Ivy must be home. My frustration with Edden died with the chance to finally talk to her. I wanted to tell her that nothing had changed and she was still my friend—if she’d have me for one. Turning down the offer to be her scion might be an insurmountable insult in the vamp world. I didn’t think so, though. What little I had seen of her showed guilt, not anger.

Ivy?” I called cautiously.

The piano cut off in mid-chord. “Rachel?” Ivy responded from the sanctuary. There was a worrisome hint of alarm in her voice. Damn, she was going to run. Then my eyebrows rose. That wasn’t a recording. We had a piano?

Shrugging out of my coat, I hung it up and went into the sanctuary, blinking at the sudden light. We had a piano. We had a beautiful, black, baby grand piano sitting in an amber and green sunbeam coming in through the stain-glassed windows. Its top was propped up to show its insides, the wires gleaming and the stops all velvety smooth.

“When did you get the piano?” I asked, seeing her poised and ready to run. Double damn. If she would just slow down enough to listen.

My shoulders eased as she took up a chamois cloth and started rubbing the gleaming wood. She was wearing jeans and a casual top, and I felt terribly overdressed in my dress suit. “Today,” she said as she dusted wood that needed no dusting. Maybe if I didn’t say anything about what had happened, we could get back to the way things were. Ignoring a problem was a perfectly acceptable way to deal with it, as long as both people agree to never bring it up again.

“You didn’t have to stop because of me,” I said, scrambling to say something before she found a reason to leave.

She edged around to polish the back as I went to hit middle C.

Ivy straightened, her eyes slipping shut and her dust cloth stopping. “Middle C,” she said as peace slackened her pale oval face.

I chose another, holding the key down to listen to it echo among the rafters. It sounded wonderful in the open, hard-walled space. Especially since the exercise mats were gone.

“F-sharp,” she whispered, and I hit two at a time. “C and D-sharp,” she said, opening her eyes. “That’s an awful combination.”

I smiled, relieved when she met my gaze. “I didn’t know you could play,” I said, hitching my bag up higher on my shoulder.

“My mother made me take lessons.”

Nodding absently, I dug the money out of my bag. My thoughts went to the discrepancy between us as I leaned through the piano and handed it to her. Ivy was buying a baby grand piano and my dresser was made of pressboard.

Head bent over the money, she counted it. “You’re missing two hundred,” she said.