Page 15 of The Temptation (Executive Suite Secrets #4)

SIMON MILLER

The Cincinnati Art Museum glowed against the night sky as I walked beside Pierce up the front stairs and into the elegant building already filled with other museum and art patrons.

Tonight, they were holding a special silent auction to benefit a charity that focused on homelessness in the area.

Apparently, Pierce had volunteered to appear on behalf of his firm, and I was now tagging along as his very special plus-one.

He might have also informed me that there had been a fresh development with his parents that he needed to discuss in person.

This was a positive development for me, since he could have texted to say that the arrangement hadn’t worked and that it was now finished.

“How has rehearsal been?” Pierce asked politely as we moved past the foyer, where people were dropping off their coats at the coat check.

“Not bad.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and snapped a few quick pictures of the elegantly designed sign announcing the charity silent auction. Tables covered in white cloths held beautiful flower displays and delicate crystal flutes filled with sparkling champagne.

“That’s it. Are your coworkers causing problems for you?”

A giggle left me, and I paused in the act of returning my phone to my pocket. Instead, I lifted it and snapped a picture of a scowling Pierce. “And what if someone is bullying me? Are you going to threaten to beat them up?”

Pierce stopped walking and used his impressive height to tower menacingly over me. “Do I need to?”

Fuck, I loved his overprotective streak. The man looked as if he were ready to march out of the art museum, drive straight to the perpetrator’s house, and beat the shit out of him. Or at the very least, threaten him with a nasty lawsuit. The wicked part of me wanted to see him do it.

“Settle down.” I chuckled while trying to ignore the delicious tingles running through my body.

Would it be wrong of me to pull him into some secluded corner of the museum and kiss the shit out of him?

Not that Pierce would let me, but I so wanted to try.

“There’s nothing for you to get worked up about.

Any animosity there might have been has worked itself out.

Rehearsals are boring. As a soloist, I do most of my practicing alone.

I join in the rehearsals during the last couple of days because there’s no need for me to be there while the rest of the orchestra gets their shit together. ”

A low, huffed laugh from Pierce drew my gaze to his face. A subtle smirk had replaced his scowl, and his features had relaxed. “And you don’t think any lingering animosity might be linked to your attitude?”

“What? Because they have to get their shit together?” We stopped at a table covered with a pristine white cloth. Pierce picked up a champagne flute and handed it to me, giving me a glimpse of the amusement still lingering in his eyes.

“Yes.”

“But I’m right. They do. So do I, of course, but I just have to get some notes from the conductor about how he wishes to interpret a certain piece.

Then I can go practice on my own. The rest of the orchestra needs to play together to get in line with the conductor’s expectations.

There have been a few mouthy people who think that I need to waste my time by there being for everything. ”

Pierce picked up some champagne and led the way into the first gallery that had some objects up for bidding. “I’m guessing you shut them up by proving them wrong.”

“Before our first official performance together,” I bragged. “Some people are morons. It’s like they think all those awards I’ve won over the past twenty years were handed to me, and this is my first time playing.”

“I’m sorry you have to deal with that.”

I shrugged and took a sip of my champagne.

Well, sparkling wine. Judging by the quality, I wasn’t willing to bet that this was genuine champagne.

A charity shouldn’t waste its funds on high-end stuff.

“It’s okay. This isn’t the first orchestra I’ve played with.

They’re all very cliquish. Woodwinds hate the brass.

Strings can’t stand percussion. Blah blah blah.

However, some orchestras are more insular than others.

They like to believe no one deserves to be included in their group until they’ve proved themselves for a few months or even years. ”

“Didn’t you play with the London and Paris orchestras prior to college?”

“Yes, and despite their size and notoriety, both were very welcoming. There were a couple of prima donnas in the London one, but they saw it as their job to take me under their wings rather than exclude me. Despite the popular American stereotype of Parisians being rude, the Paris orchestra was hands down the friendliest I’ve ever played with. ”

Pierce paused in front of a beautiful landscape watercolor of a shadowy meadow at the edge of a wood, with a small circle of golden sunlight cutting through the darkness. I peered closely at it, half expecting to see a faint image of a pixie or an elf hiding behind one of the trees.

