Maybe I’m paranoid. Maybe I’ve lost my mind, but goddammit, I’m convinced she’s been sexually abused. Someone from her past? Is it happening right now? Who the fuck is hurting her?
I fist my hands on my hips and glare down at her as everything inside me simmers to blow up. “Has another teacher asked for inappropriate favors?”
“No!”
A small relief, but it leaves me with nothing. “Who then?”
She steps back just as several students mill into the classroom, laughing and oblivious. The conversation will have to be postponed, but there’s something else that can’t wait. I join her at my desk as she gathers the stack of textbooks.
Under the guise of powering up my laptop, I watch her out of the corner of my eye and lower my voice for her ears alone. “I trust your brother didn’t touch you last night.”
Her grin is reluctant, dimpling the corner of her mouth and crawling across her lips. “Shane stumbled in with a broken nose, whining about a headache until he passed out. Guess that’s karma, huh?”
“Yes.” My mouth twitches. “Karma.”
Arms loaded with books, she turns toward the room full of students, pauses, then pivots back to me.
“Thank you.” She stares at my tie, her chin pinning the tablet atop the tower of books in her arms. “I’ll reimburse you as soon as I can.”
Nodding, I return to the whiteboard.
Maybe I made things more difficult for her. Whatever she does to earn money, she has to do more of it to pay me back. But school supplies are a requirement. Besides, I don’t intend to accept her reimbursement.
While I know her sense of self-worth arises from paying her own way, from not taking hand-outs, I spend the next three hours obsessing over how I can beat that idea out of her without crossing the line.
If her mother’s unemployed, how will she pay me back? Performing arts students can’t work regular jobs. They don’t have time for anything outside of school and practice. Hell, students are required to practice their instruments at least four hours a day, every day, for years. If they don’t, they fall behind, lose their competitive edge and any hope for a musical career.
Questions about her financial situation marinate in the back of my mind for the next few hours. A beautiful young girl like her, from a neighborhood like Treme, has a slew of undesirable methods to earn fast money. Drugs and prostitution fall on the top of that list, but I refuse to imagine her degrading herself in that way. It’s too appalling.
When the final bell rings, the piano students exit the classroom, except Ivory, who sets her belongings on a desk by the door and looks at me expectantly. “Don’t the others have private lessons?”
“Sebastian Roth and Lester Thierry have their own tutors at home.”
“I know.” Her forehead pinches. “But Chris and Sarah always take advantage of the lessons here.”
“They opted to study under Mrs. Romero’s tutelage.”
I planted the suggestion in my meetings with Chris and Sarah yesterday, hinting that the other piano instructor had some openings after school, and her softer approach may be a good match for them. It’s partially true. Mrs. Romero teaches the younger grades and already has her hands full. But she works for me, and therefore, I determine her schedule.
Ivory’s lips part as she considers the news. “Does that mean I’ll have you all to myself from three to seven every day?”
Fuck me, but I love the sound of that.
Her eyes widen. “Oh damn, I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant, and yes, I’ll be mentoring you.”
As a general rule, I prefer to groom only one or two students at a time. Though my intentions with Ivory have little to do with her personal development. When it comes to torturing myself, I’m the dean of effort, hell-bent on enduring the entire school year with achingly sore blue balls.
I close the door and make my way around the corner of the L-shaped room. Leaning a hip against the Bösendorfer grand piano, I wait for her to join me then rap my knuckles on the sleek black surface. “Four hours every day.”
An enormous grin overwhelms her beautiful mouth. “I won’t waste your time.”
“No, you won’t.” I could stare at her twenty-four hours a day and feel like the most productive pervert in the world. But if I don’t eradicate those thoughts from my head, our time together will be over before it begins. “Did you practice last night?”
“Of course.”
She doesn’t tense up, change her breathing, or convey vulnerability in any way. She’s telling the truth, which might explain her whereabouts last night.
“Where did you practice?” Realizing that implies I know she wasn’t home, I rephrase the question. “You own a piano?”
