The Oscar Escape: a Friends-to-Lovers

Romance (Love Match Legacy Book 3)

Krista Sandor
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The Oscar Escape

Copyright © 2023 by Krista Sandor

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Krista Sandor
Candy Castle Books
Cover Design: Qamber Designs
Cover Model Photography: Wander Aguiar Photography

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-954140-17-2
Visit www.kristasandor.com
 Contents

Chapter 1
Aria
Chapter 2
Aria
Chapter 3
Oscar
Chapter 4
Oscar
Chapter 5
Oscar
Chapter 6
Aria
Chapter 7
Aria
Chapter 8
Aria
Chapter 9
Aria
Chapter 10
Oscar
Chapter 11
Oscar
Chapter 12
Oscar
Chapter 13
Aria
Chapter 14
Aria
Chapter 15
Aria
Chapter 16
Oscar
Chapter 17
Oscar
Chapter 18
Oscar
Chapter 19
Aria
Chapter 20
Aria
Chapter 21
Oscar
Chapter 22
Oscar
Chapter 23
Oscar
Chapter 24
Aria
Chapter 25
Aria
Chapter 26
Aria
Chapter 27
Aria
Chapter 28
Aria
Epilogue

Series Reading Order

Also by Krista Sandor
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
 ARIA

Aria Paige-Grant read an alert on her phone, clicked the link, then gritted her teeth and saw red. “I’m
going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him.” The bitter rasp of the words tore through her throat
like she’d swallowed glass. She flinched, and her hand went to her throat as the pain returned with a
brutal vengeance.
With the roar of the crowd fading and her body coming down from the adrenaline rush of knocking
out a solid two-hour set for thousands of screaming fans, most singers would be popping the
champagne to celebrate another successful night on tour. But Aria Paige-Grant wasn’t your typical
star. No corks would be popping this evening—at least, not in celebration. She had far more to prove,
and there was no time to waste partying.
And it wasn’t only her throat crying out for relief.
She rubbed at the tender skin on either side of her ribs. When the record label suggested she take
the stage from the air with the help of a freaking crane and one damned uncomfortable harness, it
sounded like an exciting, theatrical way to start her concerts. What she hadn’t expected was the toll it
took to complete the maneuver night after night, like she was a load of timber on a construction site.
She exhaled a sharp breath and pulled herself together.
Nobody wanted to see the ugly side of rock star life.
Her crew was good about giving her a private moment to center herself after she left the stage.
Although she was grateful to have found a dim, somewhat secluded spot, she couldn’t take a second to
decompress. She had to deal with the bullshit du jour on her phone.
Truth be told, her cell was the last thing she should be looking at seconds after exiting the stage
when her emotions were running high. But she couldn’t help it. Too much was on the line. Over the
past eleven months, she’d been killing herself to keep her music front and center. From sunup to well
past sundown, every minute of her day had been spent chasing one goal: sell two million copies of
her latest album to go double platinum in less than a year—and time was running out. She only had a
handful of weeks left to prove she was the real deal and not a pop music imposter riding on the legacy
of her famous musical family.
And there wasn’t a damned thing she wouldn’t do to prove she’d earned her success.
After a grueling one hundred and twenty minutes on stage, belting out tunes and switching between
the piano and the guitar, she’d performed her heart out until her throat burned and the tips of her
calloused fingers nearly bled. But she never let on that she was in pain. Like the consummate artist,
when the stage lights bathed her in a golden glow, she stopped being Aria Paige-Grant, the woman,
and played the part of the star. She’d ignored the searing pain and biting anxiety. Her singular
objective was to give her audience the show of a lifetime. The concert had ended after a double
encore, but she couldn’t let her guard down yet.
Among the busy stagehands and frantic PAs skittering this way and that, she had to hold it together
a bit longer. Smiling through the pain, she nodded to a few of the roadies taking down the scaffolding.
“One more stop,” a well-meaning crew member said.
“One more,” she repeated through a plastic smile as a sharp pain cracked like lightning and struck
her throat.
Tonight, they were in Boston. It was a miracle she could remember where she was. The pace of
the tour had been exhausting. Forty US cities and seventeen worldwide stops that had brought her to
every continent, save for Antarctica. Thank God she had a bit of reprieve coming up. They had two
weeks until the tour concluded with a livestreamed performance in her hometown of Denver,
Colorado. As much as she wanted to crawl into bed for the next fourteen days, she couldn’t waste a
second. She not only wanted to earn the coveted double-platinum status. She wanted to announce it at
the concert in Denver.
Her ego demanded it.
She was close to hitting that goal but wasn’t there yet. The tour was supposed to be the event that
sparked enough buzz to get her over the coveted finish line. Since she’d signed on with her label,
she’d fantasized about reading these words: Aria Paige-Grant surpasses her rock star family’s
accomplishments and hits double platinum in under a year.
Only then would she know that her fame came from her talent—her blood, sweat, and tears.
Hitting the milestone would prove to her critics that her achievement wasn’t simply a result of her last
name. But first, she’d have to deal with the catastrophe on her phone—also known as her boyfriend,
Justin Jamison. The garbage on the screen was the stuff of gossip rags and tittering online celebrity
chatter mills that lived for scandal.
It was pure pseudo-sensational foaming at the mouth.
It was a pack of lies.
Or maybe it wasn’t all lies.
A shiver spider-crawled down her spine. She glared at the image of her boyfriend cozied up in
some nightclub with a pair of scantily clad blondes.
“Not again,” she bit out in a hoarse whisper. She touched her throat as the fiery, sandpaper
sensation intensified.
“Here’s your cold medicine, Ms. Paige-Grant.” A PA handed her a bottle, then zipped past her.
She unscrewed the cap and took a long pull of the syrup. Was that an advisable way for a twenty-
four-year-old woman to medicate herself? Oh, hell no! But she needed relief, and she needed it now.
She took another swig, then set the bottle on top of a table piled high with snacks and drinks. It was
where she’d left one of her most precious possessions. She picked up her treasured notebook—the
one thing that had brought her peace during the last eleven months. She opened it to the first page and
spied the letters dedicated to GM scribbled at the top. She peered at the musical notes dancing in a
sea of highlighted color. This piece had elements inspired by her favorite composer—a composer
she’d studied in college. Did her current musical catalog sound anything like this? No, she’d played it
safe and crafted songs that followed the latest trends. That was what the label wanted and what she’d
hoped was the quickest way to earn her place in music history. Her notebook was her escape from her
cookie-cutter pop-star life. When she composed, she could hear the symphony of sounds in her head.
She could feel the piano notes carrying the melody as the cello and violin wove a rollicking tune
across the page.
 She nearly cracked a grin when the pain returned. Dammit! She’d need to get something stronger
to mute the pain. She surveyed the table and spied a bottle of whiskey. Filling a Styrofoam cup with
an ample helping of the spirit, she downed it in one gulp. For the moment, the sting of the alcohol
calmed the burning ache.
She went to pour another shot when her phone lit up.
Was this the news she’d been waiting for? Had she hit two million sales?
She read the alert, blew out a frustrated breath, then abandoned the cup and took a long pull of
whiskey straight from the bottle.
This most definitely wasn’t welcomed news.
Another infuriating photograph of Justin blazed across the screen—a shot of the man who said he
was going to take it easy tonight and turn in early. The liar! The image captured the creep with one of
the women on his lap and his hand up her skirt.
Blistering irritation built in her chest. She didn’t have time for this. She rubbed the back of her
wrist across her face and grimaced, feeling the grit and glop of her spackled-on stage makeup smear
across her cheeks. But she couldn’t worry about her appearance. She needed a plan. The press would
be on the Justin situation like house flies descending on a pile of horse manure.
She had to think. How could she spin it? A sinking sensation set in. Perhaps she should have
expected her boyfriend to disappoint her. Then again, calling Justin Jamison her boyfriend was a bit
of a stretch. They were supposed to be an item—a match made in musical celebrity heaven. Justin
was a member of a popular boy band. As far as appearances went, he was a good choice for a beau.
He had a couple million social media followers. His group was edgy but not obscene. He was good
on paper, as the cliché goes. Still, he couldn’t hold a candle to her pedigree.
She could be considered nothing less than rock star royalty.
She was the daughter of Trey Grant and Leighton Paige. Along with her uncle Landon Paige, the
trailblazing musical trio had made up the wildly popular band Heartthrob Warfare. But that wasn’t her
only connection to the music world. Her aunt, Harper Presley, had skyrocketed to fame as a recording
artist nearly seventeen years ago.
While her aunt had soaked up the limelight for a few years, for most of Aria’s life, her aunt and
uncle had turned their attention away from stardom. For the last decade and a half, the pair had
focused on running a program connecting at-risk youth with musical mentors in Denver.
Her uncle Landon and aunt Harper had raised her in the city after her parents died in a plane crash
when she was barely five years old. As a very young child, she hadn’t realized that she was the
daughter of celebrities, but she’d known her mother and father loved music. Her memories of her
parents existed in flashes of dancing melodies threaded with love and laughter.
Here’s the thing. Her parents and her uncle had come from nothing and made it big.
What would it mean if she didn’t make it as a rock star? She certainly had the genes. She was a
musical prodigy. She’d inherited her mother and uncle’s gift of being able to play just about any
instrument by ear. She also had connections to the music world that any newcomer to the industry
would kill for.
If she failed, the only person she could blame was herself.
Back in the day, Heartthrob Warfare’s album had hit double-platinum status in thirteen months.
That’s why she had to hit double platinum—and do it in twelve.
If she missed the mark, she knew what would happen. She could almost hear the clickbait writers
clacking away on their keyboards.
Aria Paige-Grant bombs as a musician despite coming from a rock star family and having
every advantage at her fingertips.
“Get out of your head,” she whispered and took another pull off the bottle of whiskey. And hello,
Topsy-Turvyville. The cold medicine and hard alcohol combo sent a wishy-washy ripple through her
body. Blinking a few times, she gripped the edge of the table and steadied herself. She could handle
it, and she’d take a little lightheadedness over a raging sore throat any day.
She went to take another swig when her phone pinged an incoming text from her uncle Landon on
their niece, uncle, and aunt group chat.
She abandoned the whiskey bottle.

