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‘We’d better get going,’ she said, and slipped past him out into the corridor.
Luke stayed with her as they toured the store, five floors on Orchard Road, and showed her the new café, the glittering beauty hall, the department for crafts and clothing all supplied by local artisans, clearly his brain child.
‘Don’t you have important people to see?’ she asked, half-joking, as he escorted her to the dressing room where she was to get ready. Already people were milling about the marble lobby, waiting for the official opening.
‘I’ll check in with a few people now, and come back before you go on.’
Aurelie swallowed. Luke had done a good job of distracting her with the tour, but the fear—the terror—was now coming back in full force.
‘Okay,’ she said, still trying for insouciance and failing miserably. He put his hands, strong and comforting, on her shoulders and smiled down at her.
‘Forget about the crowd,’ he said quietly. ‘Forget about me. Sing your song for yourself, Aurelie. You need that.’
Somehow, despite the tears now stinging her eyes, she dredged up a smile. ‘I knew this was pity,’ she joked, and he pressed his lips to her forehead.
‘You can do it. I know you can.’
And then he was gone, and Aurelie sagged against the door, completely spent from that small encounter.
By the time Luke returned half an hour later she was ready—or at least as ready as she’d ever be. She wore a sundress this time, in a soft, cloud-coloured lavender, and cowboy boots. Her hair fell tousled to her shoulders, and she carried her guitar.
Luke smiled. ‘You look fantastic.’
She smiled back, wobbly and watery. ‘I feel like complete crap.’
‘You can do it,’ he said, and this time it wasn’t an encouragement, it was a statement. He believed in her. More, perhaps, than she believed in herself.
A few minutes later she was miked and ready to go, and then she was on. She heard the hiss of indrawn breath as she walked onstage. Another surprised, perhaps even outraged, audience. She sat on the stool, stared into the faceless crowd. Swallowed. Her heart hammered so hard it hurt, and she felt a blind panic overwhelm her like a fog. She couldn’t do this.
Then she felt Luke’s presence on the side of the stage, just a few feet away. Strange, impossible even, to feel someone when he didn’t move or speak, yet she did. He felt warm, and his warmth melted away the fog. She glanced sideways, saw his steady gaze, his smile. She took a breath. Blinked. And started to play.
Distantly she heard the rippled murmur of confusion as she began to play a song they didn’t recognise. Her song. But then the song took over and she knew it didn’t matter what anyone in the audience thought. Luke had been right; she wasn’t doing this for them. She wasn’t doing it just for herself, either.
She was doing it for him. Because he was the one person who had believed in her, more than she’d been able to believe in herself. Already he’d given her back her soul; he’d shown her how to reclaim it. She played the song for him, for her, for them.
And when it was over and the last note faded away, you could have heard a pin drop on the marble floor of the lobby. You could have heard the tiniest sigh, because no one did anything. No one clapped.
They didn’t, Aurelie knew numbly, know what to do with her. How to react.
Then, from the side of the stage, she heard the sound of someone clapping. Loudly. Luke. And the sound of his clapping was like the trigger to an avalanche, and suddenly everyone was clapping. Aurelie sat there, her guitar held loosely in one hand, blinking in the bright lights and smiling like crazy. And crying too, at least she was as she walked offstage and straight into Luke’s arms.
He enveloped her in a tight hug, his lips against her hair. ‘You did it. I knew you could.’
She tried to speak, but there was too much emotion lodged in a hot lump in her throat, too many tears in her eyes. So she did what she wanted to do, what she needed to do. She kissed him.
This wasn’t a tentative brush of her lips against his. She kissed him with all the passion and hope, the gratitude and joy that she felt. She dropped her guitar and wrapped her arms around him, and Luke took her kiss and made it his own, kissing her back with all he felt too.
