound. As she played and changed her pace, faster and faster, the music had consumed her. The piece ebbed and flowed, boiled over and wisped away like smoke. She let it lead her, ceased thinking and gave the music free rein.

When she’d finished, she opened her eyes to Shannon’s wild applause.

“I don’t know if I can ever play it like you.”

“Play it like you; that’ll be better.”

After the lesson ended, she put on Florence + the Machine, smiling as she headed into her room to change for a client meeting she needed to be at in less than an hour.

Hopping to it as she hummed to “Dog Days Are Over,” she found the skirt she’d been looking for and paired it with a twinset in pale lavender. Cashmere.

She didn’t have a lot of clothes. Always when she was confronted with something for herself it was hard to make that choice instead of something for the house or for Miles. So she had a few very nice pieces she found on sale racks and thrift store shelves and filled in with other, less expensive items.

She’d clawed her way to where she was now and had no plan to ever go back to a place in her life where she was grateful for scraps and wore shite and pretended it was queen’s robes.

No one would think her naff or poor to look at her now. No one would wonder how quickly they could get her on her back. She was not in anyone’s shadow, not judged against them because she’d made herself into something more than she’d been as a kid in England.

Brushing her fingertips over the sweater, she carefully pulled it from the hanger and put it on her bed as she moved through the room.

She looked at herself in the mirror as she secured her hair. Then her gaze was drawn to the marks on her hips, a slice of which she saw above the top of her knickers. Pale bruises where Adrian’s fingers had dug in while they f**ked.

A delightful shiver surfaced as she slid the skirt up and zipped it. The man had sex like he meant it. He didn’t handle her like she was fragile. He was base and dirty and she was right chuffed to have had him in her bed.

She’d been more forward than she’d ever been the first time she had sex with someone. One of the reasons she never had casual sex with anyone was that she wanted to trust her partner enough to let the carnal side of herself show.

She wasn’t Tina, or their mother, but she liked sex. She liked it hard and rough and with a side of dirty talk. There were myriad things she’d apologize for in her life, but liking sex wasn’t one of them. It was part of who she was, and as long as she kept it where it was meant to be, her private business, she had nothing to be ashamed of.