Page 41 of Love & Notes

“The Romanticism scores are in section 4A, Bow-Peep.” I lean down over her. “You’re in the wrong place.”

I have absolutely no idea where the Romanticism scores are kept in this library. I have never successfully located a single book here on my own. I am talking for the sake of it, because it's what I do. Annoying her is my default setting.

I wait, but her usual snap does not come.

I even have a shitty follow up ready. After rehearsal the other night when everything went sideways, and I had to bolt out of the room to stop myself openly flirting with her, I have been quietly trying to rebuild the friction between us. Friction I understand. It comes with rules, even if I’m a bastard at following them. Rules keep me safe. I can’t allow myself to get that close to her—I refuse to get emotionally caught up on Ellise Vance.

But she doesn’t react.

When she finally turns her head to look at me, it’s with a sluggish rotation. Her blue eyes are completely glazed. Not with the sharp focus that I know. They are totally blank and disconnected. The flush in her face is deep and wrong. It's not the usual color that she turns when she gets embarrassed or annoyed, the flush I have come to know very well. Her spark is completely gone. There is no defensive huff, and her armour has well and truly shattered.

For the first time since I laid eyes on her, the urge to win—to be the most untouchable person in whatever room I occupy—is not there.

I pull the chair out beside her and lower myself next to her.

The desk is an absolute disaster—there are spreadsheets covered in red ink everywhere. She has color-coded and annotated them all. Columns of numbers and dates, past-due notices, tax documents. It’s definitely not something any music student would have to be looking into.

“What is all this stuff?” I ask, my voice dropping its mocking edge. I tap the nearest spreadsheet with my finger. “What are you actually working on, Vance?”

She looks at the mountains of papers and then back at me. It’s as though she is trying to fabricate a lie. She doesn’t want to explain any of this to me.

“What is all this?” I ask again.

“It’s none of your business, Julian.” She reaches for the nearest sheet immediately, her movements panicked. “Don’t look at that.”

“I’m already looking.” I keep my hand firmly on the edge of the sheet, so she can’t pull it away. It looks like a profit and loss account—something a violinist should not be sweating over. “What the hell is all this? It looks like someone is in major debt.”

She hesitates, letting out a huge huff or air.

“It’s my family’s bookstore,” she says, the words coming out quietly. “Since Dad passed, we have been struggling. Taxes went up, and foot traffic is down. But it’s getting worse… much worse.” She pauses. “It doesn’t matter, Julian. Please just leave.”

Silence crashes between us. Fuck.

I reach out and pull one of the red-inked balance sheets towards me.

“It clearly does matter. How much worse has it got?” I ask.

My eyes scan the page, taking in the numbers. Yeah, they are bad, but in the context of the world that I come from, these numbers are not large. It’s not bragging. That's the saddest thing about the whole situation.

Ellise Vance is working her arse off to breaking point, and the amount of money that it would take to completely wipe this slate clean is an amount that I spend in a single month, without even noticing.

The sheer hypocrisy of our rivalry arrives without warning.

I have spent my entire life actively rebelling against money—what it costs, who it controls, what it does to people. I have bitterly resented my father’s wealth and everything that it represents. Yet Ellise has been terrified of failing because failing means losing the thing her father believed in. I have been the biggest dick to her without understanding a single thing about her reality, and it makes me feel awful.

“I have it under control,” she states, her voice trembling slightly as she pulls her hands back into her lap, clenching them together.

It’s clearly a lie. Looking at these spreadsheets, it’s a monumental lie.

“You don’t have it under control,” I cut her off. I’m not trying to be unkind, but I am not going to sit here and lie to her face. I push the spreadsheet towards the center of the desk. “You can’t run a failing business on top of a Master's, Vance. Not like this.”

“I don’t have a choice.” She shoves the papers into her satchel, refusing to look at me. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, Julian, and I don’t need your pity.”

“It’s not pity.”

Before I can stop myself to think if it’s a good idea, my hand reaches out and closes over her wrist. Her skin burns against my fingers, her pulse racing erratically under my touch. She looks down at where my hand is gripping her, and for a second, I think she’s either going to hit me, or burst into tears.

“Please don’t concern yourself with my issues, Julian. What would you know about any of this?”