In the Lonely Hours

Chapter 1 The Devil You Know

The Devil You Know

Catherine

The elevator played a C-sharp minor seventh chord at every floor, which told Catherine everything she needed to know about whoever had designed it.

It was dissonant. Persistent. The chime carried an odd sort of smug confidence for something whose only job was moving people between floors, and by the time it reached the forty-second level of Ardent Row Artists, she had counted forty-two separate offenses against her perfect pitch.

Clearly, no one with a musical ear had been consulted. Catherine never would have signed off on it. If you were going to announce yourself every three seconds, a simple C major would have sufficed. There was no need to get clever with four notes.

But the sound wasn’t actually the problem. Or rather, it was, just not the main one. The real issue was the repetition. Click after click after click, like a camera shutter that refused to stop.

It took her straight back to being fifteen, sitting on a leather piano bench under hot lights.

A photographer's cold hand impatiently correcting her chin.

A stylist tugging the neckline of her dress lower than was appropriate for a child, murmuring that she should keep her mouth shut when she smiled.

The braces, they'd said, ruined the effect.

Decades had passed since then, but what she wore today, like then, was still the result of careful curation.

The taupe Céline coat dated back to Tokyo, bought as a present to herself at the end of her residency in 2009.

The black turtleneck and tailored trousers combo came later, after a publicist on her 2007 tour suggested that all black made her look powerful.

Catherine hadn’t paid much attention to that.

She didn’t need clothes to feel powerful.

She’d kept them for a simpler reason: she looked phenomenal in black.

Her purse was the exception. The burgundy Hermès Kelly had been a gift from Ardent Row after her first sold-out Carnegie Hall performance. It wasn’t to her taste, but it was appropriate, given she was visiting their offices. At least it wasn’t a Birkin. She would have drawn the line there.

That performance had also earned her a lengthy profile in Resonance’s May 2006 issue, back when she was twenty and still described as prodigious.

The article lingered on her high cheekbones, blond updo, and piercing blue eyes, praising what it called her “austere elegance.” The playing was noted, briefly, but her appearance dominated the photograph captions, eclipsing the piece, the instrument, and every detail that had actually mattered to her work.

Not that she had expected anything else.

When the elevator slowed, a chime sounded as it reached its final stop. Catherine’s foot twitched, and she kicked the metal door with the pointed toe of her stiletto. The resulting dent, shaped remarkably like a musical quarter rest, was entirely accidental. Obviously.

As the elevator doors opened, a young man exiting the Ardent Row offices stepped aside to hold the door for her, his eyes sliding toward the floor as he murmured, “Good morning, Ms. Matthews.”

Clearly, he was new enough to still feel nervous around people whose names sat at the very top of the talent agency’s client list.

Catherine nodded back at him and passed into the glassy reception area, where pale marble floors stretched toward floor-to-ceiling windows framing Manhattan in crisp January light.

Minimalist furniture sat in neutral tones, low-slung chairs arranged around a glass coffee table that held a single art book on the Vienna Philharmonic.

Along the walls, black-and-white photographs displayed Ardent Row’s roster: a violinist caught mid-bow at La Fenice, a cellist alone on the Musikverein stage, a pianist’s hands suspended above the keys with a large audience blurred behind them.

Catherine had once been the only client to have two photos of herself hanging. She didn't look to see if she still was. Instead, she crossed the lobby toward the main desk.

The receptionist stiffened visibly when Catherine approached, her professional smile tightening at the corners.

"Hello, Ms. Matthews," she said, her voice pitched half an octave too high. "Mr. Wilkins will be right out. Please, make yourself comfortable. I’ll let him know you’re here."

Catherine waited until the receptionist looked away, then took a seat in a chair. The leather was uncomfortable, and the not-so-subtle awareness of being observed by every passerby made the wait feel longer than it was.

By the time Simon appeared from the corridor with his smile already in place, ten minutes had passed. She had arrived eight minutes early, but that was beside the point.

"Cat." The warmth in his voice carried a familiarity she recognized immediately.

