Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Birdie
Even though I had the entire play memorized, I was still reading over the lines. They felt good in my mouth and on my tongue.
I was the one singing them.
Despite the fact that Forrest was a bastard and I did not forgive him, it was such a thrill to be singing these lines, to be standing where I was, to have Christine’s costume on.
To sink my fangs into the Phantom’s throat under my ex’s jealous eyes, watching through the blood splatters to see the muscles in Forrest’s strong throat working as he swallowed hard.
Even Hieronymus and Paige were being nicer than usual, Hieronymus even begrudgingly saying I “sounded very pleasing,” which for him was quite complimentary.
Forrest prowled the stage like a wolf, watching me with jealous eyes for each scene with Francois, who was now playing the Phantom.
I ignored him completely. Francois was hot and charming, and if he wanted to get just a little bit closer than was necessary for me to chase him through a gothic graveyard? I was all for that.
At the end of the day as I was about to pull the pins out of my hair, Forrest came up to me.
“You look stunning, Birdie, and I’d love to get some promotional pictures made in the studio limo. Would you ride around with the photographer for about thirty minutes, and then my driver can take you home and you can change there? Don’t worry, I’ll have an assistant bring the costume back.”
“That seems like a lot of extra work when she should be off the clock,” Lulabel cooed at him.
“Lulabel, go away,” Forrest said through gritted teeth.
“What, so you can try to bulldoze her with your penis? No, thank you.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’m ok taking pictures. As long as you stay here.”
His rugged face fell but he nodded.
“Now get the hell out of here,” he told his first ex-wife but Lulabel only shrugged.
“I’ve got a date with one of your stage hands anyway.”
He rolled his eyes, but kept a hand on the limo door as I climbed in.
“I’m looking forward to her leaving soon.”
“What do you want, Forrest? You’re talking about my bestie, so watch your tongue.”
“Birdie, I’ve slept with a lot of women—”
“Save it for your biographer,” I interrupted him. “I don’t need to know your horny anecdotes from the 80s.”
“I took you for granted,” he said simply, his strong arm way too close, with those veins in his hand and the way every moment made his muscles pulse. “I’m sorry. I was a complete and utter bastard.”
I tossed my curls over one shoulder.
“Don’t bother. Actually, everyone is right. I was with you for your money, and now I’m on to the next sugar daddy. I have my eye on Jerry.”
A muscle throbbed in his jaw.
“What can I do to prove how much I care to you?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” I shrugged. “I can’t think of anything that would work. Goodbye now.”
For a moment I thought he’d rip the door off the limo, but he finally let me go.
“I love you so much, Birdie.”
That didn’t even get a response. The photographer had me sit in several poses in the limo, fangs in, blood dripping artistically down the front of my throat, but luckily it didn’t take too long.
And frankly I was still too excited to be Christine to care that I’d been at practice since 5 am.
After they were done, I leaned back against the leather seats with a sigh and pulled out my phone, but since I was instantly confronted with messages from reporters wanting interviews on what it was like working with the man who left me at the altar, I irritably wrote,
Please contact my agent Lulabel Davies-Jones.
I didn’t realize where the driver was taking me until we pulled up next to the massive amphitheater where Forrest sometimes put on summer Shakespearean productions.
“Wait, why am I here? I thought you were taking me home.”
“The Dominator of the Opera said to bring you here,” the driver said, pushing me gently but firmly out the door.
Then there were other hands, pulling me along in the darkness until I was suddenly at the very front, and I felt the weight of the entire audience, because every single seat in the amphitheater was filled.
What the hell was going on?
I stepped forward into the spotlight, the rest of the auditorium darkening until there was only one golden beam of light and I was in it.
Wait, why was I in the exact middle of this stage, with thousands of people all looking at me expectantly?
“Birdie Valentine,” I heard the low, gravelly rumble that could only and ever belong the most powerful music producer in the business.
“Fuck,” I hissed under my breath and I turned to see Forrest striding toward me, tall, arrogant, and supremely confident.
“Birdie, you are the love of my life,” he boomed.
What the fuck?
“Please accept my humble offering to you, as well as my everlasting devotion.”
Then he spread his arms, those powerful shoulders blocking out the light, making him look like a demigod, and Forrest began to sing, “Come paride vezzoso,” a stunningly beautiful love song, and I could hear the audience take a worshipful breath, because everyone knew he rarely ever sang in public.
He’d always been more focusing on composing and directing.
But he had a deep, resonant voice, booming around the amphitheater.
There were select little flashes of light, then a few more, and suddenly every level of the theater was filled with bright pops of light.
This was going to headline every gossip page across the country.
Because even his biggest enemy could not deny the power and beauty of Forrest’s voice.
I felt chills up and down my spine.
This is what I’d always thought brought the two of us together. We both loved to listen and sing with our whole bodies, and when the music took hold of us, it was like there was no one else in the world.
But this time he was looking at me the whole time, like I was his only thought, like there was nothing more important than me hearing the lyrics.
The song trailed off and suddenly Forrest got down on one knee.
Hell, he hadn’t even been on one knee to propose.
We’d been having dinner in our favorite Swiss ski chalet and he’d slid an engagement ring over the table to me right beside a hot chocolate toddy.
“I love you, Birdie.”
But right now he was down low on his goddamn knees, with his hands clasped in front of him, the shadowy planes of his face looking fierce. For once, I could taste desperation rolling off him, and it was something I’d never, ever felt from him before.
He didn’t beg. He always took.
But now he was begging.
