The Private Rehearsal (Caught Up In Love: The Swoony New Reboot of the Contemporary Romance Series Book 4)

by Lauren Blakely

  He’s playing me now. His midnight-blue eyes have a teasing glint. This is the way I’d rather work with him, so I return the conversational volley with an arch look. “But do you like opera?”

  He shoots me the barest of grins, then coaxes out a quick few notes from the piano. I recognize the music. It’s from Carmen by Bizet.

  “Habanera. Love is a rebellious bird.” I name the famous aria he’s playing. “Though, I’m not an opera fan.”

  “I don’t care for it, either. I like Carmen though, and the way she moves. I’d like this song better if it were played like this.”

  I lean on the piano and watch his hands move over the keys. He has a scar across his right hand, a long, jagged worm from the wrist all the way to his ring finger. I wonder if he ever tells anyone how it happened. If he’d tell me if I asked.

  His fingers move quickly on the keys—he’s turned Carmen’s aria into a rock tune, changing the speed, mixing it up, so it has a low, sexy beat that sounds like the song he was playing in his office a month ago.

  The song I told him I loved. The song he turned off. Now he’s shifting from Carmen to Muse, and it’s as if he’s playing “Madness” just for me, telling me something, using music instead of words. His eyes stay on me the whole time, and my cheeks grow hot as he plays.

  Music fills the room and spreads through my body, and I have the strangest sensation that I’m his instrument. That the keys beneath his fingers hammer strings inside me, sounding notes from within me. Neither of us speaks. There is only music between us, but I know the lyrics, and when he reaches come on and rescue me, it all becomes too much.

  “You lied,” I say, speaking to break the spell. “You said you didn’t play well.”

  He shakes his head. “I said I’m not a virtuoso. But I don’t want to talk about me anymore, Jill.” His voice has changed to commanding. From playful to powerful. I straighten from leaning on the piano, standing taller. He’s all business, so I need to resist my instinct to lighten the mood when it gets heavy.

  “I want to talk about Ava,” he says. “And I want to talk about you and how you become her. How to find the truth of her and hold on to it so tightly that no one watching doubts for even a second that you’re her. You won’t doubt it, I won’t doubt it, and the audience won’t doubt it. And so, I want you to think of Carmen and Habanera when you work on your part.”

  He’s shifted, leaving Muse behind us. I follow his lead, shifting my tone too. “Tell me why.”

  “Ava is a rebellious bird. She resists Paolo. She resists his teaching, his way of making art. She resists his love too.” His eyes never stray from mine, and his gaze is so intense it could burn. Then he lowers his voice, softens it to a lover’s whisper. “But then she transforms. Love changes her. Love without bounds. Love without reason. She becomes his, and that changes her.”

  Those last few words make me feel light-headed and woozy. I reach for the edge of the piano, holding on.

  She becomes his, and that changes her.

  “I love that,” I manage to say. My own breathy voice surprises me, and I quickly catalogue my reaction—goosebumps dot my arms, there’s a tingling in my belly, and my lips are parted.

  I know what’s happening.

  He’s doing it again.

  He’s enticing me with his words, and I am turned on beyond belief.

  My body responds faster than my brain can apply the brakes—heat flares inside and my skin is hot all over. I know this feeling—but only through the pages of a hot scene in a novel. This is real—in my body and not in my imagination. Not a book, but Davis. I’m weak from craving something I haven’t let myself have in years.

  Contact.

  My vision blurs for a moment, and I clutch the side of the piano so I don’t fall.

  “Which sentiment, Jill?”

  He says my name like it’s dessert. Like it’s something he wants to eat. It’s a simple question, but I’m unhinged by the feeling that my body is responding to someone else’s cues.

  His cues.

  There was no reason for my head to be so cloudy and my body so hazy, or for my pulse to race like a runaway train. It would be unbearably foolish to allow the line to blur between acting and feeling. He’s good with words, he’s good with people, he’s good with ideas. He does what Paolo does—takes nascent, unformed clay and transforms it into something alive and wondrous. That’s why there’s an aching between my legs, why I’m vibrating like a tuning fork. It’s because Davis is making me feel like Ava, and Ava is turned on by Paolo.

