Chapter Nine
Jay
Resisting the urge to tug at my collar, I stand perfectly still in my designated spot at the right side of the hall. I’m not as close to Harper as I’d like to be, but I’m able to keep an eye on the exits, including the door backstage that leads out to the parking lot from where I am.
As far as the staff and the conductor are concerned, I’m just their lead violinist’s driver.
They allow me to be here because Harper insists on it.
Like most Omegas, my mate can be very persuasive.
I can’t count the number of times he’s talked me into something I never should have said yes to, but I can’t lie, that doesn’t really have anything to do with his ability to sweet talk. He barely needs to open his mouth, I already know I’ll do whatever he asks.
Ever since the day we met, he’s been my one true weakness.
There’s nothing he could ask that would make me hesitate.
No one else could have gotten me to walk into a fancy place like this, dressed up in a suit and tie, no less.
Standing here twice a week, every week, always makes me itch to be at home wearing nothing but my boxers.
The suit feels too tight, especially on my upper arms.
The shirt is restrictive, and the tie makes it worse.
It’s not choking me, but it might as well be.
The only redeeming factor is how much Harper likes the sight of me in a suit, and I won’t get the chance to take full advantage of its effects until later, when we’re on the road home and he inevitably decides he can’t wait to get to our place to show his appreciation.
The thought of the ride home brings a smile to my lips.
My spirits are lifted instantly.
As if he can feel it, and maybe he can, Harper glances over at me from his seat in the pit.
His expression is serious, as it usually is when he’s leading the other violin players.
The music is a bit stiff for my taste, but that’s how it goes in the orchestra here.
Everything is classical and it all needs to be perfect.
I much prefer when Harper’s messing around at home, randomly playing his own version of a song we just heard on the radio, or whatever.
That’s when he’s happiest.
His expression never lies.
While he’s here, he’s in charge of this sombre, strained version of what music is supposed to be.
It’s work and he takes it seriously. The enjoyment he gets out of it is in how well everyone performs under his leadership, so there’s pressure involved.
Most Omegas don’t do too well under emotional stress.
Harper is used to it.
He has pushy parents, the type who expected nothing but the best out of him.
Those idiots went too far when they tried to arrange for him to marry a female Alpha.
Harper was already mated to me, though they’d made it clear what they thought of Betas from the moment I was introduced to them, and they acted like I was nothing more than a friend of their son’s.
He’d told me to expect that, but neither of us believed it when they brought the woman they’d picked for him to marry to their house so she could get to know her intended groom and his “closest friend”.
That’s the moment Harper realized his parents would truly never change.
It pushed him to make the hardest decision of his life.
He chose to walk away from his parents.
Being Harper, he told them the door was open if they ever decided to stop trying to dictate his future for him. In the past five years they haven’t tried to contact him. Not once.
It used to bother him, but he doesn’t talk about them anymore.
They’re not his family now.
We are.
Falcon, Shayne and I are the people Harper turns to when he needs anything.
We’re always there for him, and we don’t have any messed-up expectations of our mate.
He doesn’t have to deal with that shit anymore.
He gets to live his life on his own terms.
If that means I need to stand in a stuffy opera hall once a week, every week, wearing uncomfortable clothing and behaving as if I’m nothing more than Harper’s driver, then I’m happy to do it.
When the practice session is finally over, the tension in my body starts to ease.
The suit is still too tight in places, but knowing we’ll be leaving soon makes the discomfort easier to bear.
I’ll be out of these dumb clothes soon enough, though I probably shouldn’t think about the circumstances around their removal …
The slightest throbbing of my cock makes me take in a deep breath.
I try to think unsexy thoughts, but I’m already imagining Harper’s flushed face as he drags me into the backseat of our rented limousine.
Before my pants can stretch out too much, I force myself to think about what I’m going to make for dinner when we eventually make it back to our apartment.
It’s a bland enough topic to douse those first sparks of lust.
Considering what I can make and whether we’ll need to make a stop for ingredients keeps my thoughts busy while I wait for Harper to pack away his violin and say goodbye to the group of mainly women he works with.
At least half of them are in love with him.
Who wouldn’t fall for him?
He might be supressing his perfume to pass as a Beta among his fellow musicians, but he’s still as charming and handsome as he was the day we first met.
Watching those women trying to keep him around for a little longer is kind of amusing.
They fight amongst themselves to capture his attention.
Harper doesn’t let it fluster him. He knows exactly what to say to make sure they still like him even if he is dashing their hopes every time.
By the time he’s finally making his way toward me, I can tell we’re both beyond ready to leave.
He lets out a soft sigh. “Home, please.”
I nod, pretending to rub my jaw to hide my smirk.
Of course, Harper’s bright eyes don’t miss a trick.
He walks past me, making a humph sound.
I follow after a beat, keeping myself at a safe distance behind him.
Those suppressants might work wonders to conceal his perfume in a group of random Betas, but they completely stop working when he gets close to his mates.
Maintaining the pretence that Harper’s a rich socialite only works here because he’s from “out of town”. It means we can come to Silver City, and he can do the one thing he loves as much as he loves his mates, without exposing himself as an Omega.
