Weddings: the Brides: The Shy Bride / Bride in a Gilded Cage / The Bride's Awakening

“No, you won’t. He’s our friend.”

“He’s your friend. He’s my doctor.”

“That’s what I’m talking about, Neo. You’ve got no balance in your life. It’s all business with you.”

“What about you? If relationships are so necessary to a well-rounded life, why aren’t you in one?”

“I date, Neo. And before you claim you do, too, let us both acknowledge that taking a woman out for the express purpose of having sex with her, and no intention of seeing her again, is not a date. That is a hookup.”

“What century are you living in?”

“Believe me, I’m living in this one. And so are you, my friend. So, stop being an ass and accept my gift.”

“Just like that?”

“Would you rather welch on our bet?”

There was no answer for that question Neo wanted to give. “I don’t want to take piano lessons.”

“You used to.”

“What used to? When?”

“When we were boys together on the streets of Athens.”

“I had many dreams as a boy that I learned to let go of.” Accumulating the kind of wealth currently at his disposal required constant, intense sacrifice and he’d gladly made each and every one.

In the process, he’d made something of himself. Something completely different from the deadbeat father who had taken off before Neo was two and the mother who preferred booze to babysitting.

“Says the man who worked his way off the Athens streets and onto Wall Street.”

“I live in Seattle.”

Zephyr shrugged. “The stock market is on Wall Street and we lay claim to a significant chunk of it.”

Neo could feel himself giving in, if for no other reason than not to disappoint the only person in the world he cared enough about to compromise for. “I will try it for two weeks.”

“Six months.”

“One month.”

“Five.”

“Two and that is my final offer.”

“I bought a full year’s worth, you’ll note.”

“And if I find benefit, I will use the lot.” Though he had absolutely no doubts about that happening.

“Done.”

Cassandra Baker smoothed the skirt of her Liz Claiborne A-line dress in navy blue and white oversized checks for the second time in less than a minute. Just because she lived like a hermit in a cave sometimes, that didn’t mean she had to dress like one. Or so she told herself when ordering her new spring wardrobe online from her favorite department store.

Wearing stylish clothing, even if said outfits were rarely seen anywhere but her own home, was one of the small things she did to try to make herself feel normal.

It didn’t always work. But she tried.

She was supposed to be playing the piano. It relaxed her. Or so everyone insisted, and she even sometimes believed it. Only her slim fingers were motionless on the keyboard of her Fazioli grand piano.

Neo Stamos was due for his lessons in less than five minutes.

When she had offered the year’s worth of piano lessons to the charity fund-raising auction, as she did every year, she assumed she would get another student in her craft. A rising star seeking to work with an acknowledged if reclusive master pianist and New Age composer.

Cass unclipped, smoothed and then reclipped her long brown hair at the nape of her neck. Her hands dropped naturally back to the keyboard, but her fingers did not press down and no sound emitted from the beautiful instrument. She had been sure that just like in years past, the auction winner would be someone who shared her love of music. Hadn’t doubted that her next student might not share Cass’s adoration for the piano.

She’d had no reason to even speculate that a complete musical novice—a tycoon billionaire, no less—would be her student for the next year. It was worse than unbelievable; it was a personal nightmare for a woman who found it difficult enough to open her door to strangers.

Trying to circumvent that feeling, she’d spent an inordinate amount of time reading articles about him and studying publicity photos as well as the few candid shots of him she’d discovered on the Internet. None of that had helped.

If anything, her worry at the prospect of meeting him had increased. His publicity photos showed a man who looked like he rarely, if ever, listened to any sort of music at all. Why in the world would a man like that want to take piano lessons?

Apparently, he did, though. Because when the bids were well into the tens of thousands, Zephyr Nikos swooped in with an offer of one hundred thousand dollars. It boggled her mind—one hundred thousand dollars for one hour a week of Cass’s time. Even though the lessons lasted a year, the bid had been beyond extravagant.

The organizer of the fund-raiser had been ecstatic, keeping Cass on the phone long past her usual chat time with people she barely knew. The older woman had waxed poetic about how wonderful it was Mr. Nikos had bought the lessons for his lifelong friend and business partner, Neo Stamos.

And indeed it had been Mr. Stamos’s very efficient, and rather aloof, personal assistant who had called Cass to schedule the lesson. Cass had been tolerant because her own practice schedule was flexible and she had almost no social life to speak of.

Regardless, the 10:00 a.m. Tuesday morning classes were hardly a challenge to her schedule. Though Mr. Stamos’s PA made it sound like he would be sacrificing something akin to his firstborn child to be there.

Having no idea why a fabulously wealthy, far too good-looking, clearly driven and supremely busy businessman would want the lessons, Cass was even more nervous than usual at the thought of meeting a new student for the first time. In fact, Cass hadn’t felt this level of anxiety since the last time she had performed publicly.

She’d been telling herself all morning, she was being ridiculous. It hadn’t helped.

The doorbell rang, startling her into immobility, even though she’d been expecting it. Her heart beat a rapid tattoo in her chest, her lungs panting little, short breaths. She turned on the bench, but did not stand to her rather average height of five feet six inches.

She needed to. She needed to answer the door. To meet her new student.

The bell pealed a second time, the impatient summons thankfully breaking her paralysis. She jumped to her feet and hurried to answer it even as worried questions that had been plaguing her since discovering the identity of her new student once again raced through her mind.

Would Neo Stamos himself be standing there, or his PA? Or maybe a bodyguard, or chauffeur? Did billionaires talk to their piano teachers, or keep underlings around to do that for them? Would she be expected to teach with others in the room? If he had them, where would his bodyguards and chauffeur wait during the lesson? Or his PA?

The thought of several people she did not know converging on her home made Cass feel like hyperventilating. She was proud of herself for continuing down the narrow hall to the front door of her modest house.

Maybe he was alone. If he’d driven himself, that opened another host of worries. Would he feel comfortable parking his expensive car in her all too normal neighborhood in west Seattle? Should she offer the use of her empty garage?

The bell rang a third time just as she swung the door open. Mr. Stamos, who looked even more imposing than he did in his publicity photos, did not appear in the least embarrassed to be caught impatiently ringing it again.

“Miss Cassandra Baker?” Green eyes, the rich color of summer leaves, set in a face almost overwhelmingly attractive in person, stared at her expectantly.