He threw her up then caught her easily as she came down. Arabella laughed. It always seemed remarkable to Eva the way that Ambrose could turn her daughter’s tears into laughter. He had the same talent for her. Eva could never feel sad for very long with Ambrose around her.
“Careful,” Eva needlessly called out to Ambrose. Ambrose was always careful, he was always sure of himself.
Ambrose walked with Arabella on his shoulders and his hand on Eva’s back.
When they arrived at the Palais Garnier Eva gasped.
“Luciano!” She ran into the older man’s arms.
“Ah, Passerotto mio—”
Eva pulled back, looking over his face, “Is Glenda with you?”
“Yes, yes, she’s at the hotel now, she will come tonight. We are both excited.” He extended a hand to encompass the entire opera house. Luciano noticed Arabella who was standing respectfully by looking up at him and her mama. “And Arabella, how you’ve grown.”
“You always say that,” she giggled. Luciano picked her up and held her at his side.
“Come, join us for dinner, we are having it brought it from Le Meurice.” Ambrose held out an arm to direct Luciano to follow Eva through the halls of the palatial building.
The quartet sat and ate blue lobster, exquisite risotto, and scallops with white alba truffle foam. They laughed at Luciano’s recent stories of time with his family in Venice and Glenda’s conquests in procuring Luciano a spot on next year’s roster with La Scala.
Hilda came and all three adults kissed the precious Arabella goodnight. Arabella gave an unconvincing show of not being tired but eventually agreed that she would see everyone again in the morning.
“Life seems very good, Luciano. La Scala next year, a good woman by your side?” Ambrose put his napkin on the table to signify that dinner was over.
“That is what I want to talk with you about. I want you both to be in my new opera.” Luciano smiled at Eva and Ambrose.
“A new opera?” Eva leaned forward.
“I think you might be my muse, I’ve had another dream.” Luciano looked up as if imagining the visions he’d had.
Ambrose looked to Eva with raised brows.
“I’ve always wanted to sing at La Scala…like my mother,” Eva admitted.
“You will sing there with or without me. You will sing at all the major opera houses, there can be no doubt of that.”
“And your new opera?” Ambrose questioned. “What will it be about?”
“The Vampire Queen,” Luciano looked happily across the table. “The Queen of the underground. Spoiled forever in eternity by her King… A bond so strong it could never be broken…and a child. A child with the voice of the future.”
Eva felt her mouth open, then she closed it again.
“But…” Eva tried to get her thoughts straight. “Isn’t there…some drama? Something terrible waiting your Queen?”
Luciano looked at her for a long time then sat back. “That is just the problem. I cannot seem to fit anything horrible inside. Perhaps the child could be plagued by the same darkness that plagued Lucretia. She could be swept up one brisk night out of the hands of her nanny…to be the muse of the darkness…”
Eva sat up, ready to run out of the room, to grab her child to her breast.
“But…” Luciano continued. “It does not fit. It was not in my dream.”
Eva exhaled and laughed. Luciano laughed too, though Eva was certain they were not laughing at the same thing.
“And you have music for this?” Ambrose seemed to be in deep contemplation.
“The most beautiful music, Glenda holds the burden of all my papers and notes. It is the best work I’ve ever done. It will be a masterpiece. People will come, the music will speak for itself—you will see.”
“I like that idea, very much.” Eva extended her arm and squeezed Luciano’s hand.
“Ok, you will need to prepare…warm up…change…” Luciano pushed away from the table and stood. “I will be in the audience tonight. In bocca al lupo!”
Ambrose saw Luciano out of the opera house and the house staff came in to clear the table and dishes away. Eva walked to the mirror and looked over her face. She looked happy. How had she ever become so happy? She shook the thought away, it was time to focus on being Gilda.
She drank some honey water and turned the electric kettle on for a pot of tea. There were a few bouquets of flowers on the side tables and the piano. There was a new bouquet that Eva hadn’t noticed before sitting next to her expanse of stage makeup. Eva walked over to it, letting her fingers touch the soft buds.
The flowers were all white, roses, dahlias, and lilies, mixed with white hydrangea. Eva moved her nose into the bouquet and inhaled. The smell made her smile. As she pulled back she noticed a small square card tucked into the blooms.
To Gilda & the Duke of Mantua,
Here’s to the perfect opening night. Wish we could be there!
Jerome & Bridget
Eva smiled again. Jerome had been hired into the Cincinnati Opera shortly after Bridget. Their friendship had bloomed slowly into something more. And when it had there was no stopping it. Eva and Ambrose had attended their very fashionable Manhattan wedding a few months ago, just before the pair zipped off to spend a year with the Shanghai Opera House.
Eva tucked the note back into the bouquet and sighed happily. She looked up when Ambrose came back into the room.
“What do you think of his new opera?” Ambrose asked as he took off his suit jacket.
“It sounds perfect. I am beginning to be quite grateful for Luciano’s dreams.” Eva turned to her husband. She saw the same happiness and contentment in him that she’d seen reflected in her own eyes.
“A Queen…” he said.
“…And King,” she said.
