Bassist Instinct (The Rocker Series #2) (36 page)

David was at the Assad’s, but he had avoided direct contact with her during the party, for which she was grateful, but he stared at her the entire time, which gave her the creeps. While she mingled with her colleagues, more than one of them noticed his attentions. Marwan Assad suggested he and his wife drive her home, but when David left the party early, she refused. David was mostly harmless, eventually he’d get over his crush and find someone else to harass. Then she realized that wasn’t a very kind thing to think.

She liked her colleagues, the whole department consisted of talented, interesting people who seemed to love their jobs. She enjoyed chatting with their spouses, too. Would Tate ever realize that he loved her, too, and be a faculty spouse one day? The image of him hosting a faculty party at her little townhouse made her smile. He’d have the TAs doing shots with him in the kitchen.

If she married Tate would she continue to be faculty or would he want her to follow him? Could they figure something out? The desire to speak with him was so strong that it hurt. She was a lousy support system for him, running away from him like that. She would call him when she got home and make it right.

Keeping herself from crying until she was buckled into her seat on the plane and she remembered the manila envelope, she bawled like a baby when she opened it. He did love her, he just hadn’t gotten over the fear factor yet. The evidence of his love spilled out into her lap in the form of photographs and articles of her mother, Catherine Brooks of the Boston Ballet. Fiona only had the one small photo she cut from a magazine, Tate found thirty seven pictures of her and a flash drive with eight articles about her. How he did it, she’d never know.

She ached to hold him.

Parking her bike in the garage she pressed the garage door remote that she kept in her jacket pocket to lower the door and stepped into her warm kitchen, thinking of how nice it would be to wrap her cold fingers around a mug of hot tea. The door to the kitchen bounced back open when she tried to close it, and before she could look to see what it was that had blocked it, she was thrown to the tile floor and the wind was knocked out of her.

Her first thought was that the Russians were back, and she was a dead woman. Once she found her breath, she smelled a familiar cologne and she slowly turned to see David Hollander straddling her back.

“David! What do you think you’re doing?”

“You’re clever, you’ll figure it out soon enough,” he said.

She couldn’t feel her cold hands, and hoped she hadn’t done anything to them this close to a concert when she fell on them. “Let me up, David. You’re hurting me.” She still couldn’t think of him as a threat, in fact, she was relieved it was him and not the Russians.

“I don’t think so,” he said. That was when she felt the cold blade of a knife on her cheek. She went perfectly still. “Ah, I think you’re beginning to see the position you are in at last, Fiona Brooks, child prodigy.”

“What do you want?” She had no idea the position she was in, she knew it didn’t look good, though. She thought of Tate, would he be inconsolable if she was killed? He certainly gave that impression. Would she ever see him again? Why hadn’t she called him and made amends?

“I want
you,
Fiona, all I’ve ever wanted was you.”

“Then why do you have a knife on my throat?”

“Not throat, I don’t want you dead. I love you,” he said.

“David, I know we’ve had our ups and downs, but this…what you are doing, is not going to make me love you. Let’s discuss this like adults,” she was grasping at straws. He said he didn’t want to kill her, but that knife he held to her skin was a clear sign he wanted to do something that she wasn’t going to like. Did he plan to rape her? Did he think that was going to get her to love him?

“I didn’t want to get into that so soon, Fiona, but if you insist, I can explain myself,” he began.

“Okay, okay, okay,” she said. Her arms were in front of her and she motioned her palms downward with each word to calm herself as much as him. “Let’s just talk this out.”

“You’re so pretty, Fiona. You really are. People make the mistake of only seeing the outside, no one takes the time anymore to look past the outward appearance to see the person within.” He took a deep breath. “Tate Dylan just wanted you because you’re pretty, Dean Barnard just wanted you because you’re pretty. I want you because of what’s inside, Fiona. I won’t care if you have a big ugly scar down your face because I love the Fiona Brooks that’s on the inside. I’m a much better match for you, and I’m going to prove it to you the only way I know how.” Holy shit! He was going to disfigure her in the name of love.