  I finally answer his question. “All of them.”

  “All of them?” He raises an eyebrow.

  “The one you just said, where she becomes his,” I say quickly. My skin is feverish. The heat is cranked too high in this room. I look around. “Can we turn the heat down?”

  He stands and goes to the thermostat, adjusts the lever, and turns back. On his return path, he passes so near to me that I sense him, mere inches from me. For a brief moment, I expect him to trail a hand across my lower back so that I shiver.

  He sits again at the bench and plays the opening notes to Ava’s signature song, “Show Me the Rebel.” “Show me the rebellious bird in you, Jill.”

  “But . . .” Hesitation is so unlike me. I know the music. I know the song. I have never been afraid of performing. Something’s different here. “It comes in the middle of the show. It’s not her first song.”

  He says nothing, just plays the intro again.

  “Can’t we start with something else? I haven’t practiced it before.”

  There’s a hint of a smile on his lips. “That’s why I’m rehearsing you,” he says, and his voice is like whiskey and honey. Rough and smooth at the same time. “So you can practice. I want you to be able to blow the audience away. I want them to melt for you. I want them to fall for you. You can start by making me feel that way.”

  My legs are wobbly, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m rehearsing with an award-winning director in my first Broadway show, or if it’s because his words are laced with subtext and innuendo. You can start by making me feel that way. But this off-kilter is how Ava feels when she begins this song. She doesn’t know what to make of Paolo, and I don’t know what to make of Davis.

  I pick a point on the opposite wall, a random nick in the plaster, and I sing to it. I serenade the dent on the wall with a rote, emotionally flat melody. I make it through only six lines of the song when he stops his accompaniment.

  I turn to him, waiting.

  “Is there a reason why you’re staring at a spot on the wall?”

  “Um . . .” This is one of those questions without a correct answer.

  “Is there?” he asks again.

  I shake my head.

  “Do you sing any song to a spot on the wall?”

  “No.” My face flames red.

  “Do you sing it to the audience?”

  “No.”

  “Do you sing it to the floor?”

  “No.”

  “Do you sing it to a random, distant point in the balcony?”

  “No,” I say through gritted teeth, and now I want to smack him for the way he’s making me feel stupid.

  “Are you mad at me, now?” he asks in the exact same tone, a professor quizzing a student, dressing her down. He doesn’t rage but simply peppers her with questions until she’s thoroughly unnerved.

  Screw being turned on. Now I’m pissed off.

  And he asks if I’m mad at him?

  “No,” I lie, looking down.

  He rises from the piano, stalks over to me, and stands mere inches away. He doesn’t lift my chin or grip my shoulders. I still respond, raising my face to meet his eyes, because I can’t not. His midnight blue eyes give away nothing now except power, confidence, and absolute control. There’s an electrical current between us, and it’s one that he alone controls.

  I bite my lip briefly, and he makes an almost imperceptible sound that borders on a growl, then asks
again. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Are you asking me or are you asking Ava?”

  He nods approvingly, as if he likes the question.

  “Jill,” he answers slowly, my name becomes sound in the charged air between us. “I’m asking you as Jill.”

  “I’m saying no, as Jill.”

  He shakes his head, not fooled. “Don’t lie to me. There is no right or wrong answer. There is only the truth, and I want yours right now. Are you mad at me?”

  I breathe out hard and admit it. “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Why is that good?”

  “Use it. Use it for the song. Ava is headstrong. Ava is passionate. Paolo makes her crazy. He manipulates her. Or so she thinks.” He balls his fingers as if he’s grabbing something. “But he does it to reach deep down inside her. To help her find her true self, her true art, her true creativity. Everything he does, he does because he believes in her.”

  “But why? Why does he believe in her?”

  “Because he knows in his heart”—he taps his chest—“in his head”—now his forehead—“and his gut.” He hits his fist against his flat stomach. “He knows. Start from the beginning. Now, take your anger and use it. Sing it to Paolo. Look in his eyes. Let your anger carry the song. Let your frustration take you through. Then let go of it and let it fade away.”

