AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The corners of my lips turned up. “She meant emotionally.”
“It feels like you’re just now starting to do that.”
“No,” I said, staring at my food. “I have nightmares, and I wake up in a cold sweat. Sometimes it feels like I’m paralyzed, and then I get a bad headache and feel nauseous—”
“Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?” He sat up.
“See, this is what she’s talking about. For some reason, I feel I can tell you everything about me. I couldn’t sleep last night until I came here.”
He put a hand on my leg. “Is that really such a bad thing?”
It would be when he left.
“I’m just hoping she’ll come tonight to see me, since I had to beg Walt for those tickets. Mark said he would be there, but Cleo hasn’t texted me back.”
“If she doesn’t come, that says more about her than it does about you.”
He was right. If she didn’t want to see me on one of the biggest days of my life, then she was the one with the problem, not me. I was moving on and rebuilding myself. I was one step closer to doing something I hadn’t done in years.
I was going to dance for an audience, and I was not going to fail.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Storm
Theo
I became CEO of Darcy Entertai
nment six years ago, making this my sixth gala where I opened the show. I could remember each speech. I never questioned what my speechwriters prepared, and I sure as hell didn’t stick around for the whole thing. Anywhere was better than here, but today there was no place I’d rather have been. My tie was straight and my hair combed. I stood on the corner of the stage, fixing my cuff links. I wanted to give a good speech, and in the back of my mind, I heard Felicity telling me not to bullshit it. This morning we had done nothing but talk. It had been completely uneventful yet satisfying, leaving me even now going over what she thought I should say. Part of me wondered what the hell had happened to me? Who I’d been a few weeks ago, and who I was at this very moment, felt light years apart. And it was all because of Felicity Harper.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Darcy Entertainment CEO and Hollywood director, Theodore Darcy,” the announcer said, and on cue, I walked onto the black-and-gold stage.
The lights were so bright I could barely see the people in the audience or the teleprompter, but I didn’t care. Stepping up to the microphone, waiting for the thundering round of applause to lessen, I stood with my hands behind my back and leaned forward to speak.
“It was Plato who said that music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything. Aristotle believed the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things but their inward significance. My grandfather, who most likely stole this from some other wise man, said to me the greatness of the arts come from its ability to move even the coldest of hearts. Hearts like mine. I grew up in Hollywood, saw everyone and everything imaginable. So moving me is damn near impossible, or at least I believed so until I met a young musician and dancer who, just a few short weeks ago, spent her mornings pouring coffee, her afternoons as a janitor for high school students, and her nights as a credit card call operator. Tonight she dances for all of you and serves as reminder that talent lurks in the most common and unexpected of places, that what we do and create is not just for ourselves but those around us. That the arts are undoubtedly beautiful.”
The applause I got now made the applause I’d received at the beginning seem almost pitiful. The lights dimmed as I walked offstage, the camera no longer focused on me.
“What happened to Violet?” my mother hissed, taking my arm in shock and confusion.
No one but the dancers knew about what had happened with Violet. Everything was riding on this one moment. I never got nervous over anything, yet for the first time in my life, my palms were sweaty.
Felicity
9:45 p.m.
“Felicity, breathe!” I was in the wings, and Walt was holding on to me.
“I’m going to screw this up. Go get Melrose—”
He shook me. “Please don’t make me smack you right now.”
“Walt, I can’t do this. It’s crazy—”
“My brother just went on camera and told the world you moved his heart, and if you back out now, he’d be completely embarrassed. Hell, someone people will call him a flat-out liar.”
I knew he was saying it to get a rise out of me, but it was also true, and I didn’t want that. But I also didn’t want to screw up in front of everyone.
