Intermezzo (2 page)

The first violinist left the afternoon meeting at three
o’clock, still in a vile humor. David departed at four, leaving only Lily to
handle the rest of the issues that had arisen that morning. The orchestra, it
seemed, was unruly. Practically in a state of mutiny. Aidan could barely
suggest a single adjustment without facing a stony wall of disapproval. He had
been as reasonable as possible, he insisted, but he was the composer after all
and his interpretation of the music should trump any earlier instructions. It
was as simple as that.

Having watched some of Aidan’s attempts to work with the
orchestra, Lily could see the problem was far from simple. Aidan might be the
composer, and a noted conductor in his own right, but he was handling the
situation poorly. The players were grieving and hostile; he was defensive and
arrogant. The combination was disastrous.

By the time the issues were worked through to Aidan’s
satisfaction, Lily had no guilt whatsoever about accepting his invitation to
pay for dinner and a bottle of wine. And then a second bottle of wine.

“The thing is…” Aidan started, gesturing with a piece of
bread as he paused to gather his thoughts.

“What is the thing?” Lily swigged back another gulp of the
crisp Sancerre, savoring the tang against her taste buds. She’d had just enough
to feel it, not enough to feel drunk, especially as she’d eaten a large dinner.
The wine made her bold. She hoped it wouldn’t make her stupid.

“The thing is, they were doing it all wrong. They had the
feel
of it wrong. Oh, not your people,” Aidan hastened to reassure her. “The thing
in San Francisco. God, that was a cluster-fuck.”

“Our people have the feel of it, at least? That’s something,
anyway.”

“By and large. But some of the decisions your conductor had
made were sort of—”

“Easy there,” Lily cautioned. She was not prepared to hear
negative opinions about Dmitri.

“Not the decisions I would have made,” he finished smoothly.
“This is why I hesitated when David asked me to help. I have to admit I spent
the whole morning incensed that the musicians seemed to feel entitled to
explanations for the changes I was making. I know it makes sense for them to
ask, but…I still hear the whole thing in my head. It’s
my
music. How
dare they question me about it? That’s the sort of thing I’ve been trying not
to say all day.”

Lily used the crust of her bread to soak up some of the
garlic butter in which her baked mussels had been drenched. “You should know
Dmitri would have been the last one to mind if you’d made changes. He thinks
you’re brilliant.
Thought
.”

David sighed, dredging his bread through his own
garlic-laden sauce. “I gather he was pretty brilliant himself. Especially in
the area where I’m weakest. Management.”

“It wouldn’t be so hard if it weren’t for all the idiots,
right?”

He looked up, startled, and Lily winked at him. After a
moment, he shook his head in admiration. “I didn’t even know about the sense of
humor, back then at camp, I was too busy being dazzled by your looks. You’re
right, though. I do feel that way about managing. Right now, the bigger problem
is that they’re all so upset. I can’t fault them for their loyalty, but any
change I tried to make this morning was taken like lemon juice in an open
wound.”

Lily nodded. “I learned a lot from Dmitri, and you want to
know one of the most important lessons he taught me?”

Aidan nodded and leaned forward, glass of wine dangling idly
from his hand. His attention was all on her, and Lily couldn’t suppress a rush
of flushed interest. It took her a second to remember what she’d been about to
tell him.

“It’s just…tell
them
all this. The orchestra, I mean.
Tomorrow, tell them you want to start fresh and then let them know this stuff,
right up front. This is awkward for you. You admired Dmitri’s work, and you
know it’s really hard to make such a sudden transition. But with their help,
you can do your part to keep the show going.”

David sipped his wine and seemed to think about this.
“Dmitri taught you that?”

“Not in so many words. But it was his style to talk to the
orchestra very openly, so that’s what they’re used to. He got them invested in
what they were doing. Sort of like when somebody talks you into something by
making you think it’s your own idea, I guess. Only in a nice way, not manipulative
like I’m making it sound.”

“I’ll give that some thought. Anything would be better than
today.”

“Thank you for dinner, by the way. You still haven’t told me
your sordid story though.”

“It isn’t
that
sordid,” he admitted.

“I’m betting on melancholy. You have the whole
troubled-brow, black-clothing thing going on, like Hamlet.”

