Angelique Rising (2 page)

             
"Can you hear me, Angelique?" he persisted. "You've been in an accident, you're in a hospital, you're going to be fine. But I have some very bad news for you--"

             
Man have you ever got
that
right she scowled sourly.

Chapter Two

             
As she waited to step on stage Angelique peeked out from behind the curtains and scanned the audience, searching. She was positive it was him. When they'd told her she would be singing at the Wyatt T. Cochran Employee Appreciation Gala, she'd googled his name to see what kind of music this man might like. A photograph had appeared on the screen... and it was
him!
University singer boy! Seven years ago she'd seen him at the university and now he was here somewhere, the owner of a big company inherited from his grandfather but modernized and made richer by him (according to Google anyway and she never doubted Google). She wondered if he'd saved her life back then, at the university.

             
Her eyes swept across the stage where the musicians were about to begin, then down the stairs, out over the large wooden dance floor, then along the tables encircling it. People were taking their seats, all, she knew, hoping that the promised rain would hold off until after the show. As long as it didn't rain before her first number she didn't care, she'd get paid either way.

             
And there he was. Her lips curled in soft anticipation.

             
He was almost thirty years old now (she figured) just as she was almost twenty, and there was nothing "boy" about him anymore, he was totally
man.
Gorgeous man. Even in the distance and the slowly dimming light she could see he was still as dazzling as he'd been at the university, and she exhaled. He had thick black hair, carved-in-marble facial features, and even in his suit she could see how rock hard he was built, he was maleness personified. She could see he was smiling at something. She was entranced.

             
The table he was seated at was ringside, directly opposite her across the dance floor and she searched the faces of the women at his table trying to pick out a wife. There was one possibility but she wasn't seated next to him and he wasn't looking at her at all.

             
Oh stop that Ange
(which in her mind, she pronounced
Onge
),
it doesn't make any difference if he's married, he doesn't know you from a hole in the wall, he's never seen you and even if he did (well, he's about to, I'm gonna make sure of that) it wouldn't make any difference anyway.

             
But how she wished she could speak with him... touch him... maybe--

             
STOP THIS.

             
It was simply that he'd been the first person who'd made her feel like life --physical life-- might actually be worth enduring again after she'd "come back." It had taken her two months to escape that shithead priest (she shuddered at the memory of Father Wadzniak), but then had found for herself two years of blessed protection, help, affection even, but nothing that had shaken her sad rootless feeling, her inability to accept that she was sentenced to the physical again. And as a freakin'
kid!

             
And then that godrotting priest had managed to come back and she'd had to flee. Barely thirteen years old, a runaway, life on the streets, in shelters, had been hard. But she'd been lucky, she'd still had a lot of her adult smarts. She'd known when things weren't adding up, when to high tail it but fast. And she'd known to stay away from drugs, pimps, crime, sex, everything that could have taken her down. She'd stayed safe. Her original life, so much of those memories were gone, but she remembered basics. She remembered
everything
about her spirit life and her ridiculous decision to place herself in the body of that young girl, Angelique. And more importantly, she'd retained most of what she'd
learned
as a spirit, the reason why she now had such a stunningly glorious voice, could compose fantastically popular songs for herself, and thereby earn her living singing for the Performance Center at galas like this.

             
The lights extinguished, the audience hushed, and the music began. Angelique stepped out from the curtains into her spotlight gliding amongst the orchestra, floating down the stage steps and out onto the dance floor, she knew where
she
was headed. The open mouths all around her she was long since used to for the basic reason that she was beautiful. Mindbogglingly beautiful, she knew. She just didn't know exactly
how
.

             
Angelique could stand in front of a mirror and
think
how she wanted to appear. And she had --for years. The result was that now, almost twenty, she was tall, willowy, but superbly proportioned, with exceptional (as far as she was concerned) face, chest, waist, rump, legs, luminous white skin, all of it. Her eyes had originally been a plain brown but over time they had become brown with breathtaking gold sparkles, the longest of lashes, people always did a double-take when they spotted her eyes. What captured them the most though was her hair, her hair was special --special of special.

             
Angelique's hair was an impossibly lush radiant gold-shimmering brown that was supple, shiny, a thick luxuriant finished wave that cascaded not quite down to her waist. And she could make it do almost anything she wanted just by touching it, stroking it, running her hands through it,
thinking
how she wanted it to be. And stay. Angelique's hair was what women (and a few men) regularly stopped her on the street about, asking for the name of her hairdresser. (She had none.) And so she knew as she began her performance that the audience was mesmerized by her appearance, her beauty, and by the costume Anthony had designed especially for her.

             
Her gown was white, empire waisted, sleeveless and strapless, its layers of gossamer skirts brushing the floor at her feet and floating delicately about her as she moved or they were caught by the June night breeze. The dress had the tiniest hint of a train at her heels --her three inch spiked heels-- and a pale golden blush satin ribbon ringing her torso around to her back extending downwards over her backside to the end of her almost-train. Anthony adored designing her costumes, impassioned by how they managed to "stay up" and she never "tripped all over them" even in the most vigorous of dance numbers. She always giggled at his enrapture of this, but the truth was she didn't know how she did it either. But she did and it always saved her from having to wear either panty hose or garters, she could wear the sheerest of silk stockings and they would just
stay up.
True, she was wearing a bustier under her costume now, but that modesty was to prevent her
accoutrements
from falling out when she was thrown about in the dance numbers. She didn't want to create a riot.

