An Australian Surrender: Girl on a Diamond Pedestal / Untouched by His Diamonds / A Question Of Marriage

“Oh. Good.” That meant they wouldn’t have time to spend together and maybe she could figure out what was happening inside her. Newfound feelings, along with life-changing revelations, needed to be examined after all. “I mean … I’ll have a chance to play around with that song I started working on last night.”

A spark crackled between them. The shared memory of what had interrupted her songwriting. His lips on her throat, his hands on her breasts …

“You should wear this.” He reached into the pocket of his shorts, took out a small velvet box and handed it to her without opening it. She curled her fingers around it, holding it firmly closed like there was a great hairy spider inside, instead of what she knew was a giant heirloom engagement ring. Actually, at that moment, the ring seemed scarier than a spider.

“You going to open it?”

“Later,” she said. Not now. Not on the boardwalk with people all around. Not while she felt scrubbed raw from everything that had happened over the past week.

He nodded once. “We’ll fly back to the States tomorrow. Things will settle down. Get back to normal.”

She nodded in agreement and tightened her hold on the box. She didn’t ask him what he meant by normal, because she was starting to wonder whether she’d ever experienced normal. This wasn’t normal. Kissing a man in public, then screaming at him, then having him give her a ring. Marrying him for a house. No, this wasn’t normal.

And what she felt for Ethan had even less to do with normal than their marriage farce did.

She’d been expecting that performing, playing for crowds again, being famous and staying in posh hotels would make her feel like herself again. Now she wondered if that had ever been the case. She was starting to wonder if she’d ever figure out what it was she wanted.

She looked at Ethan’s strong profile and tried to ignore the tightening in her stomach. All right, so there was one thing she wanted. But it was the one desire she should probably ignore.

Ethan had been wrong about New York bringing normality back. Waking up in the soft, luxurious bed was still too good to be her normal. Having Ethan to talk to every day, even if it was about mundane things, was better than normal too.

It was like having a companion, if not almost a friend. Someone to share things with. The details of her day. Three days a week she went to work with him and shadowed his assistant, learning different, somewhat menial office tasks. But she made a mean pot of coffee now and her typing was getting a lot faster than it had been that first day.

And yesterday, Ethan hadn’t come by the suite to pick her up in his car, so she’d simply called his assistant and asked her to come and share a cab. It felt … good. As if she was building a life. A real life—her life—not just the broken remains of a life that had never been hers in the first place.

Ethan was due to arrive, and she was pacing, trying to shake off her nervous energy, fairly certain it was futile. Even after a month with him, even though it had been three weeks since he’d kissed her, she just couldn’t relax around him.

She crossed the room to the piano and slid her fingers across the length of the keyboard. Excitement fired through her veins, her stomach tightened in that way that it did when Ethan touched her. Desire. A thrill. She’d been working on the song that had grabbed hold of her in Brisbane, but it hadn’t progressed easily. It was still harder to write music now than it had been.

She sat down on the bench and put her hands into position, flexing her fingers for a moment before pushing down on middle C. She added E and G and let the chord fill the empty room, let it fill her.

Then she followed the feeling. She saw Ethan, remembered how he had stood behind her that night back in Australia. How he’d touched her. She hadn’t let herself think of it, if at all possible, since their return to New York. But she opened her mind up to it now.

It was easy to put the feeling into her music, effortless. This wasn’t like the songs she’d written a year or more ago. Those songs had been born out of technical ability, mostly because she’d had to tame her creativity to make her teacher happy with the structure of a piece.

But this one held her. Her as she was, not beaten into submission, into a shape and form that her teacher deemed salable. Here and now, she was pouring out her feelings, dissonant and minor, filling the room. Uncertain but powerful, deep and all-consuming.

It didn’t empty her of the emotion, but made it stronger, growing inside of her, flowing from her fingertips.

She didn’t know how long she played, how many times she went through the piece so she could cement it in her mind. When she stopped she sat frozen, before letting it all overtake her.

