Chapter Five
“Gather round, everyone,” Lattie announced, walking onto the stage, clapping his hands together. “Gather round.”
Chloe was already on stage, flanked by Danny and John, and Danny rolled his eyes as they waited for everyone else to join them. From the side of his mouth, he murmured, “Oh, goody. Team building time.”
Right on cue, Lattie called out, “Team building time!” leaving Chloe trying to stifle her laughter with her hand.
Despite her humor, she was pretty sure there was a very serious reason behind why Lattie had chosen to do this today.
The fear underlying the rumors about Erik, paired with Chloe’s outburst and the resulting animosity, had left a certain level of tension in the air that he probably hoped to dissipate.
Once everyone was on stage, Lattie held up a black bag and gave it a shake. “Who would like to choose?”
When one of the stagehands stepped forward, Lattie eagerly trotted over to him and held out the bag for him to reach inside. Pulling out one of the slips of paper, he handed it to Lattie, who announced, “Opera trivia!”
“Ugh,” John muttered. “Why couldn’t it have been one of the fun games? No one gets the trivia questions right.”
“Well, at least it’s not the sharing circle,” Danny replied, and Chloe had to agree with him. She found standing in a circle to share a fact about herself that no one knew, embarrassing.
Lattie held up a hand. “For a chance to win a hundred-dollar gift card…”
“Yup, it’s going to be a stumper,” John quietly griped.
“Answer this question: In Alban Berg’s Wozzeck,” Lattie began, turning a circle and projecting his voice so everyone could hear him. “What compositional technique is used in the orchestration of Act III, Scene 4, to represent the rising tension and Wozzeck’s descent into madness after the murder?”
With a bright smile, Lattie looked around expectantly. When no one jumped in immediately with an answer, his smile dimmed, and he rocked back on his heels. “Right then, I’ll just give you a minute or two to think about it.”
There were a lot of low murmurs and some shuffling feet before an unexpected voice in the back answered, “Berg uses a technique that takes a single rhythmic pattern and develops it throughout the scene, creating a relentless, obsessive quality that mirrors Wozzeck’s psychological unraveling.”
Everyone turned to look in surprise, including Chloe, even though she knew exactly who’d come up with that answer.
“Yes!” Lattie shouted. “Bravo, my boy! Come and collect your prize.”
Erik straightened up from where he was leaning and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Naw, I’m good. Use it to buy some coffee for everybody or something.” Turning away, he headed off stage.
While Lattie was saying, “You heard the man. Give me your drink orders, and I’ll have it delivered,” Chloe followed Erik, needing to hustle to catch up with his long-legged strides.
“Erik!”
Stopping, he turned to look at her.
“How did you know the answer?” That had not been an easy question.
Instead of satisfying her curiosity, he asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be rehearsing?”
“They’re going to be blocking a scene I’m not in, so I have a bit of time.”
She gazed at him expectantly, but instead of answering her question, he nodded and turned away, heading into the sets department. Chloe wouldn’t be shrugged off that easily, and she set off after him again, calling out, “So how did you know?”
“Know what?”
Was he being deliberately obtuse? “The trivia question.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I like opera.”
That he was a fan was surprising enough, but to know Wozzeck?
That wasn’t one of the more popular operas.
He had to be a true enthusiast, and that piqued her curiosity about him even more.
“How did that happen?” she asked, as he began setting up his work area, laying out brushes and tubes of paint. “Were your parents fans?”
“No.”
Chloe refused to be put off by that brusque response, and hoping that if she divulged a little bit about herself, he might open up too, she offered, “My mother adored opera; any kind of musical theater, really. My dad’s in the military, so we moved around a lot when I was growing up.
But no matter where he was stationed, Mom always found the closest opera house or theater.
She and I would go to a show as often as we could. ”
Erik’s response was a grunt, his attention fully on his work.
“Want some company?” Without waiting for a response, she sat down on the floor, close enough to watch but still giving him ample space to work.
She took his next grunt as permission, and since he’d made it pretty clear he didn’t want to talk about music, she changed the subject. “Where did you go to art school?”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re self-taught? You have such an eye for detail.”
That weird feeling in Erik’s chest was back.
He’d answered her questions, mostly, so she should have gone back to her friends and more stimulating company.
Why was she sitting here, then, looking for all the world like she was exactly where she wanted to be?
Like she wanted to be with him. He was tempted to call Jayla and get her opinion since he was pretty sure this went beyond someone just being a nice person.
“Do you need quiet while you work?”
She had a beautiful voice, even when she wasn’t singing, and Erik found it soothing.
Realizing his hand had stilled, he resumed mixing his paint to get the right shade.
“No.” He preferred some level of noise and usually played music while he painted.
The quiet allowed too much time for him to think, and his thoughts, if left free to wander, tended to end up on dark paths.
Or, at least they had, before they’d become all jumbled up with Chloe Powell’s confusing behavior.
“I always wanted to learn how to paint.”
Looking up from his palette, he recognized the almost wistful look on her face and picked up a clean brush to hand to her. “Do you want to give it a whirl?”
Chloe let out a delighted laugh, but waved off his offer. “Believe me. You do not want me anywhere near your work. I’ll make a mess of it. I can barely draw a stick figure.”
Erik was pretty sure she was exaggerating. “I could give you a few tips, if you want. Teach you a bit.”
The silence that followed his suggestion was deafening, and Erik wanted to kick himself for making the offer.
Of course, she wouldn’t want to be taught by the scarred freak.
That would mean spending more time in his company, forced to look at his hideous face.
