The thought startled her, and she fought it. Not a coward. Smart. Safe.
Strange, though. Chris looked a lot more disappointed than she would have thought, and it made her regret lying to him. They were silent after a bit, and even though she knew she should play the friendly hostess and invite him to sit, to talk to him, she just couldn’t. She had already been down that road of opening up to someone too soon. She met Richard when she was only nineteen and he had been twenty-one. He’d come from a good family, had a steady office job, and seemed like the perfect guy on paper…at first, anyway. He’d been the one to encourage her to pursue something other than a classical music career, and she’d been so wrapped up in his perfect exterior that she hadn’t realized the path he was leading her down. And all the work she’d created then—the same kind of music that she’d been playing just a few minutes ago—had led her into the worst mistake of her life.
After that, she’d stopped trying to stand out. Some things had to be kept locked away. Her parents had been right growing up. Being different…it was a disadvantage.
Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Gali and Daria came back into the living room, Daria bouncing with excitement. Neither woman seemed to notice the weird tension between Minh and Chris.
“This place is gorgeous.” Daria pointed to the small nook between the living room and kitchen, where Minh and Gali stored their instruments. “Gali was telling me about her work. And she says that you compose amazing pieces.”
Daria’s blue eyes focused on Minh, and that intense gaze reminded her just how alike the two siblings were. What if Daria became their third roommate, and Minh not only had to see Chris all the time, but also had to be reminded of him in Daria’s every movement?
She wasn’t sure whether the possibility excited or scared her. Or both.
But before Minh could respond, Gali jumped in. “She’s a composer and a professional violinist. She makes some fabulous pieces for the electric violin. But she’s really working on becoming a film composer.”
Damn. She could feel Chris staring at her. The skin on the back of her neck prickled in awareness. Had he figured out that she’d lied? Oh, God, she just wanted this to end.
Daria made a sound of excitement. “Really? Have you written anything I would know?”
Minh felt her cheeks heat, and she tried to glare at Gali without looking like she was annoyed by Daria.
“You okay?” Chris was looking at her strangely.
Ugh. He definitely knows.
“Oh, uh. Yeah. Just, um…Gali is sort of right. I want to be a full-time film composer, but I haven’t found anything yet that pays well enough to let me do that. I work part-time as the receptionist in a dentist’s office to pay the bills. But I, uh, I’ve composed a few pieces and am sending them out.”
“So, what’s your work like? Weepy love songs and that kind of thing?” Chris was smirking at her, like he was goading her into confessing the truth that he already knew.
Annoying man.
She straightened a bit, taking comfort in the way her crisp button-down blouse made her feel like she wearing armor.
“I am classically trained and classically inclined. As in, I prefer Mozart to Madonna. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate other music. I compose whatever a film calls for. And my work is always technically superior. I follow all the rules of good music.” It was impossible to keep the disdain from her voice.
For a second, he looked confused. Good.
But then he shook his head. “Great music isn’t about rules. It’s about art and feeling. Anyone can plug notes into a formula. It’s putting feeling into the music, opening oneself up, that makes the truly gifted composers great. If it was just about rules, then anyone with a synthesizer and some software could do just as good a job as a professional composer.”
For a second, she couldn’t breathe. She thought of the rejection e-mail she’d received earlier that week. Your work is technically excellent, but the piece doesn’t seem to be reflective of living in the music…
It made her hate him. It wasn’t rational, she knew. But it was either that or give in to the lure that could take her back to those bad choices she’d made before.
She turned her nose up. “That’s a typical argument of someone without a musical education. It just means that you don’t know how to appreciate truly superior music.”
It was what she’d told herself, anyway.
“Oh, yeah? Okay, then, educate me. What are some highbrow scores that you wish you would have written?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. She didn’t have to answer, she knew, but for some reason it was impossible not to respond to this guy. “The Red Violin, for one. Or The Piano.” Both artistic, critically-acclaimed films with gorgeous classical scores.
He burst out laughing.