Claimed By The Possessive Fireman - Flora Ferrari Page 0,28

laughing at something Mom said and me and Dom holding hands tightly.

I clutched him too hard at first, as though the moment would drift and dissipate like the smoke, but then he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it and everything seemed like it would work out.

But where is he?

“Are you ready?” Calvin, the director, says.

He flurries over to me in his floral pattern shirt, his heels clicking on the floor as he throws me a look.

“Come on, girl,” he says. “No use pining away back here. Man or no man, the show must go on.”

“Is it that obvious?” I mutter.

He scoffs, gesturing with his clipboard, looking extremely official. “You might as well have where is he painted on your forehead. Come on, we’ve gotta get to business.”

“I know, I know,” I sigh. “I’m ready, Calvin. I promise.”

“No pre show jitters?”

I laugh dismissively. “Oh, about a million. I’m hoping they’ll go away when it’s time to perform.”

“You’re good, Lilah. No, you’re great. Just let that shine.”

I nod, trying to draw strength from his words, even as my butterflies wreak havoc inside of me and my ideas of where Dom could be spiraling out of control.

As I walk back to the dressing room for my wig, I feel a stabbing in my gut, my womb, not physical but nearly. A wrenching feeling that screams at me, He’s been caught in a fire. He’s trapped. He went to work because he’s a good man, because of course he did. And now he’s in a fire and you’re never going to see him again.

I sit down opposite the mirror, looking down at my hands and not at my reflection. I don’t want to see the trapped look there.

“Lilah, are you okay?” Cassie asks, leaning against the wall, sort of looking at me but also looking anywhere but.

“Yes,” I lie. “Just a few pre show jitters, that’s all.”

“I know, right?” Milo calls from the other end of the room. “I thought this was going to be a small thing.”

Thanks to Dom’s connections we were able to move our production to another theater and open as planned. And the turnout is more than we could have expected.

“A lot of press from the fire,” Sebastian chimes in. “A lot of people want to show support. It’s good. We’ll all be in Hollywood next week.”

Everybody in the dressing room laughs, the sound like a cacophony of anxiety and excitement intermingling.

But even as I laugh along with them, the noise sounds hollow in my ear.

Calvin must notice the look on my face because he comes flurrying over and places a hand on my shoulder, leaning down.

“Listen,” he says softly. “I can’t say too much, but please just try to focus on the show tonight. I promise you, Dominic is safe. I know for a fact he’s going to be here. Just focus on your performance.”

“How could you possibly know that?” I ask.

He winks and backs away, shaking his head with a secretive smile.

“I’ve said too much already,” he murmurs. “But just trust me, please?”

“Hmm,” I mutter. “I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”

I finally look at myself in the mirror, grabbing my brunette wig and pulling it onto my head, adjusting it and then letting the makeup artist apply a few last minute flourishes.

The play is called What She Lost, and it’s about a young woman who is desperately searching for a man she fell in love with one winter, but then who mysteriously vanished.

Ha ha.

How freaking fitting.

I take Calvin’s advice and I zone out the rest of the world, trying my best to drift into the universe of the play, becoming Cecilia Kent and blotting out everything else.

I don’t allow my gaze to roam to the crowd unless the scene requires me to face in that direction, and then even then I don’t sink out of my character to scan the rows of chairs to check if Dom is there.

I can’t.

There’s a tightrope under my feet and if I slip even a little bit, I’ll break character and the play will be ruined. I just let instinct guide me, like Dom always advises.

Instinct is what led us together.

He said that to me a few nights ago, lying in bed sex-sore and contended, the scent of our love in the air and the blistering closeness of our bodies making my nipples hard and my desire flame.

So I just speak my lines, putting passion where passion is due, sadness where it’s needed, and hate if