by Reina Torres
Allegra’s head was spinning. So much had changed in less than a day, and somehow, she knew it was going to keep changing.
And for the first time, in a long time, the thought of change didn’t bring a rush of fear.
“Take a break everyone!” The conductor closed his score and moved around the stand as the musicians made a mad rush to set aside their instruments, head to the restroom, breakroom, or out into the alley for a smoke.
Allegra remained in her chair waiting for the noise to fade before she tried to get up from her chair.
“Miss Rossetti?”
Leaning forward, she set her bow down on the table at her side. “Mr. Nylund?”
The older man chuckled. “Please, please,” his accented voice was delightful to listen to, carrying an old-world charm, and his clipped enunciation had a rhythm of its own, “call me Essa.”
Allegra was flattered. Prior to signing the agreement to play with the Gotham Chamber Orchestra, she’d done research on Essa Nylund. He had a long career as a respected conductor. He had mentored a small number of musicians, shepherding them through the beginning of their careers, helping them achieve stardom. Her goals were not so lofty as that, but she did want to please him.
He’d shown her nothing but kindness since she’d begun her work with the orchestra and she wanted to repay him for his efforts with her own.
“I don’t know if I could do that,” she laughed, “I’m sure I’ll cave in and call you Mr. Nylund from time to time.”
He returned her laughter. “I would not mind if you did, my dear.” He cleared his throat. “Would you mind if I sat for a moment and spoke with you?”
“Please.” Allegra shook her head and then bent to the side to lay the cello safely beside her chair. “Have a seat.”
She waited for him to speak.
“I wanted to thank you for the effort that you’ve put into your rehearsals with us, Miss Rossetti.”
“Call me Allegra, please.”
He chuckled and she could almost imagine him wagging a finger at her. “Allegra, yes. You have been a joy.”
“I am very grateful for the chance to perform. For years I had thought that part of my life was behind me. Now,” she drew in a breath, “I feel as though I have a second chance to share my music with others. I’m willing to work very hard to earn my place on any stage at all.”
She startled when she felt his hand cover hers.
“Please forgive me, Allegra. I did not mean to make you feel… uncomfortable.”
He began to move his hand away, but she covered it with her other hand and smiled. “No, please, don’t worry. It was just a little shock.” She could feel the affection in his touch just as she heard it in his voice.
“I wanted to speak with you about the upcoming performance at the Bronx Zoo.”
A little thrill moved through her. “Have you decided which pieces we’re going to play?”
“Yes, well,” he began to explain, “while we have a number of pieces ready for performance, I was quite taken with your rendition of ‘Swan,’ and feel that it would be the perfect piece to end the performance.”
Allegra felt her face warm with a blush. “I would be honored.”
“Good,” she heard a slight squeak of chair legs on the linoleum floor as Essa stood up, “I’d like to schedule some rehearsals and…”
“Yes,” Allegra struggled to concentrate on his words, “whatever you need. Thank you.”
She felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, Allegra. You’ll see more of these opportunities come your way.”
When he’d taken her to the rehearsal hall that morning, Valerio had asked Natale to come along with them and had to endure more than his fair share of taunting from Uberto. His younger brother had called Salvatore’s mate their chaperone.
While the term fit in its definition, he knew that Uberto had missed the point entirely. Natale hadn’t gone along to keep the two apart, he’d asked her to come to ease the tension in the car.
Being in such a closed space with Allegra was going to be hard enough, but his bear, who had been exceedingly patient since the incident in the subway, was now riding Valerio hard. Hard enough that after holding Allegra in his arms for just a few hours, he wasn’t quite sure that he had the ability to let her walk away at the door.
Natale was the perfect person to keep the bear in check, it recognized her as family and didn’t see her as an obstacle.
Now, standing outside the rehearsal hall, it was all he could do to keep himself outside the door, shoes planted on the cold fall concrete sidewalk.
He watched as half a dozen people exited the building from the door before him, and then there was a long gap before another nine left the building. The final person from that group was the Oboe player he’d met the day before.
“Well hello there, tall dark and,” she looked up into his face and he saw her smile fall a little, “sadly not interested.”
He cleared his throat and looked back toward the door before looking back at her. “Is Allegra finished?”
Linda sighed. “Don’t I wish.”
Valerio felt an odd sensation in his middle. “Is something wrong with Allegra?”
The question seemed to catch her by surprise. “Wrong?” She made a vague gesture with her hands before she shrugged. “No, she’s just talking with someone about her new schedule.”
That caught his interest. “New schedule?”
Linda’s teeth locked together for a moment. “I think I’ll let her tell you the good news,” she sighed. “I have to get home.” She left a moment or two before the door opened again.
Allegra stepped outside, holding onto the arm of a woman quite a few years older than her.
Valerio opened the door and held it for them, earning him a bright smile from the other woman.
“The man you were telling me about,” she stage-whispered into Allegra’s ear, “would he be tall, muscular, and devastatingly handsome?”
