Been There Done That (Leffersbee #1) - Hope Ellis Page 0,144

from getting a bloody nose.

“Forty-eight hours.” He paused in the doorway to announce. “Then the offer goes to the next candidate.” The scent of sun-warmed leather filled the air around me. Even with the door between us, his lush smell drew me in.

I shivered.

The stranger didn’t wait for my parents’ response. His heavy work boots thumped down the marbled foyer. My head poked out to find a hulking frame filling out jeans to their maximum capacity across tree-trunk thighs and a sculpted … derrière. He wore a black leather coat, and a dark baseball cap covered thick, onyx hair that fought for freedom and reached almost to his nape. He was absolutely massive. I let out a slow breath.

This was not how grown women behaved. I should have just walked in the room and demanded that they include me in the conversation. And yet I was here. Behind a door. Creeping on a stranger with a racing heart and the urge to flee. I risked another peek.

I half expected him to knock out chunks of dry wall as he brushed through the front door, but when he reached the foyer, he stilled. His head shifted ever so slightly, like a predator sensing prey. In profile, his eyebrows furrowed into a frown—now, that was an expression I knew well. His leather coat squeaked as he slowly turned all the way around. His gaze found mine in an instant. He looked directly at me. No—within me.

I gasped and tucked myself back.

It was only a glimpse, but it was enough to have my heart slamming against my chest and my face heating with embarrassment. A black bandana with a white painted skull covered most of his face, except where two dark eyes peered out at me from under his cap. In just that glance, his gaze burned up the distance between us. My breath was sucked out of my chest.

The Devil of the Symphony. Known simply as Devlin. One name to rule them all.

He was the new conductor who had been stirring things up in a big way at the Symphonic Orchestra of Knoxville, a.k.a. the SOOK. My conductor. I hadn’t recognized his voice because he rarely spoke, and certainly never gently. He yelled. Or growled. “The woodwinds need to save some of that hot air for their fortissimo and not for mindless chatter!” or “If I wanted to fall asleep, I’d ask for a lullaby—not allegro!” Everybody knew the Devil of the Symphony came to Knoxville after being fired from several of the biggest symphonies around the world. Nobody knew why he chose the SOOK though.

My stomach dropped. He’d said he had an offer.

What would he want with me? I was a nobody in the back. The other cellists probably didn’t even know my name. Christine Day kept herself small and unnoticed for a reason. I hardly made it on anybody’s radar, let alone the Devil’s.

My skin felt weird and hot and tight.

The door swung back and broke me from my internal musings. He gently closed the door, separating me from my parents.

“Christine Day.” Devlin stood in front of me and all around me. His head tilted to the side.

“Maestro,” I said. “I wasn’t eavesdropping.”

His eyebrows shot up.

“I mean, not intentionally,” I clarified.

“I’ve already spoken with your parents, but I wanted to ask you directly.” He said the words while his eyes bored into me.

His words were clear, not muffled, despite the barrier. The mask only made his focus all the more flustering. There was nowhere else to look. All I could do was stare back into those deep, dark eyes.

My eyes were brown too. Boring brown, like an Ikea side table. They matched my long, brown, stick-straight hair. I was easily forgettable. Tucked away in a corner, most people thought I was a side table. But his eyes were almost black. Where did the pupil end and where did the iris start? And why was I spending so much time thinking about his pupils when he had clearly just said something?

“What?” I smiled. It was a nervous knee-jerk reaction. It usually gave me enough time to disarm somebody until I thought of what I needed to say.

“My showcase. I need a cellist to help me work through some issues with my newest composition, Smokey Mountain Suite.”

“A cellist?”

“Yes,” he said flatly.

I wanted to ask, “What about Carla?” The first chair cellist would love that. I was nobody. I was fourth chair. Literally by rights, I was the fourth most qualified person to