Chapter Eight
The Manhattan Pops knew how to throw an after-party. The Plaza Hotel opened their doors, and their downstairs bars and food, for the Pops after every concert of the season.
Gwen found Jacob and Declan standing by the bar. Declan squealed when he saw her.
“You got to play a solo!” He kissed both of her cheeks. “That’s so impressive!” He was wearing a floral-patterned suit and blue suede shoes.
“Yeah, it was unexpected.” She took a champagne glass from Jacob.
“You were great, Gwen,” Jacob assured her.
“The way you just played it from memory…” Declan shook his head at her in awe. “I was just like…how?”
Declan was sweet and very supportive, but he knew next to nothing about orchestral music. He was a lawyer of some kind, and she was shocked he could even get away from the office to come to this.
“How many times did you fall asleep?” Gwen asked over her glass.
“Only twice tonight,” Declan answered with an honest grin. “But not while you played! Promise!”
A board member pulled Gwen away after that, taking her arm and introducing her to a few people from New York magazine. Gwen was surprised how many subscribers and donors went out of their way to shake her hand and congratulate her. She had to answer all the usual questions over and over again, her own name and age becoming abstract words and phrases to her in the process.
A photographer floated by, capturing her, Jacob, and Declan several times before ushering her to stand near Nathan and Ava. After every single arrangement of three people one could imagine, Nathan left to shake hands with more donors, and Ava excused herself to powder her nose.
Gwen located Mei across the room at one of the food stations, stuffing her face full of bruschetta. Just as she moved to join her, a man with thin glasses and thick black brows stepped in her path.
“Miss Jackson,” he said. His voice was silky, and his hand was soft when he extended it to her. “Calvin Lorenz. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Hello.” She smiled at him. “I’m sorry, I don’t know all the faces I should yet. Are you on the board?”
“No, not at all.” He tilted his head and slipped his hands into his trouser pockets. “I saw the performance tonight. You were brilliant. Congratulations on your new role at the Manhattan Pops.”
His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and there was something missing in his pale blue gaze. He was about Nathan’s age, maybe older, and his posture and clothing screamed money.
“That’s very kind of you,” she said, struggling to find small-talk topics. “Do you play an instrument yourself?” “I’m simply an admirer.”
His eyes didn’t drift over her body, but they might as well have. She felt a strange chill move through her.
“Thank you very much for introducing yourself, Mr. Lorenz. I hope to see you at more Pops concerts next season!”
She was stepping around him when suddenly he produced a card from his pocket. “If you’re ever in need of an agent, Miss Jackson, I encourage you to give me a call.”
Her eyes flickered down to the card and back up. “Oh. I hadn’t even thought about that. Is that something first chairs need?”
“Gwen.” Nathan’s voice made her jump. He took her elbow firmly. “Can I borrow you?” he said with a tight smile and a nod in Calvin’s direction. “Calvin, good to see you.”
“Mr. Andrews. Such a little diamond in the rough you’ve found,” Mr. Lorenz said.
“Well, we’re both collectors now, aren’t we?” Nathan’s chuckle was as fake as it could be. “Thanks for joining us.”
And then Nathan was steering her away swiftly, through the crowd, around pillars, and out of sight.
“Did he give you his card?” Nathan asked, once they were far enough away.
“Yeah.”
“Do yourself a favor: tear it up.” Nathan gave her a knowing look before waving to someone and leaving her side.
She looked over her shoulder, trying to find Mr. Lorenz in the crowd, but he had been swallowed up. Glancing down at his card, she saw he was an agent and a music producer. It was a tempting connection to have, but if Nathan had rushed over to intercept the conversation so abruptly like that, he must have good reason not to trust Calvin Lorenz. Gwen tore the card in half and tossed it in the closest trash bin.
She wandered back to the bar. She’d lost track of Jacob and Declan, and based on previous experience going to Pops events with Jacob and one of his dates, that usually meant she wasn’t supposed to find them. There was no sign of Mei or Ava or anyone she could chat with. After nearly an hour of nonstop conversation, she was oddly alone. She was tempted to duck out early, treat herself to a cab home, and call Mabel from the back seat, but she thought thirty more minutes would be best.
The bartender asked her for her order, and Gwen only had eyes for the glass of champagne he was pouring for the woman next to her. Once poured, he informed her that the open bar ended five minutes ago. Gwen sheepishly retrieved her credit card.
She had just finished signing for a twenty-seven-dollar glass of champagne when she felt someone at her shoulder.
