Chapter 4
Shawna dug her phone out of her jeans pocket impatiently and glanced at it.
She didn’t recognize the number, and she was annoyed at having her weekend music class interrupted. She didn’t have much time left and Maria was close to perfecting her soprano for the song that she was pretty sure would win them the competition they didn’t know yet that they were going to enter.
“Hello?” said Shawna, not attempting to mask her irritation, as she signaled to the kids to go on and stepped into the kitchen.
Layla’s cookies had turned out excellent and the whole house smelled like a gingerbread house.
Shawna grabbed a cookie and bit in.
“Ms. Woods, is this a bad time?”
She recognized the voice, of course.
And the hint of annoyance in it, as if she’d been the one who interrupted him.
“I am busy, Mr. Rogers, unless this is important.”
“I want to hire you to give Ryan special lessons. The private tutoring that you said he needs – you can do it.”
Shawna’s eyebrows drew together in a frown.
“Mr. Rogers, I do have a job.”
“I can get you the necessary permission from school. I’m on the board, so it will not be a problem. I can also lighten your load if you need me to.”
Now Shawna was definitely surprised.
“Why? Why me?”
“Because you came to me. This is my personal number. Call me, in two hours, if you want to discuss terms.”
And there was a click.
He’d cut the call.
Shawna stared at it for a few long seconds before one of the kids came looking for her, having run into a little trouble with harmony.
She managed to set aside her anger and bewilderment and finish her lesson, but her heart wasn’t in it anymore. For that, too, she would blame that infuriating man.
Did he think that nobody’s time mattered except for his?
He needed to be taken down a peg or two, and Shawna was getting just mad enough to do it herself.
She wasn’t anybody’s doormat. Just because circumstances meant that she wouldn’t do anything to risk her paycheck, she wasn’t going to be pushed around.
She didn’t want to be under that man’s thumb, or be under any kind of obligation to him.
And yet…
She wanted to teach Ryan.
It wasn’t just because she was well and truly falling for the kid. It was because she knew she could help him – she could help him unlock all of that potential and find himself.
She could do for him what Mr. Yates had done for her – what he would’ve done for her if he could, too.
It wasn’t all selflessness.
She wanted a part in molding him. That kind of talent was rare.
Mr. Yates had told her so himself.
By the time Layla got home, Shawna was cleaning the house with a ferocity that made Layla bite her lip and make sure that she wasn’t dripping sweat anywhere.
“Shawna? Is everything okay?”
Shawna popped her head out of the oven, which she had been scraping and scrubbing, and the maniacal gleam in her eyes had Layla backing up a little bit.
“That… That man wants me to teach him myself!”
Layla looked flummoxed, but her face cleared soon.
“Elijah Rogers did something.”
“He wants me to teach Ryan myself. Give special lessons. I told him I have a job, but apparently he’s on the board of the school, which of course he is, so he wants me to teach the kid.”
Layla considered backing away some more, but bravely stood her ground.
“Isn’t that kind of what you wanted?” she ventured.
“I… I don’t know. I don’t want to be his employee. Bad enough to deal with PTAs with him – oh, sorry, PTA-emails, because he doesn’t want direct meetings unless something is very wrong. He doesn’t care if things are right. I… Oh, I’m so mad. And he hung up on me. I’m supposed to call him back.”
Layla considered sitting down, and changed her mind. She wasn’t going to risk getting her sweaty ass on a chair, not after Shawna had been on one of her cleaning binges.
It seemed to bring out the tigress in her.
“All right, so call him and say you don’t want to teach him. Recommend somebody else.”
Shawna growled.
Layla wondered if she should stay with a friend with Shawna in that mood.
“I can’t, can I? Ryan doesn’t trust people easily. He trusts me. I can’t let him down. I’m just… Oh, this is just so impossible!”
“Why don’t you have a business meeting with him and see if you can figure it out? If you really cannot stand him, maybe you could… I don’t know.”
Shawna sighed.
“Go, have a shower. I’m defrosting stew for dinner. I’ll call him, and set up a meeting while it’s heating. Go on, you’re dripping all over the place.”
Layla grinned and made her dash of escape.
