His eyes were drawn to Vy's table. She caught his gaze for a moment, and looked away embarrassed. The girl was in love with the vampire from his stupid song. He had no right to take advantage of that.
Chapter 9
Vy
Now that her involuntary hunger strike was over, Vy was among the first people in the common room. She made a beeline for Marvin's table out of habit. He was alone, as always when Bryce or Helen were at practice.
The whispers from King's team placed him as a favorite for the final. If at first they others had avoided him because of his looks, now they avoided him because they were afraid of his talent.
"I'm so tired," she said, plopping hard on the bench across from him.
Marvin yawned. "Tell me about it," he said.
"I will sleep for a month once this is over," she said.
She put her head on her forearm and closed her eyes. She jerked awake when she heard Bryce's voice.
"Stay with us," Bryce said.
When she opened her eyes she saw King standing next to their table, while Bryce about to sit next to Marvin. She shot Bryce an angry look and he came sheepishly to her side of the table.
King looked over to the Captains' table, but instead of refusing, he placed his cell next to Marvin's plate. Which meant that he was going to sit exactly across from herself. Wonderful.
"What the hell?" she muttered at Bryce when King walked toward the open buffet.
"What?" Bryce said. "None of the other captains is here."
She wanted to kick Bryce, both for inviting King, and for his hesitation before sitting next to her. King knew about their alleged romance, so it would be weird if they didn't sit next to each other.
King came back with a cup of coffee and nothing else. Good. At least he wasn't going to hang around too much.
As if summoned by some black magic, Michelle showed up, with her tray. Next to her, Nikki was watching them with poorly concealed distaste. It was clear that she had only come along because of Michelle.
"May we join you?" Michelle asked, looking only at King.
"Sure," he said.
Michelle put her tray on the table in front of King's coffee and pushed Vy's tray to the left. Bryce scooted to the end of the bench, and Vy followed him to make room for Michelle. Vy's left thigh was pressed against Bryce's. His firm muscled body was uncomfortably molded against hers. She tried to make herself smaller, to minimize the physical contact with him and with the skinny bitch on her right. She was prone to bitchiness herself when her personal space was invaded.
Across the table, Marvin was in a similar position, trying to shrink so that he wouldn't touch either Nikki or King.
"I wanted to thank you again for the song you chose," Michelle said. "It works so well for me and for Laura. We're going to make a hell of a show."
"I'm sure you'll make a splash," Vy said without thinking.
She bit her tongue after the words were already out. Nikki's smile was positively disgusting.
"Whatever do you mean?" Michelle asked icily.
Vy took a bite of her steak ignoring the question. Nikki was eating her salad with exaggerated care. Leonie had made a comment once about people who wanted to appear sophisticated. Her cheeks burned at the memory. She had always thought she wasn't a snob like her godmother, but there she was, labelling people based on their awkward table manners.
"When does University start?" Nikki asked suddenly.
"It started last week," Vy answered, again without thinking.
"Oh, that's right," Michelle said. "Weren't you supposed to be in school now, Vy?"
Bryce put his big hand over hers to calm her down. She hadn't even realized how pissed off she really was until he rubbed her thumb over the back of her hand. Nikki's eyes fell on their linked hands. She looked even more of a sourpuss than usual.
"Salona has been there for five hundred years," Vy said. "I'm fourth generation legacy so... they will wait for me a year."
It was the first time she mentioned her background. After IBC had talked about her well-off family, she had nothing to hide.
"How embarrassing would it be if you lost this round," Nikki said. "You'd lose this year for nothing."
That smarmy bitch! "Your concern is touching," Vy said. "Will you be my best friend forever and ever?"
"You don't have to take it so personally, Vy," Michelle said. "We're just talking."
Time to give truth a chance. "You're right. No one likes to think that they might lose. Even if Salona waits."
As she expected, Michelle and Nikki didn't know what to make of her sudden open vulnerability. People like her encountered two kind of reactions: angry replies or cowering. Vy had left them without weapons by pretending to accept their point.
She realized that she wanted to win because she loved winning. Because she was used to winning. She trusted her talent, her willingness to put in the work and, strangest of all, she trusted Tim Carter to guide her. The certainty that Salona would be there for her was only a vague reassurance. Win or lose Sing, she wasn't going to give up music.
"Well, I'm done," King said standing up. "Marvin, take your time. I have to dealt with something before our practice. Enjoy your breakfast, guys."
Michelle looked after him with regret. She and Nikki left without saying anything, leaving their trays with uneaten food on the table.
"That was awkward," Bryce said. "Michelle has such a crush on King, it's ridiculous."
"You're still holding my hand," she said, pulling it out of his grasp and sliding back to her spot.
"Come on, honey-bunny," Bryce said. "You made a point of keeping up the pretense."
"I thought you were going to stab him with a fork when he nearly sat next to me," Marvin said.
"Seriously? When was the last time I physically hurt any... Oh," she said, looking at Marvin who was theatrically pretending to touch things on the table as if he were blind.
