She turns around startled. "Why? I thought you said you wanted to go to the opera. It wasn't my idea, anyway."
"Whose idea was it then?"
"Parker's. He called this morning to ask if there's anything you really wanted to do in London and hadn't gotten to, and I remembered you mentioning the opera. Just don't tell Parker I told you he asked. I wasn't supposed to."
I raise an eyebrow. "Then why did you?"
Dani smiles, shifting in her seat to face the front again as the curtain opens, then adds over her shoulder, "Because I thought you should know."
I stare at the back of her head, my heart suddenly thumping so hard I swear I can feel it reverberate through my chest. I am breathing as if I've been running on the treadmill for an hour or had wild sex.
I sit up straighter as the show begins, and almost manage to relax a bit as the first notes start reverberating in the magnificent hall.
Then Parker enters the box and seats himself next to me.
For the next fifty minutes, I force myself to stare at the stage without taking in anything that happens on it. I'm not even aware of any sounds. The only thing I'm painfully aware of is that every inch of my skin is burning with an intensity it never has before.
Because Parker isn't looking at the stage at all.
He's looking at me.
When the first act ends and the break begins, Dani gets up. I don't dare move.
"I'm starving," Dani says, starting toward the door. "Anyone want to check out the buffet?"
"I'm not hungry, I'll wait here," I lie, thinking that the fifteen-minute break will give me some much needed time to think without Dani or Parker around.
After a long pause Parker says, "I'm not really hungry, either."
"Fine, see you at the end of the break," Dani says, exiting the box.
In the silence that follows between Parker and me, the only sound is that of my stomach—empty for at least eight hours—growling.
"I get the sense that someone is hungry after all," he says in an amused tone.
I take a deep breath, then turn to face him. Big mistake. His eyes . . . something's different about them. They seem a few shades darker. No, they are a few shades darker. The intensity of his stare completely unsettles me. And when I lower my gaze to his full lips, I find them wet, as if he just licked them.
"I thought you would go with Dani and I wanted to be alone and—”
"Run away?" He shifts in his seat, not taking his eyes off me.
"Maybe," I admit.
He leans in, and I instinctively lean back, wanting to avoid getting that close again. I had first-hand proof how his scent can affect me.
"Why would you do such a thing?"
"You know why. Don't you?" I ask, suddenly overwhelmed by dread. Maybe I've read the whole thing completely wrong. Maybe what he’d meant in his message last night was that he just wasn’t attracted to me...
"I do," he replies, and a knot loosens in my stomach. He drops his gaze, and when he speaks next, his voice has dropped a few tones. "I can't make up my mind."
"About what?"
"About you."
I gulp. "What’s going on in your mind, Parker?"
He tugs his lower lip with his teeth. "You really want to know?"