And no one recognises her. Not Harmony Records’ upper-level directors, not the stockholders and board members, and neither the employees, despite so many passing her every single day in the lobby.
I feel proud. She is a treasure that I unearthed, and she is mine.
I extend my thanks to more guests, highlighting how honourable their donations are and how far they help this favourite Leukemia charity of mine, but I can feel Melody grip my arm tighter, like a scared starling that wants to take flight. As we move further through the crowd, I try to stem her fears by lightly easing her forward with one hand on the naked skin of her lower back. And I feel a stir beneath my waist.
It is only the gentlest touch but it is still enough for my desire to take hold. God, all I want to do is grab Melody and drag her somewhere quiet, anywhere, and rip off her dress and have my way with her. It doesn’t matter where: my penthouse, my villa in Tuscany, hell, even my office at the company headquarters... Anywhere where we can be alone and together and I can touch every inch of her skin, where I can throw her down on my bed and be inside her.
“Mr. Strong?”
I wake from my daydream.
Victoria Handel, the chairman of the charity stands in front of me. We shake hands and she looks up at me through her stylish wire frame glasses.
“Thank you so much for organising this event,” she says. “I never would have dreamed for a turn out this large. Even the mayor is here. And we’ve already surpassed last year’s fundraising goal and the night has only just started.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I say.
“You’ve got a great catch here,” she says to Melody. “You’re one lucky girl.”
Melody blushes.
I hold her tight. “I like to think that I am the lucky one.”
“Wow, a regular Prince Charming,” says Victoria. “I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a speech, could I? Just a few words on the podium, nothing big.”
“I’d love to,” I say and smile courteously.
I lead Melody towards the stage and the crowd parts for us like the Red Sea. I can feel the panic in her touch as I walk us up towards the podium. Her tiny hand grips my own for dear life, but I do not release her until we are on the stage.
With everyone’s gaze now upon us, I bend down and kiss her lightly on the cheek. It is only intended as an innocent and polite kiss, one for the crowd and the fundraisers, but when my lips touch her skin, I feel them burn and shiver. Blood pounds in my ears and I my heart thunders against my chest.
All I can think about is kissing her - really kissing her. A passionate lust filled wild kiss, grabbing her in my arms and pulling her so close that our skin is alight in the heat of our bodies, and the world fades and there is nothing left but us. Together.
I fight the urge, despite it becoming more uncontrollable each time I am tested by her.
I lean back and I see her eyes, so wonderful and big and gazing into my own.
And I know she feels the same.
I clear my throat in an effort to hide my feelings. It has become natural to me now, after so many years - all it takes is a calm voice and a stoic face. Anyone can be fooled by such a display.
“I’ll just be a minute,” I say to Melody.
“Okay,” she whispers, still caught in the moment.
I make my way across to the centre stage and approach the microphone. The hush that fell earlier when Melody and I entered the ballroom is nothing compared to the silence now. I throw a hand out.
“Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming this evening.
The crowd suddenly cheers, hearty claps emanating from every corner of the room. I have to pause while I let the din settle, and I mentally prepare an impromptu speech.
I’m used to being the centre of attention - hell, I’m happy to admit that part of me eats it up. You cannot work in the public eye and remain anonymous. Not to mention, my fame and infamy is so key to bringing more recognition to this charity, and to my business. If anything, I am so used to this now that there is a certain element of boredom seeping in.
It pains me to think that the life I used to love so much has become so humdrum, and has been for a while.
That is, until Melody entered my life. She is the one thing that makes my body hum and my legs quiver. The only thing that makes my blood thunder.
She is the only thing I want.
But I cannot have her.
It pains me each time I remember that horrible truth, but I must remember it. I cannot have her. No matter how much I want her, it is impossible.
Before I know it, my speech finishes and I cannot even remember what I said, so wrapped up in my conflicted feelings for her.
I see her watching me from the below the stairs, eyes wide with wonder and her sensual mouth open a touch. Her tongue protrudes and lightly wets her lips.
I dry swallow.
“Thank you again, everyone. Have a wonderful night and donate lots and lots of money. That’s an order.”
The crowd titters. I give them another wave and the applause grows. I leave the podium and return to Melody, who looks up at me with the largest eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Wow, that was really impressive,” she says. “All of that, it was all off the top of your head?”
“I prefer to operate in the moment.”
“But, it must be so hard. If I was up there I’d over-think everything. Not just what I was going to say, but when to laugh and smile and tone of voice. How do you do it?”
“Do you ask the bees why they collect honey? Why the wave crashes against the shore?”
She bites her lip.
“Some things, my princess, just come naturally to us. It would be a sin to deny the things we do so well, to hide them from the world. So we don’t think about them, because to do so would destroy them.”
