He's Come Undone: A Romance Anthology Read online

  She grimaced. “Number…three.”

  “Ah, excellent. I’ll let the grips know.” At least they’d accomplished something.

  “But first—”

  “No, we’re going to let those poor hammers be. We’ve tortured them enough.”

  “How can you have enough of something so fun?”

  She was putting him on, trying to get him to stay and fight this battle with her. But even as he recognized the play, it began to work. He was going pliable, wanting to give her anything, everything. The effect was so acute, he didn’t trust his voice to contradict her. He simply shook his head.

  “You might be witty, but you’re also a quitter. Everyone says I’m the quitter, but—”

  “No one says you’re a quitter,” he ground out.

  “—because they’re not talking about me at all.” She raised her brows to punctuate this statement.

  Brennan’s pulse kicked up. This was the closest they’d come to acknowledging her—break. And this, this was the crux of why she wasn’t satisfied with her playing. This was the part she needed to face.

  “Is that something you’d like to discuss?” he asked.

  He honestly didn’t know what he’d do if she said yes. How could he respond? What comfort might he offer? He really should call Caroline. His sister was a professional musician, so she understood the artist side in ways Brennan didn’t, and she was also good with feelings. Caroline might have some useful advice here.

  For a moment, he thought Kristy might start talking. She canted toward him, wetted her lips—and then she laughed. “Ha! No. You almost had me.”

  He wasn’t surprised, but he also wasn’t relieved. She needed to get to the bottom of this.

  “Then we should adjourn.” He finished putting his things in his bag and started toward his office.

  Kristy remained at the bench.

  “Is your agent waiting?” Or maybe her parents, a friend, or a romantic partner. For all that he’d been trying not to slobber over her, he hoped she wouldn’t say there was a boyfriend out in the lobby.

  “No, Patrice is probably long gone.” Kristy’s expression was genuinely forlorn.

  “Do you want me to…to call a cab?”

  “Nooo.” She paused. Then, “But maybe we could try to brighten the top two octaves here.”

  That was when he detonated. “No, we can’t. We really can’t. Or I should say I can’t. We’ve been working all day, and if I knew what you wanted, if I felt as if I were helping, I’d work all night, but I don’t. The problem isn’t the pianos: It’s you. You aren’t happy with the sound because it’s not your sound. That isn’t because of the instrument, but because of your performance. You’re too reserved when you play. Too in control. In two days, I’ve heard you peel your mask away only once. When you did, you were extraordinary. You took my breath away. But for the life of me, I can’t help you do that all the time. And that, that is what you need to work on.”

  She’d ripped the words from him, and his throat burned with their poison.

  Her mouth didn’t drop open. There was no comic display of shock. Instead her spine straightened vertebrae by vertebrae. Her mouth fell into a fixed line. Her shoulders pushed back. Hardness entered her eyes.

  His own body responded in kind. Adrenaline pumped through him, made his mouth bitter, his hands swell. He couldn’t catch his breath and the ache in his head was now an erratic throb. He’d broken every one of his rules—and it felt even more awful than he could have imagined. He had to explain what he’d really meant.

  But before he could, she said, “I see.”

  She didn’t shout it or grit it out; that would’ve been better. Would’ve shown that she still intended to prove him wrong, which he knew that she could. Wanted her to do, in fact.

  No, her tone was resigned, and there was nothing he could say to soothe her. That was the worst part.

  Feeling endlessly, endlessly wretched, he watched her leave the auditorium for the second time in as many days.

  Chapter 3

  Agitato

  “I can’t.”

  The proclamation brought Brennan to a halt. Was Kristy talking to him? Telling him that she couldn’t play with more abandon?

  No. She was fifteen feet away, addressing her agent. Both women were silhouetted against the light spilling into the wings, but he had no trouble reading the emotion in the set of Kristy’s body, the armor of her arms wrapped around herself.

