Overture (North Security, #1)

Well, I won’t be able to ignore her today. We need to talk about the e-mail from Kimberly Cox. Good news, the subject line says. She goes on to explain that Samantha was given a short mention in the digital edition today to raise publicity for the tour, in advance of her deeper profile in the print magazine.

There are a hundred amazing things about Samantha Brooks. The mention could have shared any number of those things. The way she plays like a goddamn angel. The way she mastered violin beyond what most grown men can do at the tender age of six. The way she infuses new life into the classics, drawing the interest of maestros and luthiers from around the world.

Of course the mention doesn’t say any of that.

That would make too much sense.

Instead it laments the mark of grief that Samantha still bears from losing her father at a young age. She used to hide under the desk in his office in Saint Petersburg.

In fact she was there the fateful day that he died.

The sentence makes my blood run cold. I never should have let the damned reporter speak to Samantha alone. Except that she’ll be alone on the tour. I can’t stand next to her for the rest of her life, putting limits on how much she says.

I stand and follow the music like she’s the goddamn pied piper. I want to follow her anywhere, everywhere, want to drown if that’s where she leads me—and I suppose I’m halfway there.

It’s my habit to wait until she finishes a piece. The last note sails through the air, sweet and melancholy. There are only four fucking strings on the instrument. She imbues each and every touch of the bow with some new emotion. It reaches into the hard core of me, deadly, devastating.

“Did you read it?” I ask, my voice a harsh echo in the chamber.

She blinks at me as if coming out of a deep sleep. That’s what music is for her, a kind of trance. Her cheeks are flushed with awareness. “Read what?”

“The e-mail from Kimberly Cox, the reporter from Classical Notes.”

“Oh, about the digital feature? Yeah, that’s cool.”

Cool. Not the word I would have used to describe it, but then I know that her father didn’t die of a heart attack. “They printed the story about your father.”

“Right. Well. It would have been more interesting if it were about music, but I guess they figure it was more of a public interest story that way.”

“She had no right to share that.”

Samantha gives me a strange look. “Are you worried that I’ll remember it?”

Yes, but not because of the fear and anxiety the moment would give her. I’m worried that she’ll remember it because then she’ll know I was there that day. A blessing. That’s what the psychologist said about her memory loss. And I couldn’t disagree.

I crouch down in front of her, the same way I did when she was twelve years old. Even then she would clutch her violin for comfort. She does it now without even realizing. “Samantha, I told you that your father had enemies. If they think you know something—”

“I was just a child.”

Children can be dangerous. This one had always terrified me. “A child who might remember something from when she was hiding under her father’s desk. Not only from the day he died. From before that. A phone call. A conversation.”

She stares at me, bewildered. “What could I have heard that’s dangerous?”

Because her father was a diplomat between politicians who aren’t in power anymore. That’s what she means. But what she doesn’t know is that he was a traitor to his country. That his actions disrupted governments—this country’s government—with repercussions that continued past his death.

Yes, people would kill to keep those kinds of secrets quiet.

“I’m going to ask you to do something, Samantha. When you do the press for the tour, when the reporters ask you about this, say you don’t remember anything.”

She blinks. “They’re only going to ask about the music.”

“Kimberly Cox didn’t only ask about the music.”

Her brown eyes turn dark. “Are you sorry she came here?”

She isn’t asking about the damn questions. She wants to know about the kiss. I should say yes. I should be sorry that the woman kissed me, that I kissed her back for even a split second, wanting her to be someone else. But that led to me walking in on Samantha. As wrong as it was, it was the single most erotic experience of my life. It was more than I dreamed I’d ever have of her.

To my shame I’ve jerked off to the image of her in my head every single night. Every morning. My cock throbs in my slacks right now, eager to push through the fabric. To shove aside her skirt and press itself into her warm, welcoming body. She’d let me. She’d beg me to keep going.

“No,” I say, my voice rough. “I’m not sorry.”

Hurt flashes through her eyes, but I can’t begin to explain the complexity of my feelings for her. The way I shouldn’t want her. The way I want her anyway. My father always said I had the devil inside me. Part of me never really believed him—at least until I saw her masturbating. It took every last, torn shred of decency I have left inside me to walk away.

Her chin rises, because she’s always been so damn strong. She’s always deserved better than me. “I’ll agree to your rule if you answer one question. Honestly.”

My insides tighten. I don’t want this bargain, but her safety is worth it. It’s worth anything. “What’s the question?”

I expect her to ask something about her father, to finally back me into a corner and demand the truth. She deserves that much. Why did you get custody of me? What happened to my father? I would have to tell her.

“Did you ever want me?” she asks. “Really want me.”

I swallow hard. “That’s what you want to know?”

The milestones are coming at me fast, and they’re coming hard. Soon she’ll graduate from high school. She’ll turn eighteen. Those milestones are taking her away from me, bit by bit. None of them compare to what happens when her tour begins. Then she moves to Tanglewood for two months of practice for the tour and the opening show. She’ll travel the whole world.

“Yes, I want you,” I say, my voice hard. “No, that doesn’t even begin to describe… I need you. I crave you. I dream about that kiss in the club.”

“Then why won’t you—”

“Because you’re not eighteen, for one thing. Almost doesn’t count.”

“What about when I turn eighteen? Isn’t there a chance that you and I—”

I would fall to my knees if I thought she should. “I don’t see why you’d want to,” I say, keeping my voice bland. “You’ll have a career then, a record deal, a string of performances under your belt. There will be any number of men.”

She reaches out, her hand cupping my face. God, she’s innocent. She can’t know what she does to my body, the soft touch of her palm, the warmth of her. Or maybe she does know. Maybe she enjoys torturing me. “At the club you said you don’t think of me like a daughter.”

Slowly I shake my head, my gaze locked on hers. “I don’t.”

“Then how do you think of me?”

My greatest pride and my deepest regret. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I kept her tied here in the middle of nowhere. If I trapped her in the closet with me while I watched her slowly starve. “You saved me,” I say simply, unable to lie about this.

Surprise flashes through those pretty brown eyes. “It was the other way around.”

“Ah, no, Samantha. I was nothing when you came to me. A man with a death wish. A business that kept me from drinking myself into a stupor every night. When you came to me, it gave me something to live for. Something to believe in.”

Enemy fire. Missiles. Ambush. There are things I could handle on the fly, but only one thing could strike fear into my heart—and that’s the hope in her eyes. “Then you love me?”

I squeeze her knee and stand up, removing myself from her gaze. “Samantha. I’m sorry. You deserve a family who loves you, but that’s not me. I’m not capable of the emotion.”