"Focus, please," Miss Rivera scolds them.
I aim a deadly look at Achilles, but it only earns me a quick wink in return.
By the time rehearsal is over, I've heard enough snide comments about my relationship to start doubting my merit as first chair. Which I'm sure is exactly what they all wanted. It's been just over a week since the scene with Evelyn, and those bloodthirsty fuckers need more to gossip about.
Achilles catches up with me when I walk out of the music hall, but the second he throws his arm around my shoulder, I shrug him off.
"Nyx, don't push me away. It makes me even more possessive of you, and I'm worried about the things I'm capable of."
I keep walking, forcing him to follow my stride.
"Nyx," he repeats. "Are you listening? I'm on your right, so don't pretend you can't hear me properly."
I hold my violin case tighter and adjust the bag on my shoulder, ignoring him.
"Don't make me do something stupid, woman," he says in a threatening tone as he wraps a powerful hand around the back of my neck.
I'm forced to stop, my stomach sinking as I turn to him.
"Am I first chair just because you fuck me?"
His eyebrows rise, steel eyes blinking at me.
"Does me fucking you make you play better?" he asks with genuine curiosity.
I scoff. "Of course not."
"Then no. You're not first chair because I'm fucking you. Although I am tempted right now to fuck that attitude out of you."
"But are you the one who suggested me for the spot? Or was it Miss Rivera's idea?"
"Does it matter? You're talented, and so much better than most of the musicians in that orchestra. Don't think too hard about it. Hopefully soon, she'll realize you should be the soloist."
"So itwasyou." I release a groan of frustration. "You told her to do it, and you know everyone in the music department listens to you like you're…Jesus."
"That's some seriously new level of trust they're putting in me." He snorts.
"Achilles, you need to let me build my own path," I say, annoyed as we continue on our walk through the woods.
"I simply hear and see things before they all do," he says so naturally, I don't even think he hears the arrogance in it. "That's the exact reason they ask me to come to those rehearsals. So I can advise them. I have, and now you're first chair."
"Don't you think that maybe you're biased? That you think I'm so talented because you have a soft spot for me?"
He pauses and turns to me, shaking his head like I'm an idiot. "I have a soft spot for youbecauseyou're talented. Get your thinking right. And the only reason you're making such a big deal out of this is because you think you don't deserve it, which is starting to seriously piss me off. But hey, maybe another lesson is what you need."
The memory of the conductor's baton hitting my ass over and over again is enough to turn me meek.
"I don't," I mumble.
"I'll be the judge of that,mon trésor."
By the time we're at the parking lot, it's raining. I look for where he parked his Range Rover this morning, but the car is gone. Instead, a blacked-out town car is waiting, and a chauffeur opens the back door for us.
Achilles lets me in first and quickly follows.
"What's going on?" I ask, a hint of anxiety showing its ugly head.
Achilles puts a hand on my thigh, caressing my tights-clad leg as he grabs something from a bag on the floor. "We're off to New York."
