Page 92 of The Sound of Harmony

ChapterTwenty-Four

The last thing Kendrick wanted to do was attend the after-concert reception. But he’d already walked out in the middle of the performance. Skipping the reception on top of that would be career suicide. So much of this business was reputation and connections, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d lose both.

He plastered on a smile he didn’t feel, held his head up, and walked into the ballroom on the second floor of Orchestra Hall, ready to charm the donors and suck up to the conductor. By the time he left the room, everyone would forget that the composers of the first piece had charged out in the middle of it.

He said hello to Dennison Umaru and several of the musicians, accepted handshakes and a glass of wine, and leaned in to conversations with his left ear. He acted like everything was fine and that he hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of his life.

He spotted Ben and Raine across the room. At last, familiar faces. He made his way over to them, glad to see true friends.

Ben shook his hand and Raine hugged him and kissed his cheek. As always, she smelled like heavy perfume, the kind that seemed to explode in your nostrils, demanding you pay attention. He inhaled deeply, trying to erase Emma’s subtler scent from his mind.

“Excellent work, darling,” Raine said, squeezing his shoulders. “Very evocative. And that second movement was splendid. It’s a new direction for you.”

“Yeah,” Kendrick choked out.

“Perhaps the violins weren’t quite there,” Ben said. “It’s a difficult piece.”

“I thought they were up to it.” Kendrick brought his wineglass to his lips with shaky hands. What had he missed? The violins had probably screwed up the same section they’d screwed up every day in rehearsals. Great.

“Publication?” Ben asked. “Student version?” He asked the same questions so often they’d developed a shorthand.

“I doubt it,” Kendrick said. “I don’t think Emma will agree.”

Ben held up the program. “You didn’t tell me you were collaborating.”

“Because we weren’t,” Kendrick said miserably.

“That was some power move,” Ben said. “Walking out of your own composition as it’s debuting on stage? That’s confidence. That is some big energy.”

“I was following Emma.”

“Where is she?” Ben asked, looking around the ballroom.

“She left,” Kendrick swore he heard his words echo around the room, as if all conversation had stopped to hear about his heartbreak. But that was ridiculous. Nobody cared, and the only reason he couldn’t hear other people talking was because he could barely hear anything.

“Oh, dear. I was hoping to meet her,” Raine said. “Is she okay?”

Kendrick drank more wine. It tasted bitter in his mouth. “I think she hates me.”

“What did you do?” Raine asked.

“Why do you assume I did something?”

Both Raine and Ben looked at him in silence, eyebrows raised.

“She didn’t like the surprise,” Kendrick admitted. “I didn’t tell her I was arranging her work.”

“Oh no,” Ben said. “Emma doesn’t strike me as someone who likes surprises.”

“I get that now.”

“If you didn’t get that before now, you’re more of a Dummkopf than I thought.”

Kendrick didn’t need Ben to tell him how stupid he was. He was an idiot to think that a woman like Emma would ever want a partnership with him. She only liked what she could organize or arrange herself. She worked alone, did things her way, and expected everything to be in harmony at all times. How was he supposed to live up to that?

“I was going to come clean about not being Swiss,” Ben said. “I feel bad we lied to her.”

“Don’t be,” Kendrick said. “She had you figured out from day one.”