Page 45 of The Princess and the Fraud

A beat passed. Then, cautiously: “You mentioned it was your mother’s dream home.” His voice was softer now, but unsure—like he didn’t know if he had permission to ask. “How expensive of a house are we talking?”

I looked over to find his alarmed expression, a crumpled brow accompanied by wide eyes. “It’s nothing grand,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “Just sentimental.” I exhaled, trying again. “My mother… she always dreamed of living there.”

“You want to realize her dream for her?”

I nodded. “I’ve been working my butt off for the last five years to save up, and then they announced the auction.” The next part tasted bitter, but I bit them out. “Without you stepping in, it would’ve been for nothing.”

Aaron’s fingers faltered as he stretched for the next notes, hesitating. “That’s why you gave up the cello?” he asked. “To pursue your mother’s dream instead of your own?”

“You sound like you disapprove.”

He turned on the bench to face me. “In June, you said you were at some metaphorical bridge thinking of jumping. You said it was to buy the house or to pick up the cello again. Youwantto play. Youwantto go back to it. You?—”

“My mom gave up her life for me.” My words were sharp, silencing whatever protest he had been ready to launch next. “She was a young, single mom with no family to help her out, and she gave me everything. Once I went to college, she was going to start living for herself again. But then she—” The one word nearly caused me to stop entirely, “—died.”

I didn’t talk about my mom often. She got pregnant with me from a one-night stand at nineteen, moved to Addison from her small, judgmental Rhode Island hometown. When she was my age now, her life had been a rocky boat of unknowns, and she’d been all alone. Her life had become dedicated to a little girl who needed to be driven to practices, cheered for at recitals.

We’d been two partners in crime, but while I’d lived for myself during my teenage years, she’d lived forme. Any dream she’d had from when she was young had been put on pause, like a song waiting for its next note—a note that never came.

I swallowed hard, trying to stifle the emotion that pricked at my eyes and squeezed at my throat. “Besides, the cello isn’t something you can easily justpick back up. My calluses are gone. My friends in the industry have moved on. My opportunities went to others. But it’s okay, because I already experienced by dream. Now, the least I can do is realize hers.”

“Why can’t you play now anyway?” he asked. “Just for fun?”

I pressed my lips together. “Because.”It’ll open a door that I’m afraid I won’t be able to close.

A part of me thought Aaron would push back, that the music lover in him would insist I still follow my own path. I waited for it. He drew in a breath, and as he did, our shoulders finally brushed. It was a whisper of contact, but the connection reminded me so much of that night in June. We hadn’t even touched then, but it was his presence itself that lent this feeling.Finally, someone was in my bubble with me.

“My grandmother’s biggest dream was to see me married,” Aaron murmured, and with his right hand, he stretched it in front of me and began playing the concerto again, but this time slower. It was a fraction of a difference in tempo, but it transformed the tune from romantic into something almost haunting. “I was her golden boy. She was too busy when my siblings were younger, but she stepped down from Astro Agencies by the time I was born. When I wasn’t away at school, I was staying with her. I spent more nights at her house than my own, growing up.” He blinked a few times. “She was my best friend.”

“You’re not trying to say you have other motives than getting married for the inheritance money?” I sounded skeptical. “Right?”

“I’m saying that I know what it’s like, wanting to fulfill the dream of someone you care about.”

In all this, I’d forgotten that an inheritance didn’t just fall into his lap. Someone had to die in order for him to get it—someone close to him. I remembered how his voice had thickened that night in June as he’d spoken about his grandmother, saying she was growing sicker. I didn’t know how soon she passed after that, but it couldn’t have been that long.

Another thing we had in common, losing someone we loved. And, judging by the equally haunting notes in his voice, it was something that bothered him greatly.

When Aaron got to the crescendo, I inexplicably laid my hand over his just as I had before. It was almost as if my hand was magnetized to his, like the piece called to me. Somewhere along the progression, the tempo picked up to the normal speed of the composition, and Aaron carried us to the last notes.

And then we lapsed into silence again, both of us hesitating to pull away. I stared at our hands. If I shifted, my fingers would fall from laying perfectly over his to threading through them. The air still felt thick with something somber, and I thought about it. I really thought about it. His shoulder brushed mine again, this time with more pressure, stirring my thoughts further.Take your hand away, I told myself, but it was lost in the idea ofwhat would it be like if I moved my fingers?

Aaron’s voice was just above a whisper. “I don’t think Caroline is coming.”

He could’ve slammed his hand down on the keys and it might’ve startled me less. I wrenched my hand back, severing the connection, and turned toward the grand clock. Ten after nine. I fished my phone from my pocket, but there were no messages from her. She’d forgotten.

“Were you going to talk about her brother? Grant?” Aaron hesitated, as if waiting for me to immediately shut the subject change down. “You never react well to his name.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you pay too much attention to people?”

“Is that your way of telling me to mind my business?”

“No,” I said quickly, because thathadn’tbeen what I meant. “But you know why I don’t react well. Fiona told you. He’s my ex.” Surely he hadn’t forgotten.

“And Caroline’s brother.”

“Yeah.”

Aaron nodded slowly, fingers inching their way up the piano in an ascending melody. “How long were you two together?”

---