Intermezzo Read online

  Intermezzo

  Delphine Dryden

  A disappointed ballerina, a brooding composer, a few days in Paris that may change their lives forever…

  Is it the sparkle of lamplight on a rain-drenched Parisian street? The thrill of a clandestine clinch in a foreign hotel? Maybe it’s the universal urge to go back and relive that one crucial moment, knowing now what you didn’t know then.

  Whatever it is, it’s ridiculously hot. Intense. Lustful. And this time, Lily and Aidan aren’t sure they’re willing to walk away from each other when the night is over.

  A Romantica® contemporary erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  INTERMEZZO

  Delphine Dryden

  Prologue

  The smell of pine needles always took Lily right back. It called up a chain of other memories that were stored in her senses for instant replay. The rasp of the horizontal log that her shoulders had braced against, unprotected by her camisole. The slight tang of blood in her mouth, because that first kiss had been a little over-the-top. Neither of them had learned much finesse yet. Neither of them had known enough to mind. The sounds of the forest on a sultry night, the tug of damp clothes against sweaty skin. A breeze had started just as he’d entered her, chilling them, making it almost too cool except where their bodies met in that most ancient method of sharing heat.

  Lily could recall his profile, razor-sharp and classical in silhouette, when he turned to stare into the forest at a sudden nearby noise. His dark hair had flopped forward into his eyes when he turned back and paid attention to Lily again. To the girl he had courted and treated like a princess all week. The girl he was fucking up against the back wall of the rough-hewn proscenium, on the stage where the young performers at the camp put on shows.

  The college students, there as guest instructors and performers, were supposed to be the grown-ups. They were supposed to be responsible, help educate the young campers, set a good example. But Lily had been flattered by his attentions all week, even though she was the star and received attention as if it were her due back then. He hadn’t made his own mark yet but he was so handsome, with an intangible something that caught the eye and made people assume he was headed for great things. He could have had almost any girl there. Lily could have resisted, but she simply didn’t want to. She was still too young herself to care all that much about responsibility.

  It wasn’t as though they were alone in their momentary madness. After the watery roadhouse beer, the dizzy dancing to jukebox tunes, the whole crew of visiting instructors and performers had gone collectively crazy with the heat. Lily doubted there was a dark corner anywhere in the camp that summer night that didn’t host its own frantically coupling pair.

  He’d been tall, but in heels her legs were nearly as long as his. She had wound one long limb around his waist and he’d held it there with his long pianist’s fingers. Slid his hand farther up until he could cup her ass on one side and feel their joining with his fingertips. Lily had gasped as he’d spread her wider, thrust deeper…clamped his mouth over hers, silencing her, because the risk of getting caught was already too high even without the noise.

  It was an almost brutal kiss. She had given it right back, digging her fingernails sharply into his back, hard enough that he clearly felt it even through his t-shirt. Both of them remained more or less clothed, although Lily would realize the next morning that she was missing her underwear. She never did know when exactly she had lost track of them or where they wound up.

  He had started out forceful but slow, measured. After that kiss, though, something had seemed to snap in both of them. His strokes grew faster, less controlled, and Lily’s hips worked in a frantic tempo trying to keep up. She’d been startled when she realized she was actually going to come, that something in the angle or the mood was adding the missing ingredient she’d sought in vain with her ex-boyfriend Matt. Matt had been the first, and he had worked at it. So had she. Self-conscious stopping and starting, clumsy fingers attempting to stimulate a clitoris that had already given up in boredom and exasperation.

  That time, with that second man, it had been no work at all. It had been like breathing, like unforced laughter. Like dancing when you already knew the steps in your muscles and didn’t have to think anymore.

  She remembered how the sensation worked its way outward, spreading from the spot where her pelvis was tipped to let him brush against her clit with each push. It had curled there, nestling between her hips, then exploded into brilliant pleasure that rushed from her belly to her toes and all the way up to her brain. The pleasure pitched higher and higher as he began to respond in kind.

  It was quite possible Lily had made a noise at that point. Even in retrospect, it seemed to have warranted a noise. She’d wanted to scream out that orgasm. She’d wanted to clasp this strange, dark man closer in the night in gratitude and relief as his wicked hips pivoted against hers again and again, and he came into her with a barely stifled groan of his own.

  She had to be quiet or the campers might hear. She couldn’t tighten her arms around him in a grateful hug, because she didn’t know him that well and she was trying to be cool and worldly. She was the prima, after all, and he was the adoring fan. At nineteen, she was still that foolish.

  He’d hugged her, though, as his spent penis slipped from her quivering body. That was some consolation at least. They had breathed at each other, trembling, and Lily remembered his hand at the back of her neck as a comforting, almost loving weight. She’d been grateful for the dark. It had hidden the tears that fell as she’d dragged herself back from the treacherous edge of falling hard for somebody she couldn’t have. Somebody who was moving to New York after the camp was through, all the way across the country from Lily’s home in LA. A man who would be gone the next day, but that night had unwittingly taught her why she was not the type who should indulge in casual sex.