Uncle Landy: Hey, kiddo, we haven’t heard from you in a while. Your aunt and I are
worried.

Aria cursed under her breath. Shit! Describing her life as a whirlwind would be an
understatement. The last two weeks alone had garnered multiple tour stops in New Jersey,
Connecticut, and now Massachusetts. She scrolled through the text feed, and a knot formed in her
belly. Forget missing a few texts. She’d gone weeks without replying to the man—or anyone, for that
matter.
A text from her aunt Harper flashed on the screen.

Aunt Harper: I know what it’s like to be on tour. It can consume your whole life. But I’m
concerned. I know how hardheaded and driven you can get.
Uncle Landy: That’s because you and your aunt Harper are two peas in a pod. It’s a
miracle I made it out alive, living with the two of you.
Aunt Harper: Easy there, Heartthrob. You’re lucky to have such fierce women in your
life.

Aria chuckled. Her aunt and uncle were an absolute riot. And damn, she missed them.
Dots flashed across the screen.

Aunt Harper: Have you heard the news about your best friends? Sebastian and Phoebe
are engaged.

Guilt settled in Aria’s chest as she tapped the screen.

Aria: Yeah, it’s great news. I saw a headline about it online.

Silently, she’d berated herself. She’d made a mental note to reach out to her friends, but she’d
forgotten to text, thanks to her chaotic schedule.

Aunt Harper: Our nanny love match family is overjoyed.

Nanny love match family.

The words were a salve to Aria’s frazzled nerves.
That’s how she’d met her best friends, Phoebe Gale, Sebastian Cress, and Oscar Elliott.
A famed matchmaker with a rolling Eastern European accent and a tumble of dark hair with a lone
silver streak had come into their lives and changed everything. Always clad in a trademark scarlet-
colored scarf and a near-permanent cat-who-ate-the-canary twist to her lips, Madelyn Malone
specialized in matching affluent single male caregivers with nannies—nannies who, in Aria’s
extended nanny love match families’ cases—had ended up married to their bosses.
 Phoebe’s tech mogul uncle Rowen had married her nanny, Penny Fennimore. Sebastian’s dad
Erasmus had married his nanny, Libby Lamb. Oscar’s dad, Mitch, had married his nanny, Charlotte
Ames. The final match was with her uncle, Landon Paige. That’s how Harper Presley became Aunt
Harper. The former nannies had been best friends since elementary school. Thanks to that bond and
Madelyn’s matchmaker magic, the four families were inseparable, and Aria had grown up surrounded
by joy and adventure with her extended nanny love match friends and family by her side on birthdays,
holidays, summer getaways, and winter breaks. You name it, they were together.
But that wasn’t all Madelyn had set in motion.
The matchmaker had dropped a love match legacy showstopper of a revelation. Years ago, when
Aria and her friends were in second grade, the woman had waved them in and whispered a secret—
no, more of a proclamation. The air positively pulsed with anticipation when she’d spoken these
words: Your matches have already been made.
Aria recalled the moment with unwavering clarity. She could still feel Oscar’s shoulder rub
against hers as he squeezed her hand. Even at the tender age of seven, she and her friends understood
the weight of Madelyn’s words.
Their true love, their one perfect match, was out there . . . somewhere . . . waiting.
Aria exhaled a sharp breath and tucked the memory away. The last thing she had time for was
love. She had an aggressive sales goal to hit.
Ping! Another text flashed on the screen.

