Page 16 of Bribed by the Billionaire Bad Boy

“A pity I’m not concerned about grace.” I cross my legs, making a show of getting comfortable. “I thought you said you weren’t an actress.”

“I’m not.”

“Another likely story?”

She scoffs, but it’s good to see that the rage in her eyes has siphoned away. Is she as lonely as her song sounds? If she really wrote it, it has to have come from a place just as dark.

Softly, she plays a scale, her long fingers dancing across the keys like they belong there. “It’s not a lie. I study people. That’s all. Mimicking them is simple enough. Every single soul has a story. I love theater because it embraces stories and wraps them into music and dance and just everything beautiful about what humans can create. It’s the culmination of every art we have to express ourselves with.” The dreamy wisps of emotion on her face harden away as she rolls her eyes to me. “I’ll be honest.I respected your prank. I thought it was funny,Alexander. But invading my time here isn’t okay, so this is the first and last time.”

Scoffing, I ruffle my hair. “I’ll be honest, too. I reallydon’tlike my name. It has too many syllables. And noted.”

“Al-a-ex-a-an-de-der.” She stretches the syllables out and adds a few in a teasing sort of tone she seems to have adopted purely to mock my name. Another scale, melded with a chord, flutters from her fingertips. “I like it. It’s regal.”

“Heaven forbid I bethat.”

“As Kenneth, it’s practically in your character description.”

I twist my lips into a dastardly smile. “Don’t tell meregalis your type?”

She plays a low chord that sounds suspiciously like a rumble of denial. “You flatter yourself an awful lot.”

“I like seeing you blush.”

She covers her cheek with one hand, narrowing her eyes at me. “I’m seeing why you’re considered rude.”

“I prefer the termhonest.”

“Ha,” she states, and could throw my prank or my entire career choice in my face as a rival to the statement, but she doesn’t.

I can’t help but wonder if she sees acting as a way to reveal the rawest bits of life and people, too.

After all…

Actors portray characters at their extremes. They give life to all the bits that everyone always hides away behind fear or worries or tolerably average displays. Being fake is the excuse to be most real.

Wouldn’t everyone live to their fullest extreme if only they felt safe enough to?

“Are you ready for the audition tonight?” I ask.

Cold washes through her, stealing her color away again, andshe shakes her head as she drops the hand at her cheek back to the keys. A gentle, simple tune flows from her fingertips. “I don’t want to do it.”

Mesmerized by the effortless sway of her body while she plays, I don’t respond for a long moment, but when I do, it’s with Kenneth. “A shame you don’t have a choice.”

The line comes from a scene after he blackmails poor Harriet. She’s having second thoughts. Stealing to survive is one thing. Stealing for the pompous lord is another. In the end, he’s the one with second thoughts after realizing he’s fallen in love and the whole escapade—from the start—was just to distract him from the foreign grief and anger that came after losing his father, a practical stranger.

The tune Calypso’s playing merges, finding its way to the soundtrack that accompanies the scene I referenced, and I’ll be danged if this girl has memorized the play and the songs in less than a week. It’s almost enough to make me break character.

Almost.

“We have an agreement,” I continue.

“I know,” she spits, through a smile. Her tone is right, but her expression—it’s all kinds of wrong. This isfunfor her, so what’s the problem?

“You don’t get to pull out now,” I state.

Breathless yet giddy, she returns, “You think I don’t know that?”

I stand, fully in character. Leaning over her, I throw out my arm and change the words, “What are you afraid of?”