The Crescendo (The Musical Interlude) (6 page)

Damn
, she’s strong. I drop the guy, watching him tumble to the floor, his wiry frame thudding against the tile like a sack of potatoes. I can taste the rage in my mouth, or maybe frustration’s running the show inside me right now. Either way, I close my eyes and ground my temper, still huffing even when Mother manages to take my hand and pull me toward the exit. Hagar storms into the restaurant next, his big shoulders tense and on guard as he takes in the look on Mother’s face, my swollen knuckles, and the scene unfolding behind us. We’ve also managed to capture the attention of several patrons sitting inside the main area as the sound of cameras on cell phones snap all around us. From the murderous expression on Hagar’s face, something tells me that the reporter guy should be glad I was the one who put him in his place and not the man who has protected Mother since the day she agreed to marry Sergeyovich Dostovsky.

We slip out of the restaurant and ease into Hagar’s car, the rain drenching us before we have the chance to get inside.

“Why didn’t you tell me Father was in the country?” I ask. She keeps quiet, her head propped on her hand as she stares out the window. “Mother…”

Snapping her head toward me, her gray eyes filled with pain, she says, “What difference would it have made if I had said anything? You and Erin are already unfocused enough as it is. Burdening you with this news was unnecessary. Besides, no one has been able to confirm his whereabouts.”

“But he called you, yes?” When she nods once and lowers her eyes, I scoff and run a hand through my hair. Every cell in my body has gone on alert.

Her face hardens and she sets her jaw in a firm line, things she does when she’s about to alter the truth. “He has business in Milan. I haven’t seen him, though.”

Shaking my head, I turn away and lose my thoughts inside the sight of rain pummeling down around us. Venice doesn’t mess around with half stepping on anything. When it’s gorgeous, the city will steal your breath away with its watery canals and gothic structures bathed in sunlight. When the elements arrive on the scene, however, then you would be better situated in whatever safe place you’ve found because the rain comes heavy and the snow falls quickly, piling up on the city in a matter of minutes at times—just another couple of indicators of the way my life deals the blows it has delivered to my face these days… fast, tough and hard.

Erin

I now have a new occupation, gopher girl. Katerina has specifically requested that I go to the airport to pick up our new road manager, who’ll be accompanying us on the remainder of the tour here in Venice. A man who has so far been like a ghost working in the background, setting up dates for Alek and me in venues that initially turned us down. Apparently, Alek and I need a babysitter now since we keep making spectacles of ourselves each time we go out in public.

Last night
, after Alek came home from his meeting with Katerina, he barely said a word. Instead, he pulled me into his arms and held on to me all night. Something has happened between them, another argument I’m sure, but this time it was something serious.

I refocus on my task and turn my attention back to the Vaporetto sailing toward the mainland of Veneto.

Now, in any given normal city—such as one that’s not floating on top a two-thousand-year-old forest—this might seem doable. Being that this trip makes my third time in Venice, I have to depend on the water taxi drivers and gondoliers to help me successfully get to the airport and back again. This means dealing with unfamiliar streets, making a way across the Grand Canal and finding the right water taxi to navigate the small canal running alongside the entrance to the Boccasini.

Honestly, I don’t mind. The challenge gives me time to think about Alek and me
as well as the way he stumbled through singing that awful version of Billie Jean a few nights ago. Oh, my God, I get tickled each time I think about how uncomfortable he looked as he strummed on Nikolai’s guitar, his dark hair disheveled from the lack of sleep and his face desperate, reminding me of the way he looked during that time when we broke up; the five days that gave Billie Jean—no wait, her name was Gina—time to make her move on my man. Grr! The thought still boils me a little, but I have come to accept that I was the one who sent Alek away. So why the hell can’t I let this go?

I can’t help
wondering how everything goes from paradise to fucked up in zero to no seconds. But then, that’s the way my life has always tended to gravitate in the past, so I shouldn’t be so surprised.

My taxi pulls into the parking lot
, and right away I get ticked at the security personnel who tells us to move our vehicle, meaning I’ll have to walk through an unfamiliar airport. Apparently, they’re on high terror alert notice today.

