discounting her piano instructor.
“Where will we be staying?”
“One of my hotels. On the beach. I think you’ll like it.”
“How long have you owned it?”
“It’s been there for years, but I bought it and had some renovation done on it about six years back.”
“I’ve been here before,” she said, looking out the window at the passing scenery. “I didn’t get to see anything. Just the roadway from the airport to the hotel, to the theater, then back to the airport. We went to Sydney after. I didn’t get to see much of it either.”
“You never went sightseeing when you traveled?”
She bit her lip. “When we were in Europe we did a bit of it, as part of my schooling. I had a good tutor. He made sure I finished my studies early. I graduated at fifteen, so I was able to practice my music more.”
“Have you ever concentrated on anything but your music?”
“I’ve just been concentrating on breathing this past year,” she said, watching the deep green eucalyptus trees blur together into a continuous smear of color. “And before that, just breathing and playing. I want to do more than that now.”
“Data entry?”
She shot him her deadliest glare, which, she knew, wasn’t very deadly. She’d been told she looked like a Kewpie doll more than once. Not very threatening. “Something more than that maybe even. But it’s a good start.”
The car pulled up to a massive, wrought-iron gate and Ethan leaned out the car window and punched in a series of numbers. “Gated community,” he said. “Nothing but the best, you know.”
“I think it’s nice.” The car wound up a long, winding hill and she knew that Ethan’s grandparents’ house was certain to have billion-dollar views.
“It’s a bit pretentious, actually, but don’t tell my grandmother I said that.”
“I wouldn’t.”
He turned to her, sliding his hand across the expanse of seat between them. He laced his fingers through hers, his thumb drifting over the back of her hand. She felt goosebumps raise up on her arms. He hadn’t touched her for a long time. Only a few days, actually, and yet … it felt like a really long time.
“I’m going to introduce you to my grandparents and get the family ring from my grandfather after dinner, let him know my intentions and all that.”
Her heart slammed against her breast. She nodded, trying to pretend she was unaffected.
“And then I’ll give it to you after we leave. We’ll have to come up with a nice story for my grandmother because she’ll want all the gory details. Women always do.”
“Yes. True.” Her stomach tightened, a sick feeling spreading through her. “I … I don’t know how I feel using your family heirloom ring when it’s … when we’re lying.”
“So? I’ll return the ring when our marriage fails. What difference does it make?”
“None, I guess.” Except it kind of did. “Why didn’t your mother end up with the ring?”
“It wasn’t new. She doesn’t really like antiques.” The corner of his mouth curved up slightly. “She likes really modern stuff. Spot-on trend. And my grandmother never would have let her put it into a new setting.”
“Family traditions shouldn’t be broken. I mean, I don’t think. We didn’t really have any.”
It was no use feeling wistful about it. She’d spent so long just wishing things were different. From the moment she’d realized her life wasn’t like other girls’, she’d wanted something else. More. A connection with her mother that wasn’t based on her career.
But that hadn’t happened. It had always been about Noelle’s career for her mother. About what she could do, what she could get thanks to Noelle’s talents. Noelle accepted it now, more or less. Anyway, the charming revelations Ethan had uncovered about her mother made her realize Celine wasn’t the kind of woman she wanted a relationship with anyway.
No, she wasn’t going to waste time being pouty about what she had and what she didn’t have. Not anymore. She was going to take the money, and she was going to get on with her life. She would take her new office skills, or her rediscovered favor with the media, and she would make something of herself, and manage her own money. Without her teacher. Without her mother. Without Ethan.
She was done being played like a puppet. She was in charge now.
“Mine have more to do with status than sentimentality. My mother is new money, you see, so she doesn’t understand how special it is to have things that have been passed down. Or so I’ve heard,” he said, his words cut short as they passed through another gate and onto the grounds of an opulent estate with lush, manicured grounds and three fountains stationed right out front, seemingly for the sole purpose of trumpeting that the people who owned the house had money. Bags of it.
Ethan pulled the car through and parked it in the drive. “My grandparents have valet service,” he explained dryly.
He got out and rounded to her side, opening the door for her. “Full service,” she replied, standing to find herself just about breast to chest with him.
“I’m a full-service kind of guy,” he said, his eyes seeming darker, his voice rougher. She wished she knew what he was thinking whenever that happened. Why it seemed like one part attraction, one part anger, and complete confusion.
Her fingers twitched with the urge to reach out and put her hand to his stubbled cheek, to find out how rough it would be beneath her palm. She wanted to. Badly. But she wouldn’t. That part wasn’t really confusing. But it was crossing boundaries she wasn’t here to cross.
No show without an audience. No touching unless someone was around to witness it. Otherwise it would just be a personal indulgence and she wasn’t about to go there.
“I have no doubt,” she said, turning away from him.
“Ready?”
She started playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in her head, imaging her fingers moving over the keys. Finding her balance, her center and her tempo. “Ready.”
“Then let’s meet my family.”
As always, a family dinner was a formal affair at his grandparents’ home. He’d always found it part of their upper-crust, slightly stiff charm. They weren’t perfect, and they were hardly suburban normal, but life with Nathaniel and Ariana Grey had been much more functional than life with his parents.
And after his mother’s breakdown, this was where he’d spent most of his time. His father had been too busy, his mother too ill. And as controlling as his grandfather could be, at least he cared.
When it came down to it, he wasn’t overly thrilled about lying to them, any more than Noelle was. But no matter how stern his grandfather pretended to be, he’d never had it in him to cut off his only son.
But