  She was supposed to be rehearsing right about—he checked his watch—now. The piano she’d finally chosen was on stage; a few of the symphony bigwigs were too. But there was no absurdly difficult Schubert, no gloriously tempestuous pianist.

  He’d screwed up utterly last night. There was no moment in his professional life he’d take back before that one. He’d never been more foolish, bumbling, and callous than he had been in those moments, and he loathed himself.

  On the edge of the stage, Kristy’s agent, a wire-thin woman with a coiled blond bun, tossed her hand the way she might dismiss a gnat. “We’re not doing this again.”

  “You’re right, we’re not. I’m not going out there.”

  He recognized that tone: Kristy Kwong setting her feet grave-deep. Refusing to budge. Issuing an ultimatum.

  That had been what he’d clung to when he’d emailed Bernadette after Kristy had stormed out last night: Ms. Kwong is too stubborn and too talented not to play the gala. He’d omitted any reference to her emotions, because he didn’t understand those at all. He assumed Kristy was livid, but he’d prefer not to tell his boss that he’d infuriated one of the world’s most important pianists. That wasn’t exactly a feather in his cap.

  Still recalcitrant, Kristy changed tack with her agent. “It’s too soon.”

  “It’s been more than two years.”

  “Time’s relative.”

  For all that had been written and whispered about her, few people mentioned Kristy’s impish sense of humor, probably because that wouldn’t fit with the notion that she was a cold-hearted bitch. She’d been funny as a teenager, but it surprised him that she’d been able to maintain it given her stage fright.

  “You’re the one who said you wanted to do this,” her agent said. “You pushed for this contract.”

  “That was a mistake.”

  “Stop being dramatic. Get out there.”

  Until then, the exchange could’ve been playful. Two friends lightly teasing, maybe hinting at something painful that was true but making a joke out of it. However, her agent spat that out like a slap. This wasn’t affable bickering. Not at all.

  Several seconds of stunned silence passed.

  When Kristy answered, it was softer than he’d ever heard her.

  “I’m not ready.” Her voice had gone thready, and something desperate simmered beneath her resolve.

  He shouldn’t be watching this. It wasn’t part of his job, he wasn’t going to pass any more information on to Bernadette, and Kristy would hate him listening in. He knew that the same way he knew how to brighten the voice of a Viennese baby grand: half training, half instinct. She was too proud to want him to see how bad her anxiety was.

  He’d gotten a taste of it when she’d bolted after Quincy had barged in, but this was so much worse because there was no surprise or reversal here. One of the most talented concert pianists under forty in the world was too petrified to perform.

  “You are ready,” her agent insisted. “You are going to do this now.”

  “I…I don’t think I can.”

  The words sent an icy wave of anguish through him. He wanted to march across the wings and present Kristy with ninety-five theses about her talent. Her technical prowess. Her expressiveness. Her musicianship.

  But no doubt many, many people had tried to do precisely that. The problem wasn’t coming from outside, but from within. What an infinitely more terrible betrayal.

  “I’ll walk if you can’t.” Her agent’s words were every bit as implacable as Kristy’s.
/>
  “Patrice, I—”

  “No, listen to me. You will play right now, or we’re done. I’ve indulged this long enough. You’ve worked too hard to get to where you are, and if you don’t want it any longer, that’s up to you. But I won’t waste any more time on this.”

  This being Kristy.

  Had Brennan sounded like that last night when he’d lost it? Probably. How could he ever apologize to her enough? How could he make this right?

  Patrice obviously wasn’t worried about any of that, which made this conversation even worse.

  Kristy threaded her hands into that absolutely beautiful hair of hers. Beneath her thin black dress, her rib cage expanded and contracted rapidly. “Can I just have a moment?”

  “No. Get out there.”

  For a sickening few seconds, Brennan wasn’t certain what Kristy would do. Was he spying on the last beat of her career?

  Then she dropped her hands rigidly to her sides and propelled herself forward. The instant she moved from the darkness of backstage into the light, she shuddered briefly, but she kept moving. She didn’t acknowledge Bernadette’s greeting; she only pushed steadily forward toward the piano.

