Page 59 of Husband for the Holidays

“Didn’t he?” She brightened, then grew misty. “That was Petros coming out in him. I used to wish Petros had lived to meet Eloise, so he could see what a protector Ilias turned into around her. Silly, right? If Petros had lived, I wouldn’t have had her. That would be a crime because she’s been such a bright light in my life. Effervescent and cuddly, spilling her love and life and music all over the place. I spoiled her. I know I did. I wanted so badly to keep her...” she cupped her hands into a tiny sheltering dome “...protected. Unstruck by life. But that’s not possible.”

Her elbow went onto the table and she tucked her chin into her hand, looking out the window.

“It’s not,” he agreed gravely. “And God, Lilja. You’ve had so many blows yourself. How do you carry on and remain so hopeful, knowing you could lose everything at any time? When you have lost so much?”

“Do you refuse to listen to a song because you know it will come to an end?” she asked with a wry smile and sad eyes. “Even the Parthenon will eventually be nothing but dust. You have to enjoy something while you’re ablebecauseit’s temporary. And yes, sometimes you might make a mistake and fall for the wrong person.” Her mouth pursed with heartbreak and consternation. “I’ve done more than my share of that. I want to believe the best in people. I want to feelloved. Eloise has borne the brunt of my poor judgment too many times. It doesn’t occur to me that anyone would hurt her, though. Why would they want to?” Her brow pleated with incomprehension. “She’s so easy to love.”

“She is.” The words vibrated from behind his sternum, more a feeling than actual words, but they refused to be kept inside him any longer.

“Then why are you hurting her, Konstantin?” she asked with distress. “Why aren’t you loving her while you have the chance?”

The whole building disappeared from beneath him and he felt himself plummeting to the ground.

He didn’t have an answer. In fact, he didn’t know why he was hurting himself.

Eloise’s assignment was to learn and perform a song for her class that expressed an emotional conflict in her life.

She didn’t know whether she would go through with playing this. Her classmates seemed nice, but they were still strangers. Did she really want to bare her soul to them? It was the point to feel vulnerable, she knew, but this was still so raw.

At least for the moment, this was only for her. She was alone in Music Room Two, begging the piano keys to tell her how to mend a broken heart.

She hummed through the lyrics about stopping the sun from shining and the rain from falling, then let herself be swept into the sweet, poignant, “La, la, la, la, la, la...”

The next lyrics were too painful to sing. She slipped back into humming for the final plea for help mending her heart and learning to live again.

She ended on a wistful fade into the last soft notes.

And heard a shaken sigh behind her.

She twisted on the bench, startled yet not, because she’d conjured him, hadn’t she? He was the only thing that would heal this fractured heart of hers.

He looked beautiful. He always did. Even jet-lagged, with dark circles under his eyes and that shadow coming in on his jaw, he was sexy and mesmerizing. If he’d been wearing a tie, it had since been discarded. His collar was open, his hair tousled by the wind.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked in a voice thickened by emotion.

“That I got into this program? I thought Nemo would. Or that it would be obvious that that’s why we were here in New York.” She rose and nervously gathered her sheet music into its folder, using the moment with her back to him to pull her emotions back into their compartment. Or at least try, not that it was really possible around him.

“Your mom told me you were here.” He was closer.

She slid out from behind the bench and turned to face him.

He was taking her in with a gaze that ate her up from ponytail to sneakers, snagging on the sleeves of her flannel top tied around her waist, over the denim skirt and ribbed long-sleeved top.

She hugged her folder in front of her. She was only eight weeks, not showing yet, but she felt as though her belly were round and obvious.

“When did you talk to her?” she asked in a voice strained by the joy of seeing him and the panic accosting her as she tried to figure out whether she ought to tell him or—

“She invited me to lunch. She thinks you’re pregnant.”

“Oh.” She slumped onto the keys—pretty much a capital offence—and popped off before the keys had finished resounding. Her body went hot. Her mind scattered.

The only thing she could think was,I’m not ready for this.

“Are you?”

“I wanted to tell you myself,” she said into the folder she was still clutching.

“Then why haven’t you?”

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