Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
F OR THE NEXT HOUR, T HE E MPIRE WAS LESS THEATRE AND MORE zoo. For all their initial disinterest in Evelyn’s bill, the newsmen came alive when the performers left the stage and began to walk amongst them, posing for pictures and answering all manner of intrusive questions. For her own part, Evelyn resisted the urge to drape herself across Thomas’s lap—it would make for such a scandalous newspaper front page, and he was so stiff and stoic in that chair of his. Instead, she positioned herself on the edge of the stage, where the photographers could snap the choicest pictures of her legs and call up queries from below.
Once they were gone, however, Thomas called her to his office: a bare, intimidating space situated on the second floor of The Empire.
She rolled in on a wave of triumph …
“I think that went very well.” She beamed.
… And immediately crashed into the impenetrable wall of him.
“You do, do you?”
He offered her a cup of coffee. She accepted, careful to let their fingers brush. He pulled away almost violently.
“Gracious, Mr. Gallier. You’d think you’d never seen journalists at the theater before. Are you sure this vaudeville thing is right for you? You’ll need far more nerve if you wish to survive this game. They’re all like this. I’ve never done a preview for the press that didn’t go exactly like that. Or worse.”
She sipped her coffee, unable to break her long-ingrained habit of seductively licking her lips as she returned the cup to the saucer.
Thomas’s brow curved, clearly uncertain if the tic was genuine or a part of the same game she’d been playing with the little striptease she’d performed at his home a few nights previous.
“Do you think this is the correct decision, what you’re doing here with this bill you’ve put together?”
“Yes.”
“Awfully certain of yourself.”
“Awfully certain of my friends. Do you have any idea what this vaudeville show of ours represents? Sex and scandal and titillation and outrage. A whole crew of the best performers this side of the Mississippi River—all in one place because no one else wants to touch them. Because they’re all afraid of what moralists might say. But you are brave enough to do this. And you are going to have absurd returns for your trouble. Those reporters may have seemed like cold fish today, but they are going to write your Empire into a phenomenal success. Mark my words.”
She desperately wanted to say we . We are brave enough to do it. Our . Our Empire . But given the way he seemed intent on keeping them as separate, discrete quantities, she bit her tongue.
“No,” he said decisively. “You’re enough scandal for one show. We will tone down the rest of the acts. You’d still be the star, of course. Don’t you worry about that—”
“I won’t.”
“Excellent. I shouldn’t want you to trouble yourself.”
“You misunderstand. I won’t be your star without them.”
If she hadn’t been listening intently, Evelyn might have missed the hitch in his breath. Or the way his big hands twitched.
“And why not?”
What a foolish question. “Because there’s no use in having power if I keep it all for myself. I negotiated our entire deal to get these people working again. I won’t go back on that because you’re frightened of a few reporters.”
“I’m not frightened of them,” he retorted, though everything about him screamed the opposite. “I have this well enough in hand.”
The temperature in the room rose, the tension along with it. Under such pressure, Evelyn might have retreated, but she couldn’t. Not when it meant abandoning the people she loved.
“Trust me,” she said, her voice low and certain.
“I don’t trust anyone,” he replied. He vacated his chair behind the desk and took to pacing. “It’s why I’m still here. And you should do the same. I can’t believe you would risk your career for those people—”
“Every day of the week and twice on Sundays.”
“They could ruin you. They could ruin me , The Empire—”
“They won’t.”
This wasn’t like any of their previous conversations. Every time they’d spoken before, she kept her sensuality between them, only occasionally peeking past it, then darting away again with a pretty pout or a flutter of lashes. Now, in her simple working clothes, she stood on her principles instead of her passions.
And she felt all the stronger for it.
“Please, Miss Cross,” he implored. “Reconsider.”
“No. This is what we do for people we love. We share the bad so we can share the good. No matter the cost or consequences.”
“Do you think they would do the same for you?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“ Yes ,” she repeated, more forcefully than before.
Thomas lorded over her now. She got the sense that he wasn’t fighting against her bill, but something else. Something he didn’t care to share with her. “Those people would leave you and take everything you care about. This is a harsh world. Bitter and cruel and deceptive.”
“You don’t think I know that? I know that better than you, Mister Silk Top Hat.”
He didn’t so much as flinch. “Then why won’t you see reason? Be my star, dismiss that motley crew you dragged in here this morning, and go about your life having saved your own skin.”
Checking the watch in her dress pocket, Evelyn feigned a yawn. “Is this all you have to say to me? It’s growing tiresome.”
They had a contract. He couldn’t fire her. She was disinterested in a fight, especially about something so serious to her as her friends, but what did interest her was getting under his skin. He was stuck in this with her, and if he thought his little “daytime” clause would protect her from breaking into that shell of his, he was as foolish about this as he was about vaudeville. “Just a question, if I may, Mr. Gallier. You say my friends could ruin me. That I shouldn’t trust them. But considering that I could ruin you , why am I here?”
“We are not speaking about us.”
“I’ll answer for myself, then. My friends are here because I love them. Each and every one. To cut them off would be to lose parts of myself. I don’t know why you would want me and not them , Mr. Gallier, but without your answer, I can only assume that your answer might be closer to mine than you would ever admit.”
It was a challenge. I know you like me. Confess .
When he didn’t, she just shrugged. “I won’t stay here without them. If you fire them, you will lose me, too.”
Their eyes met. An emotion she didn’t recognize crossed his. Something like resignation.
Or regret.
“Very well, then. I will ensure that the press spins this bill of yours appropriately. No matter what it takes, I’ll make it work.”
Such a simple thing to do, and yet, he said it with the resignation of a man signing his own death certificate.
She would circle back to that. But for now, she had to take her victories where she could.
“Lovely. Now, are you ready, Mr. Gallier?”
He blinked. “Ready? For what?”
“We have an agreement,” she said, marching for the door. “Your days are mine.”