Chapter 8
I gasped for breath, let go of his hair, and pushed myself to my feet.
Pain still throbbed relentlessly through my twisted ankle.
But I didn’t care.
Looking down at him–his eyes glazed with agony–I began to smile, slow and cold.
“So devoted, aren’t you, my little lord? You’d sacrifice yourself just to see me ruined here, all for your darling ingenue’s future?”
“This is Daniel’s warning for me, isn’t it? You two already decided to share her before tonight even started?”
“Absolutely disgusting.”
I lifted the hem of my dress and wiped it across his bloody face, again and again, until the pale fabric was stained and mottled with red.
Then I left him there, stumbling away into the dusk and toward the grand hall.
From a distance, the gentle notes of a piano drifted out.
Julie, of course, was playing the same piece as last time.N
Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”
She sat at the gleaming white grand piano on stage, a silver cocktail dress shimmering under the lights.
The stage was dark all around, save for a single spotlight illuminating her like the first star piercing the night.
Just like before–at my engagement party, when she’d climbed her way up by stepping over my very body–she was dazzling, beautiful to the point of cruelty.
I ran down the narrow aisle between the rows of seats.N
Security and the emcee tried to stop me–I shoved past them.
With a quick boost, I vaulted onto the stage.
Standing in the lone spotlight, I kicked Julie aside and slammed my fist onto the piano.
She stared up at me, frozen in disbelief, while I lost myself to fury.
“Keep playing, go on! PLAY!”
“You send your little lapdog to try and ruin me, and you’re still here, playing your heart out like nothing happened?”
Of course I knew.
The special admissions officer Daniel had invited was sitting right there in the audience.
In my last life, after Julie played that “Clair de Lune,”
He contacted her as soon as the recital ended and offered her the only special admission spot.
She accepted.
That was just the first step toward her golden future.
Later, with Daniel pulling the strings, she was taken on as the final protégé by a legendary maestro at the conservatory.
Meanwhile, I was preparing for a film role–a prodigy pianist on the autism spectrum.
My manager arranged for me to have lessons with that same maestro.
I barely exchanged a word with Julie there.
That night, when I got home, Daniel was waiting at my door.
He looked at me with open disgust. “Corinna, will you ever stop?”
“Is this how much you hate Julie? Just because you can’t compare, you rip up the sheet music she hand–copied for her teacher?” ‘Pathetic.
I stood there, stunned for a moment, scrambling for words to defend myself.
He cut me off with a wave.
“Lies, all of it.”
“I don’t believe a single word out of your mouth.”
Gasps and shouts erupted from the audience below. Someone screamed,
“Look at her dress–it’s covered in blood!”
Blood and dust clung to the tattered hem, my hair was a tangled mess, and my ankle was badly swollen.
Every detail of me, every bruise and stain, only proved the truth of my words.N
Julie clutched the piano bench, stumbling to her feet.
Hatred and spite flashed in her eyes, but soon she composed herself, putting on that familiar mask of innocence.N “Corinna, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This has to be some kind of misunderstanding.”
But this is my performance, and for the sake of the audience, you shouldn’t have rushed onto the stage like this” Daniel sprang to his feet in the audience, face red with fury as he shouted,
“Corinna, have you lost your mind?!”
1 ignored them both, brushed past Julie, and sat down at the piano bench.
I started to play Beethoven’s “Symphony of Fate.“%
In my previous life, I had spent a solid three months mastering this piece–just so I could actually play it for real in the film, without a hand double.