Sighing again, Shawna made the call.
There was no point putting it off anymore.
“Mr. Rogers, it’s…”
“I know who it is, Ms. Woods. Have you considered the offer?”
“You have not, in fact, made an offer, Mr. Rogers. My instinct is to say no, since it might get me into trouble with the school, even if you are on the board. However, I’m very fond of Ryan and I think the fact that he trusts me is important. So perhaps we could meet, and talk about this?”
“Fine. In one hour.”
He rattled off the address and Shawna felt like the words were bouncing off her.
“Mr. Rogers, tonight is…”
“Is convenient for me, and you wanted this to happen, so unless you have a pressing matter, I would rather not reschedule.”
Shawna had to bite her tongue.
“I’ll make it. Could you give me your address again?”
He repeated it, slowly, as if he were talking to somebody who was very dim, and Shawna jotted it down.
This was not going to be fun.
*****
Shawna was annoyed and irritated, and more than a little intimidated.
She had stubbornly refused to be awed and dressed casually, telling herself that it was not an interview. So she was in a comfortable skirt that reached past her knee and a ruby red sweater that always made her feel comfortable and just a little bold.
But as the cab – she’d had to get a cab – pulled up in front of the house, she wished she’d listened to her common sense instead of her defiance.
It wasn’t a house.
It was a damn mansion, the kind with a driveway that seemed to go on for about five miles, and with an intercom at the gate that made you feel like an interloper trying to make her way into a world in which she had absolutely no place, and never would.
She pulled her coat, a serviceable gray trench coat that had always done very well for her, more tightly around herself as she got out and paid off the cab.
The house was as intimidating as the man.
It was all gray stone, and there were even what looked like a couple of turrets.
It was forbidding.
Strange how often she was beginning to think that word.
She had raised her hand to ring the bell when it opened, making her squeak like a mouse.
The man who stood there looked like he belonged in a gothic romance as the manservant, too.
He was balding, but what there was of his hair was gray and longer than usual. He was actually wearing a waistcoat.
Did anybody wear a waistcoat anymore?
“Ms. Woods, I presume?”
She nodded.
“Please, come in. May I take your coat? Can I get you something? A cup of tea, or coffee, or perhaps a glass of wine? Mr. Rogers will be with you shortly.”
She was led into what she could only think of as a parlor, and wondered if she’d stepped into a time warp of some sort.
“Just some water, thank you. I… Thanks.”
She sat down in a chair that was comfortable, but not too comfortable, as if to remind you that you didn’t belong there so you couldn’t settle in for too long.
Everything around her was elegant and possibly antique, and cost more than everything she and Layla owned, put together.
It was designed to be formally forbidding – there was that word again.
Well, it was doing its job.
Shawna felt a bit like a trapped rabbit.
What exactly had she gotten herself into?
She might have been on the point of bolting, hadn’t the… butler? She had never met a butler before, so how was she to know?
Whatever he was, he brought her that glass of water and gave her something to do with her hands, that made her feel like she still had her feet on the ground.
“Ah, Ms. Woods. I apologize for keeping you waiting. It has been… Well, please, tell me, what are your terms?”
Shawna stared.
“What?”
“I assume you’re here because you’ve agreed to take the offer.”
“You haven’t made me an offer,” pointed out Shawna.
“All right, then here’s what I offer,” he said, and named a figure that made Shawna blink.
That was more than she made at the school.
It would go a long way towards paying for dancing shoes.
Suddenly, it felt like whatever bargaining strength she’d had had become irrelevant. She couldn’t afford to turn down that kind of money.
She glanced at him, and saw that he knew it, too. She wanted to hate him for it, for the power he could have over people like her.
But that would be unfair of her.
“Why?”
Elijah sat back in his chair, looking supremely comfortable, and as if the room itself had been designed around him.
It suited him.
In his tailored black trousers and gray sweater, he looked handsome, in an unapproachable way that a stern sculpture was beautiful. He was compelling.
“Because my son insists on it, Ms. Woods. Let me be frank here. I interviewed a couple of very well-known and accomplished people, who would’ve taught my son very well, indeed. But none of them could keep him engaged. He didn’t take to any of them. I don’t know where he’s getting this willfulness from, and I don’t approve of it, but he insists on learning from Miss Woods. So there we have it. You’re here because my son wants to learn from you, and only you.”