“Not anymore.” Her dark brown hair escapes the curve of her ear and falls over her shoulder. She gathers it at the bend of her neck and twists it into a rope down her chest. “My mom sold my dad’s piano after he died.”
My dad’s, not Daddy’s. I bite the inside of my cheek to hide my satisfaction.
“There’s a music store down the street from my house.” Facing me, she braces an elbow on the edge of the piano and mirrors my position. “The owner lets me practice on his Steinway until eleven every night.”
Which coincides with the time she came home. So why can’t I shake the feeling she’s leaving something out?
Because she’s not looking at me. She’s toying with the ends of her hair, and wherever her thoughts just drifted, she’s distracted to silence.
I touch a finger to her chin, lifting it to recapture her attention. “Time to finish our earlier conversation.”
Her lips thin.
“Who asked you for an inappropriate favor?”
She turns away and lowers onto the piano bench. “No lies?”
“I don’t mentor liars, Miss Westbrook.”
She nods, her expression grim. “The truth is, I need your help.” Her hands run over the keys without depressing them. “With this. Mastering the piano.” She stretches her fingers. “I’m the best pianist in this school, you know.”
“Is that right?”
She peers up at me through her lashes. “I may even be better than you.”
My stomach swoops in the presence of her tantalizing smile. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“You’re right.” She studies her fingers on the keys. “I have a lot to learn. But with the right teacher and enough focus, I’ll be out of here at the end of the year. Out of Treme. This is the most honesty I can give you, Mr. Marceaux.” She pulls her hands into her lap and stares up at me with pleading eyes. “If you focus on the other stuff in my life, the things not related to my talent, it will hurt my future. And if you involve social services, every opportunity I have here will be taken away.”
She’s all but admitting I won’t like what I find when I poke around in her affairs. I have no intention of involving social services, and she doesn’t need to know the extent to which I’m capable of investigating a person.
But I prefer to hear it from her. “Answer the question.”
“I can’t. Please.”
That’s all it takes. The seductive sound of her begging in one breathy syllable and she owns every nerve in my body. I want to hear that sound as she kneels to me, releases me from my pants, and guides me toward her mouth.
Get a grip, asshole.
It’s clear she won’t tell me who’s taking advantage of her, but I’ll find out.
“All right.” I flick a hand toward the piano. “Play for me.”
She adjusts the bench, slides off her tattered shoes, and positions her toes on the pedals. With her palms on her knees, she gives me her attention. “Baroque? Classical? Jazz?”
“Surprise me.”
Eyes on the keyboard, she steadies her breathing. A current of serenity seems to float through her as her posture loosens and her face softens. Then her hands lift, her head bows over the keys, and fucking hell, her fingers fly. The concerto
she chose is pure insanity, a high tempo complexity of too many notes. Balakirev’s Islamey is one of the most challenging cadenzas in the whole classical piano repertoire, and she plays it like an expert.
She’s a tornado of whipping wrists, violent fingers, and rocking hips. Her chin sways, head jerking on the hard-hitting beats, her expression a picture of intense focus. But my critical ear doesn’t miss the slips when she hits the chords with too much force, speeds up too fast, and plays all the sixteenth notes like eighth note triplets.
This is why I don’t play the piece. I mastered it in college, but it’s a goddamn nightmare. The difficulty and awkwardness in positioning the fingers, the left hand hopping over the right, and at the end of eight minutes, it leaves me drenched in sweat. Besides, I’m not a fan of classical interpretation, which is ironic since I hold a seat in the Louisiana Symphony Orchestra.
Despite Ivory’s minimal mistakes, she brilliantly manipulates the rhythmic flexibility within the measures while following the rubrics with her own artistic convictions. I find myself exhaling with her at the end of every phrase and bending closer as she falls on strong beats, completely mesmerized by the leap of her hands. She breathes life into the notes, beams, and bar lines, making it the best performance I’ve heard on this piece.