She nods. “Techne.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Techne. It’s an ancient Greek term. It means an act which is so natural to you that to others it looks like an innate ability beyond comprehension, as if in that moment you were communing with the gods themselves.”
Beautiful and intelligent. I really am blessed with this one.
“Very interesting,” I say.
Her cheeks blaze red and her gaze reverts to the floor.
I lean in and whisper sensually, “And it’s not the only place where I am gifted.” I trace her spine with my fingertips, all the way down to her lower back.
She shivers.
I smirk. It fills me with such solace and sweet satisfaction to know she feels the same way about me as I feel about her.
She is so easy to read that it almost defies reasoning. Almost everyone in my life has worn their stone-faced masks so long that it’s become almost impossible for them to take it off. It’s such a breath of fresh air to meet someone so young and innocent - someone who does nothing to hide their emotions. So reckless and unrestrained...
It reminds me of how I’d once been so similar, so young and poor and single-mindedly driven to succeed. Before I was betrayed.
Suddenly, I hear a woman’s soft dulcet tones trickle into my ear. It is almost a whisper, but I can hear every note so clearly.
Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Mommas gonna buy you a mocking bird...
It’s Melody. Her voice is so smooth and beautiful.
I lean away and look at her.
She squirms and fiddles with the hemline of her dress. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re voice, Melody. It’s incredible. You should be proud - no one on my label can sing even half as well as you.”
“It’s nothing. Just something that comes natural.”
Her face lights up with a smile.
“Where did you learn to sing like that?”
“Nowhere, really. It doesn’t matter.” She tries to pull away from me, but I grasp her wrist. Her smile is gone.
The ballroom fills with the sound of the orchestra beginning the Tango. In the corner of my eye
, I catch guests moving into the dance floor.
“I’d like to know, Melody. Please. Only the best could have taught you to sing so well. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Duncan Callaghan,” she says in a quiet voice.
Duncan Callaghan. It is impossible. How could the man who taught her to sing be that bastard? He’s my bitterest rival, for God’s sake. As CEO of Magnum Records, he has tried time and time again to execute a hostile takeover of Harmony Records, solely to further his grip on the North American market. He’s stolen talent from me, leaked information to investors, and poisoned the minds of critics. He would stoop to any level to see me destroyed.
My eyes narrow.
“Why the hell did that bastard teach you to sing?” I spit out. “Were you on his label?”
“No, no,” says Melody. “Nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“I knew him from high school, that’s all. He taught me when we were teenagers.”
It’s certainly possible that they went to school together. Duncan is maybe a few years older than Melody, and he did used to teach people to sing before he entered the business. It all makes perfect sense.
So why the hell do I find this story so hard to believe?
Callaghan. I would put nothing past him. He didn’t even make his billions like I have, through hard work and wits. No, his was a mere gift from his father, Raymond Callaghan. Daddy had no trouble syphoning off a chunk of his media empire to give to his little boy.
It makes me sick thinking about it.
And it wouldn’t be beneath him to slip a beautiful woman into my midst to fuck with me.
But Melody wouldn’t have answered with his name if that were true. He would know it would anger me and make me suspicious.
Unless that is his plan all along.
I look at Melody’s face. Doe eyed and innocent, she squirms under my gaze.
I must be going insane to be this paranoid and suspicious of a girl like her. I am overacting. Nothing more.
“I guess,” I say calmly, “even the roughest diamond cutter can make the most exquisite gem.” I curl a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Especially when the material is so beautiful to begin with.”
She smiles and reverts her gaze to the floor.
I’ve embarrassed her. I never should have drawn attention to her tutorage by some hack from Magnum Records, when she’s at a ball sponsored by the far more prestigious Harmony Records.
I smile down at her and change the subject.
“I’ve had enough of this ball,” I say. “Let’s leave.”
“What? We can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
“Because. We only just got here. And there’s still a bunch of people that want to talk to you, over there on the dance floor.”
“Irrelevant. They have my money. My purpose at this event is complete.”
“It’s not about money. It’s about you - your image and your charm. Like with the speech, they want you to turn on that legendary charm to the other guests.”
“Legendary?” I say.
She blushes. A crooked smile forms on her lips. “Apparently. Unless you call what you’ve saying to me all evening something else?”
I give her a sensual smile. “And is it working?”
She shakes her head, but her eyes are still lit up. “Not that it matters, anyway.” She pokes my chest with her index finger. “Remember, you and me, that wasn’t the deal. You said so yourself.”
“Ah, yes. Our delicious revenge scenario. Have you seen him yet, our man in question?”
“No,” she says quietly.
“He shall be grateful that the floor is carpeted. Because, when he sees you, he will fall to his knees. Let us find him.”
I grab her hand and we cross over to the dance floor and enter the swaying throng. All around us, happy couples laugh and dance, many singing to each other in dulcet tones as they move across the dance floor.