She wondered briefly what had unnerved her the most: being squeezed between Bryce and Michelle, Nikki's dig at her getting too close to her very real fear that she missed out on Salona for nothing, or that Andrew King had witnessed the whole thing.
Andrew
It was still dinner time. He should have left, but the thought of his empty apartment was not appealing. His friend and assistant, David Porter, had a session with Bryce and Dane in their music room, so he set about the house, to see if he could find another free room.
Some of the doors were locked. His joy to find one that wasn't disappeared when he saw Vy there. She still had the music sheets in her hands when he walked in.
"I thought it was free," he said.
"It sort of is," she said, standing up without much enthusiasm. "I'll get out of here."
He stepped inside the room and closed the door. She tensed up, and he could see her trying to avoid look into his eyes.
"A word of advice, Vy. Don't let anyone rile you up. Maybe for you winning this thing is not a be all and end all, but most people here see it as the only thing that matters. The very fact that you have other options is an insult to them."
She had always known that, but living among people who came from a very similar background, she had never before been confronted with this reality. She flopped back on the chair in front of the piano.
"I do want to win."
"Of course you do."
"I'm not great at hiding my feelings," she said, a blush spreading on her face and neck.
He was well aware of that. He resented her for displaying her attraction so openly. If he were a better man, he wouldn't find her vulnerability so attractive. Maybe he wasn't a good man, but he was trying. He had to help her somehow.
He sat down on the chair next to the piano, close to her.
"You don't have to hide them," he said. "You shouldn't even try to suppress them. But it will be easier for you if you don't allow negative emotions to control you."
"Thank you," she said still not looking at him.
He coul
d feel that his advice carried a lot of weight. She raised her head slowly, and dared to look at him.
"In my family," she said. "We're not great at expressing our emotions. We're more about expressing ideas."
"You're related to Paul Cesara, aren't you?" he asked.
They hadn't mentioned him by name in Vy's info package, but he knew of him. Paul Cesara's law firm had a very strong fiscal department that handled some of the richest artists in the country. And he was married to the most vocal civil rights activist in Illyria.
She nodded. "My father."
"So, Adeline St. Croix is your mother."
Adeline's foundation worked with Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders, the Orsino Children's Hospital, the Red Cross and the St. Marie Foundation. She had been the life and soul of dozens of campaigns for civil rights and aid programs for third world countries.
"Yep," she said. "As you can imagine, we're all about truth and freedom of information. They aren't exactly pleased with my current... choice."
Her voice dropped when she said that. Yes, he could imagine that being a singer was not what her parents wanted for her. He didn't know what other talents Vy had, maybe she would have been a great humanitarian or an excellent lawyer. What he did know, was that she had the voice and spirit of a true rock star.
"I sold my car," she blurted, and she looked surprised of her own words. "I wanted to pay them back for the tuition they already paid," she explained. "When I knew I wasn't going to be in time to go to Uni... I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you this."
"It's ok. You didn't tell anyone else?"
She shook her head. Her trust moved him. He felt high on the power he had over this girl. He had to come down and be her teacher. Or at least her friend.
"Don't let anyone hurt you," he said. "With this or with anything. Use it when you sing. Store the memory of selling your car to pay back your parents. Remember the way it feels to know you don't have their blessing to be here. Make a catalog of emotions inside you, and use the one that will help you with each song. There will be times when you will have to sing and you won't feel anything. But your audience deserves the best of you. Then, you can reach inside, and use these memories, these perfectly preserved emotions."
She looked into his eyes, and for a moment he read the depth of her trust and admiration. He didn't know what she saw in his eyes, but the respect in her eyes morphed and he witnessed her pupils expand. She would have another emotion to stash away in her catalog. Desire.
He felt the connection again. Deep and dangerous. Their foreheads were nearly touching. When had they both leaned in so much?
He stood up abruptly. It wasn't safe to be so close to her. Every time they were close, he was desperately drawn to her.
Proximity shouldn't matter. There shouldn't be any attraction if she were inches from him or an ocean away. She was off limits.
Her voice shook when she spoke. "Thank you."
He was a far better liar. Unlike hers, his voice didn't betray any of the raging storm inside him. "I'll let you practice."
Chapter 9
Vy
No matter what she did, the day of the duels she couldn't avoid Andrew King. Singing in front of him was the hardest thing that day. Claire was a strong opponent, with a beautiful voice and great stage presence but she was an afterthought compared to her fear that King's presence would throw her.
When time came for her duel, she was grateful to TC for being such a hardass in training. She had practiced every inflection and every gesture to perfection. It didn't matter that her heart kept beating wildly the whole time she sang. The crazy emotion didn't bleed into the song. She had been technically flawless. Ignoring King was like cutting off a part of herself, but she managed it.
Ford and Lauren had been full of compliments about her performance, making her blush, and feel embarrassed for Claire who had to stay there with a smile plastered on her face. She forgot to worry about Claire's feelings when King spoke.
