Chapter Seven #2
This was his worst? Bo was genuinely floored. If this was what he considered failure, she wasn’t sure she was emotionally prepared for whatever he thought success sounded like.
She shifted on the floor. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I mean, the door was open, and I followed the sound and . . .” she stopped, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry.”
He stood though, shaking his head. “It’s fine. I knew you were there. If I’d wanted to stop and throw you out, I would’ve done.” He walked towards her, offering her his hand.
For a moment Bo stared at his fingers. Now, having seen him work, she knew why they were so long and strong, so intensely powerful. Abruptly, she recalled the feeling of his fingers deep inside her, remembered how they’d probed out of her the most intense of orgasms.
His hands create beauty, she thought, once again feeling ridiculously overwhelmed and not knowing why.
“Bo?” Max asked, looking concerned, and she shook herself back to the moment, taking his hand and letting him help her from the floor.
“Umm, you said that was Beethoven?” she queried, desperately trying to halt the blush that she knew was creeping across her cheeks.
“Yes.”
“I’ve never heard it before. I don’t really listen to classical music.”
He nodded, leading her back through to the kitchen, still holding her hand as though it meant nothing.
It does mean nothing, Bo lectured herself. This isn’t a date, and you need to get it together. I don’t care how attractive his hands are, just try and be a rational person for the next two hours at least.
“Why not?” he asked, taking her to the table and nodding her towards a seat. He released her hand finally, and she tried and failed not to miss the feel of his skin next to hers. “What music do you listen to?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t really listen to music.
” She felt awful admitting it. Max was a musician, and here she was, admitting that she didn’t listen to the thing he clearly loved best. She cleared her throat, wanting to explain more.
“When I’m outside, working in the garden, I like to hear the birds and the planes and the city. Music would get in the way of that.”
Instead of looking unimpressed, Max nodded, a thoughtful expression in his eyes.
“The music of nature,” he told her. “People don’t really think of the sounds we hear every day as music, but it is.
Bird song, the madness and pulse of life .
. . it’s all music. It has beat and rhythm.
It has notes. Sometimes its staccato and sometimes its legato. But it’s all music.”
“I never thought of it like that before,” Bo replied, and Max smiled at her, before his expression shifted, curious.
“You said you work in the garden,” he said after a moment. “I’ve taken a look at your contract with Geoffrey, and it wasn’t listed as one of your duties. You weren’t paid for it.”
“Oh, I know.” Bo shrugged. “It’s just . . .”
“Just what?” Max frowned slightly, his tone concerned. “If my uncle asked you to take on an additional task, he should have paid you for it.”
Bo shook her head. “He didn’t ask me. I started doing it myself.
The garden needed attention, you see, and Geoffrey wasn’t able to tend to it.
Not really. Anyway, once I started, I found I couldn’t stop, and I never needed paying for it.
” She smiled faintly, her gaze drifting from Max to the window.
“It probably sounds silly, but I love that garden. It’s the place I feel happiest. I never really felt like I belonged anywhere until I found it.
Everything in it is alive, but only if you care for it.
You can’t fake that kind of love. You have to show up; you have to get your hands dirty.
And the garden . . . the garden rewards you for your efforts. Just like your music, I guess.”
Bo paused, a flush creeping up her neck when she realized how much she’d just said. “Anyway,” she murmured, shrugging again. “I can’t not work in it now. It’s part of me.”
When she finally looked back at Max, he was silent. He watched her steadily, his face unreadable, except for the tiniest flicker of surprise in his eyes. Surprise, and a little warmth.
The look unsettled her. Max Fitzroy wasn’t supposed to look at her like that.
Like she was someone worth studying, worth hearing.
Like he was seeing her for the first time.
For a moment, it made her chest tighten, and she hated that it did.
She wasn’t used to this sort of quiet from him.
She was used to him arguing, scoffing, finding a sharp edge to hide behind.
So, Bo did what she always did when things felt too close. She deflected.
“Umm, what you played though, earlier . . .” Bo cleared her throat. “It was beautiful.”
That seemed to break the spell. Max blinked once, as if coming back to himself, his posture shifting. It was the small, self-conscious adjustment of a man caught off guard. “It wasn’t really,” he replied. “I didn’t get the pacing right. Still, thank you for saying it.”
