The Philharmonie de Paris was still new enough that Ava was thrilled to be able to tour around it with Bianca. It was an architectural marvel. They were headed to see the stage. Suddenly, Ava stopped in her tracks. She was dumbstruck. She couldn’t speak, and she couldn’t even remember the question Bianca had just asked her. She stood and stared at the man she had been ardently avoiding for eighteen years. Damon Blake was standing less than ten feet from her and there was no escape. He had seen her too. Bianca, standing beside her, looking between her and Damon, probably wondered about her reaction. She’d deal with that later. Right now she had to figure out how to extricate herself and Bianca from the situation as graciously as possible.
Damon strode purposefully toward her, arms outstretched. “Ava Wellington as I live and breathe!”
Did people really say that? Ava shook off the thought. Focus. She allowed herself to be hugged but stopped short of returning the embrace with any enthusiasm. “What are you doing here? I thought you were playing in Berlin this week.” She was sure Damon was supposed to be the lead cellist in Berlin right now. She couldn’t hide her genuine surprise and hoped it came off as that and not the accusation she felt it was.
Her hopes were dashed when Damon gave a short chuckle. “So, I was right. You have been avoiding me.”
Ava only stared at him, incapable of doing anything else in that moment.
Bianca stepped forward and extended her hand to fill the awkward silence. “Hi, I’m Bianca Vega.”
“Damon Blake,” he managed after tearing his gaze from Ava. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“How do you know Ava?”
Damon’s gaze returned to Ava. “Oh, we go back a ways. Ava and I went to school together in America. We met when, let me see, I think she was…” He looked to Ava for confirmation before continuing. “What, fourteen, fifteen? I was sixteen. It was my first semester. We clicked from the beginning. But we, uh, lost touch. I think it’s been about eighteen years since we saw one another.” He continued to gape at Ava with fondness as if he couldn’t believe he was finally seeing her after all this time.
“Well, in that case, perhaps you and I should sit down. I’d love to hear what Ava was like at that age.”
Before Damon could respond, Ava found her voice. “No.” She felt both sets of eyes swing back her way at her emphatic refusal. There was no way—No Way—she could let that happen. “Bianca, we need to go.” Without so much as another glance toward Damon, Ava grabbed Bianca’s hand and retreated back in the direction they had come. She didn’t stop pulling her until the two of them were sheltered in the safety of her dressing room.
The moment the door closed, Bianca pulled her hand free. “What the hell was that?”
Ava felt like she was going to be sick. She collapsed onto the sofa.
“Ava, are you okay?” Bianca asked. Her voice sounded very far away.
Ava was so far from okay she was a little surprised her head didn’t pop off. Her world was collapsing around her. She had been running for nearly two decades and today her past had finally caught up with her. For years, she had been meticulous in her planning so she could avoid being in the same venue as Damon.
But being with Bianca had distracted her. She had become complacent just when it mattered most. There had been a few times over the years, when they had been perilously close to playing at the same concert. Due to her previous diligence, she’d always managed to use her influence and connections to make last-minute changes so that never happened.
She’d finally dropped the ball, and now she had come face to face with a man she had hoped to never see again. She needed time to figure out how to deal with it. In the meantime, she needed to figure out what to say to Bianca. She needed to defuse the situation because her reaction was bound to have raised suspicions. This is not how she wanted Bianca to find out she had a baby when she was sixteen.
“Ava, are you okay?” Bianca asked again.
Ava’s head turned in the direction of Bianca’s voice. She seemed to struggle to focus her gaze on Bianca’s face. But when she finally did, her features transformed from shock and despair to resolved and detached. “Sure. I’m fine. Sorry you had to see that. Just a blast from the past that took me by surprise.”
Bianca drew her hand away from Ava’s thigh, stung by the blatant lie. She had no doubt that Damon was more than “just some blast from the past.” There was more to this story. But clearly it was something Ava didn’t want to share with her. Bianca stood and walked halfway to the door before she turned. “If you’re sure you’re all right, I’ll let you get ready for the show.”
Ava looked into her eyes and appeared for a moment like she wanted to say more, but then she nodded curtly and said only, “I’m fine.”
Bianca gathered her bag and left the dressing room. She found Steven a couple of rooms down talking to another stylist and pulled him aside. “Would you keep an eye on her tonight? Something’s going on and I think she’ll need the support.”
“What happened? Are you leaving?”
“She ran into an old classmate, Damon Blake.” Bianca paused as Steven’s whole posture changed, his jaw tightened, and his body went rigid as if preparing for a fight. She desperately wanted to ask him what he knew, but she couldn’t put him in that position. “It seemed to upset her quite a bit, but she won’t talk to me about it. She says she’s fine. She’s not. Clearly, she doesn’t need me here.”