Cursing under my breath, I obey the guard, getting angry with Katerina for hanging up before telling me what the man looks like. My mind’s swimming with images of this new guy, Mitchell
Swansea. What kind of name is that, anyway? I’m pretty sure he’s going to turn out to be either a male glamazon—the kind of guy who puts more emphasis on his clothing than his job performance—or a sleeze—the kind of guy who will try to hit on me in some minor way and wind up in a ditch once Alek’s done beating the crap out of him. That’s just what I need right now on top of everything else going on in my life.

I walk for what feels like a mile before I reach the main lobby of the terminal for the airline Mitchell’s using. I hope Katerina knew what she was talking about when she said the guy would know me. I’m starving, my two inch heels are not made for walking, so I think my feet are about to burst through my shoes
. Plus, I’m annoyed because I could wind up standing in an airport for hours while hoping some strange man recognizes my face. Yeah, hello, I’m not quite that famous yet.

I approach the bag check girl at the customer service desk set up and ask if Mitchell Swansea’s plane has arrived yet. After getting put through twenty questions about my identity, showing my I.D. badge to about ten different airport personnel
as they questioned why I need to know another passenger’s itinerary, I finally get somewhere. The customer service girl points at a limo pulling up to the curb just outside the door. “He already has a car?” I ask the girl.

“Si, Signorina.”

“How lovely for no one to tell me. Thanks for the help,” I say and start walking toward my new boss’s vehicle, stopping just inside the doors leading outside.
Great. I’m probably picking up the most conceited, arrogant ass ever.
Why else would he choose to arrive this way? I slam through the glass doors, plastering a smile on my face as I get closer to the car.

At once, my heart speeds up, my breathing increasing. What the freak? A panic attack? Only my body would do this to me right now. I reach into my bag and remove my pump, turning around so our new boss doesn’t see me inhaling the medicine. Swansea will probably quit before he even gets started after seeing me standing here this way. I hold a hand up to my chest and try to keep my balance on the skyscraper high Manolo Blahniks Selene
has let me use. The car door opens as I step down and shield my eyes from the sun’s rays that are blinding me on top of everything else going on at this moment.

Quick note to self: remind Katerina to send Hagar to pick up any future tour managers. Damn the sun’s brightness is vicious right now, and for some reason, I hear Alek’s voice inside my head.
“I don’t know what happened, Erin. Forgive me for being a heartbroken asshole. I’m not perfect. I’m new to this relationship thing.”
I think the panic attack has brought out the voice of my fiancé at this awkward moment. He has hounded me about carrying my medicine ever since the day he first met me at Black Butterfly, the time when I suffered an attack so strong I couldn’t even find the strength to reach my pump. If it weren’t for Alek coming to my rescue, I’m sure my bosses would’ve found me passed out on the floor.

That thought just spins me around to our disagreement.
He didn’t even give us a week before he returned to his lifestyle. What a way to sustain an engagement as we both fall under the danger of insecurity paired with infidelity—the two words that divorce court lawyers live to hear from their new clients.

Focus, Erin. Remember what you believe in, who you believe in
, and things will work out. I turn around and plaster a smile across my face again as I look at the open door to see a foot decked out in a super expensive shoe step down on the pavement. Signor Swansea has finally decided to get out of the car. I was beginning to wonder if he’d fallen asleep in there or something. A head of wavy brown hair emerges first, a second shoe next, and then the rest of him steps out of the car and I almost faint.

The road manager, the guy we’ve all been led to believe is named Mitchell Swansea, is actually Sam Tomkins, the boy who broke my heart when I was sixteen.

I’m speechless and my mouth’s hanging open as I stare at the man who was part one of the reason I swore off love six years ago—the day he broke my heart when he chose to move back to London with his mom. Gone is the shaggy bangs and wiry body of a young boy hidden by huge black tee shirts and ripped jeans. Instead, a man, who stands around six-feet-tall and weighs a perfect 170lbs of pure muscular perfection—which is visible even while hidden underneath a tailored gray suit and tapered pants with a dusky blue shirt that highlights his green eyes—and wavy brown hair, waits with his dimpled smile directed straight at me.

“Hello, Erin Angelo,” he says in that British accent that used to do things to me I didn’t understand at the time.

“Sam?” I whisper because shock has knocked me stupid. He bounds toward me and pulls me into his arms, embracing me, and for a moment I’m ripped back in time, my mind transported to the day in high school when he first told me he loved me—the same night we gave our virginity up to each other. Life has done that thing it loves to do to me; it has thrown one of those curve balls at me except this one makes a softball look harmless.

