Chapter Seven #3
“My name’s how I got my job with Geoffrey, did you know that?
” she asked, keen to continue their conversation.
She didn’t notice Max’s face darken. “He was looking for a live-in carer, although to be honest, I had no experience in that area at all. Anyway, he didn’t seem to mind and asked me to interview for the role, and when I did, he said it was my name that caught him.
He knew it was Friesian, right from the beginning, and wanted to meet me.
Like you, I think he was surprised to find out that I was Australian.
I think he thought I would be Dutch, like Madelief. ”
“Madelief?”
“Yes, the woman Geoffrey—” Bo stopped, suddenly aware that Max was listening to her with eyes that were dark, his countenance stormy. “The woman that Geoffrey, umm, loved the most.”
Max cleared his throat, standing abruptly. He went over to the fridge, pulling the bottle of wine out and topping up his glass.
“Are you okay?” Bo asked.
“Yes. It’s just . . . Geoffrey talk. You’re more than aware we didn’t get along.”
“I know, but I don’t know why. He was your uncle and—”
“Can we talk about something else?” Max cut her off sharply. “Geoffrey’s dead, and so my issues with him are dead too. I don’t want to keep harking on about him. I know you loved him, but I didn’t, and I don’t really want to hear any more about him, if I’m perfectly honest.”
“Oh.” Bo swallowed, feeling uncomfortable.
“Umm, okay.” Somehow, she didn’t think Max’s issues with Geoffrey were dead with him.
She sensed, under Max’s calm and unruffled exterior, a hidden hurt within, and once again wondered what Geoffrey had done to elicit such hatred from a man so unilaterally level-headed as Max seemed to be.
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Max said, his voice once again gentle, and it was the closest to an apology Bo had ever heard from him. “I just don’t want to talk about Geoffrey.”
Bo nodded, thinking quickly. “Can I ask you a question then? It’s not about your uncle, I promise.”
“Of course.”
Bo stared at him. “What’s it like? At the piano?”
“What do you mean?”
She swallowed. “I mean, what’s it like to create that kind of music with your hands?”
Max stared back at her. “Bo, have you ever played piano before?”
She flushed. “I may have bashed at the keys once or twice.”
“Come on.” Abruptly, Max put down his wine, taking her hand again without any protest on her part. He led her back through to the study, where he gestured to the stool that sat in front of the grand instrument.
“Oh, no,” Bo protested, as she began to understand Max’s intentions. “I can’t—”
“You can,” Max insisted.
“What if I break it?” she asked desperately, but Max gently pushed her onto the stool.
“Then you’ll owe me eighty-five thousand pounds.”
She looked up at him, searching for the joke in his eyes. He was serious-faced though, and she paled. “Eighty-five thousand pounds? Max, I don’t have eighty-five thousand pounds.”
He gave her a soft smile. “Bo, I’m kidding with you.”
She sagged with relief. “You mean this piano doesn’t cost the equivalent of a house deposit?”
“No, it absolutely does.”
She started to rise from the stool once more, but Max pushed her back.
“Look, this piano is insured,” he reassured her.
“If in the unlikely event that you happen to have a sledgehammer in your pocket and decide to hack my Yamaha to death with it, I’m covered.
Come on, let me show you how to play.” He sat next to her on the piano stool, his thigh warm against hers.
Bo felt, inexplicably, a thrill of both desire and excitement pulse through her, and she chewed on her lip.
He’s not even your type. He’s a two, remember? An abrasive two.
He didn’t feel abrasive in the slightest right at that moment though. He felt firm and warm and he smelled amazing, and Bo’s fingers trembled as she placed them on the keys.
“You’re shaking,” Max remarked. “Please don’t be nervous; you really can’t damage a piano just by touching it.”
Bo felt a sliver of relief that he’d so misread the reason for her trembles. Still, she nodded, looking up at him.
“What do I, umm, do now?”
“Press a key.”
“Any key?”
“Any key,” Max replied warmly.
With her index finger, Bo pressed the nearest key. It was the silkiest, smoothest thing she’d ever felt, and she marvelled at how — after a slight, almost undetectable resistance — the key moved down, a note suddenly streaming out into the air of the room.
“There,” she said, going to stand again. “I played the piano.”
Max pulled her back down once more. “Play another one,” he ordered, and she swallowed, moving her finger to another key and pressing down.
At the same time, Max pressed a key near him, and a new sound filled the room.
It was richer and more intense, two keys playing as one, and Bo made an amazed noise.
“A chord,” Max explained. “Harmony.”
“That was lovely,” Bo replied honestly. “It sounds so . . . is clean the word?”
“As good a word as any. I’m so used to playing full concertos and complicated pieces that I sometimes forget how beautiful one simple chord can be.”