She felt one tear slip down her cheek, then another. She put her hand over her mouth to cut off the sharp sound that was trying to escape. And then she stopped. She let it all happen, because she’d never done that before. She’d been trying to hold on. To her past, to a life she wasn’t certain she would have chosen for herself, but one that she’d been comfortable with.

And she’d never let herself truly grieve the loss of it. She’d never moved on. She’d cut off everything inside of her instead, and she’d lost her music. Not the crowded auditoriums and the CDs, but the music that had always lived in her, coloring the way she saw and heard the world.

It had been quiet in her when before it had always been filled with a rich, layered sound. Music.

She was finding it again. But different. On her terms.

“Are you all right?”

She turned around on the bench and wiped her cheeks, trying to hide the evidence of her crying jag. “I’m great.”

“You don’t look great.” Ethan, who did look great in his custom-made suit, stepped further into the room.

“Gee thanks, Ethan.”

“Why were you crying?”

“I have a song,” she said. And it sounded lame. It made sense in her head, but she imagined that Ethan probably wouldn’t get it.

“Did you finish the one you started back in Australia?” he asked, his voice rough. That pesky, shared memory again. She knew he was thinking exactly what she was thinking.

“Kind of. It was sort of a take-off from that. But it was … different too. I think I might really have something though. It’s been such a long time since … I’ve been able to do drills, songs I knew, but there was nothing new and … that made me feel like part of me had been cut off. Music has always been in me. That’s how it all started. I was composing music from such an early age and … my mother saw potential that needed to be capitalized on.”

“So it was lessons for you then?”

“With the very best instructor. Neil was—is—a genius. He was my support system until … until my mom ran off with all the money and it was clear I couldn’t … pay him anymore.”

“After so many years?”

“He gave up everything, every other pupil, for me. And it turned out my mother hadn’t paid him in two years. In the end, he just couldn’t stay anymore. I mean, after so many years of training it isn’t like I needed a teacher, but he was a coach. A mentor. The closest thing I had to a friend. He understood me. My mother was with me nearly twenty-four hours a day, traveling with me, making sure I did what I had to do to keep the money coming in. To keep the spotlight on us. But she never really tried to know me.”

Ethan moved to the piano, his palm flat on the glossy black surface. “It was her loss, Noelle.”

Noelle’s throat tightened. “You do know how to say some nice things, Ethan.”

“It’s a gift.”

He looked down at her hand. “You still aren’t wearing the ring.”

“I don’t … No. I can get it. It’s the bathroom.” Still in the box.

“You’ve got to put it on eventually. I’m planning an engagement party for us, you know. And we still don’t look engaged.”

She swallowed. “That won’t work.”

He leaned in and her breathing stalled. “No. It won’t.” He turned and walked from the room. Normally, the distance between them would let her breathe a bit easier, but not now. Because she knew what was coming next.

He returned with that blasted box in his hands, the one that had stayed closed since he first handed it to her on the boardwalk.

She stood up from the piano bench and locked her hands in front of her, trying to keep them from trembling. Trying to keep her expression neutral. It didn’t mean anything. This was part of the show. The problem wasn’t the ring, it was the importance she’d assigned to it. She just had to remember that it was just a prop.

He didn’t get down on one knee, not that she’d thought he would, but she was relieved anyway. He held the box out, and this time, he opened it.

She could only stare at the ring, an antique platinum band with a large, square-cut diamond at the center. She didn’t want to touch it. Didn’t want to take the final step of putting it on her left hand. It was all well and good to say she was marrying him to get her house, but this made it so much more real. It forced her to face what she was doing.

“Wear my ring, Noelle?”

She lifted her hand, and there was no disguising the trembling in her fingers as she plucked the ring from its satin nest and slid it on. She made a fist, acutely aware of the thick band digging into the sides of her fingers.

“It’s lovely,” she said, trying to swallow around her heart, which seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her throat.

His Adam’s apple bobbed and he took a step back. “It will be over soon.”

