the past five years—but for now, Miami’s public transport could get her pretty much anywhere her feet couldn’t.
It might be November, but she didn’t need a sweater. However, she grabbed a pashmina in case the air conditioning in the restaurant was set on “Arctic.” After spending so many winters in more northern climes, it was so so nice to be back in Florida, with her winter gear shipped home to Tampa to the storage unit she kept there. The sun had been down for an hour, but the temperatures were still in the high seventies, perfect for a walk, but it was a little jarring for it to be that warm as businesses took down their Halloween decorations and replaced them with a mix of turkeys and Santa Claus.
She could come to really love Miami. MMBC was a highly respected company with a great mix of classical and contemporary in their repertoire. It may be not as prestigious as some in New York, but the trade-off was a lower cost of living and fewer up-and-comers nipping at her heels all the time. She could still do the occasional guest artist thing when the traveling bug bit her or things started to feel stale, but Miami was a great base.
And she needed to start thinking about the future, anyway. If all went well, she could get another six, maybe seven, years in before retiring, but she was feeling the effects of the past two decades already and her chances of injury increased each year. She needed to be building some kind of foundation, and Miami was ideal for that.
Plus, it was only four hours from home.
All this was great. Provided she could keep the job she’d worked so hard to get. The fact she was willing to turn to Evan Lawford proved how much she wanted her contract picked up for next season. That would give her time to build a reputation and network here in Miami and increase her chances of further seasons exponentially.
She just had to get through dinner with Evan and get his agreement first.
Easy-peasy, right?
Oddly, Evan hadn’t asked many questions when she’d emailed him, saying hello and asking if he’d like to get together. She’d provided her phone number, but he’d stuck to email, setting up the place and time with the minimum amount of communication necessary. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a not.
It had taken courage—more than she thought she’d need for something so simple—to email him in the first place, but he’d accepted so quickly that she’d only had forty-eight hours to figure out how to actually pull this off.
Evan and Jory were friends, practically brothers. Although she’d not been there to see it, she knew Evan loved her parents and had spent a lot of weekends and holidays at their house instead of his own. Her parents loved him. But that had nothing to do with her, and she couldn’t cash in on her parents’ kindness or Jory’s friendship like some kind of promissory note owed to her.
But they weren’t friends. They were just two people in Jory’s orbit, basically little more than strangers.
Okay, they were more than strangers. She just wasn’t sure where on the hierarchy of relationships to place her brother’s roommate when he was also the guy you lost your virginity to in what turned out to be only slightly more than a one-night stand.
Ugh.
While she’d felt hurt and used at the time, perspective could offer the balm that it probably hadn’t been personal. And realistically, he’d most likely saved her from making a similar mistake later on—when she would have been alone, surrounded by strangers, and even more vulnerable. Naïveté was a dangerous thing.
The truly embarrassing part was that she’d known exactly what he was going in to it. Hell, he’d taken Jory into his decadent world of wine, women and song, debauching him quite thoroughly. But with the arrogance only a teenager could have, she’d believed she was different. Special.
Combined with Evan’s combo of charm, good looks and raw sensuality, that arrogance had easily overwhelmed and shouted down anything she’d known merely intellectually.
That was the rational, reasonable part of her brain. The same part of her brain that turned that burn into something useful, allowing her to focus on her training instead of getting wrapped up in messy entanglements that could have complicated her life unnecessarily. So that was good.
Parties, boyfriends … all those things she’d been told she’d have to sacrifice for her career didn’t seem like so much of a sacrifice after that. Or at least not an overly painful one.
Her inner eighteen-year-old still held a grudge about it, but she’d need to keep that safely hidden away.
Even if Evan felt remorse over the whole sorry incident, she wasn’t sure that was something she could—or wanted to—play on, either. She’d look foolish and ridiculous and hopelessly naive—and petty and manipulative to boot.
Nope. That little lost weekend needed to stay lost.
She was an adult; he was an adult. This was a purely business transaction, albeit with a personal glaze. But there was no crime in networking the contacts you had, personal or not.
Be friendly. Be businesslike. Evan was a successful businessman. According to Jory, Evan’s advertising agency was growing in phenomenal leaps and bounds, and he should appreciate a professional approach. There was no need to jump right in with the request—a little pleasant small talk always greased the wheels nicely. She would put the sponsorship out on the table early, giving him plenty of time for questions and plenty of time for her to convince him. If all went well, she could walk out of here tonight with his commitment and the ballet’s business manager could get the good news by class tomorrow.
If all went well.
And there was no reason why it shouldn’t.
“Good evening, Mr. Lawford.”
The valet at Tourmaine opened Evan’s door and greeted him with a smile. Tourmaine was his go-to place for entertaining clients—modern enough to feel on trend without being trendy, music loud enough to hear and enjoy without hindering conversations, and, most importantly, good food and a staff that knew him—and his tipping habits—well. “Good evening, Brian.”
“Enjoy your meal.”
“Thank you.” A banal, basic exchange of pleasantries, but one that he needed to remind him that the world hadn’t, in fact, gone insane.
Because barring that, he had no idea why Olivia Madison wanted to have dinner with him.
He knew, of course, that she’d moved to Miami. Jory had been ridiculously proud of his sister’s accomplishment, and they’d had dinner back in the fall when Jory came to see Olivia’s first performance with her new company. But Olivia hadn’t joined them, and Jory didn’t bring up his sister unnecessarily.
Evan hadn’t seen Olivia since she was eighteen, and that was definitely intentional. The only thing that had ever come between him and Jory was Olivia, and they’d nearly come to blows over her, doing damage to their friendship that had taken time to repair. He didn’t know how twitchy Jory might be about it these days, but it wasn’t something he wanted to stir up—not until he at least knew why Olivia had contacted him in the first place.
Miami was plenty big enough for them to never come in contact with each other at all, and he assumed that was exactly how Olivia—and Jory, as well—wanted it.
So