“You’re—you’re Mitchell Swansea?” I ask, unsure whether I should curse, smile or kick something.

“In a few circles, yes.” He gives me a dimpled grin, the same one that used to light me up inside. “I take it Signora Dostovsky didn’t tell you about me.”
Of course she didn’t.

And to think, I’d just begun thinking Katerina had made a turn for the better, especially after
she’d confessed so many intimate details of her life to me a few months ago. We’d even gone out on a few dinner dates together since that bonding moment we had shared in the hospital, that time seven months ago when both of us had thought we were going to lose Alek.

“How did this happen?” I ask as the driver moves over to Sam’s side and asks for permission to pack his oversized handbags into the trunk. Sam nods his approval just before he turns his green-eyed gaze back to me.

“I thought you might be delighted to see me. It has been a long time.”

“Exactly,” I confirm, feeling the urge to set the boundaries here before we go any further with this conversation. “A lot has changed.” We lock gazes; and even though the unspoken words drift between us, I know Sam understands what I’m saying.

I now belong to someone else.

Erin

“I do believe I’m famished. Long flights tend to affect me this way. I could probably eat a whole bloody cow. Will you join me for lunch?” Sam asks as we head into the Boccasini’s lobby.
Oh, shit.
If Alek would’ve overheard his proposition, then he’d probably have turned Hell inside out with the fire that would’ve been coming from his body.

“Sam… I—”

“Nothing more. Nothing less. Someone has to bring me up to par on current events. Katerina seems to think you’re the girl to do just that.”

“Of course she does,” I say sarcastically, shaking my head while making a mental note to confront Alek’s mom the next time I see her.

No wonder she’s been avoiding me. The infamous Mitchell Swansea, one of the most sought after rock band slash symphony brand builders in the business just happens to be the boy I gave up my virginity to six years ago. Out of all the positions and companies he could’ve chosen to work for or represent, he’s picked the one I belong to. This is no coincidence; this is the work of a conniving mother who obviously still hasn’t learned her lesson about interfering in the lives of her children.

We retrieve the key to his room, ride the elevator to the second floor and then prepare to
part ways.

“Sam… I mean, Mitch. Hell, I don’t even know what to call you.”

“Sam will do, I should think. After all, that is who I am to you.” He stares at me, his gaze piercing mine. It’s as if he is trying to pull my deepest secrets out while he stirs up the beginning of a whirlwind of things inside my already mucked up head.

I stare back at him, taking note of the way his features have changed; not because I’m intrigued or interested in him that way. No, it’s more like I find it hard to believe he’s standing here with me as though it were just yesterday when he was holding my hand at Jada’s funeral, which was just two days before he willingly chose to move back to London. Part of me wants to pinch the crap out of him just to make sure he’s real.

“All right. Lunch. No more. But it’ll have to wait until tomorrow,” I state. The smile I get could light up the whole city, I think. “I’m sure tons of people are waiting to see the great Mitch Swansea.”

“Actually, I do have a rather burdensome itinerary planned for the evening.” He’s staring at me as he finishes his sentence.

I cross my arms and shuffle on my feet. “What?”

“Nothing. You’re still quite stunning, Erin Angelo.”

“Right. So, I look forward to our lunch tomorrow. And that’s only because you need to explain your plans for Diabolique,” I say, putting things into perspective.

His smile falters a bit. “You mean, I need to explain my intentions toward you and your boyfriend, right?”

“Still blunt and straight to the jugular, I see. Yeah, that’s a good place to start. With you explaining your plans for me and my
fiancé
,” I correct.

“Fair enough,” he replies, slipping his key into the coded lock and opening his door. “I’ll see you then.”

“Sure.” I turn around and head back downstairs to my room with my thoughts racing and my stomach twisting.

There’s no way he couldn’t have known whose career he was going to be managing when he accepted this job. Sam’s motives bother me almost as much as Katerina’s. At least with Alek’s mom, I understand her motivations; but I can’t shake the feeling that Sam showing up on my doorstep after almost a decade since we last saw each other means something more than developing the reputation of a new repertory company.

