Page 30 of Reluctantly His

I didn’t.

As the proper, obedient, cello-playing, goody-two-shoes daughter of a billionaire, I didn’t get invited for debauched nights out drinking.

It was fine. We all have a role to play in this world. That was mine.

Without saying a word to Reid, we headed toward the stage, both of us carrying our instruments, ready to play our hearts out.

I could feel his eyes on me as we walked down the hallway, his heated gaze boring into the back of my neck. I had to tighten my hands around the fingerboard of my cello to stop myself from reaching back and scratching where he was staring.

When we got onto the stage, despite the lights being pointed straight at us, blinding us to the audience itself, I knew precisely where Reid was.

I could feel him.

As we tuned our instruments, I also worked on tuning him out.

I needed to focus.

We weren’t the only quartet performing tonight.

We were actually one of the last. I could feel the audience was tired and starting to lose interest. I didn’t care.

By our second song, I was lost in the music, and I couldn’t feel anything but my bow and the gentle press of my cello between my thighs. When we got to our final song, I closed my eyes and let the music move me.

This piece was meant for the ballet.

It was to be played with a full orchestra with masterful dancers on the stage, commanding attention and conveying the emotion in the piece. We didn’t have that. The only thing we had to pull the emotion from the music was our string instruments, and it was all we needed.

As we got to the part that was supposed to be a duet with Ginnie and me, where the music was a softer, comforting embrace, speaking of love and of loss, it was just me. The others plucked their strings, giving me the tempo and the beat as they imitated other instruments in the orchestra, and I was centered.

The music flowed through me. I wasn’t looking at the score. I wasn’t paying attention to anything around me. I was only feeling what Prokofiev and even Shakespeare himself meant for us to feel during this scene.

Most people when they think of the pain and the anger of Romeo and Juliet, think of that final scene, the death of the lovers.

But the wars between the Montagues and the Capulets were real to me.

The clashing of two great families in a way that disregards the individuals of those families had always been a constant in my life.

Whether my family was warring with the Astrids, the DuBois family, or any other number of families at any given time period, I was never kept in the loop. But I was expected to know to whom we were and weren’t talking, regardless of how I felt about any of it.

All of that frustration, all of the sorrow, the pain, everything flowed through me into the music.

Finally exhausted and sweating from the bright lights above me, I let out a breath of satisfaction as my bow dropped to my side.

The audience erupted into applause.

I inhaled deeply as I let the blissful emptiness from expending such raw emotion through music flow over me. I had given my all to my music and to the audience, and they were giving back applause, praise, and even gratitude.

We took our bows and made a few comments about the charity we were supporting. Then we made our way off the stage.

A volunteer music intern took my cello and promised to put it in my dressing room, allowing me a few minutes to mingle.

The others were set to celebrate a job well done, but I made my excuses, not wanting to answer Ginnie’s burning questions about Reid, and made my way to the back hallway, my intent to sneak out the backstage door for a few cooling, night air breaths, as was my habit.

I made it maybe four steps before a hand wrapped around my upper arm and pulled me into a side green room lounge.

In that moment of post-concert euphoria, I had forgotten about Reid.

Big mistake.

---