She was supposed to feel relieved by that, but she didn’t. She felt a little bit sick. “I know.”

“I’ll be pretty busy the rest of this week, but we’ll get an engagement announcement in the paper. Party’s on Friday.”

She nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you then.” Five whole days without seeing Ethan. She should have felt relieved by that too. A chance to have space. A chance to get her thoughts in order.

But the stupid thing was, she missed him already.

CHAPTER NINE

IT had been five days since he’d seen Noelle by the time the engagement party rolled around. Five days since she’d put his ring on her finger. It had been twenty-six days since he’d kissed her. Not that he was counting.

He shouldn’t be counting anyway. Hard not to though, when just the thought of her was enough to tie him in knots. He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman more. Worse, he hadn’t been able to force himself to look at another woman since the first day he’d seen Noelle.

It didn’t change the fact that she was off limits. It was a joke, considering he had to hold and caress her like a lover for the entire evening.

He pulled Noelle closer as they walked into the hotel ballroom. He could feel her vibrating with energy beside him. Something in her was different, changed. She was alive. Not like the time they’d gone to see his grandparents, not like their first public appearance.

But then, this was about her.

He looked at her, at her broad smile and shining blue eyes. She was wearing red lipstick again, but this time, it made her glow with color, not appear more pale. It matched her scarlet dress, so bright against her alabaster skin, skimming her slender curves, flowing down over her body like a glimmering scarlet waterfall that caught the light with every step she took.

This party was about her. It was for her in a way. Everyone in the room was looking, and she was soaking it in like rays from the sun.

He recognized this, because it was what his mother had done. His mother, who was never satisfied, always needing more. Never getting enough from her family, from the ones who loved her. And there had been a time when it had become too much … when his father had twisted the knife too far.

He swallowed and tightened his hold on Noelle. He didn’t think she would reach the lows his mother had. But the similarities were eerie enough. Strange that he’d initially been so determined to compare her with her mother, the woman who had caused so much pain in his life, and had ended up identifying her much more closely with his own.

“Noelle Birch!” Sylvie Ames, professional shopper and born socialite, approached them with a broad smile on her face.

He felt Noelle stiffen beside him. Going to Sylvie’s party had been a pretty big source of stress for her, and he didn’t know how she would feel actually having to talk to the woman.

“Sylvie,” Noelle said, her voice soft, measured.

“I was wondering where you’d been, and now here you are, resurfaced with Mr. Ethan Grey. Now that’s impressive! I was sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at my birthday party.”

“Oh, I didn’t mind. There were so many people.”

“I always enjoyed your music. Do you have another album coming out soon? I’d love to have you play at a little soiree I’m planning for next month.”

He felt Noelle relax beneath his hand as she exchanged dates and times and availability with Sylvie. Sylvie gave them both air kisses before sashaying away.

“Sounds like you have a gig,” he said.

“I … yes,” she said, sounding a little bit shocked. “I didn’t think anyone would remember me.”

“Why wouldn’t they, Noelle? You’ve always been talented. You’re bound to get more talented as time goes on, not less.”

“It’s not all talent, Ethan. It’s about connections and marketability. A kid at a massive piano, barely able to reach the pedals, playing like an adult, people pay to see that. These days I’ve sort of outgrown my usefulness to the public.”

“Who told you that?”

“No points for guessing, Ethan,” she sighed, her voice resigned.

“Your mother. She’s a right peach, Noelle. I think you should just assume everything she’s ever told you is a load of crap. But that’s just my thought on it.”

“It’s not that simple though. I really trusted her, all of my life. Didn’t you trust your dad a little longer than you should have?”

He nodded, his lip curling at the thought of his old man. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I ever trusted him. But it was clear early on … he always spent more time with his mistresses than he did with us. I’ve lost count of how many times I saw a woman in a minidress leaving his office, still putting her shoes back on. I was young, but I wasn’t stupid.”

“Ethan, that’s—”

He couldn’t listen to an apology. Not from her. “It’s nothing,” he lied. “And once I have the resorts, there will be some justice. You can’t just … treat people with such disregard and expect there to be no consequences.”