  The next morning, from the porch of the mess cabin, Lily had snuck a last look at her dark lover through the window of a car as he settled himself into the seat. He had squirmed a bit, reaching for his back with a puzzled look, then grinned slightly as his fingers found the small abrasions Lily knew her nails had left.

  Lily, stuck at the camp all that next day until her own bus ride home in the evening, had one hell of a time explaining to her cabin mates about the splinters on her shoulder blades.

  Chapter One

  The air on the plane managed to be chilly and stifling at the same time. Lily felt it in her bones, especially the aching arch of her right foot, as she swayed down the aisle past the musicians and members of the corps de ballet.

  Six hours into a ten-hour flight, the passengers looked a little glassy-eyed and restive. Most of them were with the company, and the group had relaxed into that informal familiarity traveling entertainers are prone to. They joshed, preened, bitched and flirted as the inevitable pairing off kicked into high gear. Lily was grateful sometimes for the new, stricter rules about airplane restrooms. At least none of her dancers would be joining the mile-high club during this trip.

  The air freshener in the tiny restroom compartment was cloying and aggressively pine scented. Lily couldn’t help but smile. It was such an incongruous memory to accost her in a place like that, but the smell of pine always did it. It had been almost seven years, but that particular memory never seemed to fade. Her one wild fling might not have secured her a membership in the mile-high club, but it had definitely been in the same spirit. Hurried, furtive and absolutely thrilling. Emotionally, it had been such a bad idea. Physically, however, it was still the standard by which she judged first encounters.

  What would her nineteen-year-old self have done differently, Lily wondered, had she known she was probably having the best sex of her life? On reflection, she
thought it was probably better that she hadn’t known at the time. Her weeks of heartbreak and Häagen-Dazs had been bad enough as it was.

  On the way back to her seat, she paused next to Dmitri and gave the elderly conductor a gentle squeeze on the shoulder.

  “Do you need anything?”

  He shook his head and patted her hand, thanking her, and Lily moved on. She never dreamed it would be the last time they spoke. But two hours later, waking from a fitful nap, she saw one of the flight attendants walking far too quickly down the aisle with an improbably large first-aid kit in hand, and through the muffled murmur of the plane she heard clear noises of distress.

  Nothing in that first-aid kit, however, was any use to a sweet, seventy-nine-year-old man who had suffered a swift and fatal stroke. Dmitri had complained of a headache earlier but had appeared to be sleeping peacefully for over an hour when one of his seatmates, trying to squeeze by to get to the aisle, had discovered the conductor’s condition. In all likelihood, Dmitri was already dead by the time the flight attendants started trying to revive him.

  The plane stayed on course to Paris.

  * * * * *

  Things were grim, that first evening in Paris. The company members sat around the handful of cafés near the hotel, telling somber anecdotes and looking shell-shocked.

  David Russo, the ballet’s director, had gone from the airport to the hospital and back again. Because Lily was the dance captain—and David knew she would deal with the information responsibly—she got the phone updates. David relayed it all to Lily to relay on to the company—the reports he had filled out on poor Dmitri’s behalf, the preliminary findings about the cause of death. The phone calls made to family back in the States. Arrangements to fly the body back home.

  “And one more thing, but you have to keep this one between us for now.”

  “Okay, shoot.” She sipped at the wine in front of her, barely tasting the decent cabernet.

  “I think I may be able to get a backup conductor.”

  “Really? Who and how?”

  David sighed. “Promise you’ll keep it quiet until I know for sure. He hasn’t agreed to do it yet, and he didn’t sound very happy about it, but Aidan Byrne is in Paris right now. A complete coincidence. If anybody could step in and conduct this without much rehearsal, it would obviously be him.”

  Aidan Byrne. The dynamic, world-famous composer of the music that had inspired the ballet they were performing. He was a brilliant man, a star in his own musical circles, but not one known for his even and magnanimous temper.

  He was nobody Lily had ever expected to see again.

  “I guess he would have a stake in seeing that this tour wasn’t cancelled,” Lily replied in a neutral tone while her stomach performed an unpleasant pirouette. “It’s the European premier for the music, right? Even if it’s only us.”

  “That may be part of the problem,” David admitted. Lily could almost see him over the phone, tugging on his shaggy beard as he muddled over the issue at hand. “Byrne has never really been a big fan of this production. The ballet was great publicity for him, and in theory he’s a fan of collaboration. But I gather he sort of regretted giving permission for it after he saw the opening in San Francisco two years ago.”

  The first troupe to perform the new ballet had been plagued by everything from injuries and personnel issues to set production difficulties caused by a seasonal lumber shortage. The premier had been so disastrous that the show ran only a few performances before shutting down. Lily’s company had essentially staged a new premiere, to great critical success, but Aidan Byrne had never seen their production of “his” ballet.

  “David, this doesn’t sound all that promising, if he’s that hostile to the whole project.” Had she sounded too hopeful for a second there?

  “I know, I know, but I’ve known Aidan since college. I think he might do it if I can appeal to his better nature. It’s not like we’re the same company that screwed it up when he saw it before. Besides, this is such a weird situation. Who could resist being part of a story like this one’s going to be?”

