Page 130 of Crescendo

“Not like that. Hannah wrote a song. I need her and Eliza to work with me and bring it to life for this score. Hannah’s going to get her foot in the door with rock like she wanted. If this score takes as well as I think it will, maybe it’ll even get Eliza played in places like the Royal Albert Hall.”

“You’re… contracting them? And you want me to be the one to talk to them about it?”

I laughed. “Neither of them would take it seriously if it were coming directly from me.”

“Well, all right, actually, yes, I can see that, but…”

“There’s something else,” I said, my heart beating faster, clutching the phone. “Ella. She won, right?”

He paused. “That still hasn’t been announced yet…”

“So that’s a yes and you’re not allowed to say. Ah, forget it. I already know she’s going to win, I heard the damn piece.”

“What are you even getting at right now? I never know what to think of it when you’re talking in riddles at three in the morning.”

I laughed, shaking my head. Ella told me we could be together once we were both great musicians, our music side by side. I’d taken it as a rejection, asmaybe one day when everything is different then we could try it then.

But that wasn’t Ella. Ella had always wanted me. Her heart had always been like that—big and beautiful and full of love. Even when it got her hurt and she was scared to love again, she stillloved.Loved music. And loved me.

It hadn’t been a rejection. It had been an offer. That song, too.I’m flying, Lydia. Come catch me and we can fly together.

“You offered for me to play with the string quartet,” I said.

“That is such a small performance. You’re not going to fly to London when you’re clearly wearing yourself down to the bone already just to play for thirty minutes and leave again.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. I want something grander.”

“Oh, we’re full of demands, then,” he said, laughter bubbling under his voice.

“Yes. You told me people will show up for me, right? I’ve got you wrapped around my finger, honestly. You’d let me lead the orchestra if I asked.”

He snorted. “Ah, probably. I hate when you get a big ego, because it’s alwaystrue.So, what do you want, then?”

I laughed. “To lead the orchestra.”

“Bloody hell. I should have figured you actually meant that.”

“I need to be on stage—to perform. To conduct.Thatwas why I went to Crescendo. Why I mentored, why I need to be a part of everyone’s performance, dammit. It’s not enough to make something. I need to be making it with everybody. Let me conduct for the orchestra. At least for the opening.”

He paused. “You mean, you’re looking to…”

“To conduct Ella’s piece.”

Chapter 28

Ella

Call me when you get this!

Because that wasn’t ominous or terrifying.

I clutched my phone tightly, telling the others to go ahead and I’d catch them up in a moment.

Dodge laughed. “Trying to avoid attention now isn’t going to stop us celebrating you this afternoon.”

Ordinarily, I’d respond, but Lydia had sent me the world’s most menacing message, at four in the morning her time—and she’d done it when just talking to her again was simultaneously a heartbreak and a lifeline.

I ducked out of the crowd and into one of the practice rooms, realising only as I hit dial which room I’d picked.Lydia. A stolen moment. This room.

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