Chapter 4  Personal Tutor

Lilian.

I stood backstage at the fundraiser with my violin case in one hand and my nerves stretched thin enough to snap, listening to the murmur of a few hundred wealthy guests filtering into the main hall beyond the curtain. I still could not believe I had agreed to this. I still could not believe I had not found a single acceptable way to say no.

"You look like you are about to be sick," a stagehand said, hurrying past with a rack of chairs.

"I am fine," I lied.

I was not fine. I had spent the last three days convincing myself this would be simple, walk out, play my piece, walk off, never actually speak to the man whose name was stitched across every banner in this building. I had rehearsed that plan in my head so many times it had started to feel real.

The plan lasted exactly until I turned a corner backstage looking for the water station and walked straight into him.

"You," I said, before I could stop myself.

"Me," Drake agreed, and for the first time since I had met him, something close to amusement moved across his face. "You seem surprised. This is my event."

"I know it is your event. I did not expect you to be standing in a hallway that smells like glue and stage paint."

"I wanted to make sure everything was running smoothly." He studied me for a moment, eyes moving over the deep green dress I had borrowed from Anne, and I felt heat crawl up my neck under the weight of it. "You look nervous."

"I am not nervous."

"You are holding your violin case as if it might run away from you."

I looked down and realized my knuckles had gone white around the handle. I loosened my grip immediately, annoyed that he had noticed, more annoyed that he was right.

"I did not ask to be here," I said. "In case you were wondering. I did not ask for the invitation and I definitely did not ask you to personally request my name on a list."

"I know you did not ask."

"Then why did you do it?"

He did not answer right away, and the silence stretched long enough that I started to feel the air between us change, thicken, the way it had the night we met, that same charge running under my skin like static before a storm.

"I wanted to hear you play," he said finally. "That is all."

"That is not all. Men like you do not personally request anything unless there is a reason."

"Maybe I simply liked what I saw at that party." His voice had dropped lower, quieter, and he took a single step closer, close enough that I had to tilt my head back slightly to keep looking at him. "You were the only person in that entire room who was not trying to impress me."

"I was too busy being furious with you to try."

"I noticed." The corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile, something more dangerous than a smile. "It was the most interesting thing that happened to me in months."

My heart was doing something reckless and stupid, hammering against my ribs like it had forgotten every lesson the last three weeks had taught me about trusting men who looked at you like you were the only thing in the room. I told myself to step back. But I did not step back.

"You should not stand this close to me," I said, though my voice came out softer than I intended.

"Why not?"

"Because I do not trust you."

"You don't have to trust me." He reached out, slow enough that I could have moved away if I wanted to, and brushed a strand of hair back from my face, his fingers grazing my cheekbone for exactly one second before falling away. My skin burned everywhere he had touched. "You just have to stop pretending you want me to leave."

I opened my mouth to argue, to tell him exactly how wrong he was, and nothing came out. Because he was not wrong. Every part of me that had spent the last three weeks building walls, swearing off men who thought a look was enough, screaming internally about how much I hated him, all of it had gone strangely, dangerously quiet, replaced by the simple undeniable fact that I did not want him to leave either.

His hand found my wrist, thumb tracing slowly along the inside of it where my pulse was jumping wildly, and he leaned down slightly, close enough that I could feel his breath against my temple.

"Lilian," he said, my name sounding different in his voice than it had ever sounded in anyone else's mouth.

I didn't know what would have happened next. I have thought about it more times than I care to admit since. But before either of us could close the last inch of space between us, a voice cut through the hallway, sharp and unmistakable.

"There you are. I have been looking everywhere."

Drake stepped back so fast it was like I had never been standing that close to him at all, his whole posture snapping back into the cold, composed captain the rest of the world knew. A younger version of him rounded the corner, same sharp jaw, same dark eyes, though his held none of the ice, just amusement and curiosity as his gaze bounced between the two of us.

"Caleb," Drake said, his voice flat in a way that did not match the redness still creeping up his neck. "This is not a good time."

"Clearly." Caleb grinned, entirely unbothered by his brother's tone. "Sorry to interrupt whatever this was. I actually came to find you because of the tutor situation. It is getting urgent."

"Not now."

"It has to be now. Finals are in three weeks and I have failed the last two mock exams. You said you would find someone before the season picked up again and now it has picked up and you have found no one."

I watched something shift across Drake's face, irritation layered thick over something that looked almost like panic, an expression that did not fit him at all.

"We will discuss this later," Drake said through his teeth.

"There is no later. I need someone who actually knows theory, not some overpriced tutor who reads off a textbook." Caleb's eyes landed on me suddenly, sharpening with an idea I did not like the shape of. "Wait. You are the violinist. The one from the conservatory."

"I am," I said carefully, glancing at Drake, whose jaw had gone tight enough to crack stone.

"Caleb," Drake said, a clear warning in his voice.

Caleb ignored him completely. "You study music theory, right? Actual composition, not just performance?"

"Yes, but I do not see what that has to do with—"

"She is not tutoring you," Drake said, cutting me off, his voice low and furious in a way that made the hallway feel smaller than it already was.

"Why not? She is right here. She is clearly qualified. Unless you have a better reason to say no." Caleb crossed his arms, entirely too pleased with himself. "Unless the real problem is you do not want her anywhere near this family."

Drake's expression darkened in a way I had not seen before, something furious flickering just beneath the surface, and I realized with a slow, sinking feeling that whatever had just happened between us in that hallway, whatever this was building into, had suddenly become something neither of us could simply walk away from.

"Fine," Drake said, the word coming out like it physically hurt him to say it, his eyes locking on mine with an intensity that made my stomach drop. "She will tutor you. But this changes nothing between us."

I opened my mouth to argue, to remind him that I had never actually agreed to any of this, and that was when I heard my name being called from the stage, the announcer's voice echoing down the hallway to summon me for my performance, leaving Drake's furious, unreadable stare burned into my mind as I turned and walked away with absolutely no idea what I had just agreed to.