Page 192 of Modern Romance June 2025 5-8

‘Okay, so let’s see…’ She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and began to play ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ with some of Mozart’s variations.

Katerina bounced up and down on her knee in excitement.

‘Sing!’ Katerina said, twisting to look up at her.

‘Not today, sweetie. I’ll just play the tune,’ she said, acutely conscious of the adult audience.

Vic stepped up beside them. ‘How about I sing it for you?’

She looked up at him in surprise. ‘I didn’t know you could sing.’

‘Can’t everyone sing?’

‘I guess so…’ She bit her lip again. Terrible habit. Dead giveaway of being ridiculously shy and nervous. She placed her fingers back on the keys and started playing again. Vic began to sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ in Italian and shivers cascaded down her spine at the richness of his baritone voice.

Bella stella dimmu tu

Cosa vedi da lassu

Da quassu io vedo te

Da quassu io vedo te

Bella stella dimmu tu

Cosa vedi da lassu.

Once he finished, Katerina clapped her hands. ‘Again!’

Vic laughed. ‘You’re a glutton for punishment.’

‘Will you translate it for me?’ Addie asked.

Actually, she was close to begging him to sing it again. How she envied Katerina’s unabashed enthusiasm. She felt it on the inside but couldn’t show it on the outside.

‘Sure.’

Vic started as soon as she put her fingers to the keys. She knew the tune so well she didn’t have to look at the piano so looked at him instead. He held her gaze as he sang and Addie was transfixed, transported, tempted to dream of a future with him, because music was something, another thing, they had in common.

Beautiful star, tell me

What you see from up there

From up here I see you

From up here I see you

Beautiful star, tell me

What you see from up there.

Vic gave a low bow and straightened with a self-deprecating smile. ‘That’s about the extent of my nursery rhyme repertoire, I’m afraid.’

She smiled back over the top of Katerina’s dark head. ‘I’ll have to teach you some more songs.’

He held her gaze for a beat that she felt in her lower body. ‘I’ll look forward to some private lessons.’

Private lessons…sounded scarily intimate. Was he flirting with her? A frisson went through her at the thought of Vic touching her body. Would he compare it to all the other female bodies he had touched? Would she be found wanting as she had been by her first and last and only boyfriend? She had avoided being intimate with anyone. Years of her life had gone by, years she could not get back. She was nudging thirty and she still didn’t know what it was like to have a man’s arms hold her close.

---