“You don’t have to do this you know,” John said as they approached the symphony hall.
“Yes, I do.”
After spending a great deal of the past two weeks in John’s bed, Meg was a little sore, but otherwise she felt terrific. She’d been practicing again, playing just for the joy of it, trying to emulate John’s improvisation some of the time, but spending most of her playing hours on audition material. She’d finally heard back from the Nashville Symphony’s conductor, and she had an audition appointment. Now all she needed to do was impress him just enough and hope he didn’t recognize her.
Meg almost didn’t recognize herself these days. Mel and taken her to a hairdresser, who had cut and shaped her hair into a layered, breezy style. It was still long enough for her to pull it back into a pony tail—per John’s request—but it was shorter in front, and she couldn’t sit on it anymore, which made it a lot easier to take care of.
Having John in the shower with me to wash it helps, too, she thought, suppressing a grin.
They entered the Symphony Center through the offices as directed, and Meg was shown to an audition room, while John waited for her in the reception area. He gave her a quick kiss for luck as they parted, and she savored it, knowing he would be there for her when she came out again, no matter what happened in the audition.
Meg told herself to relax. This was not something she hadn’t done before, though it had been some time since her last actual audition. Still, she had performed for more exacting audiences in her time. Of course, only one man’s opinion would matter today.
And if he doesn’t like my playing, then I’ll learn to play fiddle, she told herself.
Twenty minutes later, she was warmed up and pacing the insulated practice room nervously, waiting for the maestro.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, when he finally appeared. “Miss Baker, is it?”
“Yes, Maestro Campagnone.”
He was tall and dark, as handsome an Italian male as any for whom she had played in Rome or Florence, or Vienna. Only a slightly raised eyebrow indicated that he was favorably impressed by her correct pronunciation of his name. His own speech had very little accent.
“I am afraid that I am a little pressed for time, today, but we do have need of a mid-season addition to our violins, so by all means, let me hear what you have for me.
“Thank you for your time, Maestro.”
Meg had spent years around men such as Maestro Antonio Campagnone, so she knew how to play the game. Without further delay, she began her prepared piece. She played Scheherazade, because it was more ensemble work than solo, but mostly because it was her piece. She put her heart and soul into the music, as though she were channeling Rimsky-Korsakov himself. She’d barely made it into the first solo, however, when she was interrupted.
“Enough! Enough!”
Meg broke off and stared at him, almost frightened by his fierce gaze.
“Is this some kind of joke? Some kind of lark you’re on?”
“I beg your pardon,” Meg said, falling back on the formal politeness that had been ingrained in her from a very early age.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize you? The great Mademoiselle Marguerite Fournier? The toast of Europe?”
Meg straightened her spine and took a deep breath. “I’m not that person anymore.”
“What?”
“My name is Meg Baker. I’ve recently moved to Nashville, and I need a job playing the violin. If I’m not good enough for your orchestra, then…”
“Stop!” he commanded, when she turned toward her violin case.
She did, but she returned his glare. “I was not trying to trick you, Maestro. I simply came to audition for you. I need a job.”
He snorted, but when he continued, it was in a thoughtful manner. “I get it now. ‘Fournier.’ That’s French for ‘baker,’ isn’t it?”
She sighed. “My former manager’s idea. My legal name really is Margaret Baker.”
He paused, rubbing his chin as he studied her closely. “I seem to remember reading an article about you recently, something about an anonymous buyer paying some ten million dollars for a Stradivarius violin at auction. It was reported that he intended to loan it for life to a certain violinist, so she could tour with it.”
Meg tucked her own well-loved violin under her arm and began to loosen the tension on her bow. “It was twelve-point-two million,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “So why aren’t your touring Europe with the Stradivarius?” he asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.
She looked at him directly, then, her gaze fierce. “Because Monsieur Anonymous also wanted me to perform privately for him in ways that had nothing to do with the violin.”
She felt herself relax in direct proportion to Campagnone’s outrage, which seemed to be genuine as he let loose with a string of curses. She gave him the benefit of the doubt—there was no way for him to know she not only spoke fluent Italian, she also recognized the slang he was using—she had picked it up from one of her classmates at Julliard.