  I nod. I don’t think I can speak. I can only feel. The anger at Davis. The frustration with myself. Then what Ava feels—the spark of hope, the possibility of becoming the person, the artist, the woman he believes she can be. I take a deep, quiet breath, imagining all those feelings living inside of me.

  He returns to the bench and resumes the music, the notes falling on me like rain. Then I’m Ava, and I turn and meet my director’s gaze. Only he’s not Davis anymore. He’s Paolo. He’s the man I’m mad at, and mad with, and mad about. I sing to him—not the wall, not the floor, not the audience. Just him, the man who drives me crazy with his perfectionism, with his inscrutable side. But I need him, not only to succeed as a painter, but to break free of all the loneliness I’ve felt my whole life as Ava. And I sing every word, every line, every note to him.

  He watches me the entire time. Lets my words, my story, my tale become a part of him. He takes what I have to give. He absorbs all my music, all my passion, all my pain. He is the reason I’m singing, and I give it all to him because he knows what to do with all I have.

  Because he accepts me for who I am, and because he makes me feel again.

  And as I sing, something deep inside of me loosens. A brittle piece of the make-believe heart that I’ve been gripping so hard for so long rattles free and tumbles away. I let it go because I’m ready. I feel buoyant, unencumbered by my past, and it’s an unfamiliar feeling, but such a welcome one. It’s a reprieve, and my voice hitches, hitting a note all wrong and raw, but his eyes light up at that.

  With the end of the song, I take one step closer to him. “I need you, Paolo,” I say, shifting from sung words to the spoken ones in the script that cap off this song. Shifting, too, from calling him Professor to calling him by his name. “I need you to make me whole again.”

  “I will, Ava,” he says in the softest whisper, but one that carries through the whole rehearsal studio as he delivers lines that start to bring this hard-edged, mercurial man closer to falling for this woman. “I promise.”

  After several more rounds, I’m sweating. I’ve shed my sweater, and I’m wearing only a tank top with my jeans. It’s a workout singing for Davis, and I’m not even dancing. I’m merely standing and singing. But the way he directs, demanding everything I have, feels like a workout. I pull at my tank so it doesn’t stick to my chest.

  “Ready to go again?” he asks.

  “Any time you want.”

  He laughs once, shakes his head. “I was only teasing. I think we can call it a night.”

  “Oh, I can keep going,” I say. “But if you need to stop . . .”

  Davis rises from the piano, closes it, and grabs his jacket. “I don’t really think there’s any question about whether I can keep going. And I don’t need to stop. Ever.” Then his eyes rake over me, as if he’s memorizing me for later. “I’m choosing to call it a night.”

  Now my chest is hot again, and I’m ready to take the sheet music and fan myself. How is it that half the things that come out of his mouth are double entendres? Is it on purpose? Sometimes, I think I have him figured out, but then he looks at me with those bedroom eyes, or he says something ridiculously sexy, and I’m reassembling puzzle pieces again.

  I skirt the innuendo because I’m not quite sure what to do with it, especially when he made it clear I’m not his type. Instead, I point to his coat.

  “So you do own a jacket.”

  “I’m not entirely impervious to the elements.”

  “Aha! He is human, after all.” I feel a little giddy, maybe even punch drunk from singing my freaking heart out. I’m spent in the way that a good, hard run can wring you dry but leave you surging with adrenaline too.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” he says. “I have a reputation as a badass to maintain.”

  He doesn’t seem to mind at all that I’ve figured out he likes the image he’s created for himself—take no prisoners, hard as hell, impossible to get to know. Sure, he is tough, but there’s more to him, too, and I don’t think he lets many people see his other sides. Maybe that’s why he seems to enjoy it when I see through him. Maybe that’s why he talks to me this way.

  “Oh, you’re still badass in my book,” I say as I pull my sweater back on. For a moment, I wrestle with the neckline, so I can’t see him as I’m stuck under my clothes.