Bianca walked away but turned back at the sound of Steven’s voice.
“Wait.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but he stopped himself before he gave Bianca any information that wasn’t his to share. “Just…Don’t give up on her. Give her some time.”
Bianca shook her head. “I’m not leaving. I’m only going to the hotel. I’ll be there if she wants to talk to me.”
***
The tension between her and Bianca shook Ava for a moment, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She had other more pressing matters to tend. She opened the door when there was a knock. She couldn’t handle any more surprises today and she wanted to know who she was letting into her space right now.
“Are you okay?” Steven asked.
“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, that’s bullshit, but we can play it that way if you want.” He shrugged when she said nothing more. “Ready for me?”
“Sure.” Ava walked over and sat in the chair where Steven was ready to do her hair and makeup.
Steven brushed Ava’s hair back from her face and pulled it into a loose ponytail to keep it out of his way as he applied her makeup. She looked into the mirror and met his eyes. “Who told you?”
“Bianca, before she left.”
“She left?” Ava braced her hands on the chair ready to stand up and go after her.
“Relax. She didn’t leave, leave. She went back to the hotel. She was hurt. She knows something is wrong, but you’re not talking so she gave you some space.”
Ava blew out a breath of relief. “I can’t get into that right now.”
Steven was quiet and watched her in the mirror until she met his gaze. “I thought you cared about her.”
“I do.”
“But you don’t trust her?”
“It’s not that. I’m not sure I trust myself.”
Steven remained silent.
“It’s not something I’m proud of, and I haven’t told another living soul any of it, since I spilled my guts to you more than a decade ago.”
“Maybe it’s time.”
“I have to get through the show tonight. After that, I’ll think about it.”
***
By the time the curtain closed, the throbbing behind Ava’s eyes was excruciating. It was all she could do to get through signing CDs. When she finally got back to the dressing room she changed quickly, made sure Vicki had her violin, and left. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, and she definitely didn’t want to run into Damon again.
Sharing a stage with him after all this time was almost more than she could stand. If she thought she could get away with it, she would have refused to go on tonight, but there was no way that would have been possible without a lot of explaining that she did not want to do. She needed a drink badly. She headed straight for the hotel lounge, and as soon as she sat, she met the bartender’s gaze and said, “Two shots of Jack and a whiskey sour.”
The shots were set in front of her first. She threw them both back and blew out a breath. She hoped they would start working quickly. When the mixed drink was placed on the bar, she sipped generously. She couldn’t remember the show. She’d been too preoccupied with seeing Damon again. She knew she played adequately and the audience had enjoyed the performance, but beyond that most of the night was a blur. She wished the night had never happened. She had hoped never to see Damon Blake again. Given that they were both concert musicians who played the same venues, she knew there was always a chance this might happen. But she had done everything in her power to avoid it for nearly two decades. It seemed her luck had finally run out.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
Ava would have known that southern drawl anywhere. She didn’t even have to turn around to know Damon had found her. “No. How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t that hard. I just started with the best hotel in the city and got lucky.”
“Well, now that you’ve found me you can go away or go to hell. I don’t care which just get out of here.”
“Come on, Ava. At least tell me why you’re mad at me. I thought we parted on okay terms.”
Ava finally turned and looked at Damon. “I’m not mad at you. As for how we left things…You thought what I wanted you to think.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Ava, what’s going on?”
“It doesn’t matter. Now go away. I can’t have this conversation with you tonight.”
“What conversation? What are you talking about?”
“Nothing, I’m not talking about anything.”
Damon stared at Ava, clearly trying to get some idea of what the hell she was thinking.
Ava stood, slightly unsteady on her feet. “If you won’t leave, I will.”
Damon also stood and gripped Ava’s arm. “Wait. If we can’t talk tonight, when can we talk? We haven’t been on the same stage or even in the same city for nearly twenty years. What’s going on?”
Ava took Damon’s hand off her arm. “I don’t know. I have to figure some things out first.” She walked away without another word. She felt Damon’s eyes on her until she turned the corner.
Ava should have expected the empty room, but that didn’t stop her pang of disappointment that Bianca wasn’t there. She had given Bianca a key card to her room and told her to feel free to use it. She could knock on Bianca’s door, but it wasn’t fair to go to her in her current condition. Bianca didn’t want to be with her tonight. As she thought about their last words to one another, Ava couldn’t blame her. She’d shut her out, hard and fast. She had a really good reason, but Bianca had no way of knowing that.
She walked to the tall windows and leaned her forehead to the cool glass. The scene below, Paris at night, usually energized her. Tonight she didn’t even see it. Her mind drifted back more than eighteen years, to the day she and Damon first met. Their relationship had been brief, but there was no way she could ever forget it. After all, she had a constant reminder.