  Lily was skeptical but kept it to herself, along with her private reasons for half hoping David’s appeal failed.

  Later, when David called back with the news that Aidan Byrne had agreed to cut his sabbatical short and join them as emergency guest conductor until another replacement could be found, she was glad she had kept her mouth shut.

  Lily had learned the hard way not to do one-night stands, but at least she’d been spared the lesson about the embarrassing morning after. Now, it seemed, her seven-year reprieve from that lesson was coming to an end.

  * * * * *

  “We’ve met before,” Byrne said when David introduced him to Lily the next day. It was almost, but not quite, a question. He was frowning, clearly trying to place her.

  Lily named the place and year, saw his eyebrows flick up as he made the connection, and the second question came into his eyes. She could almost hear him thinking it. That girl on the last night, was Lily the name, he couldn’t quite recall…?

  “I was there with the ballet troupe from college, doing a two-week collaborative performance workshop,” she explained to David, grateful for the excuse to look away from Aidan, who had only grown better looking in the seven years since she’d seen him last. He owed his meteoric rise to fame during that time to his phenomenal talent, but Lily was sure his phenomenal looks hadn’t hurt. “We taught some classes and did an exhibition performance for the campers at the end. Mr. Byrne was there as a guest conducting instructor for a week or so. We left around the same time, I think.”

  “Ah, music camp.” David sounded all too familiar with the subject.

  “Yes, music camp. Although I don’t think it really counts the same if you’re a teacher, not a camper.”

  “It’s exactly the same,” David said. “You’re a geek. Face it, Lil.”

  Aidan cleared his throat, drawing their attention. “I’ll run through with the orchestra and make notes today. This afternoon we can meet to discuss tomorrow’s combined rehearsal.”

  David nodded then slapped his hand to his forehead. “I’ll have to leave by around four. I have to go the airline office again about…well, you know.”

  “Have you even slept, David?” Standing next to him, Lily could see the dark circles under his eyes and the unbrushed wildness of his already unruly mop of hair.

  “Um. Not as such, no. But I won’t be driving so that’ll be okay, and this is just paperwork. I’ll be back in time for dinner if traffic isn’t too bad. Then sleep, hopefully.”

  A look of sympathy softened the stern lines of Aidan’s face, and he gripped his friend’s shoulder awkwardly. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could have met him. From what I’ve overheard this morning it’s obvious he was really special to everybody here.”

  “He was the heart of this thing,” David admitted, not even trying to hide the tear that crept down his face and disappeared into his beard.

  “I’m sure Miss Draper and I can finish up on our own if there are still things to go over. You take care of whatever you need to then get some rest, man.”

  It was odd, Lily thought, that it took such a tragedy to pull the mask off people sometimes. Aidan looked years younger in that moment, all his stony self-assurance and formality gone as he tried with little success to comfort David. She could see the boy he’d been, so much less intimidating than the man he had become.

  His words must have helped in some way, because David clapped him on the back and nodded as if much more had been said.

  “Right. Okay. So, Lily, if everybody’s ready, we’ll use the CD to do a brush-through for now. Let’s get this thing moving, folks.”

  David moved away, leaving Lily and Aidan to stare at each other, Lily in awkward silence and Aidan with a thoughtful expression.

  “It’s Lily, by the way,” she said, trying to sound no more than pleasant and professional. “Not Miss Draper.”

  “Have we met some
other time, maybe more recently?” His lips, curling in vague bemusement as he tried to place her more firmly, formed an entrancing arc. Lily tried not to stare. The room seemed warmer suddenly.

  “I don’t think so. Just…camp. Good old camp.”

  “Have you ever worked in New York? Or in London?”

  Lily couldn’t help but laugh. “I wish, but no. Los Angeles and Seattle. We can’t all be rock stars.”

  “Rock star? I like the sound of that. Not a bad reputation to have, but I wish I had the paycheck to go with it,” Aidan said with a rakish grin that made Lily’s hormones fire in all directions. Had his eyes always had that wolfish intensity?

  “Don’t we all? I know David’s already—”

  “The hair,” Aidan interrupted. Lily blinked at the non sequitur. “Your hair was different back then. You had it almost black, like a Goth thing. And maybe parted in the middle? You always wore it pulled straight back. Anyway, I couldn’t quite place you at first. Sorry about that.”

  “That’s the natural color, I have highlights now. And that’s okay. It was a long time ago.” She twiddled a finger through a long chocolate-colored tress that had stolen over her shoulder.

  “You look great. How have you been, Lily?”

  “Good. You?”

  “Great, great.”

  These obvious lies sat between them, ungainly and impossible to ignore. Her derailed career, his recent divorce…nobody was good, nobody was great. After a moment, Aidan shrugged. “We can tell each other our sordid stories over dinner tonight, maybe?”

  Lily’s smile was more genuine this time. “I’d like that.”

  “I have to confess, I’m a little surprised. I would have thought you’d be the prima here. In a bigger company than this frankly. You seemed so focused on that goal.”

  “I was.” She cleared her throat, banishing the sudden tightness there, and gave him a tight smile. “That’s my dinner story, I guess.”