The men went about their business as she wept into the phone.

He should have left with the rest of them, Nick told himself when he found himself alone with Freddie thirty minutes later. She was busy tuning the glorious, gleaming instrument, between bouts of weeping.

"Cut it out, will you?" Shifting uncomfortably on the new bench, Nick hit middle C.

"Some of us have emotions and aren't ashamed to express them. Give me an A."

"God, what a piece," he murmured. "Makes my little spinet sound like a tin can."

She glanced over as she hit a chord. They both knew he could have replaced the spinet with an instrument every bit as magnificent as this. But he was attached to it.

"Looks like we'll be able to work here, too, if we want to." She waited a beat, flexed her fingers, tried out an arpeggio. "If we have anything to work on."

"Yeah, about that." Entranced with the piano, Nick began improvising a blues. "Listen to that tone."

"I am." As delighted as he, she picked up his rhythm and filled in on the bass. "About that?" she prompted.

"Hmm. Oh. You've got yourself a gig, Fred. You'll have contracts by the end of the week. You've lost the tempo," he complained when her hands faltered. "Pick it up."

She only sat, her hands still on the keys, staring straight ahead. "I can't breathe."

"Try sucking air in, blowing it out."

"I can't." Giving in, she swiveled, let her head fall between her knees. "They liked it," she managed as Nick awkwardly patted her back.

"They loved it. All of it. Valentine told me Maddy O'Hurley said it was the best opening number of her career, and she wanted more. She dug the love song, too. Of course, it was my melody that caught her."

"Cram it, LeBeck." But despite her sharp tone, her eyes were wet when she lifted her head.

"Don't start leaking again. You're a professional."

"I'm a songwriter." Jittery with success, she threw her arms around him and clung. "We're a team."

"Looks that way." He found his face buried in her hair. "You've got to stop wearing this stuff."

"What stuff?"

"That perfume. It's distracting."

She was too overwhelmed by possibilities to worry about taking careful steps. "I like distracting you." Heedlessly, she slid her lips up his throat until she found the vulnerable lobe of his ear and nipped.

He nearly gave in to the compelling need to turn his suddenly hungry mouth to hers, and swore. "Cut that out." Taking her firmly by the shoulders, he pushed her back. "We've got a professional relationship here. I don't want things clouded up with…"

"With what?"

"Hormones," he decided. "I'm past the age where I think with my glands, Fred, and you should be, too."

She ran her tongue over her lips. "Am I bothering your glands, Nicholas?"

"Shut up." He rose, knowing he was safer with some distance. "What we need is some ground rules."

"Fine." She couldn't stop the wide smile or the sparkle in her eyes. "What are they?"

"I'll let you know. Meanwhile, we're partners. Business partners." He decided it wasn't wise to seal the arrangement with a handshake. Not when she had those soft, narrow, incredibly sensitive hands. "Professionals."

"Professionals," she agreed. She tilted her head and crossed her legs in a slow, fluid way that had him staring carefully at a spot above her head. "So, when do we start… partner?"

Chapter Six

Nick knew Freddie's mind wasn't focused on her work. They'd cruised along smoothly enough for two weeks, but as the time approached for her family to come to New York for Nadia's and Yuri's anniversary party, her work came more in fits and starts than in a flow.

He hadn't meant to snap at her, really, but the way her mind was darting from subject to subject—a new recipe for canapés she just had to give to Rio, the art deco lamp she'd bought for her living room, the jumpy, tongue-twisting lyrics she'd come up with for a number in the second act—they weren't getting any real work done.

"Why don't you just go shopping, get your nails done, do something really important."

Freddie sent him a bland look and forced herself not to look at her watch again. Her family was scheduled to arrive in less than three hours.

"I bet Stephen Sondheim's taking an afternoon off wouldn't have sent Broadway into a crisis."

He knew that. And if she hadn't assumed they were taking the rest of the day off, he'd have suggested it himself. "We've got an obligation. I take obligations seriously."

"So do I. I'm only talking about a few hours."

"A few hours here, a few hours there." He refused to look at her as he reached up to change a note on the sheet of music. "You've already had plenty of those the last few days." He picked up the cigarette he'd left burning and drew deep. "It must play hell, having your social life get in the way of your hobby."

She took a careful breath, hoping it would help. It didn't. "It must play hell, having your creativity always at war with your sanctimonious streak."

That little barb stung, as she'd meant it to. "Why don't you try doing your job? I can't keep carrying you."

Now her breath hissed out. "Nobody has to carry me. I'm here, aren't I?"

"For a change." He tossed the cigarette back in the ashtray to smolder. "Now why don't you try contributing something, so we can earn our keep? Some of us don't have Daddy's money behind us, and have to work for a living."

"That's not fair."

"That's the fact, kid. And I don't want a partner who only wants to play at songwriting when it suits her busy schedule."

Freddie pushed back on the stool, swiveled—the better to glare at him. "I've been working every bit as hard as you, seven days a week for nearly three weeks now."

"Except when you had to go buy sheets, or a lamp, or wait for your bed to be delivered."

He was baiting her, and even knowing it, she swallowed the lure whole. "I wouldn't have had to take time off if you'd agreed to work at my place."