The CEO's Unexpected Proposal. Karen Smith Rose

already told him she wouldn’t be able to report what Luke said without his permission. Yet she nodded, slipped her hand from Dawson’s and went inside.

      When she returned to the studio, Luke didn’t pay her any mind. She went to her desk and picked up her legal pad, then crossed to the doorway of the music room. “Where would you like to sit and talk? In here? Or in my office?”

      Luke sat at the piano with his fingers on the keys, yet he wasn’t playing.

      “I don’t want to sit either place.”

      “I know you don’t.”

      He brought his hands down on the piano into two loud chords. Mikala quietly sat in the chair beside the piano bench and waited.

      After a while Luke asked, “Aren’t you going to say something?”

      “I know you’ve seen counselors before.”

      “A psychiatrist and a psychologist. What are you?”

      “Didn’t your dad tell you?”

      “He just said you’re an old friend he went to school with, and you’re a music therapist. But I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything.”

      “Your dad told me you can memorize pieces on the piano without a lot of trouble. That’s pretty cool.”

      “I play them and I remember them.”

      “Would you play something for me?” She was fully prepared for him to say no.