As I straightened, Pierce picked up the pen and added a shockingly high bid for the painting to the sheet of paper.

“Are you a fan of this artist?”

My date paused and glanced back at the note card, proving that he hadn’t a clue who created this painting.

“I’ve never heard of them,” he murmured.

“I just like it, and there’s a spot in one of the meeting rooms at the office that needs some art.

” He turned his gaze to me, his smile growing wider. “It’s also for a good cause.”

“Is this normally your job—making appearances at charitable events on behalf of your law firm?”

“I’m not the only one who does this. However, I thought I could kill two birds with a single stone.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, my tone playful as I stepped closer, intentionally bumping my arm into his.

“First, your social media post was a good one. My mother looked you up and saw the picture.”

“Did she dig up any juicy dirt on me?”

Pierce lifted his eyebrows and stared down his long, straight nose at me. “No, but if she keeps digging, is she going to find any juicy dirt that I should know about?”

I snickered and bumped into him a second time, using the opportunity to thread my arm through his so that we were now linked.

“I’m boring. There were rumors years ago when I was seventeen that I was dating this forty-five-year-old Italian soprano, but they were proved bogus after someone just happened to catch a picture of me kissing a backup dancer for one of the K-pop bands who was in Berlin at the same time I was. ”

A deep, weary sigh escaped Pierce, sounding as if I had exhausted the last of his patience. “Yes, I’d forgotten that was how you’d chosen to ‘come out’ to the world.”

Everyone had been rather pissy about it except for my agent.

Jumping from one so-called scandal to the next had caused my popularity to skyrocket.

Demands for me to play with this orchestra or that had gone through the roof and had made me reconsider whether I should even bother going to college.

It was only after I’d sat through a lengthy call with Declan and Sebastian that I’d continued on my path to get a degree in music.

Pierce stopped in the middle of the gallery and stared at me. “Exactly how did someone catch a picture of that kiss?”

“Huh? Oh, it was one of the other dancers. A group of us had gone out for dancing and drinks. One of them had been flirtatious and touchy-feely all night. So we started kissing, and his friend took some pictures. No big deal.” I leaned in closer and dropped my voice to a whisper.

“Besides, have you ever been with a dancer? He had amazing abs. How could I not kiss him?”

Pierce did not appear amused. In fact, his glower was turning hostile. “So he was your first?” he bit out, sounding as if he were grinding the words up before spitting them at me.

“First what? Kiss?”

“Lover?”

It took everything I had not bust out laughing right in his face.

Holy shit, Pierce Sutton is jealous.

He was so jealous he was practically turning green with it. If I let him dangle a second longer, he was going to look like a member of the cast of Wicked .

But I couldn’t laugh, because I didn’t want to dig any deeper into my sexual experiences.

“No. God, no. We kissed. That’s it.” I shrugged and pulled on his arm to get him moving. “I had no choice, really.”

“What do you mean? Because you thought it was the only way to kill the soprano rumors?”

“It wasn’t the only way, but it was certainly the easiest. No, I had to kiss him because I needed the practice. How else was I going to learn to be an amazing kisser for you if I didn’t kiss a few other people?”

Pierce made a grumbly noise, but I didn’t miss the way his entire body seemed to relax next to me and the frown that had slashed across his face faded with each step we took.

Jealousy. Delicious, wonderful jealousy over me.

Oh, Mr. Sutton, you’re not as immune to me as you like to pretend.

We continued to walk in silence to view the rest of the items up for auction. Pierce placed a few more offers, but none as impressive as his first one.

“Here. Bid on this for me.” I pulled him to a small abstract statue that had been carved from obsidian.

He looked at the statue for a moment, tilting his head this way and that before returning his attention to me. “You like it?”

“I do. It’s eye-catching.”

“You’re not the only one who thinks so.”

My gaze followed where he pointed to the sheet of paper where people were placing bids. The page was almost full, and the latest bid was significantly higher than I would have guessed the statue was actually worth.

“Someone might outbid me,” he warned even as he picked up the pen.

“It’s not about getting the piece,” I said, releasing his arm so he could write on the paper. “I like the idea of you bidding on something for me.”