♡♥♡♥♡♥

Later that night, Alek returns to the room and practically drags himself into the shower. Between grueling rehearsals, performances, interviews and
dealing with whatever secret thing has him so on edge, I no longer worry about losing the man I love to someone else. Instead, my anxiety comes from a fear of losing him to the darkness hovering over us—the same way his family has lost Nikolai.

We’ve been living together long enough for me to know when something’s weighing on his mind. I keep telling myself I can be patient as the weeks continue to add up, moving closer to the busiest season of all the performance houses. The time when the demand on our lives will multiply, and then we really won’t have any time for each other, let alone to plan a wedding. Losing his best friend’s support affects Alek more than he realizes. I can’t lose him to the shadows silently inching into our lives, and I’m definitely not going to rub dirt in his wounds by blabbing about the true identity of our new booking agent right now.

“I think someone needs to relax,” I tell him as he walks out of the bathroom, a black towel wrapped around his waist and his dark hair deliciously rumpled on top.
Holy moly, he’s hot.
Beads of water slide down his bronze colored skin, making the vivid colors of the red Phoenix tattooed on his right arm stand out as though the bird might truly rise from the flames surrounding its body. I once again cannot believe how freaking lucky I am to be able to call this man my own.

“Over here, now,” I order, pointing to the area of the floor in front of me. “Masseuse Angelo has entered the building.”

At once, he focuses his attention on my body, taking in my appearance from head to toe, narrowing his eyes as his gaze rakes over me, eye-fucking me inch by inch. Yes, it’s hard to describe the way it tears through my soul when he looks on me with such need, such raw passion. He is a man who not only wears his heart on his sleeve, but all over his body, in each cell, and inside every breath he takes for me. It’s during these darkest moments of his that I get a hint of the other thing that lives inside him—the man I watched beat someone to a pulp six months ago.

Over the years, Katerina has done all she can to mold the best part of her son, nurturing him and doing things to build on his musical talent rather than bolster the prowess of the killer inside him the way he has told me his father wanted to do.

I’m wearing a skimpy, hot pink negligee designed by Versace, a huge step up from my days of Aeropostale and Victoria’s Secret sleeping tees. Alek loves to see me dressed in vivid hues, especially hot pink, because the color highlights my dark features and skin, turning me into a sexy siren without being too much the way red sometimes is. I don’t mind at all because this shade of pink was also Jada’s favorite color. Wearing it makes me think of my sister and how far I’ve come from my days of obsessing over the Gothic.

Alek’s gaze darkens; he’s completely tuned
into me right now as he stalks toward me. He still doesn’t say anything, though. He’s a silent lion. This silence kills me inside, making me feel powerless.

“Talk to me, baby,” I whisper, massaging his well-toned shoulders, the result of all the working out he has been doing lately, yet another hint that there’s more going on with him than he’s telling me. “Don’t shut me out.”

“
Ya vas liubliu
, Erin Angelo,” he whispers furiously, pulling my body up against his abs, inhaling my scent as he dips his head and rests his face in the crook of my neck. His breaths are both tickling and turning me on at the same time.
I love you, Erin Angelo,
he has said in Russian, and I can’t help believing there’s some significance in his decision to profess his love to me in his native tongue for the first time since we’ve been together. “You are mine. Now. Forever. Always. I love you more than life. More than any amount of fame or money. More than myself.” He lifts his head and stares deeply into my eyes, his gorgeously dark irises racked with worry and pain and so many things I can sense inside me because our hearts beat as one. “Don’t you understand? I love you too fucking much.”

“Not half as much as I love you. Alek, you’re scaring me. What’s going on? Please tell me.” He needs to hear more from me. I can tell by the way he’s staring at me, as though he doesn’t believe I’m for real. Or maybe he’s trying to decide if I’ll blow
away in the Venetian wind as he maintains the grip he has on my body, so that if he does fly away, then he’ll be sure to take me along with him. “You’ll never be like your father. Or even your mother. I won’t let you turn into somebody like that.” He’s still holding on to me while, in the background, a symphonic version of a song called “Let Me Sign” by Rob Pattinson plays; a seductive enhancement as though it was created to go along with the swish of the Grand Canal. It captures the essence of Venice inside a melody of lush string arrangements, the lull of the waves, the scent of Alek’s freshly washed skin and the sound of my heart thudding inside my chest each time I sense him slipping away from me.

