Sheet Music

by Tibby Armstrong

  “You’ll have it in a minute.”

  Kyra put her phone on speaker and opened her email.

  “Did you include the pictures? It’s taking forever to download.”

  “Yeah.”

  When the file opened the first thing Kyra recognized was a piece of lingerie on a brass garment rack.

  “How the hell did you get these, Frank?” she shrieked before she could stop herself.

  “I’m not revealing my source.”

  After she calmed a moment she guessed. The shop lady. Kyra and David had assumed she’d left. These were taken with a low quality lens. Probably a cell phone.

  “Fuck!” she said, thumbing through the photos.

  “I’d say,” Frank chortled.

  She opened her mouth to tell him off, but then closed it just as quickly. The photos in the article were probably enough to get them arrested in some states. Possibly stoned to death in some countries.

  “Please don’t do this,” she whispered.

  “Sorry, sweet’eart. Already done.”

  The text of the story was almost as bad as the photos. It detailed her conversation in the pub with David almost to the letter, dredging up the painful details about his divorce in the process. There were even tidbits from their discussion in the car.

  “The chauffer sold him out,” she said, more to herself than to Frank.

  “Nah. Me contact is a more reliable source.”

  But nobody else was there in the car! Had it been bugged? She couldn’t picture Günter doing something like that. She had to warn David.

  “Like the headline?” he gloated, after a brief pause.

  Scrolling back up, she looked at the bold text for the first time. It screamed “Hanky Panky! Tallis Enjoys a Little Spanky!”

  “Was ruining me worth it?” she asked.

  “It’s only a job, luv,” he quipped, the shit-eating grin still evident in his voice.

  “Well, since you’re a dickless wonder, I doubt I’ll ever have the chance to return the favor,” she shouted, and hung up.

  Coming around the corner onto David’s block, she noted a crowd out front of his building and slowed. Seven or eight black SUV’s were parked on the opposite side of the street. She was just putting two and two together, had begun to pivot on her heel, when one of the throng shouted and pointed in her direction.

  If she ran, they would only get ridiculous pictures of her as she fled. Then they’d give chase. Might as well face the music now. Straightening her shoulders, she strode forward with purpose.

  Flashbulbs went off in her face at a dizzying pace, and the paparazzi blocked the door. She couldn’t get by without answering their questions, unless security came to her rescue. What she wouldn’t have done for Günter right then.

  “Kyra! Do you have any comment on the story in today’s Mirror?

  Are you and David Tallis serious?

  Can you comment on the nature of your relationship?

  Did you receive any compensation for the video?

  What about the photos?

  Is it true that you slept with him to get access to his memoirs for a new book?”

  The questions came at her rapid fire along with the click-whir of the cameras, but all she could do was shield her eyes with her arm. If this was what David went through every time he went into public, she didn’t blame him for hating the paparazzi. It was like a human swarm. The panicked, primal part of her wondered if she’d even survive the attack.

  “Please. Please, just let me through,” she begged, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.

  Someone walked up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. Her surge of relief turned to revulsion when she saw it was Brent who was supposedly coming to her rescue. The smarmy look on his face told her he intended no such thing, and she braced herself when he turned to the nearest paparazzi.

  “Ms. Martin will be meeting with our lawyers shortly to explain her involvement in her magazine’s publicity scheme. Please step aside, gentlemen.”

  The roar that went up at his words all but had Kyra’s knees buckling beneath her. As it was, Brent had to propel her into the lobby with a sturdy hand under her elbow.

  “Why?” Kyra whispered after he’d pushed her into one of the black leather seats in the reception area.

  “David’s orders,” he answered.

  Her mind spun like a compass seeking true north in the midst of a magnetic field.

  “You can’t possibly think I’d believe he’d want to be in the middle of this media shit storm?” Now was not the time to mince words.

  “He’s survived worse than you.”

  “Worse than…? What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kyra stood and jabbed a finger in Brent’s chest and was satisfied when he backed up a step. “This is like emotional rape to him!”

  She had to get to David before he found out and thought she’d done this to him. Brent grabbed her arm as she attempted to walk around him to the elevators. “You weren’t listening. This was his plan. Not mine.”

  Kyra flinched at the feel of his breath on her face. “No. There’s no way he’d do this to himself.”

  “You forget. He hates the paparazzi, Kyra. This is his little message to them. Fuck with him, and this is what you get.”

  She sank back into the chair, barely registering the sound of the elevator doors opening.

  David strode forward, shouldering past Brent, while Günter hovered near the security desk.

  “What the fuck is this?” he asked, shoving his phone in her face and dropping her bag at her feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Kyra answered automatically, trying to breathe around the pain assaulting her solar plexus. This was the reaction she would have expected from him, yet she found she preferred it to the idea that he might have betrayed her.

  David turned his back to her and had a wordless conversation with Brent, who shook his head in disgust. The deep expansion and contraction of his back muscles told her he was struggling for emotional control. He really didn’t know what his manager had done.

  “Hey,” she said softly and reached out to brush his hand. “We can handle this together. We’ll get through it together.”

