Chapter Seven               

Alice

THE PHONE VIBRATED on her nightstand. She groped for it with her eyes closed. That night she had only one exception to her call filters. Andrew. Here eyelids seemed glued together with sleep. She barely managed to pry her eyes open to read the message.

"Missed my connection due to fog. I'm stranded in London. Can you go to the 8 o'clock meeting instead of me?"

She had good reasons not to have scheduled practice at Sing that day, but Andrew's requests had priority over most things in her life.

"Sure. Any instructions?" she typed, and stumbled out of bed.

"I trust your judgment."

She got dressed as fast as she could. It was a two-hours drive from Salona to Orsino, and if she didn't hit that sweet spot before traffic got to be nuts, she'd spend another hour at least traversing the capital to get to the Bracciano Estate.

The staff meeting had started by the time she arrived. The whole room turned to watch her as she walked in. Her pulse shot up high into three digits.

"Sorry," she said and scrambled to find a seat as inobtrusive as possible in the small room.

At least she didn't have anything to say. She sat in the only free chair in a second row, which was was behind Lauren.

"Is Andy okay?" Lauren asked in a whisper that showed sincere concern.

"His plane got delayed," she whispered back.

Robinson Dean looked at the both of them with disapproval. Alice shrank in her seat even more, trying to make herself invisible.

Why did King put her in such situations? He could have sent David. He should have sent David. These people were not supposed to talk to her. Or even remember her name. She had agreed to help him with the team not... not with these things. She was going to make him look bad. Her palms were sweating and the hum in her ears got louder.

"He trusts you," Tim Carter said from his seat next to Lauren.

He was three seats to Lauren's left but his whisper managed to break through Alice's rising panic. His voice. She loved his voice. She had loved his voice from the first time she heard him on the radio when she was fifteen.

She drew in a shuddering breath. She should have been upset that he noticed her anxiety. She was the one who read other people while she remained unseen. No one was supposed to notice her, let alone read her insecurities.

Vy had told her that TC had a way of seeing people's most hidden secrets. She should try harder to block his insight into her. But how could she do that and keep him entertained and away from Andrew at the same time?

She tried to focus on what Robinson Dean was saying, but his droning voice sounded nothing like the exciting tone he had when he was presenting the contest. Besides, unlike the artist types, she had actually read all the memos, and Dean was merely rehashing information they all should have known by now.

As soon as the meeting was over, everyone scurried out of the room. Alice busied herself with her bag, trying to postpone the moment when she had to be in their team's music room. She was too sleepy that morning to do a good job. Thankfully, the notes Andrew had emailed her were very through.

To her surprise, TC stayed behind after everyone else had left the room.

"Is the big doofus okay?" he asked. "Seriously now, King isn't the type to take a last-minute plane."

Strange. He seemed to really care what was going on with Andrew. She shrugged noncommittally, not wanting to concede that deep down, TC might not hate his eternal rival.

"It wasn't last-minute. They were grounded due to the weather. Not even Andrew King can control the weather."

"Don't you have an exam soon?"

She looked into his eyes for a second out of sheer shock. It was something she avoided at all costs, afraid of his legendary ability to read people, but his question caught her by surprise. It was deeply unsettling that Tim Carter paid attention to her exams. She'd only mentioned something about the test at breakfast a few days earlier. He couldn't have paid that much attention to her. He probably knew her schedule from Vy somehow.

"I studied diligently since before the semester started. I don't need to cram the day before the test."

"You have an exam tomorrow?"

"It's nothing," she said. "It's a simple test. I've been reading classics since I learned how to read."

He shook his head, looking thoroughly unconvinced.

"How does King inspire such devotion?"

Poor Carter. Sometimes she couldn't help feeling sorry for him. For reasons about which she could only speculate, Carter had chosen to be the bad boy, the temperamental rock star, while King had developed the nurturing side of his nature. In their youth, Carter had probably seen King's darkness. Alice caught glimpses of Andrew's dark side, but it was well under control. Would Carter ever be able to understand why Andrew was universally beloved?