There was a time when I would have joined them. I would have taken Melody in my arms and pulled her body sensually against my own, as we gyrated and swung to the seductive rhythm of the orchestra, and as the heat of our pressed together bodies mingled between us, I would sing a song of sweet seduction and sex, until she was in my bed.
But that was the old me. It has been over a decade since I last sung, and I’ll gladly go another. I sing for no woman.
The head of the charity makes her way over to me from the edge of the dance floor, gushing with praise. From behind her, a regional director shakes my hand and claps me on the back, and pours more thanks on to me. Amid the nodding heads and laughter, I see a queue forming of more well wishes that stretches to the bar. I zone out and give them all generic gratitude acceptance - anything to reduce that damn queue.
I’m happy to help the genuine charity members, but the line between them and sycophants, heaping praise on to me to climb the social ladder or hear their demo CD, blurs with every passing person.
All I want to do is grab Melody and whisk her away into my limo. I want the car to thunder down the road and take us away from every person here. Not just here, even. I want us to disappear off the face of the earth, leaving everyone and everything behind. Just her and I, together and alone.
But I can’t. Melody was right - I had a duty to perform here. The well wishers may sap my endurance, but I’m a wealthy powerful man, and that life comes with its own social burdens.
If I’m going to be here, then at least I can find solace in having Melody at my side.
I pull her close, wrapping my arms around her. She’s the perfect height for me to cover her in an embrace.
As I stand behind her, with my arms around her waist, her hand holds my left wrist to her and she turns to me, a glint in her eye.
She feels the comfort of my embrace. It is so painfully obvious to read in her look, as is everything else.
But my idea of comfort is far more than a simple hug. I’m a grown man, with desire and wanting and need.
People talk and chatter and nod, but I find myself completely distracted by the feel of Melody’s ample breasts pressed against my arms. How her neckline is so low that her breasts swell almost to the point where they spill out. And the faint pebbling of her nipples thrusting into the red fabric of her dress.
She doesn’t have a bra on.
I feel myself grow hard, stiffening more with every passing second as I gaze at those beautiful perked nipples.
I look up and see the other men are staring at her cleavage. They must also realise she’s wearing no bra, some lingering for longer and longer just to get a peek.
The bastards. Can’t they see she’s mine? I want to scream at them to leave, to tell them to fuck off and leave my woman alone.
My woman.
The mere thought of protecting her and having her makes me hard beyond belief. Surely she must feel me prodding her in the back?
Good. Maybe then I can take her and we can flee from here and straight to my penthouse and into my bed.
No. I can’t do that. I must fight this urge to fuck Melody, no matter how strongly I desire it. Sex with her is wrong on every level. She loves someone else, and she’s an employee and we’re using each other for a game of revenge. I told her tonight was it - things would end after the stroke of midnight and we would never set eyes on each other again. To take her back with me now would only open me up to tears and an obsessed employee and maybe even a claim for sexual harassment.
I must fight this urge.
But with every second that passes, I find it harder and harder. My self restraint is ebbing away with her clutched in my arms, the feel of her body against mine driving me into a sex craving monster.
I’m haven’t felt this way about a woman in so long. The desire and tension she builds in me is something I’ve forgotten I was even able to experience.
She makes me feel alive and young and capable of anything.
No. I have to send her away. If I don’t...
>
Melody glances up at me and bites her lower lip. Her tongue darts out, so pink and wet, and licks over the surface.
God, I want to taste those lips. I need to taste them and bite them and rip her clothes off and throw her on to my bed and push myself deep inside her and fill her hard and deep and full.
I dry swallow.
Thank God Melody is standing in front of me.
She scans the crowd and suddenly freezes.
Does she feel me? How can she not? My desire is so blinding that I can’t think of anything else.
“Richard,” she says.
“You’re boyfriend?” I ask, anger and jealousy suddenly burning me up inside. This man once had Melody. And I cannot. That bastard - how he can have someone like this under his command and have her want him and then just let her go. The fool.
“Ex-boyfriend,” she says.
“Where?”
She eyes towards the bar and I follow her gaze, but I see no one stood out.
I must see this man with my own eyes. He must be tall and dashing and able to charm the pants off of any women he meets.
God, why am I so jealous? No, not jealous. Jealously is a weak emotion, something that shudders through beta males as they spend nights sad and vulnerable and alone. The sort of men begging to be used and devoured by the strong.
It’s not jealousy. It’s anger. And resentment. And sheer annoyance.
I am a real man, so why the fuck should I help some fool get back the prize he was too blind and stupid to appreciate in the first place? He doesn’t deserve her in his bed.
I do.
But if she loves him, then things are much more complicated. It would be dishonourable to take a woman from the man she loves, even if he is disloyal scum.
Melody removes my arm and starts to walk towards the bar.
I grab hold of her arm and stop her.
“Wait.”
Perfect Harmony Page 4