Allegra gave it a moment’s thought. “Tall, yes… muscular, very… and handsome?” She turned slightly and he thought she might be using her hearing to listen for a reaction from him. “He certainly makes my head spin and my insides all tingly.”
“Oh,” the other woman leaned closer and laughed, “then I think he’s standing just to your left. And my, my,” she sighed out loud, “he would make my insides tingly too, if I didn’t already have a love of my own.” She held out her hand to shake and he took it. “I’m Jane South.”
Allegra nodded toward the other woman. “She’s a wizard on the piano.”
“You’re just fluffing up my ego and I love you for it.” She pressed a kiss on Allegra’s cheek. “If you need to adjust any of the rehearsal times, just call me. I put my information into your phone.” Holding out Allegra’s hand to Valerio, Jane stepped away when he stepped closer. “You,” she settled her direct gaze on his face, “take good care of your lady.”
She walked off down the street whistling a jaunty melody.
He would have been content, tucking her arm into the crook of his to walk her to their waiting car, but it seemed that Allegra wasn’t. Turning toward him, she lifted her arm to wrap around his neck, using contact with his chest and then his shoulder to judge the distance.
He tensed until he drew in her scent, enjoying the sweet spice of her skin under the familiar floral soap that Natale liked to use. He held still, keeping a tight rein on his control, until she turned her head to lay her cheek against his chest.
The bear within him was a step behind his human half in that moment as Valerio wrapped his arms around Allegra and pulled her in close, burying his face against her neck where it met her shoulder.
The bear stirred within him, eager, hungry to mark her as theirs. Her scent was addictive. Her curves the perfect cushion to his hard planes. He opened his mouth to speak but she took the words from his lips.
“I missed you.” She pulled him closer and he gathered her up
in his arms as if she were as light as a feather. “All day long, I’ve been thinking about you, waiting to see you again.”
Her words humbled him, made him weak and bolstering his strength at the same time.
“I needed you just as much.” His words were feathered kisses on her neck, gentle caresses against her skin. “And now that you’re with me, I have somewhere to take you.”
She flushed when she leaned back in his arms. “Where are we going?”
“One of my favorite places.” He waited to see if she’d ask him more questions. She had every right to.
Instead, she smoothed her hand down his arm and linked their fingers together. “Show me.”
Chapter Six
When the elevator doors swished open, she felt warm air envelop her and reached out a hand. It was a silly thing. It also wasn’t normal… for her. Reaching out for someone. Stupid. Silly.
She squeezed her eyes shut, another silly gesture on her part.
Shaking her head, she stepped out of the elevator and was drawn up short… by a hand around her wrist.
It didn’t hurt. As big as Valerio’s hand was, he held her like fragile glass.
And while she stood there trying not to tremble or make herself feel anymore-
“You’re not silly.”
She swallowed and managed a few words. “Are you reading my mind?”
Something brushed over the top of her hair and then she realized that it was a kiss. His kiss.
And when he answered she was fairly stunned to hear the truth. “You think you’re talking in your head, Allegra, but you don’t.”
“I do!” She turned toward him. “It’s in my head.”
“Maybe with other people,” she could hear his smile, “but when you’re with me, you say things out loud.”
She wanted to argue with him, but it seemed, yet again, silly.
“Or maybe I just know what you’re thinking.” The smile in his voice seemed to dim. “Like when I felt your fear on the platform.”
“You felt that?” She didn’t know how to feel about his words, but she felt the truth in them nonetheless.
He shifted beside her and together they began to walk.
“Where are we?”
The ground beneath her feet felt… natural. The air, a warm balmy temperature that was so very different than what they’d walked through just minutes before. And the scent, the smells that tickled her nose, brought her a bit of wonder… a rush of joy.
“We went up in an elevator.” She reasoned through her thoughts. “My ears,” she swallowed, “popped just the tiniest bit. And yet I feel like we’re on top of a mountain instead of the top of a building in New York City.”
The twitter of a Starling reached her ears and she froze. “Tell me,” she grinned, her heart trembling with excitement, “where have you brought me?”
“Our home.”
Our.
She knew what he meant. His home with his brothers. Natale had explained that they shared several floors of a building together. She thought that meant a series of rooms, separate areas, storage spaces, not a nature preserve.
“Ours,” he repeated, “but I will continue to remind you, until you realize that I mean what I say.”
She flushed and decided to tip toe around the issue for a little while until she found a little balance. “You have the out of doors indoors?”
Valerio shifted his hand, moving from her wrist, lower, linking their fingers together. “We have what I believe the Victorians called a Conservatory.”
Allegra took in a breath, filling her lungs. “It smells like heaven. My family liked camping in the mountains when I was a little girl, but I haven’t been up since I moved here to New York City. After I lost them, it didn’t seem to make sense. After I lost my sight, I didn’t think I could.”
They moved again, walking slowly side by side.
“What happened to your family?”