Aunt Harper: Are you taking care of yourself? And you do realize that means eating
plenty of bonbons.

Her aunt’s love of bonbons was legendary. Aria chuckled at the mention of the sweet treat and felt
a bit more like herself. But her short-lived giddiness evaporated when another text from her uncle
appeared.

Uncle Landy: We need to know you’re not pushing yourself too hard. You’ve got nothing
to prove. Your talent is undeniable.

“Dammit,” Aria whispered and blinked back tears. Maybe she didn’t have anything to prove to
her aunt and uncle, but she had plenty to prove to the world—to those who saw her last name and
assumed she hadn’t earned her success.
She swallowed again and grimaced as the searing pain in her throat returned. She took another sip
of whiskey and chased it down with a mouthful of cold medicine. She stared at her cell phone. She
couldn’t let Uncle Landon and Aunt Harper know she was hanging on by a thread.

Aria: I’m great. Loving life on the road. The news about Phoebe and Sebastian is
amazing. Send them my love and tell them we’ll talk soon. I better go. Gotta get to the
next engagement.

Yeah, like guzzling more alcohol and cough syrup. She grabbed the whiskey and took another sip.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
Dots rippled across the screen.

Uncle Landy: One last thing—have you talked to Oscar lately? Mitch and Charlotte
mentioned they hadn’t heard much from him in a couple of weeks.

Oscar Abrams Elliott.

 At the mention of the man, every muscle in her body tensed.
She pictured his piercing blue eyes, a chiseled jawline, and a tangled mess of dark hair. The
broody artist and indie documentarian of their friendship foursome, the man was never without his
camera and recording gear. She bit her lip as a wave of emotion threatened to swallow her whole.
Perhaps it was the medicinal cocktail, but she couldn’t stop the memory of her first day of second
grade from resurfacing.
A memory she’d titled, The Second-Grade Switcheroo.
A bully had taken a trinket of hers—an eraser in the shape of a piano. She’d gone to kick the boy
—the asshat deserved it. But before she could land the blow, Oscar stepped in front of her and
stopped her from striking the bully. He’d pulled a switcheroo that kept her out of trouble.
Hence, how it garnered the title of The Second-Grade Switcheroo.
A switcheroo that had given Oscar one hell of a bruise.
But he hadn’t seemed to care.
Oscar had flashed her a smile that lit up his face. But after mulling it over, she, however, hadn’t
been pleased. In her seven-year-old mind, that had been her bully to kick. She was no pint-sized
damsel in distress. Eat worms had been her catchphrase of choice as a youngster. It was safe to say
she’d never been—nor was she now—a shrinking violet.
Still, she couldn’t forget the devotion shining in Oscar’s eyes.
And that image sparked another memory.
A secret she couldn’t share with anyone.
And there was nothing childlike about it.
It was a memory of a kiss. A kiss so frenzied, so passionate, and so powerful, no matter how hard
she’d tried to forget it, she couldn’t.
The kiss had imprinted on her soul.
But there was more—a dirty secret no one else knew about.
Every time she slipped her hand inside her panties, she replayed the kiss. Alone and on the brink
of ecstasy, she’d whisper the name of the blue-eyed man who, these four years later and with only the
memory of his touch, still set her body aflame.
It was a cruel twist of fate that now she absolutely, positively despised the guy.
Chapter 2
 ARIA

“Oscar,” Aria bit out, her voice cracking with emotion.

Despite hating herself for allowing the man to live rent-free in her head, she couldn’t help but
whisper his name. Her lips tingled, and the sensation wasn’t caused by the alcohol or the cold
medicine. It was her body recalling a secret birthday kiss she and Oscar shared on his twenty-first
birthday.
A kiss that had come out of nowhere.
With her birthday on the twenty-second of October and his, a day later, on the twenty-third, they’d
always celebrated together.
After a night on the town barhopping with Phoebe and Sebastian, she and Oscar had gone into a
spare bedroom at the end of the evening to retrieve their coats they’d haphazardly thrown on the bed.
One minute, she was turning to hand Oscar his jacket while checking her watch. It had been 12:01
a.m. Officially, Oscar’s birthday. She’d asked him what he wanted and held out his coat. But he
hadn’t taken it. Instead, he’d concentrated on her mouth.
“I want—” he’d said but hadn’t finished the sentence.
Before she could blink, their coats were on the floor, and her back was against the door. He’d
pinned her in place with his hard body and kissed her like he’d been waiting for this moment his
entire life. There was no ramping up. No whisper-soft contact. The kiss went from zero to sixty in
milliseconds. He’d tasted like whiskey and chocolate birthday cake and . . . forever. It was as if she’d
been transported to another world—a harmonious world. A steadiness had taken over that had flowed
like waves caressing the shore, providing her the sweetest escape—especially after what she’d been
through days before.
She’d never been consumed by a kiss. She’d never allowed herself to fall hard for anyone. Even
in college, where she’d majored in music, she’d been driven to be the best. And sure, she’d kissed
and even slept with other guys. But no one had ever kissed her like she made up their entire universe
until that night.
Until Oscar.
She should have pushed him away. She should have told him to knock it off. Oscar was one of her
best friends. They shouldn’t be kissing. But she hadn’t stopped him. Had she uttered even the softest
of protest, he would have backed away. She’d known that with every fiber of her being. Oscar wasn’t
the type of guy to pressure a woman. He didn’t have to resort to those measures. Built like a Greek
god with an alluring, sensual vibe, droves of women gravitated toward him. Oddly, the guy rarely
dated.
 And that was the reason she’d said nothing.
She hadn’t wanted it to stop.
With his hands in her hair and his hard length pressed between her thighs—she’d lost herself. The
clawing voice inside her head telling her to push harder and urging her to be the best went blissfully
mute. Wading into a sea of erotic energy, she’d tossed aside right and wrong and had allowed the
rhythm of their bodies to guide the way.
The only thing that scared her was how easily they’d slipped from best friends to ravenous lovers.
When Oscar finally pulled back, she’d expected to see devotion in his eyes like when she was a
girl, and he’d kept her out of trouble.
But that’s not what she’d observed—not even close.
The revulsion written on his face sent a jagged crack through her heart. And she’d understood
why. A few days before he’d kissed her, he’d found her a broken mess when she’d collapsed inside
one of the music department’s piano practice rooms.
The cause? She’d run herself ragged.
Between heading up a fundraiser for the university’s music program and obsessing over the piano
piece she’d composed for the event, she hadn’t slept or eaten in days.
Cursing under his breath, he’d scooped her off the floor and rushed her to the hospital. Never one
to admit defeat, she’d fought him the whole time. Begrudgingly, she’d agreed to get IV fluids. When
the doctor and nurse recommended that she stay the night, she’d begged Oscar to assure them he’d
look after her. And he had. Stone-faced, over the next couple of days before their birthdays, he’d
nursed her back to health. It was obvious he was cross with her. It clearly pained him to see her
stressed and exhausted. But something else was present—a pain that went deep, almost as if it had
awoken a memory that tormented his soul.
When he’d kissed her a few days later, on his birthday, she’d thought the kiss was his way of
moving past the pain and turning the page. In those blissful seconds, she’d believed he wanted her as
more than a friend. And she’d wanted that, too.
But she was wrong—so very wrong.
The disappointment in Oscar’s eyes had broken the spell. The fiery spark fizzled, leaving an
awkward emptiness in its place. An emptiness that said he saw her as a wounded bird, and he didn’t
want any part of her—not like that. Had he spoken those words? No, he didn’t have to. She’d felt it.
She absorbed the rejection. Anger and humiliation had rippled through her. She’d thought he, of all
people, could understand her drive and determination. Obviously, he couldn’t. He couldn’t accept that
she had to push herself—that she didn’t have a choice but to prove herself to the world.
And then came the excuses.
Oscar had run his hands through his thick mess of dark hair. He’d mumbled an apology and
blamed his behavior on drinking too much. She’d played the game as well. Swallowing her feelings,
she’d waved him off and called the kiss nothing—a silly lapse caused by their demanding course
loads.
They’d sworn to never mention what happened or tell a soul about their transgression. They’d
assured each other that it wouldn’t ruin their friendship. They’d agreed to go on like it had never
happened. She’d done her best to abide by their promise. But her body and traitorous lips hadn’t
forgotten.
And what about Oscar?
A part of her knew he hadn’t made peace with it, either.
Soon after that kiss, he’d started smoking and hit the party scene more than he’d hit the books.
He’d dropped out of college and enrolled in culinary school, only to cast cooking aside after a few
months. Using his photography and videography skills he’d learned from his famous photographer
stepmom, he bounced around the globe, filming documentaries and moving from place to place. He’d
become the nomad of their group, missing holidays and becoming less of a present best friend and
more of a ghost—a shell of the person she’d known most of her life.
And he’d never looked at her the same way since that night.
Come to think of it. He hadn’t had that many chances. She could count on her hand the number of
times she’d seen him face-to-face in the last couple of years.
Ping, ping!