“Your manager was going to allow this?” he finally asked sharply in English.
She sighed. “He actually insisted I do whatever was necessary to keep Monsieur Anonymous happy.”
Campagnone cursed once more, stood abruptly, turning his back on her and running his hands through his hair. He then became still for a long moment before turning back to her.
“Can you even play within an orchestra, Miss Baker?” he asked, and his tone had become polite, uncritical. “When was the last time you played any ensemble music?
“It has been awhile.” When he raised that eyebrow again, she relented. “The better part of ten years, at least.”
She was startled to see the corner of his mouth twitch, and she was almost positive there was a new twinkle in his eyes.
“And you’re now what? The ripe old age of twenty-five?”
She sighed. “Twenty-three.”
He really did smile then. “Okay. All right.” He shook his head but his chuckle gave her hope. “We’ll give you a try. I confess I’m rather desperate at the moment.”
“Why?” she asked, before she could stop herself.
“Our assistant concert master unexpectedly needed to go on maternity leave immediately. She’d been planning to wait until the end of our season—in June—but she’s been having some difficulties and her doctor has ordered bed rest for the duration.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, automatically.
“But not too sorry?” he asked, and that twinkle was back.
She smiled sheepishly. “No. I guess not. Though I do wish her well.”
He chuckled again and turned toward the door.
“I really have to go, now. See Miss Dennis on the way out, Miss Baker. She’ll have all the required paperwork for you. Oh, and your first rehearsal is at nine a.m. sharp tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
“I will be there.”
He turned at the door and looked back.
“By the way: we’ll be playing Scheherazade in April, so your timing is perfect.”
Meg managed to wait until the door was closed before she grinned and pumped a fist into the air in victory.
“Ho-ly cow.”
“What?” Meg looked up to see her new friend, Janice—a second violinist whose locker was right next to hers—staring toward the door, her mouth opened in shock.
“Who do they belong to?” Janice asked.
“Down, girl,” Patty said. Patty was a fifty-something flautist who considered herself a den mother of the younger set in the orchestra.
Meg followed Janice’s gaze and found herself grinning as John and Bart came in for the backstage meet-and-greet following the evening’s performance.
“That would be me,” she said, trying hard not to sound as though she were gloating.
“No way,” Janice said.
“Way,” Meg said, and there was laughter in her voice. “Excuse me, ladies.”
&nb
sp; She made her way through the crowded room to where the Saint men had stopped to talk with the pianist who had played the Mozart tonight. She was nearly upon them when John noticed her, and he grinned.
“Excuse me just a minute,” he said and broke away to come meet her. He wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet to swing her around before setting her back down and laying his lips on hers.
Somebody whistled, and Meg quickly stepped back, blushing furiously.
She heard laughter, but it was friendly. Meg didn’t know how much of her story Maestro Campagnone had told to whom, but the entire orchestra had quickly adopted her, with many of them openly helping her to fit in.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been lassoed by a cowboy, Baker,” George, the concert master, said in a teasing voice as he came up behind her.
“Actually, John is a fiddler.”
“Really? Where do you play?”
And they’re off, Meg thought with a laugh. She had found a good many of the violinists in the orchestra were big fans of the country fiddlers, and she had enjoyed sharing what she was learning from John with them.
“You were fine, tonight, darlin,’” Bart said, coming up to put his arm around her. “I’m real proud of you.”
“Thanks, Uncle Bart,” she said, enjoying her new status at home, as well. No one in the family had batted an eye when John had announced that Meg would be staying at his apartment, and Meg felt doubly safe having this big bear of a man—literally—downstairs. She knew it was only a matter of time before her father tracked her down, and she was infinitely blessed to have her new family about her.
“Where is everyone else?” she asked.
“Oh, they’re hangin’ around the lobby. We figured two of us would be plenty back here.
Meg laughed. You’d all have been welcome, but you’re probably right.”