             
For this Gala her hair was tied in a long thick braid beginning at the crown of her head dangling loosely down her back almost to her derriere. She would have liked to have worn it free --for him-- but with all the dancing and flying she'd be doing, that wasn't practical even for
her
hair abilities. The audience, she knew, was entranced by her vision of white, her presence. She never cared, she just wanted the paycheck. This song though, this number was different, it was for
him
. She wanted to repay him, repay him for maybe keeping her alive, even though he had never laid eyes on her.

             
The song,
his
song, was from an old failed obscure and long forgotten Italian opera of little note except for one thing --this song. She wondered how on earth Wyatt had ever discovered it. It was a jewel, beautiful, thrilling, a masterpiece.

             
Angelique's intention was simple. Her own microphone for her planned duet was an invisible thin wireless tube attached from her ear down under her chin. His microphone she carried in her hand. Hopefully Wyatt would remember the song's words but in case he didn't she would sing it through for him once first to remind him. Then, his turn. If he flubbed it she would cover for him but if he didn't... oh the blissful glory of it. She and him, singing that song. Nirvana.

             
She began.

             
Her angelic voice rose gracefully, elegantly, into the night, spellbinding. Many in the audience poked whoever they were seated next to and pointed at her, their mouths agape. They loved her voice she knew, and how could they not love the music.

             
Angelique crossed the dance floor all eyes riveted upon her as she approached him, singing and smiling her most charming come-with-me smile. As she neared, the look on Wyatt's face changed from pleasant surprise to wonder to astonishment to being absolutely thunderstruck as she smoothly, with the tips of her fingers, directed him up out of his seat into the spotlight, and led him to the center of the floor with her. Wyatt's eyes flared momentarily in intrigue when she pressed the microphone into his hand, then blazed onyx-sharp as he realized this extraordinary creature expected him to sing --in front of his family
.
His employees
. Everyone.

             
And how did she know that song? No one knew that song!

             
Wyatt stood there as his eyes locked on her hypnotically. The hundreds of people surrounding him gradually disappeared, it became only the two of them, in the spotlight, in the dreamlike music. Angelique circled him as she sang, she wanted his body turning so everyone in the audience could get a look at their boss, their oh so handsome about to sing boss, she was sure they'd get a kick out of it. Probably most of them had never heard him sing before, they would be pleased and that was her job --please the audience. Her voice climbed, her eyes gleamed with excitement, his turn was coming. She nodded to him as she gave him her most encouraging smile.

             
To Wyatt's own incredulity, not taking his eyes off her, he raised the microphone to his mouth and the words came flowing out. His voice sounded strong, masculine, full, ageless. He knew he had a good voice --but this-- this was magic. He was singing with pure crystalline operatic quality --like her. Dimly he heard squeals of amazement and awe around him. He sang the aria right through to her, effortlessly, as she continued to circle him, but gradually she stopped backing away from him and instead circled closer.

             
His song built to the climax. Inches from his face Angelique reached up and clasped her hand over his hand holding the microphone, he felt her breasts swell against his chest as she began singing with him, still turning as their voices united and they stared into each other's eyes probing, unwavering. The moment her hand had alighted against his, he knew she was the core of him. Their duet soared, ethereal, cataclysmic, and on the last word, a word they sang together in one long spiraling suspended note, they froze as one. Her blood flamed under his heavy almost tangible sexuality, her eyes glittered liquid but unfathomable into his. They ended their held note, cutting it off in simultaneous perfect synchrony and the music crashed into colossal silence. She tilted her head up to him and covered her microphone with her fingers.

             
"Excellent, Wyatt," she whispered in his ear, her voice touching him softly, "better than at the university."

             
And then she caught a whiff of his scent. Oh God, she thought, he smelled so good, so intoxicatingly
good
.

             
He seized her by the nape of her neck, pressed his face to hers, and kissed her.

             
Bedlam.

             
The audience was in an uproar. Everyone was on their feet thundering applause, shouting, some people even crying. Angelique didn't resist, she surrendered to his kiss willingly, deliciously, but only for a few moments before she caught herself and pulled away in shock, flushing crimson. She stared at Wyatt's face as it became ice-cold, violent, murderous even. Wyatt was incalculably angry she realized. Oh crap
. Crap oh crap oh crap.
Briefly she wondered if there was any way she could patch it up.
Not without a magic wand
and fairy dust
she answered herself.

             
Who IS this woman,
Wyatt Cochran wondered,
who's exposed me so?

             
She grabbed the microphone from his hand, lurched back out of the spotlight, turned and ran through the darkness to the stage. She prayed for the rain to start. It didn't. Somehow she had the whole rest of the performance to get through, all of it with him seated right there, ringside, at his table. She'd foolishly believed that one happy occasion could introduce herself to him.

             
This, she knew, wasn't going to be that happy occasion.

*****