Uncle Landy: Aria?

Uncle Landy: Are you still there?

She snapped out of her Oscar Abrams Elliott haze and skimmed the last few texts.
Mitch and Charlotte hadn’t spoken to Oscar in a few weeks.
Join the club.
She hammered out a reply.

Aria: Yes, I’m here. I’ve got a lot going on. About Oscar—it’s been a while since I’ve
talked or texted with him. Sorry, I can’t help Mitch and Charlotte.

Strangely, despite not spending much time with the MIA man, she’d felt closer to him over the last
couple of weeks than she had in years—and they hadn’t texted or spoken. It didn’t make sense. It had
to be the stress of trying to hit double platinum. A woozy sensation hit, and her phone pinged an alert.
She clicked the link. A video of Justin dancing with a blonde filled her screen.
Fury pulsed through her veins. Heat burned her cheeks.
This was too much.
She had to get her so-called boyfriend under control, promote her album, and be everywhere on
social media, projecting sunshine like she didn’t have a care in the world. There was so damned
much to do. She returned to her family group text. She loved her aunt and uncle but didn’t have
another second to spare.

Aria: I’ve got to go. I’ve got a meet and greet with major social media influencers. You
know the drill. Love you both so much.

Aunt Harper: Eat a bonbon. They always make you feel better. I sent some to the
concert venue in Boston as an early birthday gift. Don’t worry. I told them to keep the
delivery truck out of view.

Why would her aunt ask them to do that?

Aria: Why do they have to hide the truck?

Aunt Harper: Remember your ninth birthday? The Cupid Bakery delivery truck showed
up to deliver your cake and birthday bonbons. You wanted to dive in, but I told you that
you had to wait until the guests arrived. Then you disappeared. We found you inside the
truck, stuffing your face with chocolate. You probably would have driven off into the
sunset if you could have reached the pedals.

Aria shook her head, recalling the day when dots flashed on the screen.
 Aunt Harper: I’d send some birthday bonbons to Oscar, if we knew where he was.

In all the bluster of the tour, she’d forgotten her birthday—and Oscar’s.

Aunt Harper: Did the bonbons make it? I called in a favor to have them brought directly
to you. It never hurts to have bakery owners as friends.

Her aunt and uncle met the company’s owners and the local manager and his nephew when they’d
participated in a reality baking show around the time that she came to live with them.
Aria searched the table as her phone pinged with more boyfriend bullshit images. “Jesus Christ!”
Flustered by a stream of Justin-flanked-with-blondes-shots rolling in, she scanned the table and
eyed the chocolate treats.

Aria: I see the bonbons. Thank you.

Ping!
She didn’t even have a second to bask in the glory of the chocolate delights.
More Justin pics.
Ping, ping!
More videos. More of Justin getting handsy with the leggy blonde.
She gnashed her teeth together, damn near close to busting a molar, and typed a goodbye message
to her aunt and uncle. But before she could hit send, a text from her uncle flashed on the screen.

Uncle Landy: We can’t wait to see you in Denver in two weeks. We’re counting the
days.

