by Cassia Leo
Georgie started with what was on the top of her heart: “I am so sorry.”
Flicka whispered, “I was so worried. You just disappeared. I couldn’t find you.”
“My father, what he did, it was so awful, and I got you involved. I am so sorry.”
Flicka seemed to have not heard. “When I emailed, I got a bounce from the lawyers. I couldn’t find you. I wanted to help you.”
“I came home from Tanglewood, and when I woke up the next morning, there were lawyers downstairs demanding my passwords to everything, and they took my phone. My father and Benedict left with them. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t get word to anyone. Even at school, they restricted my access to everything. I couldn’t get an email out, and then after the settlement, I was too ashamed.”
“How did you get here?” Flicka asked.
“I’m in college. Rae Stone is my suitemate.”
“Do you know Wulfram?”
“I did, but I didn’t know he was related to you. I didn’t know his name.”
“However not?”
“It’s complicated. It’s a very complicated thing. I didn’t know he was your brother. I was hiding, so I never told him my old name. I’m Georgie Johnson now.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. I never told him about what happened.”
“Why not? He could have helped you.”
“Oh, Georgie. It was nothing. It was a pittance. I missed you. I wanted you back. Are you okay?”
The horror broke through Georgie’s carefully manicured mask, and she twined her arms around Flicka’s neck and sobbed. “I’m not. For two years, everyone at my high school hated me and knew where the tuition money had come from—and then I ran away. I ran away from everything. I’ll pay you back. I have a plan to pay everyone back within the next ten years.”
“I don’t care about the money, Georgiana. I care about you. I would have helped you, and I want you back in my life. Do you still play?”
She meant the piano. Georgie nodded. “Every day. It’s the only thing that keeps me going.”
“Play for me.”
“I don’t ever perform.”
“Please.”
“Other people here might know me, might come after me, and I have nothing. I’m saving up for law school so that I can work in corporate law and pay everyone back. I just lost my job, but I’ll do it, and I’ll do it in ten years. I swear that I will.”
“Georgiana, you don’t owe me anything, and I’ll tell anyone else who has wrong ideas to back off. I just want you back. Come sit with me. Talk to me. Give me your phone number and your social stuff, and don’t get lost again, not from me.”
“Flicka, they’ll know me.”
“I’ll introduce you by your new name. Johnson, right?”
Georgie nodded. “Someone will recognize me. You did.”
“We were like sisters. These are all people from school, not Tanglewood, not music. Only one guy is a musician at all. The rest are just,” she fluttered her long, slim hands, “normal. Come on. I’ve only just found you again. Sit with me.”
Maybe sitting with Flicka would keep Georgie away from Wulfram von Hannover. She didn’t think she could stand talking to him about everything just now. “Okay. I am sorry.”
“No more apologies,” Flicka said, her firm voice sounding more like an imperious princess every minute. “It’s the past, and today is a new day. I’ve found my best friend again, and I won’t lose you this time.”
Georgie cleaned up her mascara in the ladies’ room with Flicka hovering like she might bolt again, but she didn’t want to bolt. She wanted to crawl under Flicka’s arm and pretend that the last six years had never, ever happened.
She wandered by the table to talk to Rae and Lizzy for a second. She leaned with her fingers splayed on the tablecloth and couldn’t quite meet their curious eyes as she said, “Flicka is an old friend, so I’m just going to go sit with her for a minute and catch up.”
Under her hands, the white tablecloth blurred, and she sucked in a deep breath to keep from tearing up again.
“Okay,” Rae said and handed her purse to her from the back of her chair. “Wave us over if you need us, okay?”
“You bet.” Georgie turned toward Flicka and her entourage. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Georgie walked over to the table near the windows. Flicka patted a chair beside herself. Georgie glanced around the table but didn’t recognize anyone else, thank the stars.
She sat down at her table, blinking in the noontime Parisian sunlight that streamed through the windows, and Flicka started making introductions.
With her own as well as others’, Flicka had always been casual about titles, and she introduced Georgie to “my very new husband, Pierre Grimaldi,” and the heir apparent to the sovereign throne of Monaco rose from his chair to shake Georgie’s hand, smiling sedately, and while he didn’t leer at all, there was a sparkle in his dark eyes that Georgie didn’t like.
Around the table, Flicka introduced the ladies first.
Victoria Adelaide’s firm handshake, grim smile, and rigid posture suggested the military or a very thick stick up her butt. Georgie smiled back as warmly as she could.
Alexia giggled, and her hand flopped in Georgie’s handshake. Four empty champagne flutes already crowded around Alexia’s plate. “So nice to meet you,” Alexia said. “So nice.”
“And so nice to meet you,” Georgie said, not with sarcasm but amusement. As she swiveled to shake hands, the silvery chains dangling down her back tickled her skin.
The men lifted from their chairs while they shook Georgie’s hand. All of them had good skin, sharp cheekbones and jawlines, and white teeth. Flicka ran with the beautiful royals.
Flicka finally introduced the man seated beside Georgie, “Alexandre de Valentinois, who goes by Alex because he’s too cool for school, may I present Georgiana Johnson, my dearest friend.”
