Backstage Romance: An Austen-Inspired Romantic Comedy Box Set by Gigi Blume (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📕

provided my house, and hundreds of strangers were invited to roam my lawns and peek in my windows. I made a mental note to double security.

Stella stayed well past midnight. We were having such a good time, I didn’t even realize the late hour. She refused my offer of one of the guest bedrooms, joking it would tarnish her innocent reputation. I teased her I was the one to be worried about appearances and pressed her to stay. But she said she was perfectly fine to drive and sent me a text when she arrived home. It wasn’t until I went through the house to check all the doors that I noticed a note from Ephraim. He had a plane to catch and wouldn’t be around to walk Lady for the rest of the week. Great. The Paw Hotel required reservations weeks in advance. I’d have to take Lady to the theatre with me. The Pirate King would have a dog instead of a parrot.

Rehearsal was grueling. We were in full run-throughs, and Cole reminded us repeatedly how much of a disaster the show was in. Sadly, I had to agree. His idiotic nephew didn’t know any of the lyrics, the rope system on the pirate ship wasn’t working, and the ridiculous choreographer continued to change major dance moves at whim. At one point, he added a unicycle to which Stella firmly disapproved. To top it all off, once the first run-through of the day began, all the weeks of rehearsal seemed to have been tossed out the window. I was on stage, in the middle of the entire company, and I could barely hear them sing. The only lyric anybody seemed to know was Hail Poetry. Not the entire song, just the two words Hail Poetry. Oh, and let’s not even talk about Modern Major General. Who would have thought it could be such a novel idea to actually expect people to dance and sing at the same time?

Shocking.

After lunch, we were individually called to get fitted in our costumes. As I approached the costume shop, I heard the sound of a female voice singing. But not just any singing—opera. I thought at first Ari was listening to a recording, but as I got closer, I realized it was no recording. Ari sang a perfect rendition of Mozart’s Queen of the Night. It wasn’t overdone as I had heard before. It was lyrical and light. What’s more, she was hitting that F note without any strain. I thought at first surely, she must be singing in a lower key. My ears weren’t trained well enough to notice if she’d brought it down a couple of steps. She was singing acapella, after all. But then I heard the piano dole out the high note. She was checking herself. As I craned my neck around the threshold to sneak a glance unnoticed, I saw her plunk out the single note and resume singing. I saw that finger. It was the high F.

What could be the meaning of that, I wondered. She didn’t sound like a casual opera aficionado. This girl knew music. I held back to listen, but the clamoring of heavy steps approached, accompanied with a familiar shrill nagging. Caroline was almost upon me, and the music stopped abruptly. My private concert was prematurely interrupted.

“There you are, Will,” Caroline blurted. “Your dog is running wild all over the place. I can’t believe Stella let her out.”

Lady! There was no reason Caroline or anyone else should have known it was my own exclusive bring-your-dog-to-work day. Lady was a sweet girl. If she’d stayed in the office, no one would have been keen to her presence. It was also doubtful Stella left her door open out of negligence. She knew how much Lady meant to me. There were too many dangers around a working theatre. I imagined it was someone else—like maybe Jorge.

I bolted up the stairs without a word to Caroline. As I ascended, I could hear a faint huff in protest, but it didn’t faze me. I needed to find Lady.

A flurrying scan of all the top levels of the theatre, the rehearsal spaces, entrance halls, and even bathrooms came up null. I searched the parking lot, the dressing rooms—even the orchestra pit. Nothing. Everyone I asked said they’d seen her briefly but didn’t notice which direction she’d gone.

If she got out into traffic…

No. It couldn’t be. I’d never known a more loyal animal. She would never stray. Not unless she thought I’d gone. Then a horrible thought hit me. What if she’d tried to head home?

“Is this your dog?”

I turned toward the voice behind me. Beth stood in the doorway to a backstage passage barely used by anyone in the current company. She held Lady in her arms and was gently rubbing her fur with the hand that cradled her belly. My first thought was relief that Lady was safe. My second thought was more of a reaction. The sight of my most precious companion content in the arms of the woman who’d been vexing me for weeks sent me all sorts of confused signals. My heart dropped to my stomach, and a strange, queasy sensation took root. And then, just as quickly, I lost the ability to breathe. It was a suffocating sensation. I’d never suffered from asthma, but I imagined that was a similar feeling.

Beth placed Lady down on the floor and gave her a quick scratch before straightening again, fixing her eyes on me beneath her dark, natural lashes. I was transfixed for a long pause, but after a few moments, I gained my faculties and bent to summon my dog.

“Lady. Come.”

Lady gazed at me with those large, doleful eyes, looked up at Beth, and made up her mind to stay where she was, resting her snout on Beth’s feet. Beth didn’t seem to mind this, instead, opting to cock her head to the side and plant her hands on her hips.

“You named your