“Can we try another one?”
He smiled at her. “Sure. Pick a key.”
She pressed another one close to her, and Max met it with one of his own. She made a noise of delight, and he smiled again.
“I don’t give lessons normally,” Max told her, and as though it were on instinct, he began to play a short tune. “But I like talking about music.”
“I wish I could do that,” Bo admitted, nodding to his hands. “Play a song.”
Max paused, and he looked at her intently. “Let me show you.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t ask you to do that. You said you don’t give lessons normally, and even if you did, you’re a soloist for the Berlin Philharmonic, with an eighty-five-thousand-pound piano. I don’t think I could afford your tuition.”
He grinned. “Let’s call this lesson an exchange for the Indian food you ordered then.”
“You’re underselling yourself.”
“Hey, I like to think if I ever gave lessons my opening rate would be a tikka masala and an onion bhaji.”
“Two onion bhajis,” Bo joked, and Max nudged her gently.
“I should write that down.” He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. “Is it okay if I, uh, touch you?”
After all her blushes in his presence, this time she went a solid shade of scarlet. “Umm, why?”
“I want to show you something.”
There it was again, that thrill of both arousal and excitement.
Bo nodded mutely, and Max stood, resettling his body so that he caged her, his thighs on either side of her own, the warmth of his chest on her back.
They’d been closer than this before — he’s been inside you, Bo reminded herself — but this felt strangely more intimate.
Her skin tingled and her breath came in shallow pants, and as Max wound his arms around her, he rested his chin on her shoulder.
“Put your hands on mine,” he whispered, and it was the most seductive thing Bo had ever heard.
Silently she acquiesced, letting her fingers rest against Max’s.
He began to move his hands over the keys, slowly and gently, so that she could feel the tendons of his fingers moving as he played.
Gradually, he interlinked their fingers, and although the sound was awkward, although they hit wrong notes, Bo was still amazed by the sound they created together.
She felt alive, her nerves sparking and thrumming at both the piano under her fingers and Max’s close proximity.
“You asked me what it was like,” Max spoke abruptly, but his hands didn’t still. He continued playing gently, Bo’s fingers moving with his own. “What it was like to do this. Tell me, what do you think?”
“It’s wonderful,” Bo replied honestly. “If I’d known it felt like this, I might have asked for lessons rather than Barbie dolls as a girl.”
She felt rather than saw Max’s smile. “It can be intense though,” he told her.
“When you play as often as I do, when you lose yourself in the music and the moment . . . it can be hard to bring yourself back. Performing is hard. Performing can be all-encompassing. It can fill you with anxiety if you let it; an anxiety that stays with you if you don’t release yourself from it afterwards. ”
“What do you do then? To bring yourself back? To get that release?”
At that, Max’s hands stopped.
“Max?” Bo felt a tremor of concern.
She felt him take a deep breath behind her. “I guess I try and lose myself in other things.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Other things? Like what other—?” She stopped, realization suddenly running through her.
He means sex. He plays piano for the Berlin Philharmonic and then goes home and has sex.
“Oh,” she said, at a loss of what else to do or say.
Max said nothing, but his hands remained unmoving, his chest rising and falling against her back as he took even and measured breaths.
The nearness of him was nearly overwhelming, and Bo felt that clench of need run through her once more.
Unhelpfully, her mind conjured up an image of Max from earlier that evening, his work at the piano done, his skin flushed and neck sweaty.
It didn’t take much to add herself to that image; all too well, Bo could picture herself sliding naked into Max’s lap, kissing his full lips and letting him lose himself in her.
Get it together, she warned herself. Remember your professional boundaries. He’s not even your type. This is crazy.
Still, she couldn’t help but turn her head towards Max’s.
He was looking down at her, and though his eyes were unreadable, she knew — she just knew — he’d pictured the same thing.
The space between them became negligible as she leaned towards him and he leaned towards her, and Bo readied herself to be kissed.
More than kissed, if she was honest. Bo wanted his lips on hers, but she also wanted his hands on her body too. In fact, she was fully prepared to let him fuck her right here on his piano, eighty-five thousand pounds be damned.
After all, he said it was insured.
Just as Max leaned down again though, so that Bo could feel the warmth of his breath on her mouth, the doorbell sounded. The jingling bell cut into the tense atmosphere between them, and Max pulled back as though she’d slapped him.
“That’s the food,” he said, and his voice was abruptly courteous. “Shall I just go and . . . ?”
“Oh, yes, please do,” Bo replied, her voice also abruptly and absurdly polite. She watched Max go with an ache of disappointment, and she ran a hand over her hair, trying to pull herself together.
Oh, God, I want him. He’s not even my type and I want him.
“Fuck,” Bo swore, shaking her head. “I’m screwed.”