She didn’t like that comparison.
She shook her head again, trying to clear it. “I, uh, what you asked me earlier. I don’t dislike your tattoos. You don’t have to…” She stopped, realizing that she didn’t mean to say he didn’t have to hide them. What she wanted to say was that he shouldn’t. She didn’t want him to. She straightened and looked him in the eye. “Don’t cover them up.”
Did he feel that? That quick breath she took? That tightening of the air between them?
It was too much. “Actually, I do have a loose concept for the song.” She put her phone down and turned to her case, desperate for something to do that could take her attention off of Chris and this intense desire she had for him.
She pulled the instrument out. On the table, her phone beeped, indicating she had a voicemail. She raised the violin and glanced at Chris again. He was watching her, still wearing that angry—no, it wasn’t an angry look. It was…suspicious. What did he have to be suspicious of her for?
Maybe he thinks your piece is going to be too predictable again.
She’d been thinking about that all morning. She wanted him to be impressed. It hadn’t been easy, to pull away from her comfort zone, but she’d done it, and she was excited about what she’d come up with so far.
“The thing is, without all of my other equipment, this is just the melody, but it’s at least a start. Maybe I could have my recording stuff brought in tomorrow, so I can put the whole thing together…” She trailed off, feeling awkward at the way he was just watching her, one eyebrow raised, as though he was impatiently waiting for her.
Just play. Just play.
She positioned the bow and began to draw out the piece she’d come up with. It was hard not to look over at Chris, to seek approval as she played, but she made it a point not to. She didn’t want to be thrown off if he didn’t like it. She was starting to learn what his expressions meant, how emotional he could be. Everything he felt showed on his face.
It didn’t help that, somewhere along the way, she’d started looking at him more. Seeing him.
But even as she was playing, she knew he wasn’t going to like it. Maybe he wouldn’t hate it, either, but it was almost as though—as though she didn’t like it. As though she already knew what he would say, and that this time, she agreed.
Technically excellent, but lacking in artistry.
She stopped abruptly, and the bow screeched to a halt on the strings. The image of Chris as he usually looked filled her mind. Chris, in funky clothes and those saturated blue eyes and those tattoos that looked like art all over his body…
He wasn’t lacking in artistry.
Today, seeing how he shone through despite the buttoned-up appearance, how she knew that he was different despite the conservative clothes, was doing something to her. Something definitely unexpected.
And God help her, she liked it.
…
“It’s too much like the lake scene piece.” Chris took a step toward Minh, and his frustration must have shown on his face, because she responded by holding up her violin like a shield, and he immediately backed off.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” He turned away, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Have I ever given you reason to be afraid of me?”
But he did want to push her on her music, and he already knew how she would see that—as an affront, if not an attack. It was too out of her comfort zone. That much was evident in the way she reacted to him every time he criticized what she’d composed as too done, too trite. She slowly lowered the violin again. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me. You just looked—” She stopped abruptly, snapping the case shut, and shook her head.
“Looked what? What do you think I looked like? Because I’ve tried to explain to you what I think about you hiding from your music, but it’s not working. So maybe you can tell me what I’m missing, instead. Because I have to say, I don’t fucking get it.”
He knew he was getting too wound up, but this woman wound him up like no one else could. No one else got to him the way that she did, and it frustrated him that he couldn’t seem to get to her…the real her.
“There’s nothing to get!” Her eyes were flashing with a bit of that fire he’d seen in her the first night they’d met. Yes. This is what he wanted. Yes. Just one more little push…
He reached his hand out toward her, a calming gesture, but when she leaned toward him, almost close enough to touch, his body went tight and excited and he had to fight not to close the small distance between his hand and her hip.
“There’s so much to get, Minh. Don’t you understand? I know you’re capable of so much more. That’s why I hired you. But you fight me—no—you fight yourself at every turn and it makes no sense.”