CHAPTER 6

Isabella

Kai wrapped an arm around my waist, anchoring me against his torso. It was like being enveloped in an inferno. Heat seeped through my shirt and into my veins; a flush rose to the surface of my skin, which tingled beneath the sudden, heavy weight of my uniform.
I should do something—apologize for running into him (even though it hadn’t been my fault), step back, run the hell away—but my mind had glitched. All I could focus on was the solid strength of his body and the rapid thud, thud, thud of my heart.
Kai tipped his chin down, his eyes finding mine. For once, he wasn’t wearing a tie and jacket. Instead, he wore a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up and the top button undone. The shirt was so soft, and he smelled so nice, that I got the inane urge to press my face into his chest. Or, worse, to press my mouth to the hollow of his throat and see if he tasted as good as he smelled.
My breath escaped through parted lips. The tingling intensified; everything felt warm and heavy, like I’d been dipped in sun-kissed honey.
Kai’s expression remained indifferent, but his throat flexed with a telltale swallow.
I wasn’t the only one who felt the electric link between us.
The realization was enough to snap me out of my trance.
What was I doing? This was Kai, for Christ’s sake. He was one hundred (okay, ninety) percent not my type and two hundred percent off-limits.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as my predecessor, who’d gotten fired after my supervisor caught her giving a club member a blow job. She’d been reckless, and now she was blacklisted from working at every bar within a forty-mile radius. Valhalla took its rules—and consequences—seriously.
Plus…
Remember what happened the last time you got involved with someone who was off-limits?
My stomach lurched, and the fog finally receded enough for me to break free from his embrace. Despite the heater humming in the background, stepping out of Kai’s arms was like leaving a cozy, fire-lit cabin to traverse the mountains in the dead of winter.
Goose bumps scattered over my arms, but I played it off with a casual lilt. “Are you stalking me?”
Running into him here once could’ve been coincidence, but twice was suspicious. Especially on consecutive nights.
I expected him to brush me off with his usual dry amusement. Instead, the tiniest hint of pink colored his cheekbones.
“We discussed this last time. I’m a member of the club, and I’m simply availing myself of its amenities,” he said, the words stilted and formal.
“You’ve never used the piano room before this week.”
A faint lift of his brow. “How do you know?”
Instinct. If Kai made regular appearances here, I’d feel it. He altered the shape of every space he entered.
“Just a hunch,” I said. “But I’m glad you’re coming more often. You could use the practice.” I tamped down a smile at the way his eyes sparked. “Maybe one day, you’ll catch up to me.”
To my disappointment, he didn’t take the bait.
“One can only hope. Of course…” The earlier spark turned thoughtful. Assessing. “Last night could’ve been a fluke. You talk a big game, but can you duplicate the same level of performance?”
Now he was the one dangling the bait, his words gleaming like a minnow hooked to a jig head.
I shouldn’t fall for it. I had to get more words in—I was woefully behind on my daily word count goal of three thousand words—and I’d only snuck in here after my shift because I’d hoped it would jump-start my creativity. I didn’t have time to indulge in Kai’s veiled challenges.
The practical side of me insisted I return home that minute to write; another, more convincing side glowed with pride. Kai wouldn’t have challenged me if he weren’t rattled, and there were so few things I was truly talented at that I couldn’t resist the urge to show off. Just a little.
I released a confident smile. “Let’s put it to the test, shall we? Your choice.”
The weight of his gaze followed me to the bench. I opened the fallboard and tried to focus on the smooth, familiar keys instead of the man behind me.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked.
“ ‘Winter Wind.’ ” Kai’s presence brushed my back. A shiver of pleasure, followed by the slow drip of warmth down my spine. “Chopin.”
It was one of the composer’s most difficult études, but it was doable.
I glanced at Kai, who leaned against the side of the piano and assessed me with the detached interest of a professor grading a student. Moonlight spilled over his relaxed form, sculpting his cheekbones with silver and etching shadows beneath those inscrutable eyes.
The air turned hazy with anticipation.
I sank into it, wrenching my gaze back to the piano, closing my eyes, and letting the electric currents carry me through the piece. I didn’t play Chopin often, so it started rusty, but just as I hit my stride, a soft rustle interrupted my focus.