Georgie’s face warmed at that because she didn’t deserve it.
Alexandre de Valentinois didn’t rise from his seat to shake like the other guys but just stuck out his hand with a weary smile. His light oak-colored hair swished past his shoulders and was bleached bright blond at the ends, as if he actually had some style in this very conservative crowd. He wore a dark blue business suit with a peach tie, knotted tightly, and even under the layers of cloth, his body looked lean, like he was a runner or a swimmer. With his pale golden skin, like he could tan if he wanted to but never saw the sun, and that long hair that faded to blond at the ends, plus his large, dark eyes, the effect was slightly vampiric.
His eyes weren’t big and round, though. They were long, and tilted, and thickly lashed, more exotic than classic.
In another second, she got it. He looked a little sleepy, like he was just about to rouse himself from your bed after a long, rough night.
Alex leaned his head to the side, long hair swaying, and said, “Nice to meet you.”
Flicka told him, “Georgiana is a musician, too. We were at Tanglewood together for piano. Her Chopin is incredible.”
Interest flickered in Alex’s deep brown eyes, and he leaned toward Georgie a bit. “That’s high praise, coming from Flicka.” A posh British accent tinted his voice, which was deep and quite hoarse, like he had been sick recently.
“She hasn’t heard me play for a long time,” Georgie said. “I’m not sure my current skills are equivalent to my previous reputation.”
Wow, her own upper-crust vocabulary roared back as if Flicka were contagious.
Flicka said over Georgie’s head, “If she hasn’t lost ground, then she’s still better than I am now.”
Georgie said, “Now, that’s just patently false. You were better than I was at Tanglewood.”
“I have a certain sensibility for modern, atonal music, but you could always play Chopin better than I could, a lot better,” Flicka said. “And you’re right that I haven’t heard you in ages. That’s why you’ve promised to play something here.”
>
“I did no such thing,” Georgie protested.
“Oh, come now, Georgiana. You owe me.” Flicka’s green eyes snapped with merriment.
“I never perform,” Georgie said. She clenched her hands into fists under the tablecloth.
Flicka dismissed this with a wave. “Alex, teach her something of yours. You can sing.”
A crease drew itself between his eyebrows. “You promised that you wouldn’t impose.”
“Pierre promised. My wedding was yesterday. This is my brother’s wedding, and he will listen to those stodgy old violins all day if we let him.” Her dismissive hand flick encompassed all four tuxedoed musicians in the corner.
Alex glanced over at the string quartet sawing away on their instruments. “The flat D-string on the second violin is distressing.”
Georgie took another look at Alex. She hadn’t been able to nail down whether the mistuned string was on the viola or the second violin. “It’s the D-string?”
Alex raised one dark eyebrow. “They’re playing Ravel’s String Quartet in F major. The second violin’s part is playing flat, and they are the notes played on the D-string.”
“Okay, then.” A waiter set a flute of champagne in front of Georgie, and she picked it up.
He smiled at her, his dark eyes warming. “You could tell something was amiss.”
She nodded and sipped the champagne. “I don’t play a stringed instrument, so I don’t know the parts.”
Alex leaned in, his long, dark eyes searching hers for a moment. “All right.”
“All right, what?” Georgie asked, confused.
He turned his head, but his eyes never left hers. “Flicka, you’ll arrange this impromptu performance?”
Flicka stood and smoothed down her pale blue silk dress that skimmed her slim body. “I would like nothing better.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Georgie said, even though she didn’t want to look away from Alex’s dark eyes. “I don’t want to make a spectacle of myself.”
Alex reached over and took her hand. He was still staring at her like he was fascinated, like he didn’t want to look away. His sharp gaze didn’t so much resemble a snake mesmerizing prey as an artist evaluating a brilliant sunset. “I’ll help you. If Flicka says you’re good, then you must be quite interesting.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Georgie didn’t move her hand out of his warm palm. The deep calluses on his fingertips spoke of thousands of hours of practice.
He stood, tugging her to her feet by her fingertips and his gaze in her eyes. “I’ll get you through this. Flicka, we’ll do one song. Give us an hour to prepare.”
Georgie couldn’t believe that her feet followed Alex as he led her out of the reception, but she owed Flicka anything that she wanted, and the piano called her.
A HATEFUL EYE
Alexandre de Valentinois
Alexandre knew that he absolutely should not sing, no matter what Flicka demanded. He raised his hand to dissuade her, but Flicka was already turning back to her husband Pierre, the Rat Bastard, with a mischievous glint in her bright green eyes.
Their friends at the wedding surrounded them. If he made a scene, they would think he was being churlish.
His raw throat felt shredded every time he swallowed, even though he had barely said a word the night before at Flicka’s wedding and reception. His date, the Czech model Zuzana, had prattled all night about the fashions that some people dared to wear in public. When she began to trash Flicka’s Elie Saab Couture reception dress, Alexandre had insisted, quietly, that she desist because his new cousin and old school friend was not maudlin and middle-brow.
All night, Zuzana reveled in her disdain for everything.