He tilts his head to the side, frowning the slightest bit. His gaze seductively rakes over my face as though memorizing each one of my features. “My love could very well be an obsession now,” he says, lowering his face and skimming his lips over mine, the tingling sensation causing a throb between my legs.

“The great Aleksandr Dostovsky is whipped, you mean to say,” I tease, pulling a tiny smile from this intense version of my fiancé standing here, devouring me with his eyes.

“Perhaps.” He leans back and gives me a gorgeous smile.

“A confession then.”

“Oh, yes. I confess to wanting every part of you, including owning that gorgeous mind,” he
says passionately as he starts moving our bodies to the music. “I confess to wanting to devour that luscious body, to craving you every… waking… moment. You have bewitched me, woman.”

Oh, God, he’s killing me right now.
I’m speechless. What can I say to rival a confession like that?

Suddenly a serious look crosses over his face, stealing his gorgeous smile. “Did I ever tell you how I conquered my fear of heights?” I shake my head.

Inhaling deeply, he releases his grip on my body and eases away from me. Right away, coldness surrounds me where the heat of his body no longer protects mine. He kind of walks in a daze toward the door that leads out to our private balcony, easing the glass doors open, walking out to the edge and propping his arms on the rails as he stares out into space. I follow him, feeling worried he’ll catch the death of cold since he has just emerged from the shower and is still wearing only a towel; but as I approach him, the air doesn’t feel half as chilly as I thought it would. It’s quite warm; or maybe it’s simply the way Alek makes me feel.

“There’s a hill in Russia that’s as tall as a mountain. Each year, my father used to train military personnel. That was before he created his own cartel, of course. ‘Fear of heights is the weakest characteristic of any man,’ he said to me in his harsh voice. I was ten-years-old.

“To motivate me into gliding off the plateau we were standing on, he held my little dog, Ravi, over the ledge, threatening to drop him if I didn’t walk out on it and at least attempt to try and use the air glider attached to my shoulders. My chest hurt so badly, but Ravi was completely helpless, whimpering. I couldn’t let him die that way. Fuck. I can still see him, my little puppy. Can still feel the agony of my fears and his combined.

“‘You will do this. No son of mine will only be known for his abilities to master the profession of a girl.’ He was talking about the way Mother had always encouraged me to focus on music instead of allowing me to train in the art of stealth as Sergey wanted. It was either I jump off that ledge and piss on myself or watch my little dog fall to his death. So when he held Ravi up in the air, I hesitated for at least ten seconds, closed my eyes and jumped. Shit, I was scared. I thought I’d saved Ravi. I didn’t. Thought I could save your sister the day she died... I didn’t.”

My breath catches after hearing him mention Jada. I hold it in a short moment while I wait for the rush of emotion I still feel when I think of the way Sergey Dostovsky caused my father and sister’s deaths, making his son live with immeasurable guilt after doing so.

That's how my sister brought Alek and me together in an indirect way seven years ago. She had taken my place in an audition that would secure a spot for me in Juilliard's vocal program
and was pretending to be me. I was too scared to go through with it myself. For luck, she wore the butterfly necklace around her neck that I've worn around mine every day since Alek and I proclaimed ourselves a couple.

Here's where the truly fascinating part comes into play. Alek and his family had recently moved back to Texas. His mother's connections provided the chance for him to impress the Juilliard directors when he agreed to supervise the mini ensemble that would perform the background music for the singers, meaning he was also at the Lafayette Performing Arts Center the day Jada auditioned. After finishing the audition she couldn't find a way home, so our dad, a CIA agent, had to cut short an important business trip in order to pick her up. Turns out he was meeting with the group that was prepared to arrest Sergey Dostovsky. According to Alek, his father led Katerina to believe he'd come to Texas to win back his family when in actuality, he was setting up my father's demise so the documents he was carrying to the meeting would never get seen by the CIA. It worked.

What I had believed was a freak car accident for almost six years was a hit set up by Sergey. Unfortunately, Alek and Jada got caught up in the midst of the fire. Neither he nor I understood why our connection ran so deeply until the day he saw me wearing my butterfly necklace, the same one Jada wore the day she and my dad were killed in that car accident, the one thing that helped him to understand that the girl haunting his dreams all those years was my sister. At once he made the connection between the mystery girl he and his father found lying on the side of the road and me.