  Her agent followed and made some apology for the delay. Brennan ignored that; it didn’t matter. He merely moved to the edge of the proscenium arch, all his attention welded to Kristy.

  Other than the transcendent Brahms, everything she’d played had been hesitating and self-conscious, with only flashes of her raw power.

  The first time he’d heard her at Tanglewood, he’d thought she was talented, but he’d wrongly labeled her a lightweight. Her style could be so aggressive that it lacked finesse, and he hadn’t appreciated what she got in exchange. By the time she was at Juilliard, it was clear that his assessment had been sour grapes. Kristy had a unique voice as well as the technical virtuosity and interpretive perspective to have a real career. He was the lightweight.

  Postbreak, her voice had changed. In the few moments when she’d let herself go, it was clear she’d acquired new poignancy. He wanted her to find a way to work through this so other people could hear what he had. So she could hear it.

  Now, Kristy set her hands on the keys, and he took a deep breath exactly as she did. He assumed they both sent up identical pleas: that she would be confident enough for her voice to come through.

  She started playing the Brahms rhapsodies. They weren’t nearly as hairy as the Schubert, but she wasn’t performing as well as she had for him the day before. Her movements were guarded, her shoulders set.

  She was still the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.

  Brennan didn’t want to be like those other men, the ones who saw her as a gorgeous woman and not a musician. Or who saw her as both and somehow, therefore, lesser. He didn’t get addled over women; that wasn’t him. But he couldn’t deny how Kristy made him feel.

  When she finished a solid if unexceptional performance, she stood. “I’m not going to do the Schubert. I’m still not happy with the instrument. But you got what you were looking for, I assume.” She meant she’d proved she was up to the concert.

  Her agent was gushing and so was Bernadette, and thus Brennan had no more excuse to playing the Peeping Tom. She’d bought herself more time, and he ought to feel relieved.

  Somehow he didn’t, but he also knew it wasn’t his problem. It shouldn’t occupy him in this way.

  Thirty minutes later, he’d dropped some paperwork in the front office and was crossing through backstage again when curiosity made him do something stupid. He walked down the row of greenrooms until he came to the one with a sliver of light under the doorway.

  Kristy was still there. He could apologize for what he’d said.

  He knocked once, softly. She ought to have a fair chance to ignore him. Honestly, he wouldn’t blame her if she slammed a door in his face. He deserved it.

  But her voice came from inside. “Yes?”

  “It’s Brennan Connelly.”

  A few seconds later, she swung the door open. She’d taken off the cardigan she’d been wearing earlier, and there were her bare shoulders and arms, the long sweep of her collarbones, all those lovely inches of skin…he bit the inside of his mouth, hard. He wasn’t so much blushing as incinerating.

  For her part, Kristy was as much the cold tower of steel as she had been the previous evening, exactly as she ought to be. “I didn’t realize you were around.”

  “I—I’m supposed to be here whenever you are. Every walk-through and rehearsal, and the night of the gala. In case you need anything.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  He’d earned that. “I didn’t come by for that. I’m here because I want to tell you I’m sorry.”

  “For?”

  “What I said. There was absolutely no excuse for it, and I regret it. Your requests were completely reasonable, and I never should’ve given you the feedback I did. It was inappropriate and wrong—very wrong. You played well today, and I was out of line. I wanted to tell you I can find another technician if you’d prefer to work with someone else.”

  Maybe he could drag his mentor, Phil, out of retirement.

  She watched his groveling in equivocal silence. Finally, she said, “So you’re trying to quit again?”

  “No! But I want you to be comfortable. After what I said, Ms. Kwong, I wouldn’t blame you if you aren’t comfortable with me.” He wasn’t feeling terribly comfortable with himself at the moment.

  “For the love of Czerny, we’re the same age. We’ve known each other forever. Call me Kristy.”

  This wasn’t the response he’d been expecting. At all.