He would have a word with his people later. They had arranged the date with the hot, new Czech model at the last minute when he had told them that he would be in Europe, after her people had pestered his people for months to arrange an introduction. She had been ecstatic at the prospect of going to the royal wedding, or so he had been told. Once there, her harsh opinions of everything tested Alexandre’s reserve.
Plus, when they had danced, her skeletal form in his arms had repulsed him. The photographers exclaimed over her slanted, teal eyes, but the rest of the package left much to be desired.
And she ate nothing but vodka.
By the end of the evening, Alexandre had absolutely no desire to fuck her, worried that he would break her bony body and nauseated that she might further turn that hateful eye on his friends and loved ones, so he played the French nobleman and kissed Zuzana’s knuckles as he dropped her off at her hotel and instructed his driver to step on it before she turned into a giant, gaunt bat.
Now, in the presence of this lithe young woman, Georgiana, the one who had heard that mistuned string in the Ravel quartet that had ricocheted through the room like a scarlet lightning bolt appearing in the bright yellow sunshine and had Flicka’s admiration for her Chopin, his body was reminding him that he hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, a very long time. Months.
He counted up the months to an alarming number.
Inwardly, he frowned. His ancestors would have been appalled that he hadn’t tupped a serving wench in the interim, but his whole being had vibrated with stress the last few years, and his schedule left no time for carousing or a decent night’s sleep or a meal not eaten from a foam container in the back of a car or off a room service cart in the dark before dawn.
Georgiana had a—what was that called?—a sweetheart bow for a mouth, with her full, soft, baby lips that looked almost like a heart, and her light brown eyes were wide and round. Her skin looked soft, like he could wrap his hands around her and not cut himself, an important trait he hadn’t thought to list before last night. He leaned toward her, drawn. The air around her was scented with white flowers and cake, and the creamy notes sounded in his mind like a cello.
Right now, the most luxurious thing he could think of, after dining at Wulfram’s reception, was to polish off a bottle of champagne with this woman and talk about music, deep music, real music.
Georgiana turned her large, hazel eyes up to him, and great God above, she smiled.
Maybe he could sing just one song, just to get her alone to talk about music for a few hours.
IN THE STYLE OF RACHMANINOFF
Georgie
Georgie and Alex trotted past the jubilation of yellow and green flowers spraying from vases in the hotel lobby. Sunshine glared through the glass doors, and the people walking by on the sidewalk outside were just dark silhouettes. The desk clerk directed them to a piano tucked away in a corner behind a wall of potted trees and overstuffed flower vases. Georgie sat on the padded piano bench and stretched her hands, pulling her fingers back and out, but she didn’t touch the keys.
When she looked up, Alex was leaning on his elbows on the piano, his long, strong hands folded in front of him, watching her.
Georgie swallowed hard. “I don’t know why I even came down here. I can’t do this.”
“Can’t play the piano?” he asked. The confusion in his dark eyes was so palpable that she could almost see him calculating how on Earth Flicka could have been so mistaken.
“Oh, God, no. I love the piano. The Steinway in there looks like an impressive instrument. I just can’t perform.”
“Why not?” he asked.
Ye gods, what a loaded question. “I just haven’t for so long. I just can’t.”
“You don’t perform at all?”
“Not since Tanglewood. Flicka watched the last time I played in public.”
“My God.” His horrified eyes watched her. “You can’t stand in front of a crowd? You don’t need it?”
All those people looking at her, judging her, their eyes measuring every hesitation and snickering at every missed note until she stuttered to a panic-frozen stop. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Is it that you can’t perform in front of a large crowd? Or is there a limit as to ho
w many people?”
Even just him standing there was too much. “I was always nervous about performing. At Tanglewood, Flicka would talk me into going out on the stage, but I’ve never liked it. When I stopped taking formal lessons, it got worse. A lot worse. I don’t play for anybody.”
Like she went to the music department at four in the morning to practice so the whole, enormous building would be empty and there would be walls and dead space and more walls between herself and any listening ears.
Alex said, so quietly, “Play something for me.”
Her hands stretched over the keys, and she tried to push them down to play even a major chord, but as soon as a key neared the break point, just when the hammer inside the piano was poised to strike the string, something in her mind shouted Don’t! and she couldn’t press it.
Alex asked gently, “Does Flicka know you’re worse?”
“I don’t see how she would. We’ve been out of touch for a few years.”
“But she knows that you’ve got—” he paused, obviously considering whether to say the terrible words, “a problem with this.”
“She must have forgotten about it,” rather than that Flicka had decided to punish Georgie in a spectacularly cruel way.
Maybe Georgie deserved to try to face her fears, melt into an incoherent puddle on the floor, and have everyone from her childhood and current best friends laugh at her failure.
It would serve her right.
But she would never be able to walk as far as the piano in front of all those people, so Flicka couldn’t have her poetic justice.
“Anyway,” she said, “I can’t do it.”
“I can help you,” Alex said.
“And how could you do that? Hypnotize me? Doesn’t work. Psychoanalysis? There’s nothing there.”
“Of course not, but I don’t want you to play for them.” He leaned across the piano again, and his hair slid from behind his shoulder and hung, reflected in the black gloss of the piano’s lacquer. “I want you to play for me.”
