Free Maestro by Thomma Lyn Grindstaff Page B

brightness in Elena's eyes as she had looked at Maestro. Matt – or what would become Matt – lived in that brightness.
    She would love to ask Maestro to play some Jerry Lee Lewis before she left. Oh, how she'd love to see him grooving to “Great Balls of Fire!” It was an experience she'd carry with her even if she lived to be one hundred years old. She couldn't ask, though. Seeing that side of Maestro would only make her fall even more hopelessly in love with him.
    She mustn't play her own music for him, either. That could have the same effect on him. The easier she could make this on both of them, the better – especially given that Maestro would have to fall in love with Elena again for Matt to exist. She had to give Matt – and thus, Elena – every chance.
    Maestro came up to her and put his big hands on her shoulders. “What are you thinking about, Schätzchen ?”
    Your future child , she wanted to say. “How much I'm going to miss you,” she said instead.
    He frowned a little bit, but warmth flickered in his gaze. “If you're getting into a role for some kind of time travel book or film, you certainly are serious about it.”
    “You could say that.” Obviously, Maestro still didn't believe that she'd be vanishing off the piano bench in a matter of minutes. He was about to get the surprise of his life. And if the bar patrons and the few people in the lobby were watching while she did it, then they'd get a shock, too. Annasophia could only hope they were either sleepy or inebriated enough to write off her disappearance as a figment of their imaginations or as dreams. She couldn't do anything about any of that. Plenty of people had strange experiences or thought they'd seen strange things.
    Maestro wouldn't be able to write her off as a hallucination, though. They had already shared too much.
    Better make this quick.
    To kiss or not to kiss? They had already kissed in Maestro's suite. It would have to be enough. If she started kissing him now, she wouldn't want to stop, and they would wind up back in his room, with all possibilities of reconciliation with Elena – and Matt's subsequent birth – lost. It had taken all her will to pull away before. She didn't need to tempt herself again.
    Or him.
    She took a deep breath and sat down on the piano bench. Maestro stood behind her and slightly to the left. “So you're going to play for me.” His voice was deeper, somewhat husky. “I'm glad. For a little while, I thought you were serious about going away.”
    Tears filled her eyes. Oh, how hurt he would be. Not to mention shocked, when he saw for himself that she'd been telling him the truth all along. Get it over with , she told herself. And clearly he would be okay. Matt was – and would be – proof of that. She cleared her throat, then said, “Meeting you and spending time with you like this has been the most wonderful experience of my life. Not to say that our future friendship isn't a joy. It certainly is. But this has been something beyond – well, beyond my wildest dreams. And I hope I'll see you...” Her voice cracked with a sob. “In the future.”
    Hastily, he sat down beside her on the bench. “You will see me in the future, Schätzchen . In the next moment, the next hour, and...” His voice grew husky again. “Tonight.”
    Oh, I wish , Annasophia thought. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like, she and Maestro in his bed, joined together not just from physical desire, but from love and mutual affinity: searing hot kisses, coming together, not just the heat of their bodies but the glow of their love and the harmony of their minds and hearts. Now, she would never know what that would have been like. Her tears spilled onto the backs of her hands.
    She was doing this for Matt.
    Closing her eyes and holding Matt's face firmly in her mind, she played the opening bars of the first movement of Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2. She didn't have Maestro's top-notch technical