Every word he said seemed to put her back up.
“If you’re not convinced of my abilities…”
“I checked your references. They’re impeccable. You come highly recommended, though from a few unusual quarters. Your old teacher was a very well-reputed musician. He, from all that I hear, could’ve been one of the greats.”
Shawna let herself feel the sorrow that didn’t seem to fade, and locked it, again, in that corner of her heart where it felt like it would forever stay.
“Mr. Yates was wonderful. He thought I could be better. I think Ryan could be even better.”
Was that surprise that she saw before he masked it, and leaned forward?
“And why are you a teacher, and not a concert violinist, Ms. Woods? Did family life interfere?”
Shawna refused to look away.
“My parents passed away a while back. I had to take care of myself and my sister. We have our home, so we didn’t have to worry about a roof over our heads, but I couldn’t afford to be a musician anymore. I changed my major to teaching, and a teacher is what I am now. I am not a musician, Mr. Rogers. I’m a teacher of music. I find that I am quite at peace with that. I have no regrets.”
He held her eyes, steadily and unwaveringly, for a few long moments before he nodded.
“Yes, I expect you don’t. Now, shall we take care of the details?”
The conversation turned to times and places, and Shawna found herself agreeing with his surprisingly reasonable terms.
It wouldn’t do to fatigue Ryan, or take things too fast and make him tire of music itself.
“Well, Ms. Woods, shall I see you tomorrow, at six, for the first lesson?”
Shawna was startled.
When she agreed to Sunday evenings, before Ryan’s bed time, she hadn’t realized that meant the first lesson would be so soon.
No time to waste, she reminded herself – there was never time to waste.
“Yes, of course. Tomorrow. I’ll see you at six.”
“I might not be home. I don’t expect we need to meet after every lesson. I trust you can handle it yourself, and email me the progress reports, or any concerns you might have?”
Shawna nodded.
“We’ll need to take Ryan to get a violin to start with.”
He looked startled.
“Was that required? Your presence, during that? Ryan was already taken, with his nanny, to get his violin.”
Shawna wished she could’ve been a part of that. Finding that violin that you would learn on was a joy in itself, too.
Shawna wondered if Elijah Rogers had ever felt real joy in his life.
“Well, no, it’s not required. I shall bring my own instrument, as well. I… Good day, Mr. Rogers. It was nice meeting you.”
She offered him her hand, and found hers being engulfed in his.
His hands – they were like Ryan’s.
Those fingers were long and strong, and the hands were not soft.
“Do you play?”
“Play what, Ms. Woods?”
She should’ve heard the dangerous note in his voice and felt the warning silkiness in his tone.
She should have.
But she didn’t.
“Any instrument,” she said, innocently.
“Some would say that I do, but I expect you would disagree, Ms. Woods. The kind of music that I like won’t be heard in an opera house.”
Shawna looked down, and saw that his thumb, tanned but so much lighter than hers was stroking her hand, delicately and sensuously.
Abruptly, she pulled her hand away from his.
“I think I should leave, Mr. Rogers. Our business here is concluded.”
“I think it’s just began, Ms. Woods. I think our association is just beginning.”
Shawna’s heart thundered as she struggled to keep her spine straight and her chin up.
“I shall be teaching your son, Mr. Rogers. As you said, there’s no real reason for us to meet now, and you prefer to get your reports over email. So I wish you well,” said Shawna, and walked out of the door.
She was spared having to look for her coat herself. The butler was there, and held it out to her.
“Good day, Ms. Woods.”
Shawna smiled.
“Please, call me Shawna. I’ll be here once a week, to teach young Ryan. I’ll be teaching him music. The violin – he wants to learn that.”
The old gentleman smiled, and he was almost beautiful.
“I’m Mr. Smith, Adam Smith. He’s a good lad.”
Shawna smiled again and nodded.
“Ryan is a wonderful child. I shall do my best for him.”
“Let me call you a cab, Miss,” said Mr. Smith, and Shawna nodded.
