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Sam shrugged.
Mark grimaced. “I’ll talk to you later.” He turned and strode away, leaving Sam standing alone on the sidewalk. Sam had his best interests at heart, both personally and professionally, but sometimes he drove Mark crazy.
Well, there had to be worse things than a photo session with Novak.
Like a root canal.
Seven
The soundsof the Mendelssohn violin concerto1echoed in Emily’s mind as she walked up the stairs to her tiny apartment. It had seeped into her bones and reawakened her heart.
It’s because of Geoffrey’s visit last night. I’m vulnerable because he broke down my emotional barriers.
Her fingers moved and she fisted her hand when she realized they were the fingerings of the concerto. “That’s part of my past,” she scolded herself, shaking her head. “It needs to stay there.”
She unlocked her door and walked inside. The small, dark and dingy apartment she’d lived in for three years seemed even more dark and dingy coming from the bright and airy condo. She winced at the remembrance of whose apartment she was moving into.
Amber was gone. Emily shook her head and lifted her chin. There was nothing to be done about it.
She’d cried. She’d grieved. Now it was time to move on if she wanted to survive.
Emily wiped away the tears that fell and placed the small cardboard box she’d found outside the building onto the card table. She tossed in her few possessions: a few well-used paperbacks, a small lamp, her cell phone charger, and a couple of magazines on wine.
She picked up a ticket stub and program from the DC Symphony Orchestra concert she’d saved up for. She stared at the picture of the debonaire Maestro Pavolini, his hands in the air, mid-count as he conducted some orchestral piece. She sucked in a shaky breath as she studied the older man’s face. It had been an amazing concert but left her feeling very similar to how she felt now.
After tossing the program and ticket stub into the trash, she gathered her toiletries from the bathroom and packed up her sparse wardrobe into her small suitcase. Last, she retrieved a small, carved wooden box from the table next to her bed and nestled it in between the white blouses and black skirts that made up her uniform for the Café.
She’d leave the furniture for the next girl. She didn’t need it. Geoffrey wouldn’t have the place vacant for long, and the new girl would at least start with a mattress and nightstand. It was more than Emily had when she’d first moved in.
In the box, her battered copy ofThe Secret Gardencaught her eye. She paused for a long moment, then placed it on the nightstand. The new girl might need to read something, too. Nights were long and lonely here.
She gave a last look around the apartment before heading back to the subway station. The box was awkward to carry with a suitcase in the other hand, and it grew heavier the more blocks she walked. She concentrated on one step at a time, trying to ignore the concerto that played on the edges of her mind.
Her phone chirped as she sat down in the subway train and she pulled it from her pocket. “Hi, Geoffrey.”
“I need you to come in tonight. I forgot we have someone special coming in. Amber was his favorite and you need to meet him.”
Emily stared at a piece of blackened gum stuck to the floor in front of her. “What time?” she asked after a long moment.
“Seven.”
“Okay.”
She ended the call and dropped the phone into the box on her lap with a sigh. She’d been looking forward to a luxurious bubble bath with several shots of whiskey in the new condo tonight.
An hour later, she’d dropped her box and suitcase in her new bedroom and had put her white blouses into her new washer. They’d gotten wrinkled on the way over. But wrinkles weren’t a problem anymore because she had her own washer and dryer now. No more traipsing back and forth to the laundromat down the street on her days off... if there even was one in this nice of a neighborhood.
She unpacked the rest of her things but paused as she picked up the small wooden box and lifted the lid. Inside was a piece of wire and a small wooden dowel. Meaningless items to anyone unfamiliar with string instruments. She held them in her hand and caressed the wire. The blue thread wound around the end was unraveling: the A-string from the violin she’d left behind.
She remembered staring at the precious Stradivarius violin lying on her bed the day she moved into her rooms for the pre-college program at Juilliard, the most prestigious music school in the country. She closed her eyes and let the memory wash over her...
Emily stroked the smooth wood, both loving and hating the feel. She’d spent countless hours with the instrument between her heart and mind. It had brought such love and emotion, and yet she couldn’t look at it without remembering the price she had paid to get where she was. Yes, she’d become a great musician—she’d won this position fair and square.
Had it been worth it?
Rafael and her father had destroyed her in every other way. If she dared plead for freedom, her father reminded her of his motto, “The ends justify the means. Always.”
Tears burned her eyes and she shook her head. She couldn’t do this. Every time she played, she felt Rafael’s hands on her hands, his body inside her body, his mind inside her mind.