  He whirled to face her and she sat back under the force of his enmity.

  “Get out!” He punctuated his statement with a step toward her.

  “You have to listen to me.”

  A tic began below his ear and she swallowed hard but held firm.

  “Don’t make me have Günter remove you, Kyra.”

  “Don’t punish me for something I didn’t do. In fact, according to Brent, this is what you intended all along.”

  “Oh, that’s classic,” he mocked with a bitter laugh. “Why would I need to manufacture this? What exactly haven’t you done to get your story?”

  “This was hardly the story I wanted, David!”

  “And that’s why every fucking detail I gave you about my life is in this article, in this email?”

  He shook the cell in her face for emphasis, but she stared him down.

  “No. Not every one. Not the ones about your family.”

  His phone hit the wall behind her and shattered into a million pieces, just like her heart was threatening to do. He leaned forward, one hand braced on the back of the chair on either side of her head.

  “You know what I think, Kyra?”

  He was so close she could feel his breath on her face, but she didn’t look away. He’d have to look her in the eye, see the truth on her face, as he said whatever it was he had to say.

  “No. What do you think, David?” she whispered, wishing to God he’d come to his senses.

  “I think you and Frank fucked me better than I ever fucked you.”

  She blinked and felt her humiliation color her cheeks. “That’s totally unfair.”

  “What’s unfair, Kyra, is having you spread your legs for me and take your payment out of my hide,” he snarled.

  Her retort was lost in the kiss he ground against her mouth. Wh
en it ended, David stepped away and cocked his head to one side appraisingly.

  “Yes. A liar and a whore.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes, clouding her vision. When she stood up, Brent raked his eyes down her body and backed up in a way that had her heart hammering with rage all over again.

  “Nice job, porn queen,” he jeered.

  Realization dawned.

  “It was you who set Frank on us! You bugged David’s car and had him followed. How long have you been doing this? Feeding tidbits about him to the press?”

  The sound of her voice urged Günter into their midst, but Kyra honestly didn’t care if the man tossed her out onto her ass.

  Brent’s expression said prove it.

  “You bastard!” she said, knowing she sounded shrill and crazy.

  David looked at his manager, his expression flickering from rage to incredulity. “Is what she’s saying true?”

  Brent returned a self-satisfied smile. “I thought it’d be best if you didn’t have to get your hands dirty on this.”

  “You didn’t set this in motion because of what I said that day in the studio?”

  His manager nodded, a self-satisfied smile breaking across his playboy features.

  “You think this is a good thing? It’s a fucking PR disaster!”

  Kyra saw the dawning self-blame cross David’s features and blanched. He’d actually had something to do with this? Brent wasn’t lying?

  “This little indiscretion will sell more albums. I just did my job.”

  “If I sued you, everyone would know what you did,” Kyra said, balling her fists by her sides in an effort not to slug Brent.

  “Sue me for what? Telling someone where you and David would be? For having you followed? For paying off his security team when Günter wasn’t looking? I hardly think it would stand up in court, but if that’s what you want? By all means, go ahead. It should be amusing to watch you throw away what’s left of your reputation.”

  David’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, and Kyra knew she had Brent exactly where she wanted him.

  “Why do you hate me so much?”

  His brown eyes narrowed.

  “After you ruined Adam? Getting all come hither and then crying to Daddy when you got what you’d asked for?” he asked with so much venom she thought he was going to spit at her feet. Instead he settled for a raking glare. “Fucking groupie.”

  Kyra raised a cool brow at Brent in response, and then focused on the man standing next to him.

  David’s expression shifted from disgust to wounded contrition when he met her eyes.

  She glanced back at Brent. The confusion and dawning realization on his face was priceless. In a fit of pique and mistaken pride, he’d given away the true reason for his enmity, and it was something they both knew David wouldn’t forgive. She savored the fishlike working of his mouth and the green-tinged pallor of his features before she approached David.

  Looking up at his pained expression, she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  “Kyra…”

  “Don’t bother.”

  His expression was pleading. “At least let me call my car to take you home.”

  “No.”

  “Kyra…”

  “Really, David, don’t you think you’ve done enough?” she asked with a sense of welling hysteria.

  Günter placed a soothing hand on her arm.

  “Ms. Martin, please allow me to escort you home.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him where he could shove it, but the kind concern in his eyes stopped her. She so needed a friend right now, and walking back through the gaggle of reporters beyond the building’s reflective glass would surely undo her.

  “Thank you.”

  “After I return, I’ll be by to pick up my wages,” Günter said to David.

  “Gun?”

  “I quit, sir.”

  Taking Kyra’s arm, he ushered her away, leaving David alone with himself and whatever personality he chose. The only thing Kyra was sure of was that she had never known him, and she doubted very much there was anything there worth knowing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  David and Jenny walked along a path in Central Park. The only communication—the last communication—he’d had from Kyra had come two months ago. At first, when he’d seen her email address in the message his publicist had forwarded, he’d had a surge of hope. As he’d read her clipped request to review the article ASAP, he had experienced a debilitating mixture of disappointment and surprise.