There’s no way Falcon and Shayne would be cool with this set up if everyone knew Harper was an Omega. It would be way too risky. Neither of our Alphas like the idea that there’s a chance of exposure, but they trust us to be careful.
So, I follow my Omega out of the symphony hall, staying alert to any potential threats around us while I make sure I’m no more than a few feet away from him, to ensure I don’t accidentally trigger his perfume.
The woman who runs the operations of the hall gives me a sour look from behind the ticket booth as we move past her. She’s probably in her fifties, but she looks a lot older with that scowling expression on her wrinkled face.
She doesn’t like me, probably because I’m not supposed to be here.
Most of the musicians don’t bring company to these sessions.
Harper’s the exception and I think that pisses her off.
It’s hard to refrain from flipping her the bird, but I remind myself the old bat would use any excuse to stop me from entering the building with Harper, and I don’t want to ruin this for him, so I smile and wave at her on the way out, knowing it’ll piss her off just as much.
Once we’re walking down the front steps of the building, I sigh in relief.
I can take my jacket off before we get in the car, and I can loosen this stupid tie.
We walk to the car in silence, knowing we’re still playing our parts.
I unlock the doors from a few feet away, and Harper goes straight for the backseat.
When I turn to head around to the driver’s side, I notice one of the female musicians heading for her car across the lot. She smiles briefly at me, giving a small wave before she slips into her car.
I wave back out of habit.
She’s gone from the lot before I can get the driver’s door open.
It won’t be long until the rest of them are out here, so I unbutton and shrug out of my jacket quickly, tossing it onto the empty passenger seat before I get into the car.
It probably doesn’t look too professional that I took it off, but I doubt it’ll get us caught out as mates. I sit for a second, unbuttoning and rolling up my sleeves, freeing my tattoos from captivity, while Harper moves the divider down that separates the front of the car from the back.
“I need you to remember I have a girlfriend called Maria.”
I burst out laughing. “What?”
Harper’s grinning at me when I glance back.
He’s still far enough away that I shouldn’t trigger his perfume, but we should probably get going.
I start the engine while I wait for Harper to explain himself.
“One of the violinists has been getting too close, as if you haven’t noticed.”
I raise an eyebrow as I meet his gaze in the rearview mirror.
“Just one of them? Could have fooled me.”
“I’m serious!” he exclaims as I start to drive out of our parking space.
“Which one?” I ask, as I begin to mentally picture each of their faces.
Thinking back over what I witnessed today, nothing sticks out as different.
They were all fawning over him at the start, and at the end, but no one looked like they were being particularly inappropriate.
I guess I couldn’t hear every word they were saying.
“Emerald Jasmine. The one who dyes her hair black,” he tells me. “She always wears lace over her clothes.”
“Emerald Jasmine?” I ask, making him nod.
It sounds like the kind of name an Omega would have, but I don’t say that out loud because Harper really hates the stereotype that Omegas are always given unusual names.
“She’s been trying to get me to agree to “private tutoring” for a while, which I didn’t take too seriously, but she was rubbing her leg against mine today, even after I moved my chair back.
I ignored it, of course, but I blurted out some nonsense about a girlfriend before she could speak to me again after practice.
I think it worked. I need to remember I gave the girlfriend a name. ”
He sighs as he finishes, leaning back in his seat.
I watch a few of the women from the hall pass us by as I drive slowly out of the lot.
They glance our way, but they’re looking at the back of the limo, and they’re ultimately left disappointed.
The tinted windows won’t let them glimpse Harper.
I turn my attention to the front of the building as we move toward the parking lot’s exit, and that’s when I spot the girl wearing loose black lace over a black dress.
She’s stomping down the front steps of the Symphony Hall, violin case dangling from her right hand. The woman has incredibly pale skin and long jet-black hair. If her lips were red, she’d look like a nightmare vampire version of Snow White. Her expression is stormy, to say the least.
She strides toward the parking lot like she’s on a mission, too.
“I think Emerald Jasmine is pissed off,” I murmur, as I turn onto the road.
“Oh no. You saw her?”
“She looks like trouble,” I admit. “But don’t worry about it.”
“I just hope she doesn’t ruin opening night,” he mutters.
Of course that’s what he’s worried about.
He’s used to women flirting with him.
He can handle that.
This situation is a little different than most.
We can’t be honest, so I can’t step in as his mate and tell that woman to move on.
It would feel good if I could, but it would hurt Harper too much to lose his position here.
He’s pretending to be a Beta so he can do what he loves, and I’m pretending to be an employee so I can keep him safe if something happens that unmasks him as an Omega.
Every step we take needs to be carefully measured.
Trouble is, neither of us can control another person’s actions.
What Emerald does is up to her, and we’re going to have to try and control the damage if she decides to do something crazy. It’s probably too much to hope that she’ll just walk away from the orchestra over this.
Maybe she’ll fume in silence. Or maybe she’ll curse us. She did look a bit witchy.
“What’s my fake girlfriend’s name?” Harper asks.
“Maria,” I answer, without skipping a beat.
“Thank God,” he murmurs.
“See?” I ask, glancing at him in the mirror. “Nothing to worry about.”
He sighs. “Right. You’re right.”
“I’m always right.”