Sway With Me(33)
“Is the room wired? Maybe it was coming from somewhere else or it’s on a timer?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No way. There aren’t any speakers in here. Weird. Maybe we just imagined it.”
A tingle passed through her as she thought about her mother’s proclamation she was a Muse. Was she somehow responsible for the music? Reina had told tales of hearing the Earth sing. Maybe this was what she meant. But then how could Ryan hear it, too?
“Both of us?”
He shrugged. “Maybe we thought it was music but it was really something else. We didn’t hear it until we shut off the main water valve. It probably had something to do with that.”
Ryan gave a logical explanation, but she couldn’t help but think it had something to do with their kiss. Or maybe crazy just ran in her family. The room filled her with the same sense of peace she felt every time she stepped into a dance studio or onto a stage. “We should fix this room up and turn it back into the beautiful ballroom it once was,” she said before she could stop herself.
He raised a brow. “Ballrooms aren’t exactly a selling point in a home. We’d be better off turning it into a library or home office.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “What’s wrong with dancing?”
He avoided looking her in the eye and roamed to inspect the hole in the wall they’d made the previous night. “Nothing. But it’s not exactly practical.” With his back to her, he bent over and brushed his fingers over the crumbling wall.
“What do you mean?”
He spun around and leaned against the wall. “I mean dancing is fun and its great exercise, but it’s not a necessity. It’s simply a way for people to show off their bodies and garner attention. I don’t see the point.”
She couldn’t believe those painful words fell from the same warm lips that had passionately kissed her only minutes ago. Her fingers curled as his words destroyed the peaceful feeling she’d experienced upon entering the room. Overwhelmed by a mixture of fury and disappointment, she spun on her dancing heels and stormed out of the ballroom.
Chapter 10
Madam, you have bereft me of all words.
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins.
William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, act 3 scene 2
Ryan crawled around in the attic, sweating and choking on insulation, as he checked for evidence of water damage. He’d thought staying busy would keep his mind off the fact he was a complete and utter moron, but no such luck.
How could he, for one moment, forget that Portia was a dancer? She’d marched out of the room and hadn’t said another word to him the rest of the day. Not that he blamed her. He hadn’t thought of her at all back in the ballroom, but instead recalled all the pretentious fundraisers his parents had coerced him into attending in the family’s name, and women they’d encouraged him to dance with. Women who also came from wealthy families with invaluable asset portfolios which Stavros Industries could use to its advantage. He understood his parents hadn’t seen the harm in dancing with these women. After all, he was single and they were single, and if something should spark between them, everyone would come out a winner. But he’d always felt a bit dirty afterward, as if he was a tool used solely for monetary gain. He worried some of these women would get the wrong idea and believe he was interested in them—all from one little dance which meant nothing to him.
He still attended the fundraisers, although with him barely speaking to the rest of his family, it was a bit strained. Now, he attended only if he chose to, and he always brought a date to ward off all the single women. Most of them knew the score before the date and used him as a way to bump elbows with the rich and famous.
How could he apologize to Portia without sounding like a pompous ass? She probably wouldn’t appreciate hearing the truth behind his disdain for dancing, but he didn’t want her to continue thinking those words meant anything about her. He loved to watch her move. She didn’t walk, she glided.
The problem was she wouldn’t stay in the same room with him. While he’d fixed the sink, she worked in some other part of the house, and when he’d gone to the great room to figure out where the leak was coming from, she’d returned to the kitchen. He’d gone to bed by ten and heard her come in around midnight, but she slid under the covers and stayed as far away from him as she could. At seven, the darn cat tried to sleep on his head, waking him up, and Portia was already gone.
He didn’t blame her for being mad. But he also wondered if she wasn’t using it as an excuse. He couldn’t get that explosive kiss out of his mind and he’d bet anything she couldn’t either. Holding her against him was like holding the sun. Bright. Hot. Surreal. Together, they’d combust between the sheets.