Forrest was down on one knee, and as he raised his fingers, suddenly what looked like an armed guard appeared on the stage, several men all in black carrying a locked chest between them.
“The man who owned this diamond didn’t want to sell it. But I can be very persuasive.”
The armed guard marched across the stage in complete silence, then halted beside him and one man put on a pair of velvety black gloves, then produced an intricate key and placed it in the lock.
Forrest carefully raised the lid to reveal the biggest pink stone I had ever seen in my life, so big it was obscene, it would swamp my finger, covering my knuckle and all the way up to the joint.
“I love you more than ever. Marry me.”
Sheer fury clogged my throat as I watched him in front of me, down on one knee under the bright spotlight, holding up that massive pink diamond.
And just waiting.
Like he’d wait forever for my answer.
The amphitheater was hushed in anticipation.
“No,” I said, my voice sounding strangled.
“Excuse me?”
“No damn way,” I said, then I said it again, louder, angrier. “No, I’m not going to marry you. How dare you do this? How dare you attempt to manipulate me with this public proposal?”
“I love you, Birdie. Please forgive me. It was the biggest mistake of my life.”
“I would not marry you if you were the last crusty old man on the face of the planet!”
And the pain on his face was pissing me off so much, his hand so steady on the ring he was holding up to me, that I swept my hand over it, sending the priceless pink diamond clattering loudly over the stage.
“Hell fucking no!”
Then I turned and stormed off, leaving Forrest on the stage with an open ring box and no finger to put it on.
Where the fuck was the exit? I headed backstage and down a dark hallway, waiting in front of the cloak room to catch my breath.
My costume was tight as hell, and I clutched wildly at the corset strings, desperately trying to loosen them as my breasts heaved with rage.
My skin was buzzing, on fire with emotion. I had never seen him do something as idiotic as that in my life.
Why had he thought I would accept?
People were streaming out of the amphitheater, confused at what the hell they’d just seen.
Was it a rare jewel-like vocal performance by the legendary Forrest Davies-Jones, or the most public humiliation he’d ever received in his storied life? Either way they were consumed with delight at the gossip.
The major music mogul who’d had a death grip on his own public image for the last five damn decades, rejected in front of an audience of thousands.
I was shaking. My dress suddenly felt way too tight, the laces constricted my breasts, and I tore at them, tears of rage in the corners of my eyes.
There was a noise down the hallway and a tall, broad-shouldered figure blotted out the light from the distant foyer.
I turned away from him.
“I hope this cures you of being such a cocky motherfucker.”
He took another step closer, the sharp click of his leather shoes loud on the stone floors.
“It doesn’t. I knew you were going to reject me.”
“Then why did you do it?” I snapped, my chest heaving up and down. “You just got rejected in front of thousands of people.”
“Payback,” Forrest said, taking another step closer, and suddenly he was only inches away from my heated skin, his arms on either side of my heaving breasts.
My hand gripped the cloak closet doorknob, trying to leverage myself away, but he stepped closer, knee between my thighs, his hand closing over mine.
Then he wrenched the door open and suddenly we were alone in the small space together.
“After what I did at our wedding, that was the only solution. You had to do the same to me, on a bigger scale. You had to reject me, humiliate me, make me look like a fool.”
Breath caught in my throat.
“The news is going to be full of this for weeks. That I put my goddamn all into an apology that was completely and utterly rejected. No one is going to be talking about the wedding now.”
I backed into the coats.
“What is wrong with you? That is an insane thing to do.”
He put one big hand on my belly, curled it into my laces.
“It absolutely fucking is. You drive me fucking insane, Birdie. You always have.”
His fingers were burning through the fabric, singeing my skin.
People began to bang on the door, yell about getting their coats, but Forrest ignored them.
“That’s the senility talking,” I said.
He bent down to my lips.
“Forgive me.”
“Fuck no.”
He moved to my throat, raising me up in the air so he could bury his face in the crook of my neck.
“You know I can’t live without you.”
“You seemed very able to live without me when you went off with Phee.”
He raised me higher until we were eye level and his eyes were blazing.
“Take it out on me. God, please. Anything but your cold indifference. Slap me, Birdie.”
“Oh my god, I’m not going to slap you, Forrest,” I hissed, struggling in his arms. “What is this, a soap opera? Put me down.”
He put me down between his thighs, but kept both hands on my waist.
“I lied to you—”
“I know you did,” I sniffed. “When you told me Phee was your past.”
“No. Not about that. Never about that. Because I never told you what happened the first time I saw you. I never said that as soon as I saw you I knew I wouldn’t stop until I took you home.
Because the first damn moment I saw you walk into the audition, I knew I was going to do whatever the fuck I had to do to make you mine. ”
“I just assumed you fucked every contestant,” I sniffed.
“Hell, no. That was a contractual job until you walked in the door.”
“Bullshit.”
“No bullshit, please believe me,” Forrest said, his fingers tightening on my waist, gently undoing my laces with nimble fingers. “I’m begging you to let me pleasure you.”
His knee ground into my pussy, and his breath was scorching down my skin, making my nipples prickle with arousal.
I let him carefully undo each lace until, with a sigh of relief, the bodice popped open and my breasts sprung free, naked, full, with the strawberry pink nipples taut and tight.
“Oh, god, Birdie, you’re torturing me.”
Forrest captured my mouth with his, tongue teasing at the seam of my lips.
“Baby girl, please. I’m fucking dying away from you. I can’t stand it.”
I gave him five more seconds, his low groans echoing in the small room, his cock digging urgently into my belly.
“Nope. Going home to work on my lines for tomorrow. I haven’t forgotten or forgiven.”