She finishes with a sweep of her arms and releases a silent sigh. Perspiration dots along her hairline, and her hands tremble in her lap.
A long moment passes before she drags her gaze to mine and clears her throat. “Well?”
“You hit the notes too hard. Your rubato is rough, too fast. Way too many mistakes.”
She nods, her shoulders slumping.
“This is an instrument, Miss Westbrook, not a gun. You’re making music, not shooting notes at the audience.”
“I know,” she says quietly. “Projection is an art, one I’m still…trying to…” Her chin quivers, and tears sheen her eyes before she looks away and whispers under her breath, “Shit.”
If she requires an instructor who gives praise just to balance the criticism, she has the wrong guy. I’m a dick, and like I told her yesterday, I respect constructive feedback. I’m also not finished with my appraisal.
I approach the piano bench and move to sit, forcing her to make room. She scoots to the edge, the seat barely holding the two of us. Our shoulders, hips, and thighs touch, and it’s not accidental. I want her to feel every contact point and learn to trust it. To trust me.
“What did I say about sniveling?”
Her shoulders snap back, and she stares straight ahead, her voice reedy. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I…I got a little overwhelmed there. I guess I wanted you to—”
“Stop talking.”
She presses her lips together.
I shift to face her, and the position pushes the length of my thigh against hers. The heat from her leg seeps into mine, and I fold my hands together in my lap to keep from reaching out and inching up the hem of her dress. “I didn’t develop the skill to even attempt Islamey until college, and I couldn’t play it all the way through until my final year of graduate school.”
Her eyes flash to mine, huge and round and brimmed with moisture.
I cup the delicate curve of her jaw and swipe my thumb to catch a tear. “Very few people can play that piece. In fact, Balakirev admitted there were passages in his composition even he couldn’t manage.”
She leans into my hand, seemingly unaware she’s doing it as she clings to my words.
“Your interpretation is extraordinarily passionate and stunning.” Just like you. “I’m moved.”
Her breaths come faster, heaving her chest. “Oh Jesus, for real? I’m—” More tears fall from her eyes, and she pulls away to wipe her face. “Dammit, I’m not sniveling. I swear.”
“Why did you choose it?”
“Islamey?”
“Yes.”
She gazes up at me with a relieved smile. “The owner of the music store I told you about, the one where I practice? His name is Stogie and—”
“What do you give him in exchange for practicing there?”
Her smile falls as she realizes what I’m implying. “Nothing! He’s the kindest man I know.” She winces. “No offense.”
“We both know I’m not a kind man. Continue.”
She bites her lip, but her grin reappears, tugging at the corners. “He’s also very old and stubborn and refuses to take his medicine. So he made me a deal. If I learned Islamey, he would take his pills without my nagging.” She shrugs. “It took me all summer. All day, every day.”
“Dedication.”
Her smile lingers. “My hands still hurt.”
“Get used to it. While you played that piece beautifully, it wasn’t perfect. Let’s start with Chopin’s Etude Op 10 No.5 to get you more comfortable with the appropriate amount of pressure on those black keys.”
As she pulls out the music sheet and dives into the etude, I don’t move, don’t give her space. I’m reluctant to give her any leeway at all.
I sat with Prescott Rivard this morning in an impromptu session with his guitar tutor. Then I made the rounds with other top musicians at Le Moyne. The talent is impressive, but none are as proficient or driven as Ivory Westbrook.
I intend to cultivate, polish, and discipline her, while deriving every twisted ounce of pleasure I can from it. But I can’t give her the one thing she desires. I want this job, which means there will be no Leopold in her future.
Ivory
“I’m going to Leopold.” I pause the marker mid-scrawl, the tip pressed against the whiteboard, as the creak of Mr. Marceaux’s shoes approaches from behind.
The sheer height of him casts a shadow over my back as his breaths stir my hair, his whisper like a satin ribbon trailing over my shoulder. “Less talking, more writing.”