“David, David, wait, please wait. Please don’t do what I think you’re going to do. If you really want me, you wouldn’t treat me like a trespasser in my own home. We need to discuss this as it affects both of us, okay. I have a concert in a few days, I can’t miss it. Now help me up off the floor and I’ll make tea. Do you take milk or lemon?” He had gotten off of her because of her confusing tone of voice. She put a hand up so he could help her off the floor, which he did, still feeling confused.

“Lemon,” he said slowly as if hypnotized. He responded well to being told what to do, it seemed. Maybe she needed to be forceful with him. She pointed to one of the stools at the counter and went to fill her kettle at the sink, keeping a wary eye on him. He didn’t sit, only stood next to her at the sink. He wasn’t responding well to being told what to do anymore. “You’re not mad?”

“I feel better now that I’m not sprawled out on the floor and you don’t have a knife to my face. My hands hurt from the impact, but I’m mostly angry you thought you should cut my face.”

“It’s the only way Fiona, otherwise people won’t see what I see.” He stared at her as if he really did adore her. She had to get that knife away from him. “In time you’ll see this is for the best.”

“I think we need to seriously get to know each other before we decide if I’m worthy enough for you to mutilate my face. What if I’m really a harpy behind a pretty face, and that’s why I couldn’t keep any boyfriends. Had you considered that?”

“But you’re Fiona Brooks.
You
wouldn’t be a harpy, of course you’re worthy of me mutilating…let’s use a different word. I like…readjusting.”

“No, David we need to be honest, if nothing else. You planned on mutilating my face.” She was being overly hopeful with the use of the past tense. He ignored her and continued on his train of thought.

“My parents followed your story since I was like eight years old. You were on the cover of
TIME
magazine when you were seven. You were an American prodigy, all the others were foreign,” his mouth looked like it had a bad taste in it. “You and I were meant for each other. You’re why I studied music my whole life.” He’d been a stalker since he was eight, wonderful. “This was all part of their plan, and it’s time. I’m tired of waiting.”

“They said you should cut me?”

“No, that part didn’t make itself clear until recently,” he said.

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

“Of course,” he said quickly.

“Do you like that I’m pretty?”

“Yes,” it was an animal moan.

“I think you should put the knife down and touch my face,” she knew her voice was shaking. He didn’t put the knife down, but lifted the hand the knife wasn’t in to her cheek and moaned again.

“So beautiful, you’re like a painting done by a master. I understand their weakness, Fiona. I don’t blame you for sleeping with those other men,” he was staring at her face and stroking her cheek. She took a deep breath when she realized she had been holding it.

“Do you enjoy looking at my face?”

“More than anything,” he said.

“Because if suddenly you don’t like that you made me ugly, then what?”

“That’s just it, Fiona, I will still love you even when you’re ugly.”

“But you’ll be in prison. Who will love ugly me while you are stuck in prison for the rest of your life?” He started to look anguished. “You’ll never see me again after the trial.”

“But it has to be done, Fiona. Don’t you see?” He stepped closer to her. “I don’t know how else to prove to you that I love you more than they do.”

“You’re here, David, they are not. That’s got to be worth something. Now let’s have our tea and discuss this before someone gets hurt.” This was it, he was going to slice her face open; she had seen the change in his eyes. He was girding his loins and gripping his knife.

He brought the knife up to her face and she grabbed the kettle and smashed it, heavy with the water in it, into his head. He went down like ton of bricks. She screamed in horror and the need to release the adrenalin that was coursing through her body. Then she screamed again for good measure and because it had felt so good the first time.

Where was her phone?

She pulled it and the garage door remote out of her pocket and nearly dropped it, the muscles in her hand didn’t seem to be working. Looking down at the phone she saw the blood covering her hand. She felt quite dizzy suddenly. She sat abruptly on the floor and rang Liam.

