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She smiled and opted for an easy one. ‘Please don’t tell me you composed that piece.’
He laughed. ‘No, that was Debussy.’ He glanced at her. ‘French composer.’
‘I know who Debussy was.’
‘Yeah. Of course you do. Brains as well as beauty.’
Notsoclever. Stupid actually. Stupidly falling for the man she’d once thought she hated. The crush who’d crushed her. The one she couldn’t physically resist. And when his stupid bet was over, he would destroy the one constant she had left in her life. Her job. The one she wasn’t sure she even wanted any more. He would walk out of her life. And she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. She didn’t know what to do with herself right now. But she knew for sure he had a soul. No one who could play like that didn’t.
‘You worked so hard. It really matters to you, doesn’t it?’ he said quietly.
‘Helberg changed my life.’ And she wasn’t sure it had been for the better any more. But she’d never dreamed a different route. She’d promised her father she’d follow the path he’d outlined—to a better life, right? And if she didn’t, she’d end up alone. Only that’s where she was anyway, for all her loyalty and duty.
‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘He changed mine too.’
Glancing up, she saw bleakness in his eyes. ‘Zane—’
‘I want you to understand,’ he interrupted her before she told him he didn’t have to tell her anything. He knew he didn’t have to tell her but right now it mattered that she not think him completely shallow and pettily vindictive. He needed her to know. He couldn’t hold it down any more.
‘You know I went for one of his scholarships. I imagine the process didn’t change over the years—you would have had an interview with the great man himself too, right?’
She nodded. ‘I was so nervous.’
‘Because you’d been told it was such a life-changing opportunity.’
‘Yes.’ She stared at him.
‘I was too young to really appreciate that. Too self-involved. I just wanted to read the things that interested me. I didn’t have anything to say to that blustery man and I didn’t care. So I came across as a sullen smart-ass.’
‘Surely he would have seen through that—’
‘Perhaps. But he wanted performers. Articulate and polite and full of adulation.Don’t you know how to smile, boy?He just wanted someone who’d smile when he was told to, who’d make Reed Helberg look good.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Eleven.’
Her eyes widened. ‘That’s so much younger than—’ She took a breath. ‘I was fifteen when I got a scholarship to that boarding school.’
‘They took you on a tour to get your hopes up, right?’
‘Yeah. It was huge. All those playing fields and...’ Something dawned in her eyes. ‘You didn’t want to go,’ she guessed softly. ‘You didn’twantto win it.’
Yeah, he’d always known she was smart.
‘Leave the beach? Home?’ He shook his head. ‘And I saw those other boys there. I think you’d call them arrogant prats. Entitled and lacking in empathy.’
‘Not all of them were like that. At least not all the time.’
‘Right. Because you made so many friends there?’
She stared at him. ‘Okay, I’ll admit Danielle’s about the only one.’
‘Yeah.’ He played another chord. ‘Reed’s rejection was instant and brutal, and on the long drive home my mother grew increasingly upset.’
‘She must’ve been disappointed for you.’
Zane stopped playing for a moment while he pushed back the pain he’d long tried to hold down. He didn’t want to tell her this, but nor did he want her thinking it was only out of shallow spitefulness that he wanted Helberg. It cut so much deeper than money.