Aidan glanced down at his tailored black trousers and black
linen shirt. He had loosened a few buttons at the collar and rolled up his
cuffs, a concession to the heat and informality of the day.

“Pretty stark, you have me there. Mostly it’s because I
travel a lot and I’m performing a lot. Black sort of goes with everything. I
don’t have that much fun in Paris though, I admit. Too much history. My ex-wife
lived here for a long time. We happened to be here when we finally decided to
split up last year.”

“I thought you were here on vacation.”

“I am,” he confirmed. “Well, more of a short sabbatical I
guess.”

“Why come here for that if it has such bad associations for
you?”

Aidan let several long seconds pass as he considered his
answer. “I’m stubborn,” he said at last. “I didn’t want to let that baggage get
the best of me. I thought if I came back here, faced those thoughts and worked
them out or beat them down, I could figure out where the hell to go next.”

“Sounds therapeutic. And did that work?” Lily glanced at
him, but his face was unreadable.

“Not really.” He didn’t elaborate, but the strain in his
voice deepened and he swirled the wine in his glass until it threatened to
spill out. “Or not yet. I’ve only been here a few weeks.”

“Going back to the start for a do-over. I could get behind
that idea,” Lily mused. “Was it rough, your divorce?”

Aidan slugged back a hefty dose of wine. “Not really. It was
mutual. We just couldn’t sustain it.”

“It?”

“The marriage. Love, I guess. The long-distance thing,
living most of the year in different cities. Or maybe that was our way to
rationalize it. But after it was over, I felt like…”

“Like your life didn’t remotely resemble the one you had expected
to be living at that point?” Lily murmured.

Aidan looked up, startled. “Yes.
Exactly
.”

She nodded, contemplating her empty wineglass. On a tipsy
whim she lifted her foot under the table, reaching blindly with her toes until
she found Aidan’s knee. He looked pleased, if a little startled, but she rushed
to disabuse him of his hopes.

“I’m not playing footsie, I’m telling you my story. Feel my
foot.”

“What?”

“The arch of my foot. Go ahead, it’s clean. I showered after
rehearsal.”

He chuckled at that, then obligingly encircled her foot with
his fingers, still meeting her eyes. Lily saw the moment when it dawned on him,
when the smile drained from his face and he pulled back from the little bistro
table and lifted the tablecloth to look at the scarred foot in his lap.

“
Ouch
.
”

“Yeah, I probably said that when it happened. Some other
things too.” She poured herself another glass of wine, emptying the second
bottle, and took a fortifying sip before she continued. “I was walking into the
theater one night about four years ago and stumbled on the curb. Rolled my foot
over. It felt a little funny, but it didn’t really hurt much. Not enough to
miss a show.”

“You were the prima?” he guessed.

Lily nodded. “From the time I started dancing for David. He
recruited me away from the
corps de ballet
in a company in Los Angeles.
Anyway, turns out the foot was broken after all. Spiral fracture. I found out
halfway through the first act, when I landed on it from a
grand jeté
and
that ‘funny feeling’ turned into a multiple compound fracture. Basically broke
my foot in half.”

“Fuck!”

“I said that too, I suspect. After they put it back
together, I did all the physical therapy and kept my fingers crossed for about
a year, but finally had to face the fact I can’t go
en pointe
anymore.
David had an opening for a dance captain though, so I was lucky enough to stay
employed.”

But I still have to get a little drunk to talk about it.

“You were a good choreographer, as I recall. Ever thought of
going that route?”

“In time, maybe. I’m still regrouping, I think.”

Aidan’s sensitive digits had found the tension in her foot,
and Lily nearly purred as he began to work on the knot with long, smooth
strokes. Each point of pressure in her arch seemed connected to the long
muscles of her inner thigh, and higher still. She had to suppress a moan when
his touch deepened.

“That feels wonderful,” she said instead, letting her eyes
slip closed as she relaxed into Aidan’s touch.

“Enough of our sordid stories. This is your first trip to
Paris, are you enjoying
any
of it?”

Lily was enjoying that particular moment quite a bit. “I
might have to come back some day when things aren’t as strange.”