  After the Voice and Vibe article had been published, his sister had contacted Kyra to find out his address. Unsure about what nightmares seeing him again might awaken in her, he’d left it up to Jenny to contact him. Kyra might have been lost to him, but his family was restored. It was a gift he owed entirely to her, and it was one he could never repay.

  God knew he’d tried. He’d attempted to contact Kyra every way he knew how. The only time he’d gone by her apartment, she’d refused to come to the door and he’d never been back. He wasn’t going to stalk her. That sort of behavior would only serve to cement her feelings about him, if they weren’t set in stone already.

  “I’m at loose ends, Jenny,” he said, and wanted to kick himself. He’d been nothing but a morose, moping fool all morning. If he wasn’t careful, his sister was going to regret finding him again.

  Jenny tossed her hair out of her eyes in a gesture that reminded him so much of her as a little girl that it brought a smile to his lips.

  “I’m sorry. I’m being tiresome,” he apologized. “Would you like to get an early lunch?”

  “You’re not being a tiresome, David,” she said in an American drawl with only a hint of the British girl she’d been. “Can I ask you something though?”

  Taking a bit of bread from the bag they’d brought for the ducks, he tossed it out onto the water’s rippled surface.

  “Anything.”

  “Do you love her?”

  The question caught him off guard, and he had to think about it for several minutes before he answered.

  “I haven’t known her for that long, but I know I love everything about her. From the stubborn tilt of her chin to the way she holds a guitar.”

  “Have you told her how you feel?”

  “How am I supposed to do that if she won’t see me?”

  “There are other ways to be seen, as you must know,” Jenny answered with a twinkle in her eye that he recognized bode no good for either of them.

  “You’re going to get me into trouble…again,” he laughed.

  “Only in the best sense,” she said with a grin.

  “All right. I’m at your mercy. Do your worst,” he said and walked them to the Tavern on the Green where they could share a meal and her plan.

  * * * * *

  Ever since David’s new album cover had been plastered on the electronic display above the Coca-Cola sign, Kyra had tried to avoid Times Square.

  The first time she had seen the billboard, it had caught her completely off guard. On her way uptown to meet with her father and some other musicians for a jam session, she’d been waylaid for a half hour while she attempted to catch her breath.

  In a pose much like the one she’d envisioned for the Voice and Vibe cover, he loomed like a god above her, blue eyes blazing a trail through her senses. Everything about him was so much larger than life, she wondered if she’d ever really met him.

  It all seemed so unreal now. Well, except for the paparazzi who occasionally still stalked her. They were a constant, painful reminder of the sordid affair she’d had with a man who was way out of her league. Like Icarus, she’d attempted to touch the sun and had suffered the consequences.

  She’d come home that awful day to a score of messages on her voice mail. The most surprising had been from her father. He’d come over to bring her coffee and “siege supplies”, and she’d confessed all to him.

  In the process, she’d completely broken down. When she’d finished so
bbing out the story, he’d looked at her in confusion.

  “I never wanted to shut you out.”

  “Then what were you doing?” She’d sniffed and blown her nose into the tissue he’d handed her.

  “I just wanted you to have options. I admit that your mother and I had words about you coming to the studio again before you turned eighteen. In the end, I gave in to her. Then you had to go to school, and after seemed content with journalism. I wasn’t about to push this life on you. It’s hard enough without being forced into something you don’t really want to do.”

  Kyra’s laughter had bordered on hysterical.

  “You didn’t make Sid go to college.”

  “That’s because he didn’t get in,” Jerry reminded her, and had shaken his head. “Part of this was you seeing what you needed to see, Kyra. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was you who made the subconscious decision not to pursue music. The few times you came with me after the incident with Adam, you seemed terrified, honey.”

  “Oh, God,” Kyra had moaned and rolled her head forward onto her knees. “I’m such an idiot.”

  “You’re not an idiot. You’re human.”

  She’d laughed self-consciously at that.

  “We can’t change the past, but we can start fresh.”

  They’d hugged and gone to the roof garden and watched the stars come out while he had a cigarette. When he was finished, he turned to her and said the words she’d wanted to hear most of her life. “So, you want to help me put together some studio musicians for this new Grant Colby album?”

  “Yeah. I’d like that,” she’d said.

  And now, here she was, on her way to her first recording session with her father. Morning traffic came to a predictable standstill in Times Square, and Kyra tried to focus on her phone, refusing to look up and meet David’s baby blues.

  “Hey, aren’t you the chick who dated that guy Tallis?” the cabbie asked with a jerk of his head toward the ad.

  “No,” Kyra said reflexively, but the damage was done. She’d looked at the billboard, and now she couldn’t look away.

  The expanse of David’s chest tapered to the vee of hipbones holding up low slung jeans. They’d taken a clip of him, posed like a modern-day Adonis and looped it over and over so that he blinked out at her from under sooty lashes while the liquid grace of Mediterranean fabric swirled as a backdrop behind.