  When I emerge, he’s stepped closer, all serious and smoldering again. I can’t take my eyes off of him when he’s like that. It scares me how my whole body feels like it’s waking up when he looks at me.

  “Am I? Badass in your book?” he asks in a voice that’s low and smoky and makes me want to say yes to him over and over, to anything he’d ask.

  That’s why I can’t answer his question. Because my body has instincts, but I’m still my mixed-up, messed-up self, and I have no idea what to do with these veiled questions that feel a lot like foreplay.

  So, I dodge the heat again, take a steady breath, jam my arms into my jacket, then cinch it closed. I need to shift gears and focus only on my job. “So how did I do tonight?”

  Davis seems to sense and respect the shift. “You were everything I wanted you to be,” he says, returning to his crisp, professional voice. He stops to lock the door, then we head down the carpeted hallway to the elevator. Once inside, he pushes the button for the ground floor. I glance at his hand, noticing his scar again. I point to it, my finger mere inches from his hand, so close I could touch him, could trace the raised line on his skin. “How’d you get that scar?”

  He doesn’t answer right away, and I wonder if I’ve crossed some line. I hold my breath, as I wait for either an answer or an admonishment. The gears whir as the car begins its descent. This might be the tiniest elevator ever made because I might crash into him if it stops suddenly. I imagine being jolted, being caught. His arms around me. Our bodies so close. That frozen moment when you’re either colliding or you’re not.

  Maybe I do want more of his innuendo. Maybe I do want the elevator to topple me into him, so I can see where this goes.

  But the ride is smooth, and we both stay in our places.

  Then, he holds up his hand, regards it as if he hasn’t seen it in ages. “This? Punched the glass window of my front door when I was seventeen.”

  “You did?”

  “Couple of days after I found out my parents died.”

  He says it in the most offhand way, but my heart leaps to my throat and I want to comfort him. To wrap my arms around him, tell him how unfair it is when people you love die too soon. I lay a hand on his arm. His eyes jerk to mine, but then he quickly looks away, and I remove my hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah,
me too,” he says in a low voice, sounding wounded. Letting down his guard.

  I want to ask what happened to them, but that feels too personal, too much, too soon.

  The car stops at the lobby, and the doors crank open. We step out into the cold, biting night, and the sounds of New York traffic. It’s the familiar soundtrack to my days and nights in this city.

  We walk down the steps to the sidewalk. A cold wind whooshes by, and I pull my jacket tighter. He moves closer, and for a second I think he may drape an arm over my shoulder, pull me near and keep me warm. But he doesn’t. Instead, he points to a town car waiting at the curb.

  “For you,” he says.

  “Me? You got me a car service?” I shouldn’t be excited over a car, but I am. I’ve only acted in a few off-Broadway shows and a couple of commercials, and I didn’t even rate a cab in my contracts for those. It was subway, all the way.

  “If I’m making you work late, it’s the least I can do,” he says as he opens the door for me, and I slide inside.

  He leans into the car, reaches for the seat belt, and pulls it across my chest, buckling me in. He’s inches from me, and he smells cold like the night air. But he also smells the way a man should at the end of the day: a little bit of sweat, a lot of work, and all raw power. He brings one hand behind my head and unclips my hair, letting it fall over his fingers. I tremble from his touch as a shiver runs down my spine. “I like your hair up and I like your hair down,” he whispers to me, breaking down all my resistance in an instant.

  I can see this playing out if I do nothing—I’ll spend the night rewinding this moment and rewatching it until dawn. But I don’t want to go home with only a memory to feed my body, and I can’t stand the thought of this night ending too soon.

  There’s only one choice. “Do you want to share?” I ask, praying he lives in the same direction.

  “You’re downtown, right?”

  I nod.

  “Me too.”

  Then he closes my door, and I swivel around, watching through the tinted window as he circles to the other side quickly and opens the door. His dark eyes pin me and send a rush of heat down my chest and straight to my very core. He never takes his eyes from me as he closes the door and hits a button on the console that raises the tinted privacy partition, telling the driver “Just drive.”