Noelle offered a sparkling smile to a passing guest, one that rang false. “Well, that’s what my mother’s done. She took everything.”

“She didn’t take your talent.”

“She took the music for a while.”

“But it’s back.”

She frowned slightly. “It is. In some ways it’s a bit more frightening than it being gone.”

They were interrupted again by a line of well-wishers and fans of Noelle. The fact that her name was in the papers again seemed to have reminded everyone of who she was, of the fact that she had been out of the public eye for so long.

She did a good job glossing over the details of the past year. She claimed it had been a resting period. She was very like his mother in that way too. Able to hide failures beneath bright laughter and smooth little lies. On vacation. A hiatus. Suffering from exhaustion. Words his mother used instead of no one will hire me and addicted to pills.

But he didn’t truly believe Noelle’s career was over. She was beautiful and, without her nerves in play, she worked the crowd like magic. When she played it was like someone had reached into him and grabbed his heart, squeezing it tight.

She touched him with her music on a visceral level. And he couldn’t be the only one. She had a gift, one that went beyond the novelty appeal of a small child at a big piano.

Ethan had no doubt she would regain that indefinable thing she needed to go on. The adoration of the crowd, her photo in the tabloids.

And he would have Grey’s Resorts. A chance to watch his father’s world broken into pieces, as Damien Grey had broken so many others. Maybe somewhere in that he would find some kind of satisfaction. Bloody perfect.

But those goals, goals that had obsessed him since he’d been a teenager, seemed strangely insignificant when he thought of his encounters with Noelle. And not just the moment in the hotel room, but the kiss on the boardwalk. Something so small, really. Something that wouldn’t have mattered with any other woman.

The kiss was just a prelude, usually. It was never a main event in and of itself. Kissing Noelle was different. Suddenly, he wanted to kiss her more than he wanted his next breath.

Of course, the point of the party was to flaunt their relationship and promote their upcoming marriage, so maybe taking her into the garden to make out wouldn’t be the most inappropriate thing.

He was strongly considering it when Sylvie approached them again, a much older man in tow. “Noelle, will you please play something? I know it’s your party, but you’re so amazing, and I was just telling Jacques how good you are. He’s never had the pleasure of hearing you play live.”

Jacques inclined his head. “I am a fan. It would be an honor.”

Noelle looked at Ethan, her eyes bright with nerves and excitement. “Do you suppose the band would mind if I played something, just for a moment?”

Ethan shook his head, his body tight with frustration. “It’s your party.”

He watched as she wove through the crowd, a bright spot amid the sea of customary New York black. Golden hair, pale skin, silken red dress. She was a force of color and light that was impossible to ignore as she made her way to the stage.

And once she was there, sitting behind the piano, she commanded every eye in the room to watch her.

She put her hands on the piano and he swore he felt her fingertips on his body. Long, elegant fingers caressing the keys, easy to imagine them on his skin. She started playing a piece he recognized, one he’d heard in department stores many times. Something from one of her old albums, he assumed. But actually hearing it in person, watching her perform it, was a totally new experience.

It was so fluid. Smooth. Pure perfection.

And he felt as if it was only for him. Not for anyone else in the room. His chest tightened, breathing became a little harder as arousal assaulted him, flooded him.

Each note was a caress, the flow and rhythm of the song like making love, hard and fast then slow and sweet. Everything he wanted to do with her, everything he dreamed of, put out in the open, forcing him to confront it.

She lifted her head and looked into the crowd, looked at him. Her eyes locked with his as she continued to play, her entire body moving with the effort she put into playing, every part of her involved in her performance.

She would move like that in bed. Perfection. With passion, with all of herself.

He tightened his jaw, and the strain on his muscles was a welcome distraction from the desire that was pounding through him. The last thing he needed was for some photog to snap a picture of him sporting a hard-on over his fiancée’s performance.

Of course, it would lend authenticity to the whole thing.