“I think I’ve figured it out.”
She sipped and felt it all go down the wrong way when Xander Thorne’s towering figure appeared next to her. She’d forgotten how tall he was when they’d been sitting at the wedding. Nearly six-four, at least.
She cleared her throat, patted her lips, and said, “I’m sorry?”
“You were stiff tonight,” he said. “There was nothing natural about the way you played.”
She blinked at him as his eyes flickered over her face like he was scanning her, memorizing and taking notes. He had been there. He watched her play tonight. He watched her play his Chaconne.
Her face heated, and she had to look away from his intense stare.
“Okay…” Too stiff. That, she already knew. “Is that what you ‘figured out’?”
He shifted until his body was facing hers, one elbow still leaning on the bar. He held a glass of something amber and took a deep sip from it, watching her over the rim. His tongue flicked out over his lips.
“You play as if you have someone to impress.”
Her brows drew together. “Don’t we all?”
He watched her for a moment. “We don’t have to, no.”
There was a stretch of the vowel, a moment of meaning, on the “we,” she thought. But maybe she was imagining it.
She looked away, remembering his upbringing. His cello worth almost a million dollars. His life as Ava Fitzgerald’s son that could have provided years of comfort and opportunity.
“Not all of us are so lucky, Xander. Some of us actually need to hold down a job.”
“So it’s Nathan?” he said, as if he suspected as much. “You’ve been here four years and you’re still trying to impress him.”
Irritation simmered in her gut, and the words were out of her before she could think twice. “Maybe it’s your mother I’m most interested in impressing.”
She watched the knowing look drip off his face. His eyes flashed back and forth between hers, and she refused to look away. He hummed low, as though thinking something over, then poured his drink down his throat in a quick toss and signaled for another, facing the bar.
“It was an interesting arrangement. Where did you find it?”
Her throat went dry. “Online, I think.”
Well, it wasn’t a lie.
His lips twitched. Not a smile, and not quite what he’d given her at the first wedding or what was in the video on Instagram. “You were too quick.”
She eyed his strong profile. Full lips. “I know.”
She thought she should make up some excuse for it—say she was nervous and unrehearsed. But he knew all of that. Her eyes caught on his forearms as he took the drink from the bartender, sleeves rolled to his elbows. She should probably say goodbye and thank him for the insults.
Turning back to her, his gaze dug under her skin as he asked, “You started when you were eleven?”
She nodded. With Mabel Rodriguez, she almost said. Your old tutor. She felt like telling him how Mabel’s eyes had widened when she played. About how quickly she’d flown through the children’s lesson books all on her own.
But bragging to Alex Fitzgerald about playing the violin was like bragging to Jesus Christ about walking in waves on a beach.
He glanced over her face, down to her shoulders and back up. She felt it like a caress.
“Over ten years, and you fall to pieces the moment you realize someone is watching you.”
Gwen’s breath caught. The words hit her like a strong burst of wind. She looked away, down into her bubbles.
“Well,” she said, clearing her throat. “Thank you for the unsolicited constructive criticism.” She sent ice through her eyes into his. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get back to the party for the organization I actually have a contract with.”
He smiled at her then. Something low and catlike, and nothing like how she wanted him to.
She turned on her heel and marched away from him.
“You shouldn’t be with the Pops,” he murmured, the sound carrying to her.
A fire spun through her veins, and she twirled back to him. “I’m not good enough to play weddings. I’m not good enough to play with the Pops. So tell me, where should I be playing?”
He lifted a brow at her. “Not good enough?”
“You know,” she barreled on, “I auditioned fair and square. I got into the Pops with an audition, and I got first chair with an audition—”
“I know. I was there. Beethoven, Violin Concerto.” He sipped from his glass, watching her. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the way his lips wrapped around the rim, the memory of his shadow in the balcony stirring something in her. “The Beethoven isn’t why they gave you first chair.”
Mabel’s warnings rang in her mind. And Ava’s transparency—a twenty-two-year-old in first chair would be excellent publicity for the Pops.
She planted her hand on her hip and clenched her champagne flute with the other. “The board of directors think I’m good enough. I don’t know why it matters so much to you.”
Gwen spun around again, feeling like she’d said her piece— like she could go home and never think about Xander Thorne again—
“The Pops don’t matter to me.” His voice was just steps behind her, following.
She snorted. “Clearly.” Her champagne sloshed as she pushed open the door to the women’s bathroom. She expected him to grab her arm or say something to keep her, but she crossed to the sinks without incident.