“What’s up, Fifi?”

“I’m bleeding…” she said right before she slipped into unconsciousness, Tate’s gorgeous face smiling at her.

Chapter Sixteen

“I think you should call Tate,” Liam said as he helped Fiona up the stairs to her bedroom the day after he found her on her kitchen floor bleeding to death. They operated on her arm to close the nicked brachial artery. Liam spent the better portion of his evening waiting for her to come out of surgery at Georgetown, Liam hated hospitals. They kept Fiona overnight. She didn’t want to stay, she’d had her fill the night they pumped her stomach, but they wouldn’t let her go. Liam slept in her recovery room with her and the next day they sent her on her way with a list of things to do for her nasty gash.

“Absolutely not. He has this knight in shining armor fixation. If he figures out his heart and comes back to me, I want it to be because he loves me, not because he thinks I need him to tend to me. Plus, I’m on pain killers and I’d just beg him to love me, it would not be pretty.” She tried to keep climbing steps after she was already at the top and nearly fell.

“Easy there, Grace,” Liam said and turned her toward her room.

“I miss him, Liam. It’s so weird, I’ve never felt lonely before, I liked being by myself. Now I can’t breathe,” Fiona bit her lower lip. “Sorry, you don’t need to hear this.”

“Go to bed, Fifi. Try not to bleed to death.” Liam tucked her in and left to go make some calls in the guestroom.

Fiona’s phone buzzed and she looked at the display. Tess.

“H’lo Tess,” Fiona said.

“Hi Fiona. Are you okay? You sound off.” She took a deep breath and told Tess the whole story. Tess was appalled.

“You need to tell Tate,” she said.

“I knew you were going to say that,” Fiona said.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Tess exclaimed.

“I can’t, I want him to come to me because he knows he loves me, not because I was in danger. How is he? Do you know?”

“He’s a wreck. He’s scared to death. Christie says he’s trashed his house and he only communicates in grunts and glares. Men are such fools.”

“Yes, but they aren’t the only ones, I should call Tate.”

“Yes, you should.”

“Goodnight, Tess.”

“Fiona, it’s like three o’clock there.”

“I know, goodnight.”

Liam knocked on her door, came in and sat on the bed next to his sister.

“Are you okay?”

“A little loopy,” she said with a smile. “That was Tess.”

“She’s a good friend,” Liam said.

“I don’t think I tell you how much I love you often enough, Liam. In fact, I know I don’t.” He looked at her and wondered if he was going to cry. Time to change the subject, he thought. He couldn’t be seen crying because his little sister told him she loved him.

“Hollander didn’t make it, Fifi, you crushed his skull. I just got the call. He won’t be a problem anymore.” Fiona nodded and her eyes filled with tears. “I know Fi, I know.” He gathered her in his arms and she wept.

***

Fiona’s arm was throbbing as she stood in the wings of the Wang Theater in the Citi Performing Arts Center in Boston, waiting for her introduction. No painkillers, she was afraid they’d mess with her performance, and
that
would be unacceptable. This performance had been sold out for months, she felt obliged to deliver, as she had always felt.

She loved this art deco theater, it was old and elegant. The first time she’d ever performed was on this very stage, so many years ago. She tried not to think of the thousands of people who came to hear the aging child prodigy play through the throb of her arm.

There had been very little practicing, and no warm up since she was afraid to re-open her arm before the performance. Some of these patrons had purchased their tickets more than a year in advance, and she wanted to give them their money’s worth. If she passed out at the piano they would at least get a little drama with their ticket.

She took one last deep breath and stepped out on to the stage and the roar of applause got incredibly loud. Okay, she loved her job. She lifted her right arm into the air and waved with a big toothy smile and bowed. The crowd stilled and hushed as she turned and walked to the piano and sat on the bench. From roar to no sound at all, it was surreal.