Days.
A dizzying current passed through her, and she nearly dropped her phone.
She had days to hit double platinum.
Days. She didn’t have time for—
Her phone buzzed and she bristled. More Justin bullshit. He had to have known that she’d see
these pics.
She drank what was left of the whiskey, felt her phone vibrate again, and snarled at the screen.
Pics, pics, and more stupid Justin pics. It was as if he’d invited the damned paparazzi to party
with him.
She parted her lips, prepared to release a frustrated howl but produced a raspy ragged ribbon of
sound instead. With blazing irritation prickling over every inch of her body, she rubbed her face and
smeared more makeup. “This is disgusting,” she lamented and wiped the thick paste onto a napkin.
“Who gave Aria her cell phone?” came her manager’s voice through the hum of backstage
activity.
She rubbed her eyes and possibly ripped off a fake eyelash. She couldn’t let the man know she
was harboring homicidal tendencies. He might try to persuade her to take the night off. She mustered a
grin. “It’s nobody’s fault, Dom. I tucked my phone into my costume.”
Dressed in black with a scowl slapped to his face, the slim man with dark hair and almond-
shaped eyes huffed an exasperated breath. “You’re making yourself crazy. No artist should jump on
their phone after a show. You’ve got to give yourself a second to unwind without the noise of social
media.” He looked her over, and his frown deepened. “When we started this tour, there was no room
in your stage clothes to conceal a phone. You’re getting too thin, Miss Thing. Your glitter-spandex
getup is hanging off you, and the crew says you’re swimming in the harness.”
She rubbed her side. “That harness is a real bitch.”
“That’s because you’re skin and bones. Try filling your mouth with more of those and gulping
down a few less gallons of that,” Dominic chided, pointing first to the bonbons and then to the bottle
of whiskey. “You don’t want me to tell my aunt Mitzi that you’re self-medicating and could probably
use a visit to Urgent Care, do you?”
Alarm bells went off in her head.
Dominic’s aunt, Mitzi Jones, was a family friend. She’d managed her parents’ band, Heartthrob
Warfare, overseen her uncle’s solo career, and had represented her aunt Harper. Mitzi, Dom, and
Dom’s husband, Malik, her head of tour security, were practically family. She loved Dominic and
respected his opinion. He had her best interests at heart, but she needed to remind him who he was
dealing with. “I know how hard I can push myself.” She glanced away. That wasn’t exactly true, but
only Oscar could call her out on this.
Dom cocked his head to the side. Dammit! He wasn’t buying it.
Luckily, she was an expert when it came to putting on a show. She lifted her chin. “We’re at the
end of the tour and my voice is shot. The same thing happened to my aunt, back in the day, when she
was on the road,” she answered smoothly, grateful the whiskey and meds were kicking in.
Now, was this the truth about her aunt? Not exactly.
She’d never witnessed her aunt Harper toss back a bucket’s-worth of hard alcohol with a
medicine-cabinet chaser, but that wasn’t the point. Summoning her take-no-prisoners side, Aria put on
her best eat-worms expression to close the deal to keep her manager off her back. “You and Malik
agreed that you’d help me do whatever it took to go double platinum. That was our deal.”
Dom shook his head, but the hint of a grin graced his lips. That whisper of a smile let her know he
was still in her corner.
“I’ll walk you to your dressing room, Miss Too-Skinny Thing,” he said, swiping a bonbon from
the table before hooking his arm with hers. With her notebook and phone tucked under her arm, Dom
led her out of the shadows. They’d barely made it two feet when Dominic gasped. “What the hell
happened to your face? Are you melting? Are you the rock star version of the Wicked Witch of the
West?”
She released another rickety ribbon of sound. She’d meant to groan but ended up emitting a noise
akin to that of a cackling witch—only proving Dom’s point. She cleared her throat. “It’s makeup,
Dom. The label wants me to look like—”
“Like you were the wax version of yourself, and then a heat wave hit? You didn’t look like that
when you went out on stage.” He tapped her cheek. “Is that a layer of pancake batter? Or maybe they
made a mistake and sent a drywaller.”
Aria smacked Dom’s arm as they weaved through the mass of speakers and electrical cords. “You
know damned well that the label wants me dolled up. They have focus groups that weigh in on it,” she
lectured, then cringed and gingerly touched her neck. The pain wasn’t as bad as when she’d left the
stage, but she’d need to get her hands on another bottle of whiskey or something more powerful than
cold and cough syrup to ease the discomfort.
Dom shot her a pointed glance. “How’s the throat?”
“It’s nothing. I’ll power through it.”
“You need to rest.”
“I’ll rest when I hit double platinum. What’s on the schedule? How much time do I have before
the next event?”
They turned down another corridor, and Dominic led her toward her dressing room. “About that.
We’ve got a few pressing issues to discuss.”
They stopped in front of her door, and she held her notebook to her chest. “How do the numbers
look on my socials? I must be trending after the concert. The audience loved the show.”
“Speaking of the concert, I thought you were going to play one of those,” Dom said, and tapped
the notebook. “Your instrumentals are getting decent traction online.”
The man had posted a few video snippets of her taking a break from rehearsals and playing her
secret compositions.
“These aren’t . . .” She tightened her hold and the spiral coils dug into her skin.
“Aren’t, what? You?” he challenged. “Or whoever the label wants you to be.”
“Of course, they’re me. I wrote them. But they’re not what I’m trying to sell. They’re classical
pieces. I have to stick to the plan. I can’t deviate from the course I set when we started this tour. Not
now. Not when I’m so close.”
Dom looked away and rubbed his neck. Two very bad signs. “You’re trending, but not for the
reason you’d hoped.”
A bout of jittery topsy-turviness hit, and Aria shifted her stance. The whiskey and the meds were
doing a number on her balance. She leaned against the door to hide her wooziness from her manager.
She stared at a shit-colored scrape against the wall and had a good idea of why she was trending.
“It’s Justin, right? That’s what the internet is buzzing about, isn’t it?”
“He’s a lying manwhore, Aria. You deserve better,” he shot back, then scowled as he looked her
over. “Do you need to sit down? How much whiskey have you had? You haven’t mixed it with the
cold meds, have you?”
“No, I’m good,” she lied. “And don’t worry about Justin. I’ll deal with him, and I’ll figure out my
life after I hit—”
“Aria, Jesus, I know. Everyone knows!” Dom blurted, exasperation coating his words. “You’ll
take care of yourself after you hit double platinum. But I need you to prepare for what happens if you
don’t.”
If she wasn’t still barely standing, she would have sworn her heart had stopped beating.
Dom had never spoken to her like this before.
Ice crystallized in her veins. “What does that mean?”
“It’s not looking good. Your sales trajectory is down.”
“Down?”
“Yes, it is. But that’s not what I’m most concerned about,” Dom said, then returned to rubbing his
neck.
Shit.
The deep freeze in her body made way for a rush of blistering heat. “What could be more
concerning than that?” she asked, wiping a bit of perspiration and a glop of makeup from her chin.
She must look like the rock star version of a melted birthday candle.
Dominic glanced down the hallway, then waved over Malik. And dammit, this wasn’t good.
Dom’s husband wore a matching scowl on his face.
“There was another kidnapping threat. It’s the third in two weeks,” Dominic said, lowering his
voice.
Malik, a stocky man with his jet-black hair pulled into a low ponytail and a no-nonsense set to his
jaw, nodded. “Dom’s right. The call came in while you were on stage. It was a little different from the
last two. But the threat was consistent.”
Aria ran a hand through her hairspray-laden bangs. “It’s got to be someone screwing around. Who
would want to abduct me? I’m a hot mess.” She had to play it off. She didn’t have time for this
bullshit either.
Stone-faced, Malik didn’t crack a grin. “It may be some kid screwing around. But it could also be
some psycho who wants you all to themselves to do God knows what. We can’t take this lightly, Aria.
Not after it’s already happened two other times.”
“You can’t do the influencer meet and greet tonight,” Dom added. “We need time to assess the
risk. And we don’t want you mentioning the threats on social media.”
Aria balked and gestured to her face. “What do you think I’ll do? Go live on my socials looking
like I moisturize with three-day-old gas station nacho cheese and ask some wannabe kidnapper to
slide into my DMs so we can shoot the shit and work out a better way to hang out that doesn’t include
rope and duct tape?” She released a guttural growl. “This cannot be happening.”
“Aria, we have to take this seriously,” Dom maintained.
“We do. You know we do. We don’t want you posting anything online,” Malik added.
Ugh! There had to be some other way.
Aria lifted her chin and held Malik’s gaze. “I get it. I do. But you know better than anyone that
I’ve got to get something out for the press to chew on to counter Justin yucking it up with a pair of
bimbos.”
“You and Dom can work that out later. For now, you need to stay put. We’ll get you back to the
hotel as soon as—” Malik said, then touched his earpiece. “Hold on. I need to check with one of our
guys. Somebody saw a suspicious vehicle. Stay in your dressing room. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Aria rested her head against the door. “Why did some douche-nozzle decide to prank my tour at
the exact moment when I need to be pushing my hardest?” She inhaled a sharp breath, then barked a
ragged cough.
“Aria?” Dom said softly.
Another topsy-turvy wave hit, and she closed her eyes. “Yeah.”
“Are you happy?”
She looked up and eyed Dom. Were there two of him? She blinked a few times. “What do you