“It was just me and my parents as long as I can remember. And when I was in Juilliard,” she swallowed the lump of pain in her throat and struggled not to squeeze his hand in hers, “they died in a car accident. If it hadn’t been for-” She stopped short, tilting her ear down toward her shoulder as she struggled to understand what she heard. “Is that water?”
“Yes,” his voice held more than a hint of humor, and something that sounded like a rumble of laughter.
“It doesn’t sound like a fountain,” she reasoned, “and it wasn’t raining outside when we arrived.”
“No,” he agreed, “it’s not raining now, either.”
She tentatively bent down toward the floor.
Valerio didn’t stop her. He bent with her, sliding a hand up her arm to guide her gently to the ground.
“Oh wow.” She felt grass under her palm. A plush cover of grass that reminded her of long-forgotten hours of joy. A soft crunch of leaves that crumbled between her searching fingers. Smooth stones interspersed with grass, weeds too if she could trust her fingers and her memory.
Then water, rushing water licking at her fingers. She got up on her knees and leaned further out to see how wide the water was.
She felt a hand on her hip and one on her waist before she heard the rough growl of his voice. “Are you so sure I won’t let you fall in?”
Allegra didn’t even turn to speak over her shoulder, she plunged her hand into the rushing chill. “Yes. You wouldn’t let me fall in.”
He grumbled and yet he tightened his hands on her when the hand that she’d braced on the ground slipped the littlest bit. One of his hands slipped around to her stomach and a little lower. She froze, waiting to see what else might happen, but he didn’t let her go, even when she felt them trembling against her.
Backing up a little, she managed to settle herself on the bank and give herself some time to relax. She wanted to believe what he said about them, she wanted to act on it in some way, but being blind was a big disadvantage in some ways. Gauging his interest, his reactions, was harder without being able to see what he looked like, the expression in his eyes.
Then again, she remembered, she’d looked into Lance’s eyes for over two years and didn’t see the dark side of his nature. He’d hidden that way behind his smile and sweet words.
The water burbled along beside them as she sat in silence, her mind working over the thoughts in her head, trading one problem for another. Letting her fingers dip into the water again, she felt the pieces of one problem fall into place. “You have a river in a building,” it wasn’t so much a question as it was an observance with a hint of incredulity. “Wow. That’s something.”
“It’s more of a brook then a river, we don’t have enough land for that.”
She heard the earnest tone in his voice and a smile picked up the corners of her mouth. “Right. Of course. I completely understand.”
“You do?” Now it was his turn to sound… confused.
Her laugh was answered by birdsong and she lifted her hand and pressed her fingers against her lips. “What is it that you do,” she wondered, “beyond rescuing random damsels in the subway?”
“My brother Salvatore founded Orsino Security. We make sure people are safe.”
“So yesterday, in the subway, was that just… what you do.” She tried not to let her tone flatten out. She shook her head at herself and turned her head toward the soft sound of the running water. “Help people.”
“Allegra…”
His voice was a caress, at least in her imagination, and she turned her cheek into the sound hoping to prolong the feeling.
“We help people. Our family has done it for generations in Italy. We continue our work here.”
She swallowed and prepared to paste a cheery grin on her face.
“But it’s more with you.”
Allegra wanted to shake herself for her irrational reaction. She fairly shook with relief.
“It’s always going to be more with you.”
“You don’t need to say that.”
�
��You’re everything to me.”
He was close enough to touch, not that she heard him close the short distance between them, but when she pushed out her hand to gesture for a moment, her palm collided with the wall of his chest. Funny how she could tell that at a single touch. “I don’t need you to make me feel better.”
“I want to make you feel better, Allegra. The rest of my life, I want to make you feel better, feel loved, adored.”
She heard the truth in his words, it was too easy to hear, but it was so very difficult to believe. “You’re trying to kill me.” She laughed at his sudden growl of denial. “I don’t think you’re trying to hurt me, but your words, your declarations, it’s hard to believe. Those words have always been empty promises.”
His hand closed over hers, and his fingers gently lifted it from his chest and slowly raised it until she felt his lips against her palm, a soft flutter of heat against her skin. “Empty,” he added another kiss and turned her hand, “my heart was empty before I met you.”
She swallowed and tried to blink away the tears that prickled at her eyes. “Please don’t-”
“That you’ve been hurt before, hurts me, but from this moment on, Allegra, things will be different.”
Her palm tickled… scratched and when she felt his breath on her wrist she knew he’d brushed his cheek against her palm.
“They will be different, because I am different from anyone you’ve ever met. You are my equal, my other half, the woman born to complete my heart and inspire my soul.”
Floating. She was sure she was dreaming and the sensations rolling through her body were just her imagination. Her senses were alive and tingling as her body begged to be closer… to be consumed by his words and his promises.
He lifted her as gently as someone might pick up a treasure, setting her down a moment later on his lap, before gently encircling her in his arms. She felt his legs beneath her, the strength of his muscles, the broad wall of his chest, the sensitive scratch of his beard against her forehead, soothed a moment later by his lips.