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“Cristiano?”
Eyes wide, Cristiano stumbled back from his father.
“I have to go find Hallie,” he said. “I have to tell her...tell her...”
“Go.” His father smiled
at him through his tears. “And when you see her, please tell her something more. Tell her thank you.”
* * *
“I can’t do this,” Hallie whispered.
“You can,” Lola told her firmly. “I didn’t go to all the trouble of getting dressed and leaving the house with a newborn just for you to back out at the last minute. You can do it.”
From behind the Blue Hour’s curtain, Hallie glanced out at the audience. “There are so many people.”
“They’ll love you. Look,” Tess said. “I’ve got your biggest fan right here!”
Hallie smiled down at Jack, who was in a stroller next to Esme’s, trying to grab his own chubby feet.
Hallie bit her lip as she looked out again from the wings of the jazz club’s small stage. She would have preferred some out-of-the-way coffeehouse, with only five or six people in the audience. But her agent was no fool. He’d argued for Hallie to make her debut at the Blue Hour. “Why would you go anywhere else? You’re married to Cristiano Moretti!”
Even for someone with half a million hits, the number of people who’d watched the YouTube video of her singing in Rome, it wasn’t easy to perform in such an exclusive venue. So she’d told her agent to ask the manager, confident that when Cristiano heard about it he’d tell them all to go to hell.
But, apparently, he’d agreed.
Why was Cristiano being supportive of her career, when he’d made it clear he didn’t give a damn about her?
It was a mystery.
Even after ten days, Hallie still couldn’t believe he’d let them go so easily. Cristiano wasn’t the kind of man to let himself be defeated, certainly not by some legal technicality. Why hadn’t he come after her? Why hadn’t he fought?
The answer had to be that he was secretly relieved to be rid of them.
She took a deep breath, looking down at the short black dress the music label’s stylist had found for her. Tomorrow she was supposed to start work on an album, followed by a publicity tour. Once, this would have felt like a dream come true.
Now, it just felt like a job. A way to support her child so she wouldn’t have to depend on a man who didn’t love her.
The truth was that she didn’t want to sing for strangers. She wanted to sing for the people she loved. For Cristiano. And she would have given it all up in a second if he’d come for her, to fight for her. For their family.
But he hadn’t.
A jagged pain filled her throat. Bad for singing, she thought, and tried to think of happier things. She’d used some of that hundred-thousand-dollar check, which she’d tucked away in her savings account, to lease a one-bedroom walk-up apartment in the Lower East Side. But she was trying not to spend that. She wanted to save it for Jack’s future, so she never had to ask Cristiano for anything ever again. Not even the alimony required by the prenuptial agreement. She hadn’t filed for divorce. The mere thought of divorce filled her with blinding pain.
At the moment it felt like she was barely putting one foot ahead of the other. She didn’t know how she would have survived without her friends.
“Stop that,” Tess said, as she caught Lola yawning behind Hallie.
“I can’t help it,” the blonde said. “I only got four hours of sleep last night. Thanks to you,” she said to her tiny baby with mock severity.
“Four hours isn’t so bad,” Tess said encouragingly. Lola rolled her eyes.
“One hour. Four times.”
“Oh,” Tess said, because there wasn’t much good to say about that. Then she brightened. “But before you know it, your baby will be as big as Esme.” She looked down at her five-month-old daughter, a dark-haired baby with adorable fat rolls on her thighs and bright emerald-green eyes.
“It’s time,” the stage manager called, and Hallie sucked in her breath.
