“And yet here I stand,” he said. She could tell by the way his mouth slanted slightly that he wasn’t exactly pleased about that fact.
She felt her strained smile wavering. “Please. Sit down.” She waved at the seating area of her dressing room, where there was a couch and two chairs.
“I’ll stand.”
She nodded, floundering for what else to say. This brooding, simmering, mature Asher wasn’t one she knew how to relate to, and yet he was surprisingly familiar, as well. The contrast only increased her awareness of him until it was cuttingly sharp.
“I’ve followed your career. I’ve read a lot of your articles. Whatever I could find online, anyway. They’re so amazing, Asher. You’re very talented. I always knew you would be, but actually reading your stories . . . well . . .” She realized she was prattling on nervously when he didn’t speak. “I just . . . I wanted you to k
now. Every time I read one, I felt so—”
She cut herself off when he tensed perceptibly. A muscle jumped in his cheek. She swallowed back the praise on her tongue, realizing her mistake. She’d been about to say she’d felt so proud of him, reading his writing, glimpsing between the lines and the words into him. His soul. That was too personal . . . too intimate of a thing to either say or suggest, when they hadn’t seen each other in almost a decade.
“Why did you come to the condominium today?” he asked.
She shrugged, wrapping her arms around her waist in an attempt to diminish her vulnerability. “Because of seeing you on the subway, of course. Once I realized you were in Chicago, I thought maybe you’d be staying there. You mentioned that building a few times.” Her gaze flickered up to his stoic expression. “When we were young,” she added hoarsely.
Against her will, a vivid memory popped into her brain of lying on the beach, Asher staring down at her with a hooded, hot gaze while she shook in orgasm. She flinched slightly at the intrusive, intensely intimate memory.
“Are you sure you won’t sit down?” she asked him again.
“When I saw you up on the stage,” he said, ignoring her hollow attempt at politeness—she’d forgotten how he always cut to the chase. No idle chitchat for Asher. “I knew it was you. Or at least part of me did. The other part couldn’t believe it.”
“Why not?” she asked uneasily.
“The Laila I knew was too shy to ever put on a performance like that. So raw. So sexy,” he added in a quieter, gruffer voice.
She swallowed thickly and looked away from his stare. It burned her.
“But then I got it. The curtain. That’s how you figured it out. How to show the world your talent. Your gift. How to express it safely. Without hurting anyone?” he asked, and she heard the sarcasm in his tone. “I’m assuming your family doesn’t know that the Veiled Siren is you?”
“Tahi knows. She and I own a condo here together.”
“How long?”
She blinked. “Since Tahi and I bought our condo?”
“No. Since you’ve been singing in public.”
“Oh . . . it happened slowly, over time. The sports bar I worked at during college started a karaoke night. A club owner in Detroit heard me singing one night, and offered me a job. But I turned him down.”
“Too close to home for comfort,” he stated.
She wasn’t sure she liked his certainty when he talked about her motivations. Wasn’t there an edge of bitterness in his tone? Nevertheless . . . he was right. It had been too much of a risk in Detroit. Word would eventually circulate back to her mother or father or a family member about her performing professionally.
“Yeah. Tahi and I both landed customer service jobs at Microsoft right after college. Tahi thrived in the technology sector, but I really struggled. I was bored stiff. I thought it was mind-numbing work.” She cast him an uneasy glance, recalling how he’d told her so confidently as a young man that she wasn’t the business type. She was an artist. Even then, he’d known her better than she’d known herself. That the same man who had once seen down to the heart of her now stood before her like a cold stranger caused that familiar ache to swell in her chest and throat.
“Anyway, Tahi and I used to go to this blues bar in the underground, not too far from our first apartment. It was a grimy little dive, but they’d get some amazing musicians there. We got to know the club owner, and when he found out I could sing, he gave me a Monday night—their slow night—to perform.”
“And before long, he was offering you Fridays and Saturdays, and any other night you’d take. I’m surprised your parents let you move to Chicago.”
Her heart jumped a little, then began to drum in her ears at his mention of her parents. “They put up a huge fight about it, that’s for sure.” And you actually fought back? He didn’t say it, but the imagined caustic question, asked in Asher’s voice, echoed in her head. “They couldn’t argue with the jobs we got or the salaries they offered us,” she continued. “I ended up hating the work, but I have to admit, they paid us well for entry-level work, just out of college. And Tahi was moving to Chicago too, so—”
“The Laila I knew would have caved in that fight.”
Her chin went up higher at that. For the first time, anger pierced her anxiety and self-consciousness at standing face to face with him again. “The Laila you knew has grown up,” she stated unequivocally.
He frowned. She thought maybe he’d realized he’d gone too far.