Close Harmony (Food Of Love 3)

“I know.” She’d tightened her fingers around his. “I don’t want you to.”

He had raised her hand to his lips and rested her knuckles against them for a few seconds.

“So,” he’d said with a sigh. “I better get my suitcase from the back room and book a hotel.”

Lydia’s jaw had dropped. “You haven’t booked a hotel? You assumed… Milan!”

And then it had been easy to walk away.

“Arrogant bloody bastard.” Lydia muttered the words to herself as she hurried up Vauxhall Bridge Road, hugging her violin case to her chest. “Who does he think he is?”

But she knew who he thought he was. Milan Kaspar. And that was good enough for anyone.

He hadn’t even left Alcudia after their initial rendezvous. No, he had stayed for a few days more, intentionally bumping into her at every opportunity. She recalled an agonising afternoon spent on the beach, a few sunbeds down from him, side-eyeing his buff, tanned body as he’d stretched out and basked in the sun.

He had been surrounded, all the time, by people who recognised him, and even those who didn’t had had admiring looks to cast him.

She had seen him in the town’s best seafood restaurant, wining and dining a pair of sexy Spanish girls who’d fawned and giggled over his every word.

Lydia didn’t think he’d taken them back to his hotel, but she couldn’t say for sure… The memory stabbed into her, hot and gut-wrenching. She’d spent a sleepless night staring at her phone, desperate to call him, convinced that she shouldn’t.

Some holiday that had turned out to be.

But at least he had left after four days and she had had ten more to spend in peace.

She reached the rehearsal hall and let a wave of new-school-term excitement wash away the angst as she ascended the steps. She spent her life making beautiful music and two attractive men were vying for her attentions. Come on. It wasn’t all bad, was it?

After pushing open the double doors into the foyer, the first person she spotted was Karl-Heinz von Ritter, chatting to two brass players by the reception desk.

Immediately, he excused himself and hurried over to her.

“Lydia,” he said.

“You’ve been lying in wait for me,” she accused.

“Of course,” he said. “I want to see you. You are surprised?”

“No, I suppose not.”

He turned to look at the rehearsal room door.

“Milan Kaspar is in there,” he said, “telling everyone about his holiday spent in Alcudia whenever he thinks I can hear him. Isn’t that where you went?”

“Oh. Yes.”

“So you are back together?”

“No. I did see him, but we didn’t…do anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think I’d know if I’d fucked Milan Kaspar.”

“Keep your voice down.”

A gaggle of passing cellists had looked over and immediately huddled into a whispering knot.

“Don’t interrogate me the minute I walk through the door, then!”