mean?”
“Does this life make you happy?”
She parted her lips. And for a beat, then two, she couldn’t answer.
Why couldn’t she answer? And was the building swaying?
A jumbled list of everything she needed to accomplish alongside a healthy dose of imposter
syndrome clunked and crashed in her head like super-charged bumper cars going berserk. She had to
make it stop. She reared back, then smacked her forehead against the door. The slice of pain sent a
jolt that stilled the mayhem in her mind.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dom cried. She could hear the worry, or perhaps it was pity, in his
voice. She sure as hell couldn’t have that.
She assessed the makeup smear on the door, then steadied herself the best she could. “Am I happy
at this exact moment, Dom?” she spat—or possibly slurred. She couldn’t really tell. Everything had
become a tad fuzzy. “No, I’m not happy. Kidnappers, asshat boyfriends, you name it. Anybody who
wrecks my ability to work doesn’t make me happy. Anything that keeps me from reaching my goal is a
giant pain in my ass,” she roared, glaring at her manager, who didn’t deserve her wrath. Guilt panged
in her chest. That damned eat-worms spark could ignite at the worst times. “Dom,” she said, taking it
down a few notches, “I don’t mean to take this out on you. You and Malik have been nothing but good
to me. It’s just that—”
“Aria, do you know where your boyfriend is tonight?” a man interrupted with a slippery bend to
his words.
She looked down the hallway, and her gut twisted.
A trio of plump, bald men clad in rumpled Hawaiian shirts charged down the hall with their
smartphones pointed at her. Even in her whiskey-medicated state, she recognized them from the
gaggle of paparazzi who’d followed her for the better part of the tour.
She took a step toward them, ready to stand her ground and tell them to beat it. Did she usually go
out of her way to confront the press? No, but her liquid courage—or alcohol plus over-the-counter-
meds stupidity—had kicked in, and Little Miss Eat-Worms had taken over.
“You need to leave,” Dom warned. “Press isn’t allowed back here.”
“They’re hardly press. And I don’t comment on my boyfriend,” she added, raising her voice as the
paparazzi got closer. She prepared to shut down another Justin question when the tittering men came
to a roaring halt.
“What happened to your face?” bald guy number one spat.
Baldy paparazzi guy number two snapped a picture with his cell. “Are you hiding plastic surgery
scars under that thick layer of makeup? Is that why you were so low energy on stage tonight? Are you
recuperating from cheek implants?”
Cheek implants?
What fresh hell was this? And when would she have time to go in for plastic surgery? These
jokers knew better than anyone that when she wasn’t on stage, she was online or meeting with fans
and influencers to promote her album. And what’s this low-energy bullshit? She busted her ass on
stage every time she performed.
Dom rested his hand on her shoulder. “You should go into your dressing room. I’ll take care of
this.”
“Not a chance. I fight my own battles,” she replied, then directed her fiery and somewhat blurry
attention toward the unwelcome visitors. “I’m not hiding anything. And whether I decide to have
plastic surgery or not is my own business. Is that all you got? You don’t like my makeup?” she lobbed
back.
“How about this?” baldy number three called with a saccharine twist to his lips. “When are you
going to come out with a sound of your own?”
What was he playing at?
“I don’t need a new sound. My music mixes pop and rock. That is my sound.”
Baldy number three checked his cell phone. His sugary smile slithered into a smirk. “In a review
of your latest album, a critic said, and I quote, ‘Aria Paige-Grant is desperate to win the world’s
approval but doesn’t have the chops to do anything more than sound like a cardboard version of her
musical family.’”
Holy shit.
“Who said that?” she eked out. Dammit! If she could hear the shake to her voice, the paparazzi
piranhas could, too.
She parted her lips, not sure how to respond, when a tank of a security guard with Malik by his
side rushed down the corridor.
“You three! The Hawaiian Paparazzi Punch goons. You’re not authorized to be here,” Malik
barked.
 The paparazzi scrambled. Pocketing their phones, they skittered down the hall. She wanted to hurl
a pithy response at the trio—something that would let them know they hadn’t pierced her armor. But
she couldn’t. She could only ask herself one question. Was the reviewer correct? Was she simply a
musical cardboard copy of her family?
“We’ll take care of this,” Dom said, opening her dressing room door.
She clutched her notebook and cell phone to her chest and stepped inside the room. But before she
closed the door, she touched her manager’s arm. “Did you know about the article—about the brutal
review of my album?”
Dom didn’t have to answer. The pained look in his eyes said everything.
“Who wrote the review?” she pressed.
“I don’t know. It cited the source as an industry insider.”
It could be anyone.
She sighed and surveyed the space littered with glitter-decked costumes and mirrors. Did she hate
that she had to hide in her dressing room?
Absolutely.
She put on her tough girl mask and nodded. She couldn’t let on that the blistering critique had her
on the edge of losing control.
“Eat,” Dom said and handed her the bonbon. “And try to get a little rest. You need to take care of
yourself.”
With her world turning more topsy-turvy by the second, she accepted the chocolate and entered
the room. Dom pulled the door shut, and the clap of it slamming had her nearly jumping out of her
skin.
Get it together.
Needing to figure out her next move, she went to the vanity and set the chocolate next to an array
of makeup brushes. She sank into the chair and assessed the scene. Cluttered with beauty products,
energy drinks, and varying bottles and boxes of medication, she set her phone and notebook next to the
bonbon, then popped the tab of the most ridiculous-looking turbo-charged beverage on the cluttered
table. Listening to the muffled voices and shouts in the hallway, she gulped the sugary liquid, then
grabbed a bottle of extra-strength pain reliever. She shook a few capsules into her hands and frowned.
What the hell? She peered at an array of pink and green tablets. Dammit! She’d mixed her muscle
relaxers with the extra-strength ibuprofen. Which was which? It didn’t matter. With the harsh review
ringing in her ears, she took one of each and chugged the rest of the high-octane drink.
Her cell pinged another alert. If she were in a reasonable state of mind, she’d turn off her phone,
follow Dom’s instructions, and give her body and mind a break.
Regrettably, she wasn’t feeling so reasonable. In fact, she could barely sit still. Grating irritation
and the heady rush from her power drink, plus the pink and green medicinal buffet, had her wired and
itching for a fight. She opened the alert and was directed to a social media post. A grainy video
played. Lights flashed, and music blared as her boyfriend grinned like an idiot while sandwiched
between his blonde entourage.
“Looks like you’re having a good time tonight, Justin,” someone commented over the thrum of a
techno beat.
Justin’s million-dollar smile widened. “I always have a good time.”
“Where’s Aria?” came another voice.
A smirk twisted Justin’s lips. “Aria, who?” he crooned, as his blonde sidekicks giggled.
The nerve of this guy.
 She made a note of the timestamp and location of the recording.
The video was posted minutes ago.
She tapped the location, then activated her navigation app.
He was at a club a mere six blocks from the concert venue.
“Gotcha,” she snarled, then tapped her foot five times, resurrecting the secret foot tap language
she, Phoebe, Sebastian, and Oscar had used as kids when they wanted to call somebody a bad word.
Five taps equaled the kid version of the worst of the worst insults—butthole douche nozzle.
One tap for each syllable, and it fit Justin to a T.
Between the whiskey, the cold medicine, whatever the hell pills she’d wolfed down, and the
caffeine-packed sugar-laden energy drink, her second wind hit like a sledgehammer. Fueled by the
crazy concoction, she was flying high and ready to kick some ass—some boy band ass. She grabbed
her notebook, then swiped a pink highlighter off the table. She didn’t go anywhere without the items.
She spied the bonbon. “You’re coming, too, my chocolaty friend,” she said, wrapping the treat in a
tissue, then stuffing it in her cleavage.
Moving like a prisoner who’d discovered an escape tunnel behind a few loose bricks, she
pressed her ear to the door. The corridor was silent. Nobody was headed her way—at least for the
time being. She bolted across the room to the window, released the latch, and lifted the heavy glass.
The October air greeted her with a chilly hello that sent an energizing zing down her spine. She stuck
her head out and peered into an empty alleyway.
“What do you know,” she whispered-slurred.
Not a soul to be found and no security in sight. Her pulse kicked into overdrive. It was as if the
universe had choreographed the perfect escape.
She maneuvered her body out the window and onto a landing. And bingo! Part two of her escape
was right in front of her. She eyed a ladder fixed to the side of the building, then did another sweep of
the darkened sliver of pavement two stories below.
Should she be doing this?
A thread of doubt wove itself around her heart. Dom would not be pleased with her plan, but she
couldn’t sit still. She pictured Justin’s shit-eating expression and replayed his words in her head.
Aria who?
The doubt in her heart morphed into full-on revenge-fueled fury.
Mr. Boy Band was about to learn a damned important lesson.
Nobody messed with Aria Paige-Grant and got away with it.
Despite the world taking on a fuzzy aura and the fact that she couldn’t exactly feel the tip of her
nose, a devious smile curled her lips. “Can’t remember me, lover boy?” she whispered into the night
air. “Not to worry—your ass is about to get a not-so-subtle reminder.”
Chapter 3
 OSCAR