“Without any drama…no complications to frighten or terrify?” Ambrose asked.
“I could see myself living the rest of my life that way—though any problem would seem very small indeed with my King.” Eva walked to her husband and fell into his arms.
“And to be spoiled and lauded for all eternity?” He asked.
“Oh yes, lots of that.” Eva smiled.
Ambrose kissed Eva’s forehead, both her eyelids, then found his way to her open and waiting lips.
*****
THE END
Protected by the Billionaire Bear
Description
Being the only witness to a grizzly murder, Jo will have to seek protection from the sizzling hot company’s owner if she wants to stay above ground.
Josephine “Jo” Wentlandt is a ferocious blue-eyed curvy environmentalist. While protesting the business deal that threatens her home state, Jo unexpectedly becomes the only witness to a murder. As she runs deep into the forest to get away from the murderer she unexpectedly comes upon the one man who can actually offer her real protection.
Clayton Porter is a reclusive billionaire tucked away in the Montana backcountry, but the sought after man is more than what he seems. With a wild secret he doesn’t share with anyone and a serious aversion to intimacy, he is distressed to find a disheveled woman with searing blue eyes and thick curves standing at his doorstep in need of help.
With more than just their lives at stake and the hunt quickly moving in for the kill, Jo and Clayton must find a way to move their fears aside and embrace the untamed parts of themselves if they want to surprise their enemy and take him from predator to prey.
Chapter One
“We wouldn’t have to create a world on other planets if we just took better care of the world we have right here,” Josephine Wentlandt could feel her voice rising.
She was well aware that the bulky man, in need of a shower, that sat in front of her was pushing her buttons on purpose, but still, she seemed bent on arguing with him.
“Why come all the way up here? Why not go to Washington if you want to make a difference?” The man was ruddy faced and Jo could smell his armpits from three feet away.<
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“Can I get my check?” she turned to the bartender.
“Because,” she stood and took out her wallet, “change doesn’t just happen in Washington, it happens right here.”
Once out of the bar Jo could think more clearly. It was a cool Montana evening with just the right amount of chill to keep things fresh. In truth, Jo had never been to DC and had no immediate plans to ever go. She liked living in a small town where there were far more wild animals than humans, and the only reason she cared so much was because she wanted to keep it that way.
Jo had put back three beers during her dinner, since the man next to her had been buying them, and now she was feeling buzzed.
Where had Rick gotten off to? Jo wondered as she looked around. He was supposed to meet her for dinner. Rick had been the one to organize the protest against the Porter Company. An intrinsically optimistic man, he was really quite good at launching a vitriolic protest. He’d managed to stop work for the Porter Company employees for three days when their protest began.
As the state of Montana became increasingly insolvent, the Porter Company had swooped in to buy up land that had been previously protected for conservation purposes.
Jo had spent her whole life in Montana. She’d gone to school for wildlife ecology and forestry, and though she certainly appreciated the global perspective, her true passion was for her home state.
The snow-covered peaks she now looked at had begun forming over 170 million years ago. Jo took in a long breath savoring the smell of the ponderosa pine trees even as it mixed with the smell of pale ale that still clung to her.
"Ok," Jo turned and began walking back through the trees toward the camp of fifteen-odd protestors. Rick had managed to get a good amount of media coverage for their small group as it stood against a giant company.
Jo walked into what should have been their camp and stopped. The beer had made her head foggy and she tried to shake her brain free. The camp was deserted.
The twelve other tents were now gone, the jeeps and trucks of the protesters were nowhere to be seen. Only two tents now stood—Jo's yellow canvas and Rick's blue. What was going on?
She walked over to Rick’s tent and looked in. It was empty but his things were still there. Where had everyone else gone?
Jo did a full turn, looking for some clue to the mystery. Had Rick called their protest off? Had Porter Company given in to their demands to cease and desist? Jo walked out of camp, down a little piece of road, and up a small turn off where Rick usually parked. His big blue sedan was still there.
After looking in the car and finding nothing off Jo turned and began back toward camp. Her only solution was to wait and hear what had happened directly from Rick.
On her right, a small light sparkled through the darkness and the thick trees then went out. Jo moved off the road and into the forest where she'd seen the flickering light.
“Negotiations are over,” a hard voice sailed through the darkness. Jo squinted, not recognizing the owner of the voice.
“If you think we’re going to hand this over to you …” Jo moved forward more quickly now, she would recognize Rick’s voice anywhere. She took a step forward and into view of the back of Rick’s head. Jo watched as the first speaker turned, gun extended.
It all seemed so implausible… unreal. Jo would think back on that moment many times over. If she’d only been able to act faster, to do something… but she’d not even been able to process the sight of the man holding a gun.
In one more second the man pulled the trigger and Rick’s head whipped back. Blood splattered the trees around him. It was so unexpected, so drastic, that for a moment Jo thought it couldn’t possibly be real at all, just a figment of her imagination.
Jo heard a scream in her ears, but barely understood it to be her own. It was in those few seconds when the man turned his attention to Jo that reality came into focus.
