“It...came as a surprise.” He told his brother about the dinner with Jack and the way he’d mistaken Penny for his wife. He expected a series of jokes, but Archer only nodded.
“That makes sense. Preston needs it. She’s cool with playing along?”
“Yeah. It’s...kind of a miracle.”
“No,” Archer said. “The miracle is agreeing to get on a plane with you. She does know you’re going to be obsessed with the show all weekend, right?”
He looked at Penny, her face lit from the sunny skies rushing past outside the plane’s windows. “She knows.”
Archer was quiet for a long moment. “Are you into her?”
“I don’t mix business with my home life.”
His brother scoffed. “Okay.”
The rest of the flight went by as smoothly as a six-hour flight possibly could. When Logan popped up from his nap, Penny supplied him with an endless stream of toys and fidgets from her bag. Drew blinked and they were landing, blinked and they were riding into the city, and blinked as the driver pulled up to the entrance to a park.
“It’s close to the hotel,” Penny said. “I looked it up while you were answering some emails. This okay?”
She thought of everything.
Drew and Penny took Logan into the park while the car took Archer and their luggage to the hotel. For an hour they took turns pushing him on the swings and letting him climb a bridge across a fishpond over and over.
“Both hands!” Logan cried on the way back to the playground from the pond. “Both hands.” He wanted them each to hold one of his hands so he could jump and swing, and as they counted down his every “BLAST OFF!” together, something like peace bloomed in his chest.
But the peaceful feeling flew away as they got closer to the concert. His pulse picked up the pace, and by the time they ate dinner at a Shake Shack by the hotel, he was almost totally focused on the concert.
“This is really important to you, isn’t it?” Penny’s question came to him as if from miles away, and he came back down to earth to watch Logan eat another french fry drenched in ketchup. “This concert. It’s like...” She motioned to her chest. “It’s all around you, how excited you are.”
Drew ran a hand through his hair. It would be a risk to talk about the feeling that thrummed under his breastbone. But she’d come all this way. She was pretending to be his wife.
“It’s my favorite band. They...got me through a lot of hard times.”
“I get that. When I was in college, I was so homesick...” She gave a rueful laugh. “There was this one album I listened to every day all year. It got me through.”
“Carver Row is like that for me.”
“I can see that.”
He believed her.
Drew blinked again and they were making a quick stop at the hotel; again and they were heading into the concert venue and separating from Penny and Logan, who went backstage with one of the security people with a wave and a smile.
One more blink and Carver Row was onstage, playing, and he was lost in the sound.
Until his brother tapped his shoulder. “I’m going to trade places with Penny,” he said into Drew’s ear. “She deserves to see this.”
The backstage room was way nicer than Penny thought it would be—a cross between a dressing room and a hotel room, trending more toward hotel room. She’d brought along her bag of toys for Logan, but he’d been more interested in eating snacks from a basket on the counter. For about fifteen minutes…and then he’d passed out on the couch.
It had been a long day.
A long good day. It wouldn’t be so bad just to fly on a private jet every day, even if it they had no particular destination in mind. It had been so nice. Penny had been on a private plane once, with her dad. She hadn’t been entirely forward about it with Drew, though. The plane she’d been on had been outfitted much the same, but it had been owned by the man who swindled her father out of his company. She’d hated every moment in his presence.
Penny sat in a cushy chair, watching the concert on a closed-circuit TV on a stand. Logan snored softly on the sofa nearby, so she kept the sound low.
“Hey.”
It was Archer, Drew’s youngest brother. His hair was a little darker, but he had the same blue eyes, and his cheeks were pink. Must be hot in the auditorium.
“Hey, Archer. How’s it going out there?”
“It’s good. You should go see for yourself.”
She waved him off. “Oh, that’s okay. I agreed to watch backstage.”
“No, seriously. Drew at a concert is a sight to behold. Plus, the band is in rare form tonight. You should go.”
“Are you sure?” She hadn’t planned on attending the concert. Carver Row wasn’t her band, though she had spent several minutes thinking about Drew’s face when he talked about them. About music. It was like she could see inside his soul.
“Yeah.” Archer came in and sat carefully on the sofa next to Logan. “I’ll be fine with the little dude.” He nodded toward the door. “Go.”
Penny went out, and one of the security guards from the backstage area led her to the concert hall. “Fourth row,” he said, pointing. “There it is.” She patted at her hair, at her clothes. Thank God she’d worn a silvery tank top and tight black jeans. It was perfect for the heat of the room.
Drew Preston was easy to find in the fourth row, tall and blonde and handsome. She worked her way through the standing crowd.
He took her breath away.
Talking to him about music was nothing compared to this.
It wasn’t a show he was putting on—not the way he did for clients. That was a genuine part of him too, but this bright, open expression tugged at her heart. Communion, she thought. That’s what it reminded her of.
She was three steps away when he turned and saw her, and something else entirely lit up his face. Surprise…then heat.
Penny resisted the urge to leap on top of him and kiss his perfect lips, though with the band’s pulsing beat, it seemed…almost right. Instead, she took her place next to him, faced forward, and closed her eyes.
Just for long enough to feel the beat. Just for long enough to join him in appreciating this moment, this sound, this band.
Penny let her feet move, then her hips sway, and then, with a rush of adrenaline, she was dancing, lost in the beat.
She opened her eyes and watched the lead singer throw his head back. It was his body that guided the whole of the concert hall, setting all of them on the same beat, but it was Drew’s body next to hers that she felt most keenly. In the music, there was no space for words. There was no pressure to slip her business knowledge into the conversation. There was no Logan, who wanted to hold both their hands. She felt a pang, but they’d all be together soon, and anyway, it wasn’t her place to get attached. It wasn’t her job to do anything right now. And so she danced.
They moved closer together, then back apart, kept in the same space by the crowd around them and by a magnetic pull that wrapped around Penny’s hips and drew her toward him. One step together, one step apart, one step together…
Their hands brushed.
The touch was electric, a pleasant shock, and then Drew twined his fingers through hers, holding on tight as if she was in danger of being lost in the crowd. Her heart leapt into her throat. She held on right back as the music slowed for one aching song. Were those tears in her eyes? And what were they for, other than the pure emotion that tore through her with every strum of the guitar? She brushed them away as the song ended and the band ramped up into another tune, the beat crashing, throbbing. The crescendo of the concert. Penny could feel it building, building, and so could everybody else around her. She felt the crowd’s focus, all of it drawing forward onto the stage.