AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
Isaac
The lights burst out,illuminating the audience. They fixate on the crowd for longer than all the nights that came before, then just as our eyes become accustomed to the brightness, they twist round and up to point at the back of the stage. Slowly, she appears, and my breath sticks in my throat, along with my pounding heart and a not-insignificant proportion of yesterday’s breakfast. I know it’s that meal specifically, because I haven’t been able to bring myself to eat anything since then. Aurelia’s residency is ending. Tonight.
I take note of everything. The curl of her hair, the cut of her outfit, the sharp point of her boots, the tone of her stance. Her face is soft but her overall look is unapologetically fierce. It feels as though she has grown fully into her new, womanly image over the course of the last four months. She’s leaving Starling Key a more fully formed version of herself, and she knows it too. Part of me wonders if that had been her goal all along. To get some space and separation from her suffocating parents so she could find herself on her own terms.
They’re all here tonight. Her mom and Chuck have prime seats at the front, while her two sisters are backstage, their nannies ready to sweep them off to bed the minute the show is over.
It is epic. In fact, even epic doesn’t do the show justice, or Aurelia’s performance. When the final song kicks in, Aurelia is swarmed by her dancers in an impromptu group hug, sending the crowd crazy. She joins in with the cheering and turns the applause over to them: the dancers, her band, her roadies. She refuses to take all of the credit. She dances until the sweat pours off her and belts out the lyrics like her life depends on it. I stand and watch the emotional rollercoaster, my heart soaring and diving with the gut and tempo of each song. Throughout it all, she sheds not one tear. As she reaches the final crescendo, the band cuts out and the light cuts away from everyone but Aurelia. She stands tall and commanding at the front of the stage, singing the chorus for the last time, a cappella. The final bar is long and high. She anchors her feet into the stage and expands her lungs, pulling out note after note. When her voice finally tapers, her eyes open and she drops them to mine.
The crowd erupts again into one collective scream. Around me people are leaping up into the air and bouncing around, arms waving, torches beaming, phone cameras flashing. But I don’t move. I’m frozen into place by her gaze and the soft smile tugging at her lips. My heart is beating so hard it’s making me dizzy, or it could be the resounding echo of thousands of feet stamping around me.
It feels as though an eternity is passing as I drink in the look she’s giving me—and only me. Then she sharply turns away just as I hear a voice in my ear.
“Let’s get out of here.” I’d clean forgotten Paris was standing next to me. I turn to her and shake my head.
“I can’t do this,” I say.
She can’t hear me above the music but she can read my lips. She blinks once, twice, then she steps backwards and slaps me across the face, hard. I deserve it. I had agreed to go exclusive with her; I’d built up her hopes. Thankfully, she has yet to end things with Roman so at least she has that option if she still wants it, and knowing Paris, the money means too much. But I can’t live this lie anymore. I’m in love with someone else, even if that someone is about to leave, convinced I could never want her.
I watch Paris turn around and fight her way through the dancing crowd, then I look back to the stage. Aurelia is striding along the edge, coaxing more cheers from the crowd. If she’d seen the slap, she betrays no evidence of it. I move to the side of the stage and nod to two of the bodyguards we hired through the agency. I lean into the ear of one of them.
“I’ll take her upstairs.”
He nods and mouths, “We’ll follow.”
When Aurelia finally comes off stage, instead of going to her dressing room like usual, we make our way along the corridor, followed by more security, her dancers and some of the band, and up the back stairs to the executive suite. This is where Aurelia will have her after-show party.
“Is everything set up?” she asks, all business again, her fond smile from earlier gone without a trace.
I nod. “There is a small podium with a mic, and a connected monitor, as you specified. Your mom and Chuck are being escorted from the hall as we speak. I believe the girls and the two nannies have been taken to one of the villas for the night. We’ll have security all over the room. Was there anything else?”
“No.” Her smile is business-like but I can tell she’s operating firmly outside of her comfort zone. Whatever she has planned, she’s planned it on her own. But she won’t let me in. I lost that privilege a long time ago.
“Is Paris coming?” Her question almost makes me jump. “You can invite her, you know.”
“I think this is the last place she’ll want to be,” I mumble.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
One of the security guys holds the door to the exec suite open and I follow Aurelia inside. She immediately scans the almost-empty room, verifying that I’ve fulfilled all her requests correctly.
“It’s not because of you,” I clarify.
Aurelia whips her head around as if she’s already forgotten what we were talking about. “What isn’t?”
“The reason Paris doesn’t want to be here. It’s not because she’s jealous of you.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she says, looking far from it.
“It’s because of me,” I persist. “I ended it tonight.”
Her shoulders drop and finally I see genuine feeling in her face, not just the professional veneer she’s been reserving recently, especially for me. “I’m sorry to hear that too.” She follows the words with a heavy sigh. “I feel like I played a part. You were perfectly happy before I came along.”
I take a step towards her even though we’re in the center of the room and no one can hear us. “No I wasn’t.”
I don’t know why I’m telling her this. Aurelia was right. I don’t know how to be with a woman who isn’t already committed to someone else. The thought of it scares me to death. But I want her to know I wasn’t happy before. I was happy when I was withher.