It was the same tone he used in hotel bars and unfamiliar cities, when his visits had a way of conveniently aligning with her tour schedule, and the nights that followed were understood rather than discussed.

She'd made it clear years ago, after her final tour, that she had no interest in hearing that version of his voice again, not that he had listened.

He leaned in for a double kiss, his hands finding her lower back with practiced ease.

Catherine’s shoulders rose a fraction, her spine straightening into concert posture as his cologne, sandalwood with something spicy underneath, lingered too long in her nostrils.

From the corner of her eye, she caught the receptionist’s head duck quickly back to her computer screen.

It was a performance, then. For an audience of one.

Simon’s palm pressed against the small of her back, guiding her forward as if she might forget how to walk. Catherine stepped just far enough ahead to break the contact.

A smile flickered across his face at the move.

The same one he’d worn in Paris, when she’d declined to play the encore he’d promised the promoter after a four-hour program.

In Vienna, when she’d adjusted the schedule to spare herself a ninth consecutive night onstage.

In New York, when she'd ended things between them, cleanly and without negotiation.

She had seen that smile many times, and it never meant anything good.

"You look great. Thank you for coming," he said, leading her through the threshold of his office.

The room was exactly as she remembered: pale walls, recessed lighting, the kind of space that cost more to leave empty than most people’s apartments cost furnished. Behind his desk, the windows offered an unobstructed view of Manhattan’s skyline, buildings stacked like measures in a score.

Her attention drifted to what he'd kept closer.

A floating shelf held awards in neat rows: a Grammy, a Pulitzer, an Avery Fisher, a few others Catherine recognized from her own collection.

Displayed as if they were his, not his clients'.

Less decoration than declaration, a quiet reminder of which artists he believed owed him their careers.

She was still at the top of that list. Or, at least, he thought she was.

Simon gestured toward one of the two chairs in front of his desk, then took the chair opposite her and opened a thin folder.

“I’d start with pleasantries,” he said, “but we both know you’d just tell me to get to the point.”

He tilted his head, the concern on his face a little too practiced. “The Royal Albert Hall incident is coming up to its one year… I don’t want to say anniversary, but anniversary.”

He tapped his pen against the desk calendar, marking an already-highlighted date.

"The vultures are circling, Cat. Vanity Fair has already called twice, and The New Yorker wants to do a profile on 'absence and artistry.

'" His mouth twisted into something between a smile and a grimace.

"They're going to write about you with or without your input, and likely not in a way that will serve you. "

He slid the folder across the desk, but Catherine didn't reach for it. She understood the shape of the conversation that was about to happen, and she already regretted agreeing to come.

“I’ve put together a proposal. A good one. A way to reframe the conversation.” He leaned back, the corners of his mouth twitching with barely contained satisfaction. Catherine thought of the elevator. The smug chime made more sense now.

“We start with a few tactfully chosen interviews with journalists we trust, people who’ll emphasize your resilience, professionalism, and your triumphant return.

The message is that you took the time you needed, worked with the best doctors, and now you’re ready to do what you were born to do.

We don’t dwell on the medical details. They’re not important. ”

He paused, letting the silence stretch. Catherine guessed he was waiting for her agreement, perhaps even a thank you, some acknowledgment of his supposed agenting genius.

She waited instead, content to let him deliver the speech he had clearly rehearsed so she could leave.

"I want you to start performing again in April.” Simon continued.

"That gives us nearly four months to prepare and get you comfortable again.

We'll begin with something intimate, just a salon performance for VIPs, invitation-only, maybe sixty people.

Film it, release it on socials. And build from there.

" He tapped the folder. "It's all outlined here.

Timelines, talking points, and the names of journalists who've already expressed interest in covering your story. "

The word "story" hung in the air between them, its implications branching like frost across glass.

Catherine's silence stretched for three seconds, four, long enough that Simon's pleasant expression began to show the first hairline cracks of annoyance.

When she spoke, she didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. "Is this the reason you dragged me down here?"