By the time the damage was to his liking, he was laughing and she was swearing at him. "There," he decided. "Much better."

"Now you're a fashion consultant."

"You look cute when it sort of sproings all over the place."

She blew it out of her face. "Sproings. Thanks." Now her eyes gleamed. "Maybe I'll do some rearranging on yours."

She made her dive, but he was quicker. It had always been a disappointment to her that she couldn't quite outmaneuver him. He just wrestled her backward until she was breathless and giggling.

It took her a moment to realize he wasn't smiling anymore, but was staring at her. Staring with a sharp, focused intensity that had her pulse stuttering and her throat going dry. Her legs had gotten tangled with his, so that she was all but sitting on his lap.

A tug, a sweet, gradual pull, stretched from her heart down to her center.

"Nick."

"We're wasting time." He let his hands fall away, untangled himself. He just had to get on the right track, he was sure of it, and he'd stop having these sudden, voracious cravings for her. "We'll run through the number you just finished, see how it plays."

Patience, she reminded herself, and wiped her damp palms on her trousers. "Fine. Whenever you're ready."

After a rocky start, the work smoothed out. Both of them became focused on the music, so that they could sit hip to hip as collaborators, as friends.

One hour passed into two, and two into three, and more. At one point, Rio brought up some leftovers from the party, and stayed awhile to listen, with a smile on his wide face.

They nibbled at food, polished, argued over small points and nearly always agreed on the big ones.

Nearly.

"It should be romantic."

"Comedic," Nick disagreed.

"It's their wedding night."

"Exactly." He took time out for a cigarette, secretly pleased that he was cutting down on his tobacco intake daily. "They've rushed headlong into marriage. They've known each other three days."

"They're in love."

"They don't know what they are." Thoughtfully, he took a slow drag, setting the scene in his head. "They've just rushed off to a JP for a ridiculous ceremony, now they're in a broken-down hotel room, wondering what they've gotten into. And what the hell they're going to do about it."

"That may be, but it's still their wedding night. You're writing a dirge."

He only grinned. "Ever really listened to the Wedding March, Fred?" To prove his point, he crushed the cigarette out and began to play it.

Freddie had to admit it was solemn, serious, and a little scary. "Okay, you've got a point. Play it again and let me think."

She got up to pace, letting Nick's music run through her. And she watched him, and wondered.

What was it about him that pulled her so? His looks? Perhaps that had been true years ago, when a young girl first saw those restless green eyes. But she looked deeper now.

His manner? That made her smile. Hardly that. However kind and loving Nick could be, he could be equally brusque and careless of feelings. Not that he meant to hurt others' feelings, she thought. He simply forgot about them.

It was his heart, she decided, that had always called to hers, and always would.

But what if she had met him only yesterday? What if they had come together as strangers and she had simply, irrevocably lost that heart to him?

Would she be frightened, unsure? Excited?

"Who is this man," she murmured, "who calls me his wife? It takes more than a gold ring to change a girl's life."

She wrinkled her nose when Nick glanced back. "Needs to be sharper," she said.

Thinking, she took another turn around the room. "Till death do us part? That's a deal with no heart. Love, honor and cherish, from now till I perish?"

He turned and grinned. "I like it. Marriage and death. Quite a pair."

"I can do better. Who is this man, waiting outside the door? What's he want me to be? A wife, a lover, a whore? He's going to see me naked. There's no way I can fake it…"

She stopped, laughed, rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm getting punchy."

"It's the right theme," he told her. "Panic."

"Maybe… maybe." She walked back to him. "What if we started out the way you have it, slow, funereal—a cello-and-organ thing. Then we pick up the tempo, faster, then faster. Panic building."

"With a key change."

"Good. Try here." To demonstrate, she leaned over his shoulder, putting her hands over his on the keys.

"Yeah, I got the picture." He wished to God her br**sts weren't pressing into his back. "You're crowding me, Fred."

The strain in his voice alerted her. "Am I? Sorry." But she wasn't, not a bit. She eased back a little, listening to him work. "I think we've got it." Gently she laid her hands on his shoulders and began to rub. "You're tight."

His fingers fumbled, infuriated him. "You're still crowding me."

"I know."

Her hair brushed his cheek, and that damned perfume she wore shot straight to his loins. Intending on snarling at her, he turned his head—his first mistake—and ended up staring into those wide gray eyes.

"Am I making you nervous, Nicholas?" she murmured, as she slid onto the stool beside him.

The simple truth came out before he could stop it. "You're making me crazy."

"Good." She leaned forward, and pressed a soft, lascivious kiss with just a hint of tongue full on his lips before he could evade. "You've been making me crazy for years. It's about time I had a turn."

His breath was backing up in his lungs. He thought he understood exactly how a man feels when he goes down for the third time. Choking, floundering. And fighting a losing battle with fate.

His voice hardened in defense. "This isn't a game, Fred, and you don't know the rules."

She slid her hands up his forearms, rested them on his shoulders, then moved in slowly, until her mouth was nearly on his. "I imagine you could teach me."

He was holding on to control by a thread, a slippery, frayed thread that kept dancing out of his hands. "If you knew what I'd like to teach you, you'd run, and run fast, all the way home to Daddy."