Now, she was probably all uncomfortable, struggling to come up with a way to decline without offending him.
“Are you serious right now?” she asked in a sudden rush, her voice all breathy.
Erik eyed her, trying to figure out what she was feeling. Shock? Horror? But the bright smile that bloomed on her face threw him for a loop as she exclaimed, “I’d love that!”
She leaned forward, reaching out to touch his arm, and the contact was so unexpected, so unnecessary unless maybe she wanted to touch him, that his brain was barely able to process her excited chatter.
“When can we start? Tonight? Tomorrow? Oh, but where should we do it?” Her face turned thoughtful. “I don’t know if Lattie would want us hanging around here after hours.”
“Er… You could come to my place?” Shit. She wouldn’t want to do that. In a rush, he corrected, “Or you could pick a place. Whatever.”
That bright, happy expression returned to her face. “You’ll need to tell me what supplies to buy, and I’ll need your number. Where’s your phone?”
Still half-dazed by her unexpected acceptance, Erik pulled his phone from his pocket.
As soon as he unlocked it, she snatched it from his hand and began typing away.
A moment later, he heard the buzz of her phone coming from wherever she had it tucked amidst her oversized t-shirt and leggings.
Grinning, she handed the device back to him. “There. All set.”
Glancing at the time, she let out a little “Eep,” and jumped to her feet. “I need to go! They’re probably looking for me.” Jogging to the door, she called out, “We’ll talk more later,” adding, “I’m so excited to do this!”
Erik just stared, watching her leave, and half-wondering what the hell just happened.
It was a good thing the background panel Erik was currently working on required little attention to detail, since his mind was nowhere on his work.
Instead, he’d gone over his conversation with Chloe again and again, analyzing every word, every look, and that touch…
That touch. He could still feel it, as if she’d permanently marked him and he couldn’t find it in him to mind.
Something close to hope filled him, and for someone like him, hope was a dangerous thing.
Yet no matter how hard he tried to crush it, it kept coming right back.
Chloe Powell was not interested in him romantically.
And maybe if he repeated it a thousand more times, that fuzzy feeling would finally go away.
“Hey, Erik,” Mitch called out, pulling his attention. “Can you –”
Whatever the man was about to say was abruptly cut off by a distant crash, followed by people screaming.
Chloe.
Erik took off like a shot, tearing out of the sets department, down the hallway, then bursting onto the stage, his eyes scanning through the crowd of clustered people, looking for her, and finally finding her.
Making his way to her with little care for who he shoved out of his way, he scanned her for injury.
Her face was pale, her eyes wide, and she was noticeably trembling as she covered her mouth with her hands.
She looked like she was in shock, but otherwise uninjured.
Just to be sure, he asked, “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
With Chloe safe, he assessed the situation.
Everyone had formed a rough horseshoe around the center of the stage, where shards of glass and broken pieces of metal littered the floor.
It looked like one of the large light fixtures had fallen.
A woman, one of the dancers, was crying, cradling her arm like it might be broken, while the choreographer comforted her, and a man was unconscious on the floor, bleeding from a gash on his head, while Lattimer knelt over him, attempting to stop the bleeding, his phone tucked between his head and shoulder.
Erik listened, trying to piece together what had happened from the loud buzz of panicked voices.
“He saved her life! If he hadn’t pushed her out of the way…”
“How did it even happen? Are more going to fall?”
“She could have been killed! I could have been killed!”
And from one of the stagehands: “I don’t understand. I checked those lights myself.”
Erik looked up at the catwalk suspended over the stage and narrowed his eyes as his instincts tingled.
It could have been an accident, something that had been overlooked, but he didn’t think so.
He’d run checks on all the staff. There were no new hires, no trainees.
The opera house employed an experienced, long-standing crew.
This smacked of sabotage, and he didn’t like the timing.
Not with Jackson Savoy potentially in the area.
There’d be too many questions if he tried to go up there now to investigate, but he’d be sure to come back tonight, after everyone was gone, to see if he could pick up a scent.
Was Savoy here, even now, watching? It was tempting to go hunting, but his priority was Chloe. He needed to stay by her side and keep her safe.
The faint press of smooth skin against his arm had him snapping his head down to Chloe, who had stepped closer to him, perhaps seeking warmth.
“Are you okay?” he asked again. She was still noticeably shaken.
She looked up at him, a mix of confusion and horror on her lovely face, before her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “It all happened so fast. I heard this like snapping sound, but I didn’t know what it was, and then it just fell, and everyone was screaming, and he… and they…”
Her face crumpled, and she quickly tried to cover it with her hands, but there was no disguising how her shoulders shook as she lost her composure.
A thought occurred to him that he should put an arm around her in comfort, but before he could, Daniel Drayton was there, hugging her, cooing soothing words in her ear, and pulling her away from Erik, making him want to snarl.
He would have separated them, forcefully if need be, had Chloe shown any sign of resistance. But she leaned into the embrace, seeming to welcome it, so Erik left her alone, even though it had him growling low in his throat and narrowing his eyes at her co-star with unexpected jealousy.
She wasn’t his to hold, he reminded himself.
She was his assignment, his mission; his to protect, but once Jackson Savoy was dealt with, that was it.
He couldn’t keep her, and she wouldn’t want someone like him anyway.
Chloe Powell was meant for the Daniel Draytons of the world – handsome, talented, outgoing, whole, not someone broken like him.
Even if he went ahead with the procedure to fix his face, it wouldn’t fix the damaged soul that lived inside him.