It’s only the fifth day of school, and I’m already plotting all the ways to murder him.
I want to poison his coffee for beginning today’s private lesson with a punishment. While I forgot all about disrupting his class on the first day, he was happy to remind me by shoving a marker in my hand and leading me to the wall-length whiteboard.
I want to strangle him with his obnoxious yellow-flowered tie for making me write an endless loop of I will not waste Mr. Marceaux’s time.
With large, angry lines, I scribble another sentence and say, “I’m seventeen, not seven.”
Whack.
A sharp sting burns across my bicep, and my hand flies up to rub the hurt.
I want to rip that conductor baton from his fingers and impale it in his throat. Because seriously, where is the orchestra? There isn’t one, yet he’s twirling the damn thing like Pherekydes of Patrae and slapping it against my arms like a ruler-wielding nun.
“This is wasting time for both of us,” I mumble, scrawling another sentence that states the opposite.
Whack.
A snap of heat blooms on my back, right above my tailbone. Motherfucker, that hurts. But it’s not the worst pain, either. If anyone else raised a baton at me—Lorenzo or Prescott, for example—I’d snarl and throw punches. But this is my mentor, and I want to please him. While plotting his death.
I want the teacher back from three days ago. The one who touched my face so tenderly and said my performance moved him. Where did that guy go?
Maybe it’s my fault. I’ve been off-kilter, dreading tonight all week. I can’t put off Prescott any longer. His homework is done, and I’m a twisted-up bundle of nerves and anger. And with the weekend starting tomorrow, I’ll have two days at home. Two days with Lorenzo and his outrage at not being able to track me down all week.
“What did I say about questioning me?” Mr. Marceaux’s footsteps pace behind me, his icy eyes shivering the hairs on my nape.
If I didn’t know him better, which I don’t, I’d think he’s enjoying this. “Telling a student not to question her teacher is the worst rule in the history of rules.”
I tense for another swat, but it doesn’t
come.
He leans a shoulder against the unwritten section of the board beside me, his hands behind his back and a smirk on his too-pretty face. “I’ll rephrase. Don’t question my methods.” His sharp gaze moves to the board. “Erase the last five sentences, and try again with penmanship befitting a seventeen-year-old.”
I thrust the eraser over the board with belligerent swipes and begin again. “I can write and talk at the same time, and I want to talk about Leopold.”
“You’re not good enough for Leopold.”
I whirl toward him as the crescendo of my heart crashes past my ears. “You said my interpretation of Islamey was extraordinarily passionate and stunning.”
Standing a couple of feet away, he watches me with hooded eyes—Bored? Sleepy?—and shrugs half-heartedly. “Those are meaningless superlatives, which I now regret using.”
My muscles quiver as a rush of fury slams into me. My hands ball into fists, and before my brain catches up, I rear back the marker and hurl it. Right at his forehead.
It bounces off his scowl lines and rolls across the floor beside his Doc Martens. He glares at it, shocked to terrifying stillness, before flinging the conductor baton across his desk and leveling me with glacial eyes.
Ohshitohshitohshit. My face catches fire as I stumble backward. My shoulder hits the whiteboard, but I keep going, sliding along the wall and toward the door. What the hell is wrong with me? I never lose my temper. Holy fuck, I never throw markers at my teachers!
He reaches up, wipes his forehead, and glowers at his fingers. Yes, Mr. Marceaux, the fat black dot of my shame is now smeared across your furiously creased brow.
“I’m sorry.” I glance at the closed door, wishing I were on the other side, down the hall, and far away from whatever comes next.
Without removing his eyes from mine, he lifts his chin and loosens the knot of his tie. Fuck, that can’t be good.
As his hands slide over the silk, I recall another rumor I heard this morning about the depraved ways he uses his ties, belts, and other miscellaneous accessories. I don’t believe gossip, but as I stare into those cruel eyes, I plummet into the chasm of whispered images with a sinking stomach.
Falling For The Forbidden Page 10