"The power of example?" she said.

"I've known the man since we were fifteen. He has only been devoted to music. You are devoted to him."

He had a point. She liked music, but it had never been her passion, the way it was for him and for her friends. Andrew, despite his flaws, inspired devotion.

"You're right," she admitted. "I'm doing my best to help him, because he means a lot to us."

Carter looked at her inquiringly.

"Us?"

"Yes, to us," she said. "I respect the hell out of him for what he's done for Illyrian music, but I wouldn't do so much if he hadn't proved that he cares about the people he works with. Just like you do. Vy doesn't talk about you now, but I know what you did for her last year."

He seemed skeptical. Did he suspect her of flattering him with some ulterior motive? His next words surprised her.

"What do you think King would have done for her last year?"

She had her own views on that subject, but it was nothing she wanted to share with him out of loyalty for Andrew and Vy. If the two idiots kept messing up their relationship, having TC stick his nose into it could only make it worse. The Summer Festival debacle had proved as much.

"I don't know. I always advised her to choose you as her Captain."

It wasn't a lie, even if she hadn't much cared who Vy would choose as her Captain. Although Alice had always preferred the Waves to Wanderlust, her advice had been more to annoy Sebastian, Vy's brother and Wanderlust's number one fan.

"Are you buttering me up Miss Lewis?" he asked directly, but not angrily.

She shook her head but the tips of her ears heated up. She was trying to distract him from questions about Andrew and Vy. She lifted her oversized bag to put it on her shoulder when he reached out to take it from her hand.

"What are you doing?" she said, holding on to her bag.

"I'm being chivalrous. Come on, I'll carry it for you. I keep trying to find ways to thank you for your help with the paperwork. And you should have some perks from being my next-door neighbor."

Their hands stayed in contact while they both held the bag. She let him have it.

"I didn't help you with the paperwork because I wanted something in return," she said, "but now that you mention it…"

The boyish grin on his face when he looked at her reminded Alice of old photos of his she had seen in a magazine. Tim Carter, 17 years old, before he was the lead singer of the Waves, before he was TC.

"All you have to do, is ask," he said.

"I might just do that. Someday."

They headed right toward the hallway that led to their music rooms. When she retrieved her bag, she tried to conceal the shiver she felt at his touch. There was something electric about this man, something she didn't want to think about, something she definitely didn't want to let him see.

#

Mere seconds after the contestants she had worked with left for lunch, the door opened again.  

"Hungry?" TC asked, sticking his head through it.

"Not really," she said.

She stifled a yawn. As soon as he would leave, she was going to close the piano's lid and put her head on it.

To her dismay, he closed the door behind him and strolled into the room. He sat down at the piano next to her, apparently not bothered by their extreme proximity. She tried to act as if it didn't affect her either. But it did. She stood up and arranged the music sheets back in their folders.

A melody she didn't recognized filled the room.

"That was beautiful," she said when the song ended. "What was it?"

He looked up at her with the most adorable mock hurt expression.

"What do you and Vy talk about?"

She pressed her lips together swallowing a chuckle.

"I take it that's one of the songs you wrote for her album. It fits her."

He huffed, vaguely mollified.

"Doesn't she even hum them at home?"

The man who had played a bloodthirsty Richard the Third, a guilt plagued Macbeth, a cynical Cyrano and a completely insane Caligula was acting like a needy puppy when it came to his protégé.

The way Vy had been indulging Carter's controlling nature by submitting to his practice schedule had only made things worse. And now she had to play along, and soothe his concern.

"We have this sort of unwritten rule," she said. "Since I started working here, she doesn't talk about you."

"And you don't talk about King," he probed.

