by Cassia Leo
He looked down into his reflection in the glass coffee table. The man there held a guitar, and his long hair draped over the fretboard. He looked like he thought he was a rock star, but that was all far away. “Thanks.”
“That was absolutely beautiful.”
Alexandre glanced over at her, sure that she had finally recognized him. A lot of people didn’t recognize him just by looking at him.
But his voice, especially with the guitar, exactly as it was recorded, that was too much, and a lot of people would nail who he was.
Georgie’s open expression, though, honest and a little arrogant about her own music, hadn’t changed. She had changed her opinion of him but not her concept of him.
This was pretty damn cool. He could get honest feedback from a classical musician. “What about the music?”
“It was gorgeous. Completely different than what I expected. I heard a little Franck in there, which makes sense considering the religious symbolism in the lyrics. Are you Catholic?”
“Recovering,” he admitted.
“Me, too. The symbolism, though—”
“It still resonates.”
“Yeah.”
“And the lyrics?” he asked. With anyone else, that would have been fishing for compliments.
“Gorgeous. Heartfelt. A little clichéd in places.”
“You think so?” He frowned.
“You’re just throwing some of those words in there. In the second verse, you’re using the whole ‘ring’ thing at face value instead of contrasting it or using its opposite somewhere, so yeah. There are other things you could have done with it to unpack the metaphor.”
Alexandre frowned. Honesty kind of sucked.
He leaned his elbows on his guitar. “I suppose so.”
While he smiled at Georgie, he felt more solid, more real. He had heard from Flicka that Wulfram had found his wife by hiding their “dynastic problems,” as Flicka called them, and Rae had fallen in love with him, and then she had stayed with him anyway.
Alexandre didn’t want Georgie to fall in love with him. He wanted to discuss Wolfgang Rihm and Philip Glass and the New Simplicity movement, even that dilettante Rhys Chatham, and he disparately needed someone to discuss his own music with, a sounding board, a first listener, someone who knew what they were talking about, and he needed to know that she wouldn’t be influenced by that whole crazy world out there, that echo chamber that he had unwittingly constructed, even if honesty kind of sucked.
“Georgie,” Alexandre said. “There’s something else I’d like your opinion on.”
VIOLIN
Georgie
Georgie held onto the arm of the couch, trying not to fall off of it and beg him to fuck her again. Great music had that effect on her.
The late afternoon sunlight glinted on the blond ends of Alex’s long hair that swung over his guitar as he played, and the slanting beams highlighted the sharp lines of his cheekbones and square jaw.
He was singing another song, still in that breathy warm-up voice that sounded like he was whispering in Georgie’s ear. The deep throatiness sounded just like the timbre of his voice when he had been breathing on her shoulder, both when she was panicking at the piano bench and when they had been in bed.
Hearing that raspy, sexy sound, Georgie was really regretting not shagging Alex again, maybe right there on the couch or maybe dragging him to the bedroom just through the ivory and gold door.
His fingers fluttered on the strings of the guitar. His long, very strong, callused fingers bowed when he plucked the strings, and he didn’t just slap his hand over the frets to play chords. He tapped his fingers down the frets, playing each note like he was playing classical guitar, but his fingers on the fretboard weren’t bent quite right.
Georgie looked more closely, analyzing.
He had known all the parts of Ravel’s string quartet, like he had played one of those instruments: the violin, the viola, or the cello.
He leaned his head to the right, exposing a dull, red callus on the left side, underneath his jaw.
The way his hand had thrummed when he had played her body to a screaming crescendo became vibrantly clear.
She said, “You play the violin.”
Alex looked straight at her and scoffed, “I do not.”
“Then why are you holding your fingers on those strings like a violinist?”
“I didn’t take formal guitar lessons until I had been playing for a few years. I picked it up and taught myself.”
“Because you could already play a stringed instrument. Play your violin for me.”
“I don’t play the violin.”
Georgie looked slanted at him, wondering why he was arguing so hard. “You have a violin hickey.”
Alex’s left hand twitched, like he had started to raise it to the side of his neck to hide the pink callus under his jaw, and he knew that it should be on his left side.
“Do you have it with you?” she asked.
He glanced at his guitar case.
“Play it for me.”
Alex walked over to his oversized guitar case. Built into the back of the velvet was a small, hourglass-shaped compartment. He opened it and extracted a violin.
When he wedged it between his chin and shoulder, the sun reflected off the wood, glowing in the deep, old varnish.
Even though Georgie was a pianist, she had been in the presence of enough concert-quality instruments to recognize one.
Even the way he limbered up the bow was exquisite and spoke volumes about how long he had been playing, probably most of his life, probably hours every day. Maybe many hours.
“Alex,” she said, wanting to ask more.
His sharp glance silenced her.
Alex’s fingers attacked the strings, and he drew forth the striking lines from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, with such precision and clarity and perfect tone that Georgie thought she was going to need to change her panties, except for the haunted look in his eyes.
Beethoven’s Fifth
Performed by David Garrett
The music buffeted the room, the frantic lines swirling like angry spirits in the air. It sucked all the air out of Georgie’s lungs.
