He ignored the slight twinge of conscience he began to feel in his chest, spreading to his arms, making his fingertips feel numb. He didn’t have time for a conscience. Noelle would get what she needed, and he would get exactly what he wanted.
Everyone would win.
Except for his father.
“Will you be touring again soon?” he asked.
Noelle had been touring since she was a child. He’d never been to see her, but he’d seen her name in the news frequently. She’d played at Carnegie Hall, she’d played for the Queen of England. She was a household name and had been for at least eleven years. And apparently, all of that touring had left her with nothing.
“I’m not touring anymore,” she said tightly. “My label dropped me because I couldn’t book venues. My publicist dropped me. My agent.” She made a clicking sound with her tongue. “So, yeah, I’m pretty much done with music.”
She looked down, lashes fanning over high cheekbones that seemed a bit more pronounced than they should be. She had that cabbage-soup-diet look about her, like she wasn’t getting quite enough to eat. He couldn’t imagine her turning down his proposition, not when he knew she needed it so badly.
And he was tempted, tempted to come out with it now.
But it was too soon.
He was a master of the business deal, and tomorrow, he would set in motion the most important deal of his life. He wouldn’t allow impatience to ruin that.
“Come to my office tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll send a car for you around noon.”
“Why? So we can discuss where in my hundred-year-old rose garden you’re going to dig your inground pool?”
“Not exactly.”
He had no intention of turning her home into a hotel. He had no intention of purchasing it at all. Sure, a hotel here would bring in money, but that money would be nothing compared to the satisfaction he would gain by executing vengeance against his father.
Noelle, and her home, were the key to that revenge.
ETHAN’S office building was warm. Noelle let it wash over her as she walked into the open, stately marble foyer and crossed to an elevator that took her to the top floor.
Even the elevator spoke of luxury. She ached for it. For gorgeous hotels with amazing views and thousand-thread-count sheets. For heat, and for lunch that consisted of more than instant noodles with little freeze-dried chunks of vegetables.
For a crowded auditorium and applause meant just for her.
“You really are pathetic,” she said to the empty lift.
Yes, she really was. But knowing that didn’t make the longing go away. Her life had never been easy, she knew that. Sometimes she’d wished for all of the fame, the practice, the shrill voice of her mother and the stern voice of her instructor to go away.
But now that they had, she was faced with some harsh realities she’d never dealt with before.
She sucked in a sharp breath as the elevator stopped. Her stomach turned over, her hands shook as if she was about to go out on stage. The kick of adrenaline was addictive. It was one of the many things she missed about her former life as a concert pianist.
This was different though. The familiar spike of adrenaline was infused with a warm, honeyed sensation that pooled in her stomach and made her body ache in places she’d never given a thought to.
She clenched her teeth and took a breath. Focus.
She walked from the lift to a reception area and gave her name to the man sitting behind the desk. While he searched for it in the computer, she picked one of her favorite pieces—not one of her own, but one of Mozart’s—and began to run through the notes.
Pictured her fingers flying over the keys. Effortlessly, joyfully.
It was something she always did before a performance, to remind her of how prepared she was. That she was ready. That she wouldn’t make a mistake.
“Just through that door there, Ms. Birch,” the receptionist said, smiling brightly.
“Thank you,” she replied, keeping her mind on the music as she walked to the door.
She tried to slow her breathing, keeping it in rhythm with the legato portion of the piece. Slow and steady. Don’t rush. Don’t falter. Smooth.
She opened the door and the notes fluttered from her head like startled birds. She wasn’t prepared for whatever this meeting was, and there was no use pretending otherwise.
Because Ethan was more frightening than a theater filled with three thousand people. He was sitting behind a broad, neat desk, his large hands folded in front of him, his expression even harder than it had been yesterday at her house.
“Good morning,” he said, unfolding his hands and putting them behind his head, the action so casual it was maddening. That he wasn’t tense at all when she felt like a slight breeze could shatter her was beyond unfair.
“Morning,” she said, refusing to lie and call it good. “I’m here for our mysterious meeting.”
“Have a seat,” he offered, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.
“No.” She wasn’t going to put herself in that position. Him behind his big desk, her sitting there on the opposite side like a child about to be scolded.
Being meek and subservient didn’t work. It didn’t keep people with you. It only made you easier to deal with. And this past year she’d come to see that she’d been being thoroughly dealt with all of her life. That was one good result of having a bomb detonated in the middle of her existence. She wasn’t going to play the pawn anymore.
A harsh lesson learned the hard way. But she had learned it. In some ways, without her gilded cage, she was stronger now than she’d ever been. Even if it didn’t always feel like it.
A half smile curved his lips. She didn’t like that. Because it wasn’t an amused smile, it was something else. Something sort of dark beneath the surface of the expression. “No?”
“I’d prefer to stand,” she said stiffly.
He inclined his head. “If you like.”
He stood then, and she felt dwarfed. He was a foot taller than she was, and broad. More than that, he just seemed to fill the room with his presence. The something else that gave people whiplash as they passed him in the street, trying to get a look at him. Mad sex appeal or something. She stretched her neck and straightened her shoulders. It didn’t help.
“I would say that this was business,” he said. “That it’s not personal. But that would be a lie.”
She swallowed hard. “Would it?”
“Yes. I don’t need the money your home would bring in as a boutique hotel. I don’t need the money that would come in from buying the family business, Grey’s. But I don’t want him to have it. And that’s where you come in.”
“Me?”
“It was a nice accident, seeing that your home was about to be foreclosed on. I thought I might be able to help you out. For a fee.”
“A fee?”
“There is no such thing as a free lunch. Or, in your case, a free manor house situated a reasonable commuter distance from the city.”
“You must realize that I don’t have anything to give you,” she said, her heart sinking