Page 27 of The Temptation
Pierce picked up some champagne and led the way into the first gallery that had some objects up for bidding. “I’m guessing you shut them up by proving them wrong.”
“Before our first official performance together,” I bragged. “Some people are morons. It’s like they think all those awards I’ve won over the past twenty years were handed to me, and this is my first time playing.”
“I’m sorry you have to deal with that.”
I shrugged and took a sip of my champagne. Well, sparkling wine. Judging by the quality, I wasn’t willing to bet that this was genuine champagne. A charity shouldn’t waste its funds on high-end stuff. “It’s okay. This isn’t the first orchestra I’ve played with. They’re all very cliquish. Woodwinds hate the brass. Strings can’t stand percussion. Blah blah blah. However, some orchestras are more insular than others. They like to believe no one deserves to be included in their group until they’ve proved themselves for a few months or even years.”
“Didn’t you play with the London and Paris orchestras prior to college?”
“Yes, and despite their size and notoriety, both were very welcoming. There were a couple of prima donnas in the London one, but they saw it as their job to take me under their wings rather than exclude me. Despite the popular American stereotype of Parisians being rude, the Paris orchestra was hands down the friendliest I’ve ever played with.”
Pierce paused in front of a beautiful landscape watercolor of a shadowy meadow at the edge of a wood, with a small circle of golden sunlight cutting through the darkness. I peered closely atit, half expecting to see a faint image of a pixie or an elf hiding behind one of the trees.
As I straightened, Pierce picked up the pen and added a shockingly high bid for the painting to the sheet of paper.
“Are you a fan of this artist?”
My date paused and glanced back at the note card, proving that he hadn’t a clue who created this painting. “I’ve never heard of them,” he murmured. “I just like it, and there’s a spot in one of the meeting rooms at the office that needs some art.” He turned his gaze to me, his smile growing wider. “It’s also for a good cause.”
“Is this normally your job—making appearances at charitable events on behalf of your law firm?”
“I’m not the only one who does this. However, I thought I could kill two birds with a single stone.”
“Oh, really?” I asked, my tone playful as I stepped closer, intentionally bumping my arm into his.
“First, your social media post was a good one. My mother looked you up and saw the picture.”
“Did she dig up any juicy dirt on me?”
Pierce lifted his eyebrows and stared down his long, straight nose at me. “No, but if she keeps digging, is she going to find any juicy dirt that I should know about?”
I snickered and bumped into him a second time, using the opportunity to thread my arm through his so that we were now linked. “I’m boring. There were rumors years ago when I was seventeen that I was dating this forty-five-year-old Italian soprano, but they were proved bogus after someone just happened to catch a picture of me kissing a backup dancer for one of the K-pop bands who was in Berlin at the same time I was.”
A deep, weary sigh escaped Pierce, sounding as if I had exhausted the last of his patience. “Yes, I’d forgotten that was how you’d chosen to ‘come out’ to the world.”
Everyone had been rather pissy about it except for my agent. Jumping from one so-called scandal to the next had caused my popularity to skyrocket. Demands for me to play with this orchestra or that had gone through the roof and had made me reconsider whether I should even bother going to college. It was only after I’d sat through a lengthy call with Declan and Sebastian that I’d continued on my path to get a degree in music.
Pierce stopped in the middle of the gallery and stared at me. “Exactly how did someone catch a picture of that kiss?”
“Huh? Oh, it was one of the other dancers. A group of us had gone out for dancing and drinks. One of them had been flirtatious and touchy-feely all night. So we started kissing, and his friend took some pictures. No big deal.” I leaned in closer and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Besides, have you ever been with a dancer? He had amazing abs. How could I not kiss him?”
Pierce did not appear amused. In fact, his glower was turning hostile. “So he was your first?” he bit out, sounding as if he were grinding the words up before spitting them at me.
“First what? Kiss?”
“Lover?”
It took everything I had not bust out laughing right in his face.
Holy shit, Pierce Sutton is jealous.
He was so jealous he was practically turning green with it. If I let him dangle a second longer, he was going to look like a member of the cast ofWicked.
But I couldn’t laugh, because I didn’t want to dig any deeper into my sexual experiences.
“No. God, no. We kissed. That’s it.” I shrugged and pulled on his arm to get him moving. “I had no choice, really.”
“What do you mean? Because you thought it was the only way to kill the soprano rumors?”
