Page 9 of Serving the Maestro

That did concern me. I’d been about two steps away from asking her name—and number.

“Jazz!”

She turned, giving me an excellent look at her profile, her long, slim neck bared by her upswept hair.

Jazz. I couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m so sorry we’re late—oh, you and Burton found each other!”

The asshole glanced toward Jazz while she darted another quick look at me.

“Sorry,” she said with a grimace. “I thought you were somebody I was meeting here. The scarf.”

She gestured to the scarf the asshole had draped around his neck.

“Blind date, huh?” It wasn’t so easy to smile this time.

The light in her eyes was markedly dimmer as she nodded. “My friends invited me. Sorry to have interrupted you.”

“You didn’t.” I nodded at the tall, pretty blonde next to her, then at her. “It was nice talking to you...Jazz.”

As they walked away, I tossed back the rest of my whiskey.

“Don’t brood over it,” I muttered even as my thoughts drifted back to the woman. I looked in the mirror over the bar again without any conscious decision, searching for her.

I found her just as the bell signaling it was almost curtain time sounded.

She was walking between the asshole and the cute blond who must have facilitated the blind date. Either the friend didn’t know the asshole well, or he was good at hiding his asshole tendencies.

Either way, none of it was my concern.

I was here for a job, after all.

FOUR

JAZZ

“I’m sorry we were late,” Cam said, giving me a quick look as we settled into our seats on the private balcony. She’d scored excellent seats from a company we were thinking of merging with. Greg Means, the owner, knew Cam was into the theater and wasn’t above using tickets to woo us.

As I sat next to her, I shrugged. “It’s alright.”

I shouldn’t be feeling this, but part of me wished I was still in the bar, talking to the hot guy with the killer smile. That smile made things in me warm up and tingle in unfamiliar ways. Unfamiliar and in very nice ways.

Even now, thinking about the slow curve of his lips made my belly tighten.

“Cam didn’t tell me you were so gorgeous.”

The words were practically growled into my ear as Burton leaned into my personal space.

His breath, hot on my neck, made me want to recoil, but the seats weren’t designed for that.

“This color is beautiful on you.”

I felt his fingers on my shirt sleeve, rubbing the soft chenille. I grabbed the playbill that had fallen to the floor and moved over to stand in front of Cam and Danny. “So this is the third time Greg has let you use this box. Seriously nice seats, Cam. Is he flirting with you? Should Danny be worried?”

Both Danny and Cam broke into laughter.

I saw Burton stretching out his legs from the corner of my eye, and I breathed a little easier. Maybe he’d gotten the point.

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