Free Passionate Persuasion (Entangled Indulgence) by Rosemary Clement-Moore

hick from Kansas in a really nice dress and a good hairdo.
    She had to wait an excruciating time for Alex’s answer. It came with a frustrated sigh. “I think it’s easier for women. Everyone expects them to be emotional, and fall in love with someone too soon, and when they get their hearts broken, they’re admired for putting it out there. There’s all those pop songs on the radio about how they get stronger with heartbreak and get their groove back and whatever. But all the songs about men getting their heart broken make us sound kind of pathetic.”
    “ You’re kind of pathetic,” said Greg.
    “I guess.”
    “You’re going to let her get away, again, because you’re a wuss?”
    “I’m… evaluating my options.”
    “You’re going to evaluate her into someone else’s arms, you know that, right?”
    “That’s inevitable. She’s leaving at the end of a year.”
    When did I say that? she wondered.
    “When did she say that?” Greg asked, since it was obviously a logical question.
    But Alex didn’t answer it. “I haven’t decided if I can see her casually and then say goodbye when her contract with the symphony is up. She’s an all or nothing girl, and I don’t want to—”
    If he said “break her heart,” Kiara was going to go through the wall and kick his ass.
    But he said, “I don’t want to give her up once… if … she gives me her all.”
    She’d heard enough. She wasn’t going to go through the canvas marquee, but she was going to find him and convince him that giving her all was the only way it was going to be. “Nothing” was not an option.
    She left Sophie—who had stopped pretending not to notice Kiara’s blatant eavesdropping, which convinced Kiara that she was somehow involved in the whole right place, right time thing that had happened there—to deal with Mrs. Benwick and Mrs. Chins. She didn’t excuse herself or explain, which was not ladylike or classy, either.
    Neither was picking up her skirts and hightailing it to the nearest exit, winding through the between-sets crowd going to the bar or the buffet line. She drew stares and a couple of disapproving murmurs, but she didn’t let that stop her.
    He must be in the prep area—despite the fact that he was here as a guest, not a caterer. That wouldn’t stop him from doing what needed doing. Kiara headed that way, but suddenly Mr . Benwick was in her way.
    “Where are you going in such a rush, my dear?”
    Since he was on the symphony board, which made him some percentage of her boss, she had to stop, had to be nice to him. It was in her nature to be nice, but just then, she wanted to barrel over the millionaire and go find Alex.
    She told him part of that. “I’m looking for Alex Drake. Is he out in the green room?”
    “I doubt it,” he said, taking hold of her arm, rather like his wife had, keeping her from running off. “At least, he’d better not be.”
    “What do you mean?” she asked, because she was getting the feeling she was on a stage managed reality show. A dating reality show, with half of Port Calypso’s hoity-toity demographic in the audience.
    “I mean,” said Mr. Benwick jovially—and that was no clue, because Mr. Benwick was always jovial, ”that he’s not here to work, he’s here to be a guest and enjoy the festivities. Oh look,” he said, with unconvincing surprise. “There he is now.”
    Kiara turned to see. Across the crowded room—tent, rather, but it might as well be a chessboard, the way they’d been played—was Alex, and he was looking for her.
    “Stay there,” he mouthed, and started through the throng of tables and chairs and bar and buffet lines. Kiara obediently staked out her square foot of open floor, and waited. Mr. Benwick faded out of her notice, like a good stage director should. She thought maybe she should be angry—at him, or his wife, or at Sophie—but she was done being mad about what had happened and was ready to get on with being happy.
    Now if she could