Oscar checked his watch, observing as it ticked from 10:22 p.m. to 10:23 p.m.
“One, zero, two, three,” he whispered and touched the ring that hung from a chain around his neck.
It usually brought him comfort to feel the bit of silver and gold that rested next to his heart. But not
today. Not after the last couple of weeks. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’d made
a judgment call, a choice, an action that couldn’t be undone. Was it the right thing to do? Only time
would tell. Would he find peace? No. Unfortunately, there was no reprieve in sight. And thanks to his
buzzing phone, he was about to get another heaping scoop of frustration added to the already heavy
load.
His eyes adjusted as the light from his cell illuminated the inside of his pickup truck’s darkened
cab. A new text had rolled in. These last few weeks, he’d left his phone on silent mode. But he
couldn’t ignore this message. He reread the sender’s name, sighed, then lit a cigarette. He took a slow
drag and exhaled, wishing he could expel his gnawing frustration along with the smoke. Now, should
he be smoking? No, of course not. He’d quit a couple of years ago. But the stress of the last two
weeks had him stretched thin. He needed something for his hands to do to pass the time and keep
himself from going stir-crazy.
His phone hummed yet another text. They were stacking up. He should have expected it. In all
honesty, he was surprised he hadn’t gotten these messages a few weeks ago. He flicked ash out the
window, then tapped the screen.

