‘Thanks.’ She wiped her face with her palm. ‘After the fiasco of Singing Star I didn’t think I was going to get another chance. I sang badly on that stupid show, I know I did. And the song was rubbish. I should have refused to sing it but when you’ve waited ages for your big moment you don’t go and blow it. Chantelle always told me to grab opportunities with both hands so that’s sort of instinctive for me.’
He looked blank. ‘Why do you call your mother “Chantelle”?’
‘She prefers it.’ Izzy pulled a tissue from her bag and blew her nose hard. ‘“Mum” makes her feel old. She’s the one who drummed into me the need to seize opportunities. What she didn’t tell me was that sometimes something that looks like an opportunity isn’t.’ It was hard enough to admit it to herself, let alone to someone like him. ‘Singing Star was just a big mistake, masquerading as an opportunity. I got it wrong and I’m paying for it because I will always be “that girl who sang that awful song on that awful reality show.” That’s all anyone sees now.’
‘Not for much longer. So that song you were singing—The Me You Don’t See—you wrote that because of what happened with the show?’
‘No,’ Izzy said honestly, ‘I wrote it because of what happened with you.’
That got his attention. ‘Me?’
‘At the party you took one look at me in my sequined dress and dragged me away from the microphone. You didn’t even bother to listen.’
‘Because that was not the time or the place to sing.’
‘It was a party! It was the perfect time and place, but I was the wrong person because people took one look and judged.’
‘Wait a minute—you say you wrote that song because of me. When did you write that song?’
‘In the car on the way here.’
He was frowning. ‘You didn’t write anything while we were in the car.’
‘I wrote it in my head. I was humming. You yelled at me to stop.’
‘The humming was you writing the song? So how long did it take you to finish it?’
‘I don’t know.’ No one had ever asked her that before. No one had shown that much interest. ‘Fifteen minutes, I suppose? It just came in a rush. That’s how it happens.’
‘You’ve written other songs?’
‘Millions. Well, maybe not millions exactly. But at least a hundred.’
‘A hundred? You’ve written a hundred songs?’ Incredulous eyes scanned her as if a fact like that should somehow have been visible. ‘Have you ever played them to anyone?’
‘I’m always trying to play them to people. Their response is always “Shut up, Izzy.” So usually I just record them and store them on my computer—except when I occasionally try and take over the stage at royal engagement parties.’ It was his eyes that made him so spectacular to look at, she decided. Dark, moody and full of secrets.
‘And how long have you played the piano?’ Suddenly he was firing questions at her and she found it unsettling because no one had ever shown such a degree of interest in her before. She was usually the one pushing herself forward while everyone ignored her.
‘Since I was three. I played one at a friend’s house and loved it so much I refused to move until my parents promised to buy one. They thought the craze would last about a week, but I loved it. I had to be dragged away from the piano to go to school. When I grew up I used it for composition and to accompany myself when I sing.’ Izzy watched warily as he paced to the far side of her bedroom suite and stared into the darkness, his powerful shoulders a shield between her and the darkness. She couldn’t help but imagine him without the shirt.
He turned suddenly and she coloured guiltily, hoping that he couldn’t read her mind.
‘I owe you an apology.’ The words were dragged from him, but no matter how reluctantly expressed the apology was sweet. And unexpected. As unexpected as his lavish praise of her song.
Given that she didn’t want to feel the way she was feeling about him, she decided it would do no harm to reinforce his bad side.
‘Too right, you do. First you drag me from the stage and then you incarcerate me here and you’ve been generally mean—’
‘I’m not apologising for any of that.’ His tone was rough, the gleam in his eyes dark and dangerous. ‘I’m not apologising for dragging you off the stage because your behaviour at the engagement party was shocking. And if I’ve been mean it’s because you seem to have no concept of boundaries. You swim in my fountain and you make free use of my recording studio—’
‘Whoa!’ Izzy recoiled. ‘So what are you apologising for?’
‘For not recognising your talent sooner. I can’t understand why I didn’t notice it the night of the party.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘You were really pushing your voice, maybe it distorted the vocal.’
‘Well, I was desperate for you to listen to me! But what you’re basically saying is that you seriously underestimated me.’
His jaw tensed. ‘Yes, I underestimated you.’