My eyes flew open. Kai had moved from his previous spot. He was now seated on the bench, his body scant inches from mine.
I hit the wrong key. The discordant note jarred my bones, and though I quickly corrected myself, I couldn’t lose myself in the music anymore. I was too busy drowning in awareness, in the scent of the woods after a rainstorm and the way Kai’s gaze burned a hole in my cheek.
Yesterday, I’d played like no one was watching. Today, I played like the whole world was watching, except it wasn’t the whole world. It was one man.
I finished the étude, frustration chafing beneath my skin. Kai watched me without a word, his expression unreadable save for a tiny pinch between his brows.
“You distracted me,” I said before he could state the obvious.
The pinch loosened, revealing a glimmer of amusement. “How so?”
“You know how.”
The amusement deepened. “I was merely sitting. I didn’t say or do a single thing.”
“You’re sitting too close.” I cast a pointed glance at the sliver of black leather seating between us. “It’s an obvious intimidation tactic.”
“Ah, yes. The secret art of sitting too closely. I should contact the CIA and inform them of this groundbreaking tactic.”
“Ha ha,” I grumbled, my ego too bruised to make way for humor. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be instead of bothering an innocent bystander?”
“I have many other places to be.” A brief light illuminated the shadows in his eyes. “But I chose to be here.”
His words sank into my bones, dousing the flames of my disgruntlement.
The light flared, then died, submerged once again beneath pools of darkness. “How did you learn to play so well?” Kai switched topics so abruptly my brain scrambled to catch up. “Most obligatory childhood lessons don’t cover such difficult pieces.”
Pieces of memories spilled into my consciousness. A golden afternoon here, an evening performance there.
I kept them locked in a box whenever I could, but Kai’s question pried it open with distressingly low effort.
“My father was a music teacher. He could play everything. The violin, the cello, the flute.” A familiar ache crept into my throat. “But the piano was his first love, and he taught us from a young age. My mom wasn’t a music person, and I think he wanted someone else in the family who could connect with it the way he did.”
Vignettes from my childhood floated to the surface. My dad’s deep, patient voice guiding me through the scales. My mom taking me shopping for a new dress and my family crowding in the living room for my first “recital.” I’d stumbled a few times, but everyone pretended I hadn’t.
Afterward, my father swept me up in a huge hug, whispered how proud he was of me, and took all of us out for ice cream sundaes. He’d bought me a special triple scoop of chocolate fudge brownie, and I remembered thinking life couldn’t possibly get any better than that moment.
I blinked back a telltale sting in my eyes. I hadn’t cried in public since my dad’s funeral, and I refused to start again now.
“ ‘Us.’ You and your siblings?” Kai prompted gently. I didn’t know why he was so interested in my background, but once I started talking, I couldn’t stop.
“Yes.” I swallowed the swell of memories and marshaled my emotions into some semblance of order. “I have four older brothers. They went along with the piano lessons to make our dad happy, but I was the only one who truly enjoyed them. That was why he let them off the hook after they learned the basics but continued teaching me.”
I didn’t want to be a professional pianist. Never had, never will. There was a special magic in loving something without capitalizing on it, and I was comforted by the idea that there was at least one thing in my life I could turn to with no expectations, pressures, or guilt.
“What about you?” I lightened my tone. “Do you have any siblings?”
I knew little about Kai despite his family’s notoriety. For people who’d built their fortune on dissecting the lives of others, they were notoriously private themselves.
“I have a younger sister, Abigail. She lives in London.”
“Right.” An image of a female version of Kai—cool, elegant, and decked out head to toe in tasteful designer clothing—flashed through my mind. “Let me guess. You both also took piano lessons growing up, along with violin, French, tennis, and Mandarin.”
Kai’s lips curved. “Are we that predictable?”
“Most rich people are.” I shrugged. “No offense.”
“None taken,” he said wryly. “There’s nothing more flattering than being called predictable.”
He shifted in his seat, and our knees brushed. Lightly, so lightly it barely counted as a touch, but every cell in my body tensed like I’d been electrocuted.
Kai stilled. He didn’t move his knee, and I didn’t breathe, and we were tossed back to the beginning of the night, when the latch of his arms around my waist conjured all sorts of inappropriate thoughts and fantasies.
