Page 122 of Lethal Obsession

“I can’t believe it took you this long.” I glare at my brother’s back. He’s on his hands and knees, feeding wires through a wall to some kind of panel.

“Sorry.” Mickey doesn’t sound it. “I got tied up with business in London.”

“London, London, London.” I roll my eyes. I’m perched on the edge of my Moroccan lounge, watching him put together a padded cubicle several meters square. It’s big enough to fit my Steinway, which will be the cover story if anyone comes to visit—a soundproofed room where I can practice at any hour. More importantly, it’s big enough to house my incredibly comfy snuggle chair, an oversized plush thing that’s perfect for curling into for long phone calls. I can always roll the piano into the secure room if anyone unexpected comes to visit and explain it away as a soundproofing necessity.

“How is it that I was living in London for four years,” I go on, “and you hardly ever came to visit me, but now that I’ve left, you’re there all the time? You’re as bad as Lourdes. She always used to fly back to Granada to see her family, but now that I’ve finally moved here, she seems to be performing in London every other weekend.”

“Didn’t you tell me her uncle has a flamenco bar there?” Mickey lifts one of the back panels and screws it into place. “She’s probably just helping out her family.”

“I know.” I realize how petulant I probably sound. “I just miss her, I guess. And Benny, who seems to be spending most of his time on Lars’s yacht lately.”

“Actually, they’re in Paris this weekend. Lars is setting up some new office for a project he’s working on with your friend, so he brought Benny over on the Eurostar to join him.”

Loneliness stabs me like a knife. I wonder what the project is and feel a stab of jealousy that Lars has been talking to Alexei, while I couldn’t.

When my silence draws out, Mickey turns to give me a dry look. “Don’t worry, crazy sibling. I’ll have this up and running by the end of the day, and I’m sure your pirate will be on the phone the minute the line is secure.”

“Pirate?” I give him a quizzical look. “Sounds like you’ve been spending time with Benny and Lourdes.”

“That’s just what Lars calls him.” He turns back to his tools. “If it were up to me,” he says grimly, “I’d Harry Potter the bastard and call him He Who Shall Not Be Named.”

A rather uncomfortable silence ensues.

“And you should call Darya, by the way.” His tone hasn’t lost its taut edge. “She’s starting to hint that she thinks there’s something wrong, and you know what she’s like—any more silence, and she’ll be finding an excuse to drive up here.”

Damn.

I’ve been dodging Darya’s calls ever since my reading with Seline, not least because she has an unerring ability to sniff out when I’m not okay—and I absolutely have not been okay this past week.

I sent a text with a story about being away with Lourdes, which she seemed to buy, since Teresa and Julia had already given her the same one, but that doesn’t make me feel any more confident in lying to her face.

But I can’t get Seline’s comment about being betrayed out of my head. And I know that if Darya got even the faintest suspicion about me and Alexei, she’d be telling Papa by sundown. I can’t risk that. I can’t risk us.

I’ve ignored the other missed calls on my phone, unwilling to leave the euphoric haze of my time with Alexei. I’ve tried to practice, but every time I lower my fingers to the keys, all I see is his lean figure lying on the sofa in the practice room on the yacht. When I close my eyes, I feel his hands sliding over mine, his lips touching my neck as he murmurs my name, “Ah-FAY-lee-yah . . .”

The phone rings, and I snatch it up before the first tone has faded, ignoring my brother’s eye roll. “Hello?” I say breathlessly.

“Miss Borovsky.”

“Director Dittorio.” One set of nerves is instantly replaced by another. “How unexpected.”

“It vould not be unexpected,” the conductor says dryly, “if you answer telephone. My assistant leave many messages.”

“I’m sorry. I was—”

“I do not care.” Dittorio cuts me off with characteristic disdain. “I haf call from my friend Pietro at the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada. His pianist has injured hand, like a fool, and cannot play International Music Festival this veekend. Pietro need a soloist; I say perhaps I haf one that is not so terrible. But you do not answer, and so I tell him to find someone else, but now it is a veek later, still he has no one, and now, finally, you answer. So, you vill play this event for my friend Pietro on Saturday.”

Three days from now.

I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly very dry.

“Yes?” he barks into the phone.

“Yes,” I repeat faintly.

“I do not hear you.”

“Yes,” I say, more strongly. “What piece—”