The mirror over the taps revealed her flushed face and neck, her hair falling out of its styling. And Xander Thorne just paces behind her, following her into the women’s restroom.
“Hey!” She whirled around, bracing herself on the porcelain.
“I’m just trying to figure out how someone with her whole professional life ahead of her got suckered into being Nathan Andrews’s puppet.”
She blinked at him as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
“‘Puppet?’ I’ve been given the opportunity of a lifetime—”
“Did they promise you a lifetime?” He stepped toward her. “Is the chair yours in perpetuity? Or is your contract contingent on the press you bring in?”
Mouth gaping, her throat tried to make words as his brow lifted at her. “I’m—I’m not discussing my contract with you.”
“If you don’t prove to be everything they want,” he all but whispered, “they’ll just get rid of you.”
Her blood boiled. “You are not an innocent victim here, Alex or whatever your name is.” His eyes heated. She slammed her glass on the sink so she could cross her arms. “I was there for every temper tantrum this year, every insult to Nathan’s conducting, every quip at your mother,” she said. His eyes narrowed. “I’ve been watching you, Xander Thorne. You’re no angel here.”
His eyes slid over her face, down to her blushing neck. He moved closer, and she had to tilt her head back.
“You’ve been watching me?” he whispered, the hint of a smirk in the corner of his mouth.
She swallowed, and he tracked the movement of her throat while his teeth ran across his bottom lip.
“How interesting, then, that I’d never even heard of you until last month,” he puffed across her forehead.
“Sounds like more of a ‘you’ problem, but—”
“They’ve been keeping you hidden,” he said. “Ordinary. When you’re anything but.”
He lifted his eyes to hers, and Gwen’s vision spotted at the edges until it was only him, closing in. She felt her breath slide between them, thick and humid. The heat of his chest soothed her skin, and the smell of him this close…it was like slipping into a hot bath.
Like music. The way it was supposed to feel.
“I thought I was ‘too stiff.’ I thought I—” She stuttered as he took another step closer to her, until there was no space left. “I thought I held the cello like a subway pole.”
“You do,” he said, lips curving upward. His eyes slipped to her mouth, and he lifted his hand. It hovered near her jaw. “But the second you get out of your head, you’re magnificent.”
Gwen felt her heartbeat in her throat, the second before his fingers pressed softly to it. She tried to understand the words he was saying, why he would want to say them.
His mouth was close. She was breathing the same air as he was.
She reached out to brace herself against his chest, curling her fingers in his shirt and slipping fingertips between the buttons at his sternum. His eyes darkened.
“So, if I shouldn’t be playing weddings…and I shouldn’t be playing for the Pops…” Her voice was soft, shaking, and his eyes were on her lips. She tilted her jaw up to him.
“You shouldn’t,” he said. “You—” A toilet flushed from the far stall before he could finish.
Gwen jumped, backside slamming against the sink. He straightened, taking a small step away and glaring at Mei as she exited the stall.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just…really wanted to get outta there before you guys boned.”
Gwen’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to argue.
“I’ll just…umm…” Mei approached the sink farthest from them, fussing with the taps for a moment before saying, “Ya know what, I have hand sanitizer. Bye.”
She scurried out of the bathroom, and Gwen slid out from the sink and followed her out, leaving Xander-Alex-whoever and his insanely broad shoulders behind.
Once she was out of the bathroom, Mei rounded on her.
“Oh, my god, Gwen. What the fuck is happening—”
“Don’t. Just keep walking.” She looped their arms and dragged Mei through the crowd. Her mind was working fast to parse what had just happened.
“How long has this thing with Xander Thorne been going on?”
“It’s not a thing. There are no things.”
“Gwen, I’m sorry to break it to you, but you both were panting. I thought I was too late. I thought you already had your hand down his pants—”
“Jesus, Mei. At the Plaza?”
“Hey, you tell me. You’re the one Xander Thorne followed into the bathroom to pant on.”
Gwen twisted them through the crowd, trying not to think about what he might have said, or the way his hand had been light on her jaw, or how she’d lifted her mouth to him just as—
“Are you kidnapping me?” Mei asked. Gwen blinked. They were almost at the doors. “Please kidnap me. This crap is so boring.”
“Yes, I’m kidnapping you.” She dragged her onto the street, letting the biting wind cool her down. “Now take me somewhere I can get a shot for under ten dollars, for the love of god.”