Tangling tongues. Sweat-slicked skin. Dark groans and breathy pleas.
The point of contact between us burned, taking our easy banter and condensing it into something heavier. More dangerous.
A blanket of static settled over my skin. I was suddenly, intensely aware of how we would look to anyone walking in. Two people crowded on the same bench, so close our breaths merged into one. A deceptively intimate portrait of rules broken and propriety discarded.
That was how it felt. In reality, we weren’t doing anything wrong, but I was more exposed in that moment than if I were standing naked in the middle of Fifth Avenue.
Kai’s eyes darkened at the edges. Neither of us had moved, but I had the uncanny sense we were barreling down an invisible track headed off a cliff.
Get it together, Isa. You’re conversing in a piano room, for God’s sake, not bungee jumping off the Macau Tower.
I dragged my attention back to the conversation at hand. “So I was right about all the lessons. Predictable.” The words came out more breathless than I’d intended, but I masked it with a bright smile. “Unless you also have some exciting hobby I don’t know about. Do you tame wild horses in your free time? BASE jump off the top of that tower in Dubai? Host orgies in your private library?”
Embers smoldered, then cooled.
“I’m afraid not.” Kai’s voice could’ve melted butter. “I don’t like sharing.”
The ground shifted, throwing me off-balance. I was scrambling for a response, any response, when a loud laugh sliced through the room like a guillotine.
The electric link sizzled into oblivion. Our heads swiveled toward the door, and I instinctively jerked my leg away from his.
Luckily, whoever was in the hall didn’t enter the room. The murmur of voices eventually faded, leaving silence in their wake.
But the spell had shattered, and there was no gluing the pieces back together. Not tonight.
“I have to go.” I stood so abruptly my knee banged against the underside of the piano. I ignored the pain ricocheting up and down my leg and summoned a flippant smile. “As entertaining as this has been, I have to, um, feed my snake.”
Ball pythons only needed to be fed every week or two, and I’d already fed Monty yesterday, but Kai didn’t need to know that.
He didn’t show a visible reaction to my words. He just inclined his head and replied with a simple, “Good night.”
I waited until I was out of the room and down the hall before I allowed myself to relax. What the hell was I thinking? My night had been a spectacular series of bad decisions. First, going to the piano room instead of heading home to work on my manuscript (in my defense, I usually wrote better after a piano session), then staying and semi-flirting with Kai.
My run-in with him must’ve knocked my good sense loose.
I made it halfway down the stairs when I ran into Parker, the bar manager.
“Isabella.” Surprise lit her eyes. With her lean frame and platinum pixie cut, she bore a striking resemblance to the model Agyness Deyn. “I didn’t expect to still see you here.”
My shift had ended two hours ago.
“I was in the piano room,” I said, electing to tell the truth. Some Valhalla managers got testy about employees using the facilities even in accordance with the rules, but Parker knew about my hobby and encouraged it.
“Of course. I should’ve known.” Her eyes twinkled.
Parker was a gem, as far as managers went. A thousand times better than Creepy Charlie or Handsy Harry from my previous places of employment. Besides my friends Vivian and Sloane, she was also one of the few people in New York who knew—and kept—my secret. For that, I would always be grateful.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier, but congratulations on your upcoming work anniversary.” A smile warmed her face. “I’m glad I have you on my team.”
Warmth sloshed in my stomach, eroding some of my earlier guilt. “Thank you.”
Take that, Gabriel. He might not have faith in me, but my manager said I was one of her “best employees.”
Parker’s words followed me all the way across town to my apartment, where Monty snoozed in his vivarium and my manuscript sat, seventy-nine thousand words short of its eighty-thousand word target.
Bartending paid the bills, but like with piano, I wasn’t interested in it as a career. Still, it felt good to be good at something. Parker had worked at Valhalla for years; she’d seen plenty of people come and go, and she was impressed by me.
I couldn’t let her down.
That meant keeping my nose clean, staying focused, and staying far, far away from a certain British billionaire.
But when I climbed into bed that night and fell into a fitful sleep, my dreams had nothing to do with work and everything to do with dark hair and stolen touches.