“I doubt Dmitri would want you to feel sad the whole trip.
Don’t let a bad memory spoil the city for you. Take it from me, I know.”

She caught the rueful but amused tone and glanced up to see
him smiling at her. Drinking her in. The look was intense, unnerving, and
loaded with enough high-powered sexuality to make Lily feel as if she might
melt straight through the seat of the uncomfortable bistro chair.

“Are you thinking of some new therapeutic approach to help
me with that?” She was aiming for coy, but she got only as close as a breathy
whisper.

Aidan nodded and an absolutely beguiling dimple appeared
beside his mouth. “Positive reinforcement.”

That melting feeling Lily had experienced was nothing
compared to the liquid heat that coursed through her as Aidan ran one hand up
to the inside of her knee, clearly confident in the tablecloth’s capacity to
hide what he was doing. The table was small and his arms were long, giving him
plenty of scope for naughtiness.

“To be clear, I don’t usually do casual flings with near
strangers,” Lily said. Then, hoping to lighten the mood, she added, “Not
anymore, anyway. Only that one time, really.”

“Really? I was your only one-night stand?” He was still
stroking, seeking out the sensitive spots at the back of her thigh right above
the crease of her knee.

“Yep. Um, Aidan…”

“It was bad enough to turn you off the whole concept, huh?”

“Oh, please don’t do that,” she mock-begged. “The whole
running-yourself-down thing does
not
sit well on you. It’s very
unattractive.” She tried—not very hard—to pull her foot out of his lap. His
grip on her heel was too firm and after a tug or two, she gave up. The whole
encounter was inevitable anyway; Lily had known that from the moment David said
Aidan’s name over the phone.

“I assure you I was being completely ironic, Lily. As I
recall, you enjoyed every minute of it.”

She had. She wished her body would shut up a little about
how much she had enjoyed it, because right now it was reminding her of that
quite loudly. How high he’d taken her, so high it had taken her years to learn
to duplicate the effect with anybody else. She’d experimented enough to know it
was probably only a trick of the way her body and Aidan’s fit together, nothing
more. But oh, what a good trick it was. What a long time it had been since
she’d danced that easily.

“Yeah. I did enjoy it, that’s true.”

“I enjoyed it too.”

“You’re the guy, of course you enjoyed it.”

“That isn’t the sure thing you might think it is. I mean
there’s enjoying and then there is
enjoying
.”

How well she knew it. At the moment, Lily was
enjoying
,
and if Aidan’s fingers traveled much farther up her leg, he would be in no doubt
about that.

“I…” she started, but had no idea what to say next.

Aidan bit his lip, an unexpectedly boyish mannerism. On
anyone else it might have looked indecisive; on Aidan, it looked like
laser-focused concentration.

“I don’t do one-night stands much either,” he said. “In fact
I haven’t done any kind of stands, long or short, since my divorce. And if
David finds a long-term replacement, I might only be with the company a few
days, so I should probably stop this right now.”

“Yeah,” she gasped, blushing to the roots of her hair as
Aidan’s elegant fingers traced a feathery line up to the soft pad at the top of
her inner thigh, then down to find more sensitive spots at the back of her leg.

“Are you going to tell me to stop, Lily? If so, now would be
a good time.”

She knew it was a bad idea. The last time had taken a lot of
getting over. They were supposed to be focused on the show. If somebody in the
company happened to see them, she would never live it down. None of that
mattered though. Only Aidan, and the tiny sliver of Paris where they were
sitting while he touched the trembling flesh of her thigh.

Taking a deep breath, Lily closed her eyes again. “No. I
don’t want you to stop.”

* * * * *

They agreed to restraint, to discretion.

“We have to be smart about this,” Lily said as they settled
up the tab and left the restaurant. Even as she said it, she knew there was
nothing smart at all about having road-show sex with Aidan Byrne.

“Agreed. First of all, give me your cell phone number. Your
email address too, while you’re at it.” Lily stared at him in confusion. Aidan
just smiled that devastating smile as he took his own phone from his pocket.
“I’ve always regretted our no-strings pact from last time. I thought about
tracking you down anyway, but then I got busy and…I didn’t have the nerve, to
be honest. I was stunned that you did it with me even that one time. You seemed
so out of my league.”