When he spun the last notes out of the violin and let the bow drop to his side, Georgie wiped her eyes and said, “My God, Alex. You can’t tell me that you’re not a professional musician.”
“I’m not a violinist,” he said.
“Yes, you are. You may not be paid to perform, but Holy Mary, Mother of God, Alex! That was incredible.”
He tucked the violin back in its hidden compartment. “I would prefer not to discuss it.”
Georgie smeared her eye make-up again, trying to clear her vision. “Then it was a gift, and thank you, because it was absolutely beautiful.”
“Maybe someday we can discuss it.”
“You’re fishing for my phone number again.”
“I have a better idea.” Alex held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
She dug the dead thing out of her purse and handed it to him, checking that her passport was still there as she did.
Alex turned it on and tapped the screen. “There. Now you have my number.” He handed the phone back to her. “Call me if you want to further discuss Wolfgang Rihm.”
His solemn expression touched her heart a little, but Georgiana Oelrichs was the one with the soft heart. Soft little hearts could be smashed.
The name he had tapped into her contact list was Alex G, which seemed so unassuming, and was just a few contacts above Flicka vH. “Okay,” she said.
Music filled their air, Metallica, if Georgie placed the heavy metal music right, but that was a long-shot. Georgie could differentiate different classical pianists by their phrasing better than she could tell modern musicians apart
Alex pinched his phone from his pants pocket and answered it, “Ouais? Merci.” He tapped it, hanging up. “Understandably, the wedding supper is cancelled, and your ride to the airport will be here in
ten minutes. They’ll collect your luggage from your room.”
“Where’s the car going to be?” Nerves shivered in Georgie’s chest.
“Out front.”
Georgie’s hands clenched into fists, and she took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves.
Alex inclined his head to the side, and the blond tips of his hair hung over his shoulder, strands of gold glistening on the dark blue fabric. “You don’t want to go out there again.”
“That guy might still be there.”
“You don’t think it was merely opportunistic, then?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Have you seen him before?”
“No.”
He frowned, confused. “I could walk you to the car.”
“Are Wulfram’s guys still here?”
“They would doubtlessly be around the car and will probably ride with you. Do you want to hear another option?”
“Sure!”
“I’ve occasionally had to sneak out of places. Most of these hotels can take you out the service entrance or have a private entrance in an underground garage. Quite honestly, knowing Wulfram’s obsession with security and mitigating risk, I’m surprised that he didn’t use it. I’ll suggest that to Wyss.”
“What else does Big Brother do?”
He shrugged and began to smile for the first time since she had accused him of having a violin. “He used to badger Flicka about security when she was a teenager, and we all called him an old fussbudget or Herr General due to his private paramilitary force. Yet, when something like this happens, and it appears that it has happened twice in two days—”
“Twice in two days? Somebody shot at Rae and Wulfram yesterday, too?”
Alex nodded. “—then we all remember why he is so careful, and some of us think seriously about beefing up our own security.”
“Why is he so careful?”
“Hang on.” Alex dialed his phone again. “Monsieur Wyss?” and continued in French for a few minutes. After he hung up, he said, “We’ll meet them at the service entrance in five minutes. In the meantime,” he glanced down at her black cocktail dress embellished with shining, tinkling silver chains, “let’s see if we can make you less recognizable.”
SNEAKING OUT
Georgie
Georgie tugged the waistband of Alex’s black sweat pants up and cinched the string more tightly. In the full-length mirror, she looked smaller, wearing his over-sized gym clothes rolled up at the ankles and wrists. His sweatshirt was so big that it looked square on her and the shoulder seams rode halfway down her arms.
Her casual clothes were at odds with the ornate gold frame around the mirror stuck on the wall. A regal mirror like that should only reflect ball gowns or white-tie tuxedos.
Alex frowned over her shoulder. “They’ve only seen you with your hair in a bun. Contrary to the usual protocol, you might want to brush out your hair.”
She started pulling hairpins from behind her head. “Do you have a comb or something?”
“Oddly for a man, yes. I have several.”
“That’s convenient.” She dropped the pins on the alabaster marble of his bathroom countertop while he hunted among the drawers. Her hair tumbled and uncoiled behind her back.
He dipped his hand in a drawer and picked out a hair brush. “I found it. I—” He glanced at her. “Wow.”
“What?” She shook her hair out, fluffing it at the roots to get rid of her hairache.
Alex was staring at her hair. “It’s really long.”
“I get it trimmed.”
He looked at her through the mirror, admiration shining in his eyes. “It’s almost to your waist, and it’s really healthy.”
“I’ll take that as a complement from someone who understands.”
He separated a section out and began brushing it, starting from the ends. Her hair curled in wide spirals from being so tightly wound for hours. “It’s so thick, and you don’t have a split end in here. Half those little bottles over there are still full.” He gestured to the corner of the counter, where a bunch of very high-end hair stuff was falling all over the place. “My stylist gave me a big bag of all that stuff and told me to use them, but I don’t know what to do with half of them.”