  “Kristy, please forgive me.”

  She leaned up against the doorway. “Before I do, tell me this: Did you mean it?”

  “Which part? Because it was mostly exhaustion, hunger, and headache.” He didn’t offer those as excuses, but he knew that was why his rules had crumbled.

  “A potent combination,” she agreed. “But I meant the part about how I’m the problem not the piano. Did you say it because you needed a Snickers?”

  He swallowed. He didn’t want to compound his transgression by lying to her.

  Which somehow she knew and found a little funny. She snorted. “There’s my answer then.”

  “No, it’s…” He had to tell her the truth even if it was going to make things worse. “Your playing is going to change over two years, all right? If you’d been doing concerts and dazzling the world the entire time, you still would’ve changed. We don’t, none of us, stay the same. The way you play now is more mature in some ways. There are shadows, I guess, that wouldn’t have been there before. That development is beautiful. But it’s also…it’s just more restrained. That doesn’t fit with the style of Brahms and Schubert.”

  This was what he ought to have said to her last night. Too bad there weren’t time machines.

  A beat passed, and then Kristy’s posture softened. She’d forgiven him, and he exhaled in relief.

  “I know, I know,” she said. “I’m sorry I was blaming your pianos. It’s just so disappointing.”

  “You don’t need to apologize. In fact, please don’t. I feel awful.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “I heard your rehearsal just now—” He tensed, preparing himself for the onslaught this would probably set off. “—but I was also backstage before. Before you played.” And I heard your conversation with your agent, he wanted to add, but Kristy would understand from what he’d said.

  And of course she did. “Ah.”

  “I asked yesterday if you wanted to talk about it,” he tacked on hastily. “And again I—”

  “You’re charming when you’re apologizing, Brennan, and I’m not mad at you. I’m sort of like the queen of boiling over. Or at least the duchess. No, can I be the marchioness? That’s a wonderful title.” She made her tone faux-sweet, but her voice sped up as if she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth fast enough. “Anyhow, clearly it would be ridiculous for me
to hold that against you since it’s sort of my signature move. It doesn’t hurt that you’re probably right. But that doesn’t mean I want to talk to you about how I feel like a no-talent hack and I’m scared witless at the thought of people watching me play and so I can’t do the thing I’ve worked my entire life for.”

  She blinked in seeming shock at what she’d admitted.

  He couldn’t blame her. Her confession tasted foul to him too, and if that was how she saw herself, he knew why she would want to cower in the wings.

  “Absolutely none of those things are true.” He hoped his tone conveyed half the empathy he felt. “But I’m sorry if you’ve felt that way for a single moment.”

  “I…” She closed her eyes before taking and releasing a long breath. “Thank you. Except I don’t really want to talk about it. I’ve seen every single expert on stage fright, and I’ve—yeah. I can’t yammer about it anymore. I’m tired of hearing myself whine.”

  While he wanted her to make an exception for him, he also didn’t blame her in the least. He preferred to keep his feelings locked away in the damp cellar of his heart. That was why his own career playing the piano had ended before it began: He would never be able to display his heart on his sleeve the way Kristy or Caroline did. He truly was better suited to the cold, rational, technical side of music where emotions didn’t rate.

  “I understand. I merely wanted to apologize for what I said and for eavesdropping.”

  “That’s courtly of you.”

  “Not really.” None of his feelings about her were remotely gentlemanly, but saying so would truly be beyond him. “I should let you get home.”

  She shrugged. “Eh, it’s not like I have any grand plans.”

  Kristy and her agent clearly weren’t friendly, and if she had other people around her while she prepared for this concert, he hadn’t heard about them. In fact, Kristy had actually spelled out in the contract that no one could be there except for him.

  She seemed singularly alone.

  Brennan’s family was, in a word, chaotic. The silence and the order he found in his work were a refuge in many ways. If he were trying to come back from something like she was, though, they’d be there. With all their noise and their mess, sure, but they’d surround him. Comfort him. Distract him.