“No,” Bo argued. “I mean it. It was wonderful. Magical.”
“That’s down to Beethoven, not me. He might have been the world’s most famous deaf musician, but he was also a genius.”
“Beethoven was deaf?” Bo was stunned. “How did he write music like that if he couldn’t hear it?”
“There’s some debate about that, but apparently, he mostly used vibrations. The piece you just heard was composed that way.”
Bo was staggered. “How did I not know this? What else have I missed?”
Max smiled. “Well, did you know that Beethoven was also famous for being a virgin?”
“A virgin?”
“Yes, although there’s debate about that too. If he was a virgin, it didn’t stop him from writing the most passionate love letters.”
Bo shook her head. “So, the most beautiful piece of music I’ve ever heard was written by a deaf virgin?”
“According to some.”
She chewed on her lip. “I mean it, Max, it was beautiful, and that’s not just down to the deaf virgin who wrote it. You played it wonderfully.”
He gave her a small smile. “I’m afraid Kirill Petrenko would disagree with you, but like I said, thank you for saying it.”
She felt embarrassingly unknowing. “I, umm, don’t know who that is.”
“He’s the lead conductor of the orchestra I normally work with.”
“You play for an orchestra?” Bo was amazed.
“Technically, no. I’m a piano soloist, which means I’m more of a guest. However, the Berliner Philharmoniker is one of the best orchestras in the world and Petrenko is an amazing conductor.
I’m lucky they invite me to solo with them so frequently.
” He stopped, going to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of wine. “Let’s order some food.”
She nodded, pulling out her iPhone. “You said Indian food, right?”
“Please. Are you okay to order on your phone? Mine doesn’t have that capability.”
“Sure, I can do that and—” she paused, finger hovering over her phone screen. “I’m sorry, did you just say your phone doesn’t have that capability?”
“I did.”
“You mean, to order food? Look, you just need to download the app and then add your details and it’s like magic, you can order any food you want anytime you want it.”
He gave her a soft smile. “I know, I just . . .” he shrugged, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. He pushed it across the table for Bo to see and her mouth dropped open.
“Is that a Nokia 3310?” Bo blinked, reaching for the brick-like phone and turning it over in her hand.
“It is.”
“But this thing is . . . it’s ancient. How does it even still work?”
Max shrugged again. “2G network. I only need it for the basics. Anything else is a distraction to me.” He gave her a look. “I told you that first night that I couldn’t get an Uber.”
“Yes, but I thought that was because it was 3 a.m. and they were busy. Not because your phone was built before Uber existed.”
“It works for me.”
“Maybe now, but you should think about upgrading. They’ll switch off the 2G network eventually and then where will you be?”
He looked unconcerned. “I’ll worry about that when it happens. Can you order the food?”
She shook her head at him one more time. “Sure.”
She picked a selection of Indian food from a restaurant she knew to be good and then thanked Max when he slid a glass of wine towards her.
One glass. One glass, and that’s it. You do stupid things when you drink too much wine. Stupid things like hitting on your new landlord/employer/co-inheritor.
“Can I ask you a couple of questions?” Max’s voice cut into Bo’s thoughts.
“Sure.”
“Your name.”
She smiled. “That’s not a question.”
He smiled back. “You know what I meant. Jacobien. I’ve never heard it before.”
“Oh. It’s Friesian.” Bo sipped her wine. “Friesland is in—”
“The Netherlands. I know,” Max interjected. “Are you Dutch?”
“No. Australian.”
“Well, that saves me asking my second question. So, tell me, how does an Australian woman in London have a name from the north of the Netherlands?”
Bo winced. “Oh, well, my mother . . . she, uh, wanted a name that no one else would have. She found Jacobien in a book and thought it sounded fancy. She didn’t really care that it was Dutch. She just wanted something unique.”
“Is it? Unique?”
“I guess.” Bo sipped her wine again. “I’ve never met anyone else with my name. Not that anyone ever calls me Jacobien. It’s a mouthful, right? Even I couldn’t say it as a child. That’s why I’m called Bo. It was how I said my name for years and it’s kind of stuck.”
“I can understand that. My name’s actually Maximilian. I couldn’t say it as a boy either, so I’ve always been called Max.”
Bo smiled at that. She liked having something in common with him, even if it was only a childhood inability to say their own names.