She lowered her head, neither confirming, nor denying his insinuation. That was not her secret to share. She wasn't surprised he had guessed. Sometimes she thought that Vy and Andrew were the only two people in the world who didn't see how much they were in love. Well, no, not really. Vy's brother and her other friends didn't seem to have a clue either. 

She had to throw him a bone or he'd be even more obnoxious to Andrew when he returned.

"She doesn't go into details about your projects, but no matter how exhausted she is when she gets home, she vibrates with energy. She loves working with you."

"Even after Viaverde?" he asked, trying to sound casual as he started to play another song on the piano.

She held back the urge to ruffle his hair as she did with Will.

"Yes. Even after that disaster."

He jerked his back straight, and opened his mouth but she met his outrage with a kind smile. He relaxed again.

"So, I'm not pushing her too hard?" he asked softly.

"Yes, of course you are. But that's not the same as pushing her away."

When he spoke again, she saw why Vy was so entranced by him. How could anyone resist to be the subject of Tim Carter's admiration?

"I see how amazing she is," he said, "and how much untapped potential she still has."

She heard an undertone of fear in his passion. Vy meant a lot to Carter, and Carter meant a lot to her best friend. She had to ease his mind.

"Tim, Vy can out-work you."

Her voice almost faltered when she said his name. It was the first time she called him by his first name, and she had forced herself to use it to underline her point.

"When she believes in something, there are no limits to the time and effort she will put into that."

It seemed to have worked. The crease on his forehead was gone. The tightness in his jaw and in the set of his shoulders dissipated. 

"You know her well," he said.

"There are few things in the world I know as well as my best friend."

And you are one of them.

She feared that he might see her thought, and she desperately tried to change the subject.

"Speaking of things I know..."

She went to her backpack, took out a book with a frayed and tattered dust jacket.

"This is-"

"Churchill," he said as soon as he saw it. "Great Contemporaries."

He snatched the old book from her hand careful not to damage it.

"There you go, spoiling the reveal."

He didn't seem to hear her, and that was fine. The words were never as important as the tone when it came to Carter.

His pale hands touched the cover reverently. He set the book in his lap and opened it gingerly. She watched him, fascinated. He looked like a teenager, afraid he might ruin something precious with his awkward hands. Tim Carter's hands were anything but awkward. He bent over the book, and for a moment Alice had the image of a monk who traced calligraphy on medieval manuscripts.

"It's a first edition," he said in an awed whisper.

"My grandmother used it to hold the door to the study open for years until I 'borrowed' it."

"She did not!" he said outraged at the preposterous statement.

She pretended to sort out something in her backpack to keep from confirming that she was serious. Clara Pellerin enjoyed finding new uses for objects. The more expensive they were, the more she loved it when she could find a very common role for it. Tim probably wouldn't care, but most people would be appalled to learn that her grandmother used a fifteenth century ceramic bowl bearing the royal family's coat of arms as an ashtray.

"I thought you should have it," she said simply.

"Alice, this book is expensive. You can't give it away like this. Like it's nothing."

She had expected him to refuse, but his calm and earnest tone shook her. He had no idea how much he sounded like Andrew at that moment.

Money didn't mean much to her. For Alice value came from the joy an object brought, not its price tag. She had to make him understand the gift didn't come with any strings. She wanted him to have it because he would cherish it.

"It deserves to be owned by someone who appreciates it," she said. "Our house is filled with ancient manuscripts. My room in Salona is bursting with the texts I have to study. Rescue it. Give it a good home."

He hesitated. She could see that he wanted the book, but he didn't feel right to receive it from her. She hoped she hadn't offended him.

"Let's do this," he said eventually. "You're at the University now. You have to keep the books you need to study, so I'll keep this book until you get your own place. I'll give it back to you then. It will go from one good home, to another."

She was in the second year at Salona. If she stayed there to finish a Master's or go to Oxford, or Cambridge, or Harvard… It could take years until she got her own place. He would have time to forget. She was sure that he would treasure the book far more than she ever would.

"Deal," she said.