He frowned. He didn’t like thinking of it that way. Didn’t want to bring the agreement into this, because this was real. His desire for her felt more real than anything in his recent memory. His past affairs had all gone hazy thanks to the passage of time, but he truly didn’t think he’d ever been so aroused by a woman who was more than a hundred feet away.

He wasn’t the only one enthralled by her. Everyone was mesmerized, savoring every note, existing for the next. Captive audience didn’t even begin to describe it.

She had brought everyone in to her for a moment, let them all feel what was inside her. And, as the last note faded in the ballroom, the emotion lingered. At least it lingered in him. Everyone around him was applauding and he found that he couldn’t. He wanted more. To hear more. To feel more.

But he couldn’t have more. He wouldn’t. Only this small indulgence. This window into her, into himself.

“She’s amazing.” This came from Jacques. The Frenchman was watching Noelle, his dark eyes shining, his mouth curved into a smile. Ethan wanted to hit him.

Unexpected and a little bit cavemanish. And yet, he was unrepentant.

“And she’s mine,” Ethan said, walking away from Sylvie and Jacques, weaving through the crowd and up to the stage, just in time to take Noelle’s hand as she descended the steps.

“Was it okay?” she asked.

“Amazing.” He bent his head and kissed her. Just part of the show. A necessary act that had no place lighting his body on fire.

When they parted, he was still having trouble breathing, his body tight with need.

“Amazing,” she whispered.

“Let’s hope this party ends soon,” he said, his voice rough. Because he needed distance. He needed to send her back to her suite and he needed to get home to a very cold shower.

Walking away was the only option. But for the first time, he wondered if he had the strength to do it.

The kiss at the party had changed something. Or maybe it wasn’t the kiss, maybe it was the performance. Or maybe it was both. Either way, the moment Ethan’s lips had touched hers Noelle had made a decision.

She was going to have Ethan Grey. For a night, a few weeks, whatever, she was going to have what she wanted. With him.

Tonight she’d played. For her. And for everyone else. Without permission. And it had been amazing. The best feeling she could remember ever having on stage. It made her want more. Not just from Ethan, but from life. Why look ahead to the day she would get the house, shutting out everything else on the way? There was too much living to do between now and then.

She’d spent her whole life with tunnel vision. Play the piano. Be famous. Be brilliant. Everything else shut down and ignored.

But since meeting Ethan she’d discovered other things. Data entry and desire and a day at the beach. And she wanted more of that. Tonight, she was determined to have it.

Ethan stopped at the door of the hotel room. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait.” Good or bad, it was out of her mouth now. All she could do was commit and go forward. Or change the subject. Tell him he had lint on his coat? No. This wasn’t the time to lose her nerve, or to worry about what he might think. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t be scared forever. And she wouldn’t be scared now.

His eyes were nearly black in the shadow of the hall. “That might not be the best idea.”

“I want to … play for you. The song I started in Australia. I want you to hear it.”

He hesitated, his hands curled into fists, a muscle in his jaw shifting.

“Ethan …”

He took one step into the room. The tense lines in his body, the pronounced tendons in the backs of his hands, were proof of just how tightly he was hanging on to his control and told her that he knew what she was really asking.

And that by coming in, he hadn’t committed to saying yes.

The risk of rejection was high. A little bit scary. But a lot worth it. Because Ethan did want her. And it was their connection, one that had nothing to do with the two of them but everything to do with their parents, that held him back. Maybe it should hold her back too. But she had never felt like her mother’s actions, away from the cloistered life of music, had included her in any way.

She felt separate from their parents’ history, separate in a way Ethan couldn’t because of how it had affected his family. But maybe if he saw her, if he knew that she was nothing like her mother. Maybe then he would want to want her.

Ethan walked to the couch, his eyes trained on her as he worked the knot on his black silk tie. Her senses felt heightened. She could hear the slide of fabric over fabric as he tugged at it, could feel her heartbeat through her entire body. She could taste something in the air between them. Foreign and exciting. Tantalizing.