Rock Wedding (Rock Kiss #4) - Nalini Singh Page 0,61

in the music so different from that which he made but that spoke to him on the same visceral level.

“In the interest of full disclosure,” he said, “they’re not the best seats and it’s a matinee performance—I didn’t want to be front and center at the fancy night session.” True, except this time around, he’d bought two tickets, and when he’d chosen the seats, he’d placed Sarah’s aversion to media interest over his own liking for the front seats where he could stretch out his legs.

Abe couldn’t not be a big guy who attracted attention, but the symphony audience was different to Schoolboy Choir’s audience. And even if there were rock fans in the crowd, most people didn’t expect to see the keyboard player of a hard rock band at the symphony. Especially one wearing a button-down shirt and clean, dark blue jeans. And because they didn’t expect it, they didn’t make the connection.

Sarah placed her hands on the steering wheel, closed her fingers over it slowly as if she was thinking. His heart boomed a bass counterpoint to his breathing, his blood a roar in his ears.

“I’d like to go.”

The words were an exhilarating punch to the gut. “Great. I’ll pick you up around one thirty.”

“See you then.”

Abe shut her car door with a smile.

His wife was letting him take her out on a date. He could work with that.

THE REST OF THE WEEK DRAGGED for Sarah until at last it was Saturday.

She didn’t know why she’d said yes when she’d instructed herself to stay friendly but distant with Abe. Then he’d asked her and he’d looked so… wary, as if he expected her to turn him down flat, and her mouth had opened and she’d heard herself agreeing to go with him.

“Sure, Sarah.” She glared at herself in the mirror as she put on her earrings. “You’re doing this out of the kindness of your heart, not because you have a dangerous weakness for a certain rock star.”

The glare didn’t help; bubbles of excitement still popped in her blood at the thought of seeing Abe again.

She knew she was in trouble. Bad trouble.

Which probably explained why she still hadn’t ’fessed up to Lola about the fact that Abe was once more in her life. “Soon,” she promised Flossie. “I’ll tell her soon.”

Her dog didn’t look like she believed Sarah.

Having Internet researched what people wore to early performances of the symphony, she’d chosen a simple black dress and paired it with a fine string of pearls. Those pearls were real, given to her as a wedding gift by Abe’s mother. Diane Bellamy had placed them around her neck before the reception, kissed her on the cheek with what felt like real maternal warmth, and said, “Welcome to the family.”

Sarah should’ve handed them back during the divorce, but she hadn’t. It wasn’t because of their value, but… “Because a mother gave them to me,” she whispered to her reflection.

Sometimes, when things got really bad in their marriage and she was so lonely, she’d pretended Diane was her mom as well. In real life, however, she’d never dared make such a claim. It wasn’t that Abe’s mother hadn’t been kind to her, but Sarah had always felt as if Diane didn’t think Sarah was good enough for Abe.

Or maybe those were your own insecurities messing you up, hmm?

It was Lola’s acerbic voice, a memory of one of the many conversations she and her best friend had had over the time they’d known one another. That particular conversation had happened while Sarah was cleaning a Bel Air mansion not long after she’d gone out as a one-woman-operator; alone in the house but for a slinky black cat with a diamond collar who’d purred up a storm when she petted it, she’d called her best friend, and they’d spoken while Sarah dusted and wiped.

Six months later, Sarah had walked into that same mansion on Jeremy’s arm. No one but the cat had recognized her, though she’d cleaned that mansion for five months before she hired her first employee and handed off the house. People didn’t ever really look at their cleaners for the most part, and dressed-to-the-nines and elegantly made-up Sarah, her hair slick straight, appeared a different woman from dressed-down Sarah with her curls pulled neatly back.

Lola had once asked her if she felt more herself without the trappings of sophistication.

Sarah’s response had been immediate. “No. All those things—the nice clothes, the makeup, the ability to hold a cultured conversation—I learned them,