"Carter chose a very good song for the two of you," King said, looking at Carter, then he looked at the two of them on the stage, his gaze not fixing either of them. "Your voices are excellent, and you both had the chance to prove yourselves in this song. I agree with Lauren and Ryann. Tonight, Vy took the over the stage like a hurricane."
He looked from Lauren and Ryann to her. She had to hope that the camera didn't pick up how her knees almost buckled when she made eye contact with him.
By the time TC reviewed their performance, the warmth in his voice when he said her name served to calm her frantic heart.
#
They had started the season with sixteen people on their team. They were four left. Which meant that TC had m ample time to drive each of them nuts.
Time flew by, and there they were, less than a week from round three. The first time the episode would go live on air. The first time she was going to sing in front of millions of viewers. By the end of round three, each team would be left with only two people to go into the semifinals.
Andrew
He was pleased that Bryce had improved enough to get to round 3, but he could feel that the boy had reached his ability to improve in such a short time. He didn't have time to practice, so he would have to make up for it with emotion. On the live round, the audience voted from home, and he had a chance to get to the semifinal if he could transmit enough raw emotion.
"You have a powerful voice, and in the past few weeks you learned to control it very well. But you have to show a softer side. Especially in the second part of the song."
"I'm trying," Bryce said, "but... I don't know how to do it."
"Think about how you felt the first time you realized you were in love."
Andrew was proud of how steady his own voice sounded. He knew that Bryce was in love with Vy, but he couldn't say her name.
"What did you feel the first time you saw her?"
"I was super nervous because of my audition," Bryce said. "She smiled at me, and I forgot to be nervous."
He found her presence calming. Lucky bastard. Calm was the last thing he felt when Vy was anywhere near him. The song wasn't about the rosy, happy part of a relationship. Bryce's song was about heartache and longing. He had found himself humming it under his breath when he was alone in his vast, cold, empty apartment.
A shadow of pain colored Andrew's voice when he spoke. "How do you feel when she's not in the room? Do you miss her the second she's gone?"
He wished it was just a ploy to get Bryce to open up. He wished he could be as heartless as Carter.
"Yeah, I do," Bryce said, but he didn't sound at all convincing.
"Let's try the song again. Fill your voice with these feelings when you sing and throw them at the audience."
He sat down at the piano, and they went through the song again. A mild improvement, but nowhere near what he wanted to hear.
"It was better, but you can add more depth. Think about losing her. Think about the moment when this show is over and you will both go back to your old lives. You are from Carthia, she is from Orsino. You are a man who works with his hands, she's a Salona legacy. Life will tear you apart and you will never see her again. Remember how those green eyes looked into yours and made you believe she wanted to be yours. Feel how much it will hurt every time you think you see out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn, she's not there."
Andrew's hands ran over the keyboard again, and he talked softly over the melody.
"You'll hear her voice on the radio, singing love songs, and your heart will bleed, because she will never say those words to you. You'll see her on TV and your hands will burn to know you're never going to run them through her long blond hair. You die a little every day, knowing that you lost her."
He stopped talking and his voice slid into the song. He hadn't sung someone else's song in a long time, but at that moment, the classic ballad felt completely personal. For the first time in longer than he cared to admit, he felt the pain he was singing
about.
Bryce was watching him in shock, and when the song ended, the young man's eyes were brimming with tears. He scowled, realizing he had revealed too much of himself.
When he dismissed Bryce from practice, he turned over the music sheets, and wrote down the words that had sprung out of him earlier.
In a few weeks time, the season would end. Vy would start her career, and he would drift further and further out of her life. He also knew that only then the true torture would start from him. While she was still close, he could get satisfaction from her reactions, from stolen glances and accidental touches. When the door to the House would close, she would start haunting him.
He wrote the title in harsh, angular letters.
Ghost of you.
He folded the paper and went into the common room, seeking the company of the other captains. Lauren, Ford and Carter were already at the Captains' table.
"Maybe we should ask for rooms here," Ford said stifling a yawn.
"You've been working this hard every summer?" he asked. "I'm surprised any of you had time to do anything else."
"I can handle two or three concerts at most during the summer," Lauren said. "We work harder each year."
"Especially since Carter started winning," Ford said.
"If I don't make it to Viaverde every weekend I go crazy," Carter said pinching the bridge of his nose. "This year especially I need to take some serious time off."
"Do tell," Ford said. "You're finally admitting you can't handle her?"
"I can handle her all right. I never had to work so hard on someone so talented."
"She acts like she doesn't really care about winning," Lauren said. "She's talented, but I can see why you feel she doesn't want to give it all."
"I don't care what she wants," Carter said. "She will win this."
"Them's fighting words," Ford said.
"I can get her to do things she has no idea she can do. If we don't kill each other in the next few days, she's the one to beat in the final."
Dark Dream (Love in Illyria Book 1) Page 7