“Do introduce us,” Patty said, coming up beside them. She was barely five-foot-two, and Bart towered over her.
Meg smiled warmly. “Patricia Coleman, Bart Saint. Uncle Bart, this is Patricia Coleman. You probably noticed her this evening on flute.”
“I did,” Bart said. “I enjoyed the concert very much.”
“I’m so glad. And I am so glad to finally meet Meg’s friends here in town. We’ve been blessed to have her step in for poor Sarah.”
“I’m blessed to have the opportunity,” Meg said.
She wasn’t certain of what else might have been said, but a rumbling disturbance from the stage door interrupted all conversation.
“You!” The enraged, familiar man was nearly apoplectic as he stormed back stage, flanked by two burly bodyguards.
He headed straight for her, and Meg knew she had never seen him this angry.
“How dare you!” he raged. “How dare you lower yourself to hide out among these…these plebeians?”
“Now wait just a flaming minute!” Maestro Campagnone appeared at her side almost instantly, and she felt as glad to have him there as she did John and Bart. “Who are you, and what is the meaning of this outrageous display!”
“I’m here to take back what’s mine,” her father said. “She’s under contract to tour this year starting the first of next month, and…”
“My last contract with you was fulfilled before the end of December!” Meg said. She stepped forward but kept her hand in Bart’s. “I told you then I wasn’t going to tour with the Strad, and I certainly have not changed my mind!”
“I’ve invested too much in you over the years, girl, and I’m not giving you any choice! The contracts are signed!”
“If they are, then it is your doing. I’ve not signed anything.”
“Actually, she has,” Campagnone said, putting a proprietary hand on her shoulder. “Miss Baker has signed a contract with this orchestra which obligates her to perform with us through the end of next season. So you see, she is no longer available for touring.”
Meg tried not to react in any way to Campagnone’s bold announcement. The contract she’d signed that first day had only been for the end of the current season—through this coming June.
“And I tell you I have the contracts!”
“If you signed them in my stead, then they are forged—and your responsibility. I am under no obligation to you.”
He straightened to his full considerable height in an attempt to intimidate her. “This is madness! You owe me everything! You are a soloist! A virtuosa! How can you possibly leave that life and lower yourself to…to this?”
“As far as I’m concerned, this symphony is a tremendous step up from where I was before!” Meg said.
“But…!”
“I don’t know of any other way to put this,” she said, fighting for calm, “but I am declaring my independence. I will not go back to New York at any time in the future, with or without you!”
“Seems pretty clear to me,” John said, stepping up to her side
“I don’t know just who you think you are,” her father began.
“I’m the one who’s protectin’ the lady, here, from your unwanted attention,” John said.
“John…” she whispered, suddenly afraid for him.
“That won’t be necessary,” Campagnone said.
His signal brought some uniformed guards forward to escort her father and his bodyguards from the premises.
“This isn’t over!” the older man shouted as he was being hauled out of the room.
“Yeah, it is,” John said.
The room was silent for a long beat, and Meg had to force herself to look at Campagnone.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“No,” he said sharply. “It is not for you to apologize.”
“Darn right,” John said, putting his arm around her shoulders.
“But you lied for me,” she said, wanting desperately for Campagnone to know how much she appreciated his support.
“I didn’t lie,” he said in mock horror. “I only…exaggerated a little bit.”
“By twelve months!” she said.
Campagnone only smiled and shook his head. “It is not the length of the contract I exaggerated. Rather the fact that you have not yet signed it for me.”
She looked at him in a mixture of shock and hope. “You want me to stay.” It wasn’t quite a question.
“Well, of course I do,” Campagnone said. “Do you really think I’d let you go after the way you have been performing? We are lucky to have you.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say.
Patty Coleman started clapping, and soon everyone joined in. Meg found herself blushing once more.
Laughing, Campagnone put his arm around her and murmured in her ear. “Just remember, mia bella ragazza: I still cannot pay you a quarter of what you were earning touring Europe.”
Reinicke (Bear Shifter Dating Agency Romance) (Bear Dating Agency Book 5) Page 47