The gun began to lift again and Jo began to move. She heard the first shot as she ran straight into the forest.
It was dark. Too dark to see properly and she fell over roots, leaves, branches, logs.
Her movements were chaotic at best.
She heard another shot fired into the night and Jo's body began to move faster. Her brain was beginning to understand the importance of her movements and suddenly she was pushing forward into the trees with all of her senses on high alert.
The man, who was that man? He worked for the Porter Company, of that she was certain, but she couldn’t remember his name or his position.
Jo’s lungs burned but she didn’t slow down. The sound of the man following her began to fade but still Jo didn’t stop. She knew that the more distance she could put between herself and the man, the better her chance for survival. It was dark enough to make it hard for him to follow her.
It felt like years of running blindly into the forest before she thought she might have lost the man.
When Jo came out onto the lake she finally let herself stop. It had to have been hours that she'd been traveling, or else she'd been moving very fast.
Her chest was heaving and her legs, though quickly turning to jelly, were still ready to run.
She tried to silence her gasps so she could listen for signs of movement but her lungs wouldn’t slow.
Finally, as her body began to normalize, Jo was able to listen to the world around her. There were the usual sounds of wildlife but nothing that spoke of a killer on the loose.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Forward, she told herself. It wasn’t time to stop yet. She broke off to the right moving around the lake.
It was almost dawn when Jo stopped walking for the second time. She sat on a log and stared into the changing sky.
She’d been forcing herself not to think of what had happened. She knew she had to focus only on the next step and then the next. But as she sat down the entirety of the night swept over her.
A sob overwhelmed her body. Hot tears rose in her eyes and began to stream down her face. Her body felt like the air was being punched out of it. Her head throbbed. Jo pushed the palms of her hands onto her eyes. The cold sharp air hit her face and neck.
Just as another sob wracked her body she heard something that made her stop mid-sob. Her breath stuck in her throat. She’d heard the cry of an animal.
Jo held herself as still as possible. A thudding through the ground shook the log she sat on and vibrated up her body. Jo slowly looked up from the ground.
Moving into the opening in front of her stood a giant grizzly bear. Jo sucked in her breath. This was no ordinary grizzly. Jo had run into bears many times in her life, but she’d never seen anything even close to the aberration in front of her.
There was an old wives tale about a giant grizzly that roamed these woods, but Jo had only heard the most ridiculous liars ever claim to have seen such a bear.
Now, Jo looked up to see a grizzly that defied anything she’d ever seen before. He stood ten feet tall and must have weighed well over a thousand pounds. His paws were larger than her head.
Her body trembled as the bear moved toward her. All of her normal good instincts were falling away and, if she hadn’t been frozen to the spot in fear, she probably would have run off screaming.
The earth crunched under the bear’s massive steps. She could smell its hot breath from fifteen feet away and it was still moving closer.
Jo usually traveled the woods with a bear spray but she had nothing with her now. There was no tool that would get her out of this encounter. She knew all the best practices, don't make eye contact, don't yell, don't run, curl up on your side or lie flat on your belly… Jo sat frozen in her spot.
Her eyes moved from his massive paws and lifted up along the body of the hulking animal. The grizzly was getting closer.
Was he just curious about the human in his territory? This had to be a male bear based on size, and the most aggressive bears were usually females with babies to protect.
The animal made a sound that Jo fe
lt she understood. Without thinking about it, her eyes lifted.
The grizzly was looking at her with a strange expression, a curious gaze. It seemed possible that she read something else in that look. It felt like… sympathy. Jo looked straight into the animal’s eyes. The bear moved no farther and Jo felt a shuddering breath escape her.
It was probably only a few seconds that they stood like that, their eyes locked, but it felt like eternity.
Look away, look away, Jo kept telling herself, but try as she might she could not look away. She felt something passing between her and the grizzly and it was as if they were trapped in time and space together, just them.
Then, just as quickly as he’d come, the grizzly left. He thundered off into the forest and Jo watched the shaking trees quiver as the only sign of his retreat.
“I’m alive,” she breathed. She looked down at herself then over at the huge paw prints left in the mud, the only sign that she hadn’t dreamed the creature.
Jo opened her mouth and let out a shaky breath.
Chapter Two
Clayton Porter paced in his library. There was a fire in the grate and Clayton walked close to its light.
It was quickly growing dark outside and Clayton was still thinking about the girl. His first instinct had been to come home and forget about her, sit into one of his oversized brown leather chairs and get lost in Proust, but he'd been unsuccessful in his attempt.
His mind kept wandering back to her big blue eyes, the full curve of her face, the full curve of her body.
She looked like she'd been through something. She looked cold, scared, and she'd been crying. The longer he'd been home the more he'd been thinking that he'd done the wrong thing in leaving her there… but the longer he was home the less likely it would be to find her. That was an excuse, of course, he could find her if he wanted to, but he wasn't at all sure if he did want to.
“Are you ready for supper sir?” Lincoln said with the same placid look he always wore. Lincoln had been Clayton’s father’s man and Clayton had decided to keep him on in the twenty years since his father’s death.
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