Alex let out a long breath. "You have grown up."

"Yes, I have. And I've had the very best examples ahead of me. Not just Mama and Dad, but you and Bess and all the rest of you. So I know when you love deep enough, and true enough, it lasts."

He couldn't argue with that. What he'd found with Bess only became more precious and more vital every day. "Nick's as important to me as anyone in the family," Alex said carefully. "Even you. So I can tell you that he's not an easy man, Freddie. He's got baggage he hasn't tossed out."

"I know that. I can't say I understand it all, but

I know it. Just don't worry too much," she asked, and took one hand off the pole to touch his cheek. "And I'd appreciate it if you'd keep this between us for now. I'd like some time before the rest of the family starts looking over my shoulder."

When Freddie returned to the hotel that evening, there was a message waiting for her at the desk. Intrigued, she tore open the envelope as she took the elevator up to her floor.

Inside, Nick's handwriting was scrawled across a sheet of staff paper.

Okay, you're right. It's Maddy's solo. I want lyrics by tomorrow. Good ones. I've scheduled a meeting with Valentine and the rest of the suits. Don't mess up. Nick.

She all but danced to her room.

Two hours later, she was racing up the steps to Nick's apartment. She knew he was working the bar, and she couldn't be bothered with him. Instead, she sat at his piano and switched on the tape recorder.

"I've got your lyrics, Nicholas, and they're better than good. Just listen."

Primed by her own excitement, she sang to him as she played his melody. The words had been swimming in her head since she'd first heard the music. Refined now, polished, they melded with the notes as if they'd been born together.

After the last note died away, she closed her eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

She jolted, turning quickly toward the doorway, where Nick stood. He didn't look friendly, she noted.

"Leaving you a message. You wanted the song done before your meeting. It's done."

"I heard." And he'd suffered, listening to it, watching her as she sang for him. "Do you know what time it is?"

"About midnight, I guess. I thought you'd be busy downstairs."

"We are busy downstairs. Rio told me you were up here."

"You didn't have to come up. I just didn't want to wait until tomorrow." Her nerves came rushing back. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough."

"Well?" Impatient, she swung her legs over the bench so that she could face him. "What did you think?"

"I think they'll go for it."

"That's it. That's all you can say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

It was like pulling teeth, she thought, always. "What you feel."

He didn't know what he felt. She was somehow drawing him into areas he'd never explored. Never wanted to explore. "I think," he said carefully, "it's a stunning lyric, one that goes for the heart and the gut. And I think when people walk out of the theater, it'll be playing in their heads."

She couldn't speak. She was embarrassed when she realized that her eyes had filled. Lowering them, she stared at her linked hands. "That's a curve I didn't expect from you."

"You know the gift you have, Fred."

"Yes, I tell myself I do." Calmer, she looked up again. Her heart did one slow roll in her breast as she watched him. "I tell myself a lot of things, Nick. Things that don't always hold up when I'm alone in the middle of the night. But what you said will, whatever happens."

He couldn't take his eyes off her, hardly realized he was walking to her. "I'm going to take what we worked on so far to Valentine tomorrow. Take the day off."

"I can start on the new apartment while I'm trying not to go insane from nerves."

"Fine." As if it belonged to someone else, his hand reached down for hers, drew her to her feet. The only light in the room came from the gooseneck lamp atop the piano. Its glow fell short of them, leaving them in soft shadow. "You shouldn't have come back here tonight."

"Why?"

"I'm thinking about you too much. It's not the way I used to think about you."

"Times change," she said unsteadily. "So do people."

"You don't always want them to, and it's not always for the best. This isn't for the best," he murmured as he lowered his mouth to hers.

It wasn't frantic this time. She'd been prepared for that, but this time it was slow, and deep, and quietly desperate. Instead of revving for the storm, her body simply went limp, melting into his like candle wax left too long at the flame.

It was the innocence he felt, her innocence, fluttering helplessly against his own driving needs. The images that spun through his brain aroused him, amazed him, appalled him.

"I lied," he murmured, and pulled back with difficulty. "I said I wouldn't touch you again."

"I want you to touch me."

"I know." He kept his hands firm on her shoulders when she would have swayed toward him. "What I want is for you to go home, back to your hotel, now. I'll get in touch with you after I've seen Valentine."

"You want me to stay," she whispered. "You want to be with me."

"No, I don't." That, at least, was the truth. He didn't want it, even if he seemed so violently to need it. "We're family, Fred, and it looks as though we may be collaborators. I'm not going to ruin that. Neither are you." He set her aside, stepped away. "Now, I want you to go down and have Rio flag you a cab."

Every nerve ending in her body was on full alert. But while she might have preferred to scream in frustration, she could see that his eyes were troubled. "All right, Nick, I'll wait to hear from you."

She started for the door, then stopped and turned. "But you're still going to think about me, Nick. Too much. And it's never going to be the way it used to be again."

When the door closed behind her, he lowered himself to the piano stool. She was right, he acknowledged as he rubbed his hands over his face. Nothing was going to be quite the same again.