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appeared in front of us. I took a sip of the deep red as I waited for her response.
    “I’ve never been afraid of you in bed.” Her eyes were lowered on her plate. “I recognise that there’s a difference between you and Pierre.”
    If we both were honest with each other, we wouldn’t be dancing around, playing word games and trying to avoid the misunderstandings, but I couldn’t reveal the truth without knowing who she was and why she had found me. Until my detectives uncovered her identity, we were stuck in this pas-de-deux.
    It had been so much easier two years ago.
    ***
    I gestured to the chandelier in the centre of the theatre as we walked in. “It fell once, killing a member of the orchestra. They wrote that into the Phantom of the Opera.”
    Her mouth formed into a perfectly expressive O; her eyes widened. “Really? Or are you just making it up?”
    I shook my head. I held her hand as the symphony got underway. Her eyes were closed as the music started. Her shoulders swayed unconsciously to the melody, her foot tapped a soft rhythm. I didn’t watch the stage – I watched her. I couldn’t pull my eyes away.
    She looked sad when it was done, another unexpected reaction. I was going to lean in and ask her if she was okay, but unprompted, she spoke first. Her voice was very soft. “I wish I got to go to the symphony more…” she said wistfully.
    Her cover story was that money was tight and that any available funds were going to her sister’s treatment. After all, that was the reason she was supposed to be at Lori’s auction. Of course, with each passing moment, I believed that story less and less, but I let her stick with it. For now... “Are tickets too expensive?”
    I expected her answer to be ‘ yes .’ I’d more or less given her the perfect reply, one that didn’t require any effort to answer. Going to the symphony was not cheap in most cities.
    She surprised me instead with an answer that felt very close to the truth. “I don’t know who I am, Alexander,” she said. Her eyes were bleak. “My life is stuck on ‘ pause .’ I put all my dreams on hold a few years ago and now I’ve lost them. I don’t know what I like anymore. When you asked me what my favourite book was, I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t know. Favourite TV show? I haven’t watched TV in so many years.” She took a deep breath and seemed to be fighting back the urge to cry, and my hand tightened on hers in sympathy. She leaned against my shoulder, her head tucked in under my chin. I felt a stab of pure protectiveness. I wanted to take care of her. I wanted to make everything better.
    “When you asked me today if I liked the symphony, I had no answer for you,” she continued, her voice a whisper against my chest. “And I don’t even know how to dance. I feel so empty.”
    My bright star. I stroked her arm. “You know how to dance,” I contradicted. “You danced with Rachid in Bangkok. I was watching.” I kissed her hair. “You did great.”
    “He taught me,” she responded. “A half-hour of lessons does not a dancer make.” Her voice was wry. “I thought you might beat him up. Or punish me.”
    I was utterly confused. I could tell she didn’t mean to voice that thought, but we were sitting in my private box in the Palais Garnier, we were entirely alone and her shields were down. “Why?” I asked her, puzzled.
    “Because I was dancing with another man.”
    My lips thinned. I couldn’t abide the kind of possessiveness she was describing, the one that reduced her to an object. “Jealousy is an emotion for the insecure, Jenny. I don’t need to keep you in a cage. If you want to fly away, you are free to do so. If you stay, I want it to be because you want to be here.”
    She wasn’t here for the million dollars. The reason she was staying with me was something else, and I needed to get to the bottom of it. Two years ago, she’d come home with me because she’d wanted to. I wanted that authenticity