“I’d be grateful. Thank you, Mr. Smith.”
Shawna was grateful that Ryan’s father didn’t come outside to see her off. It was rude of him, of course, but she was glad.
She was unsettled by her reaction to that simple moment when he’d held her hand. And that conversation – had she imagined the double entendre? Surely he hadn’t meant anything by that.
Besides, a man like him would never even look at a woman like her. She wasn’t one of them.
She was imagining it, of course.
She only wished she’d imagined her reaction to him.
He wasn’t her type. In fact, he was so far out of her type that it was ludicrous.
But when he had touched her, she had wanted to close that distance between them and walk into his arms. She’d wanted to hold him, touch him, kiss him and tease him, and that reaction had been so uncharacteristic and so appropriate that she’d had to make her escape.
What had gotten into her?
Unbidden, almost as if she couldn’t help herself, she ran down to the cab when it got there and turned around, before opening the door.
She looked up, and felt him there, even if she didn’t see him.
He was watching her.
She looked away, stood straight, and slid into the cab.
She didn’t look back as they drove away.
She was going home, where she belonged.
But only for a day.
She would be back in that house, built like a fortress and almost as intimidating, the next day.
She would be there to teach a young boy the joy of music.
After her time in that house, with his father, Shawna had a feeling that Ryan really needed it – the joy and the music.
*****
Elijah hadn’t meant to stand and watch her drive away.
He should’ve seen her out, of course. That would’ve been the right thing to do.
But he had let her pull her hand from his and go on alone, leaving it to Smith to call her a cab.
So this was the young woman who had managed to bring Ryan out of himself. During that first meeting, she had been all prim and proper, all starched and formal correctness.
But now…
Now she had seemed young and vulnerable, just a little scared, her eyes so wide and so dark, and he had wanted her.
That, too, was unexpected.
It wasn’t like he eschewed female company entirely. He dated, discreetly, making sure that no tabloids, online or off, got wind of anything.
He did not mean to get involved with anybody seriously.
Every woman he went out with knew that – they knew what they were getting into.
They would enjoy each other when it suited both of them. They would, perhaps, even go on a weekend trip together. She would get the perks of dating him, which included expense accounts, and they were required to sign iron-clad non-disclosure agreements, which forbade them from speaking to the press at any time, about their relationship.
If he got the slightest hint that they might be getting serious, or harboring hopes of matrimony, he ended things, amicably and quickly.
He wasn’t in it for the long haul. They were supposed to understand that, right from the beginning.
He wasn’t going to fall in love and change his mind.
If they did…
Well, he refused to let that be his problem.
But he hadn’t dated anybody for a while now. It had seemed like more trouble than it was worth.
If he were honest, he could admit that it was because he hadn’t met anybody who had piqued his interest beyond a cursory and natural attraction that a man might feel for any beautiful woman.
But something about the very proper Ms. Shawna Woods had gotten under his skin, so much so that he had acted in a way that he had never even considered doing, not in all his life.
He had taken advantage of his position of power as her employer, and he had made her uncomfortable.
He had felt her pulse speed up in response, and had liked it – liked seeing the desire, startled, uncertain and just a little frightened, in those eyes.
He was ashamed of himself for it.
It could lead to nothing, of course. It would be inappropriate, and it would be an unnecessary complication.
Elijah did not need complications in his life.
And yet, as he tried to settle down to work, as he always did, he found his usually reliable concentration deserting him.
He couldn’t focus on his work, because he kept seeing her, so vivid in that red sweater, so uncertain, but so beautiful, in a way that only came from knowing yourself, that he’d felt something catch in his throat when he’d seen her, sitting there, gripping that glass of water like it was a lifeline.
Standing in the driveway, turning around, and meeting his eyes, just for a moment, before turning away from him, deliberately, and driving away.
No, of course nothing could come of it.
It was just a fancy, and he had no time or inclination for it.
He was doing his duty to his son, as he always had, as he always would, by doing what he needed to, so that he could fulfill this potential that the young woman saw.
That was all.
There was nothing more to it.
It was duty, which had always come first, except for those few heady, stolen months when all that was true and beautiful had come first – and had been ripped away from him.