“I can do that myself.” Georgie made a feint at the hairbrush.
He dodged her grasping hand. “Let me.”
“You have a thing about long hair?” she teased.
His glance at her, making eye contact through the mirror, had decidedly more heat this time. He coiled her long hair around his fist. “I just wish I’d known how long it was, earlier.”
He let her hair fall and continued to brush it out.
Georgie felt the flush first as her cheeks heated, but when she looked back at herself in the mirror, her lips were fuller, and her pupils had dilated so much that there was almost no hazel-brown left in her irises.
Damn. They had only minutes until they had to be downstairs, and then she should never see him again.
Right?
Even if she kind of wanted to know what he might do with her hair locked around his hands?
Idle curiosity was no reason to deviate from her general guidelines that had kept her unattached and free to pursue her redemption.
Yet, as she watched him brush out her hair until it was shining and that look of intense interest that focused his dark eyes on each brush stroke, she remembered that she had his phone number in her phone.
She should delete that as soon as she was alone.
Georgie blurted, “Do you text?”
“Yes.” He smoothed the brush over her scalp and down her back.
“Okay.”
His eyes didn’t even flicker up to hers as he brushed her hair. “There. All done.”
He ran his hand down her hair like he was feeling silk.
“Okay. So we’re ready?” she asked.
“Almost.” Alex left the bathroom for a few seconds while Georgie stared in her own light brown eyes in the mirror and told herself to get a fucking grip.
He came back with two black baseball hats and mirrored sunglasses. He tossed one baseball cap on her head and handed her a pair of the glasses.
The silver-coated sunglasses were too wide for her face, blocking even some of her cheekbones with their rounded-triangle lenses.
She looked like a giant, black bug.
But not like Georgiana Oelrichs.
Alex coiled his hair up inside his hat and donned the sunglasses, which seemed incongruous with his dark blue business suit, but she wasn’t the expert at sneaking around.
He said, “Let’s go.”
Georgie grabbed her purse and followed him through the hallways, her feet quiet on the lush carpeting. Instead of taking the elevator, they walked down the stairway, and at the lobby floor, a concierge met them.
The liveried concierge bowed slightly at the waist. “Mr. Grimaldi, I’ll guide you the rest of the way.”
“Thank you,” Alex said.
The concierge slid his keycard into a different door than the one that led to the lobby, one behind where they stood, and the light on the card reader blinked green with a grinding pop from the door. He stood aside and opened his hand toward the door. “Monsieur?”
“Merci, Monsieur.”
Alex walked through, so Georgie followed. The baking-bread scent of croissants swarmed around them like a fog, so strong that Georgie almost stopped among the gleaming silver countertops and steel shelves to inhale as much as she could.
Good Lord. They were in the kitchens.
The concierge led the way through the white-uniformed chefs, and Georgie trotted to keep up with Alex’s long-legged stride.
Huge steel doors like bank vaults towered in the hallway to the back entrance, which must be the cold rooms and freezers. The concierge opened the last door and said, “Your car is waiting at the end of the loading dock.”
“Thank you.” Alex shook his hand.
Georgie glimpsed a
piece of lime green paper move from Alex’s hand to the concierge’s, whose even-toothed smile made him seem very pleased with five minutes worth of work.
“I’ll pay you back,” Georgie said as Alex settled his hand on her lower back and propelled her toward the waiting black car. The growl of the big engine echoed off the dead gray concrete in the parking garage.
At the end of the dock, Alex jumped the foot and a half down and turned to hold her hands as she jumped.
“That was seriously impressive,” Georgie said.
“I’ve had to sneak out of a few hotels in my time,” Alex smirked. In his silver lenses, she could see her own black-hatted, sunglass-shielded reflection.
“Disgruntled husbands?”
“If only it were so simple as one or two irate men.”
“More than two? Impressive.”
“You have no idea.”
The car idled beside them, belching alcohol-scented exhaust that irritated Georgie’s throat, but Alex wrapped one arm around her waist, dragged her to his body, and kissed her. Shock at his sudden move melted into desire, and she wanted to stay. His warm lips grabbed hers and parted, and Georgie opened her lips to him as he stroked his tongue over hers. She held him around his neck, smooth but for the few silky hairs that had fallen out of his baseball cap. His body under her hands, long and lean and muscled, felt perfect to her.
Alex backed off, still sucking at her lips, and spun her toward the car. The door was open and he bent with her, letting her begin to climb in.
“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.
“No. Wulfram’s plane is at Charles de Gaulle. My plane is at Orly.”
“I’ll pay you back,” she insisted. “It’s important to me. It really is.”
“Then you’ll have to call me to arrange that, won’t you?” Mischief snapped in his dark eyes as he began to close the car door, and she tucked her legs inside in a hurry.
He shut the car door and thumped on the roof, stepping back as the car pulled away. Georgie recognized the driver as one of the black-suited men who had surrounded them when Wulfram and Rae had crossed the sidewalk to the waiting SUVs before the gunshots rang out.