Inez Gordon: I know you can see this message, Oscar Abrams Elliott.
Inez Gordon: I’m going to call you, and you’re going to answer, you damned blue-eyed
vagabond. If you don’t, I’ll send you a box full of dog shit because I can. Rest assured, I
will get ahold of you, young man. I might be an old broad, but I ran a half marathon last
week. Not to mention, I drank three dirty martinis at dinner tonight. That makes me fast,
feisty, and as surly as ever. Do we understand each other?

Loud and clear.

Oscar took another drag off his smoke. It was never a good sign when Mrs. Feisty-As-Ever used
his full name and dropped a young man to boot.
And who was this—as she put it—martini-pounding broad?
Inez Gordon.
A seasoned agent and public relations expert, he’d known Inez since he was a kid. Now in her
eighties, she remained to this day a grade A ball buster. Inez represented his stepmother with her
photography and still did PR for his dad’s cooking career. Although, over the last decade and a half
or so, his father had dedicated most of his time to training chefs how to run their own food truck
business.
Buzz.
Buckle up. Inez was on a texting tirade.

Inez Gordon: Turn on your ringer. I’ll be calling in five seconds, young man, and like I
said, you better answer! I wasn’t kidding about the box of shit.

He was relatively sure no one could gift him a box of canine crap. He’d gone radio silent and had
been on the move. He took another pull off his cigarette and exhaled a stream of smoke. The hit of
nicotine helped, but Christ, what he wouldn’t give for a flask of whiskey.
He turned on his ringer. “Five, four, three . . .”
“Gotta believe in who you are, know yourself, know your heart.”
The lyrics—and the voice singing them—caught him off guard, and his pulse quickened. He’d
forgotten that his little sister had made Aria’s hit song “Believe” his ringtone a few weeks ago when
he’d passed through Denver to photograph the fall colors.
“Jesus,” he muttered, needing to take a second. He pinched the bridge of his nose before
answering the call. “That was three seconds, Inez,” he offered in lieu of a cheery greeting.
Inez huffed. “Good, you can count. I was worried that part of your brain had stopped functioning
since you haven’t returned my last six calls.”
He rested his elbows against the steering wheel. “Sorry, I lost track of time.”
“For the last two weeks?” she lobbed back.
Oscar stared at the cigarette’s glowing tip. “I’m working on a . . .” Dammit! What the hell was he
supposed to call what he’d been doing? He cleared his throat. “I’m working on a project.”
There! He could blame his behavior on being a tortured artist. That’s who he was in his group of
best friends. Phoebe Gale was the tech genius. Sebastian Cress was their resident business maverick
and athlete, and Aria was . . . the star, a brunette bombshell—the woman who walked into a room,
and every pair of eyes was glued to her. Aria Paige-Grant could also be as stubborn and as surly as a
mule. Strike that. Mules were downright easygoing and reasonable compared to the rock star. The
woman pushed herself too damned hard and wouldn’t settle for anything less than the best when it
came to her work. From the second he’d laid eyes on her as a boy, he could see that she was tough as
nails—or at least that’s what she wanted everyone to believe. And she was able to convince most of
the people in her life that she was a take-no-prisoners kind of gal.
But he knew better.
More than that, he knew that she was keenly aware that he could see what most people couldn’t.
Call it having a photographer’s eye. Call it a near lifetime spent in her presence. He could sift through
the layers of makeup and plastic smiles and see the restless girl beneath the glitz and glam. Had he
told her this explicitly? No, not exactly. They’d been dancing around this fly in the ointment for the
last couple of years. He also knew something else about her that she certainly couldn’t see or, more
like, wouldn’t acknowledge. He glanced into his open camera bag resting on the bench seat beside his
laptop. He’d bet his prized possession—his old-school Polaroid camera—that she was a breath away
from losing control of her contrived pop star persona.
“What project are you working on?” Inez asked, pulling him out of his Aria haze. “I represent
you,” she continued. “I know your schedule. And I know you’re not on a job. Is this some off-the-
books endeavor?”
 That was one way to put it.
He sat back and rested his head against the seat. How could he frame what he’d been doing in a
light that didn’t make him sound like a lunatic stalker? “It’s an artistic project—an in-depth case
study.” He cringed and was grateful Inez couldn’t see him. He hadn’t lied, per se, but he wasn’t
exactly telling the whole truth, either.
“A case study? Could you elaborate?”
He cleared his throat. “There’s not much to elaborate on . . . yet.”
Again, not exactly a lie, but not exactly the truth either.
“Do you have a timetable? I ask because a music label reached out to see if you’re available to
document a band on the road.”
It sounded right up his alley.
From the birth of a baby giraffe in Africa to ice skaters in Sweden to following a dance troop
across China, he’d experienced much of the world employed as a photographer, videographer, and
freelance documentarian jack-of-all-trades. He didn’t do it for the money—which wasn’t spectacular.
It was the pace. The constant movement sustained him. The incessant focus muted the whispers in the
darkest corners of his mind. Alone with nothing to keep his attention, a barrage of images would come
to him—apples on the ground, squares of caramel scattered about, and an emptiness he’d filled with
guilt.
He touched the ring around his neck. “When would they need me for this gig?”
“In three weeks.”
“How long is it?” he asked, his voice rough from barely speaking for the last two weeks.
“Eight months, give or take a week. It’s a world tour.”
He slipped the chain under his gray hoodie. “Book it.”
“Don’t you want more information?” Inez pressed.
He watched the cigarette smoke swirl in the dim light. “I don’t need it. All I need to know is that
I’ll be on the road.”
“I’ll let them know. Have you thought anymore about branching off and starting your own
documentary production company?”
Could he run the whole show when it came to producing docs? Sure. But that involved a level of
commitment he wasn’t ready—or simply couldn’t—agree to.
He rubbed his bleary eyes. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“And Oscar?”
“Yeah?” he replied, his knee bouncing with pent-up energy.
“You sound a little keyed up. Are you taking care of yourself? Are you cooking? That relaxes
you.”
He surveyed the sea of crumpled takeout bags and a mountain of meal-size cardboard boxes
littering the bench inside the truck. There was indeed more evidence of his lack of cooking on the
passenger side floorboards. Thankfully, it was too dark to view the smattering of grease-stained
receipts, discarded ketchup packets, and plastic utensils scattered throughout the vehicle. But that’s
what happened when he focused on a subject. He let everything else go to shit.
But he couldn’t tell that to Inez.
“I’m eating,” he answered and tossed an empty cardboard burger box onto the floor to chill in the
condiment graveyard.
“I’ll take that to mean that you’re not cooking or thinking of returning to culinary school.”
He took a long drag off the smoke. Here it comes. “Did my dad and my Charlotte ask you to call
me?”
“No, your father and your Charlotte didn’t ask me to call you. I do have to say, it’s sweet that you
still call her my Charlotte.”
He couldn’t help but crack a smile. It might have been his first in two weeks.
My Charlotte. He could remember the first time he’d spoken those words.
After his mother passed away suddenly from an aneurysm when he was just a young boy, he’d
gone to live with his father and a young woman hired to be his nanny, Charlotte Ames. The last person
he’d wanted to be with was his dad—a dad he’d hardly known at the time. At the tender age of six, he
was angry, completely lost without his mother, and itching to lash out—a trait he’d inherited from his
once-hotheaded celebrity chef father.
With her warm grin and gentle ways, Charlotte had made the transition more manageable, and
he’d started calling her my Charlotte. His dad had the same idea. When the man married his nanny,
Oscar was overjoyed. With Charlotte by their side, he and his dad had grown closer. The arrival of
his half-sister eight years ago had made them a family of four. He treasured being a big brother to
little Ivy Madelyn Elliott. But thanks to his nomad ways, a wedge had grown between himself and his
parents over the last few years.
“The my Charlotte business might be the last bit of sweetness I’ve got in me.”
“I don’t know about that,” Inez replied with a knowing bend to her words. “I hear you’re a pretty
great big brother.”
Another smile graced his lips.
“I do know your family is worried about you,” Inez continued. “We know you can get engrossed in
your work. It’s easy to see how you can lose yourself to it. It often takes you across the country or
even around the globe at the drop of a hat. That’s not always a bad thing—especially for an artist. But
we have noticed a pattern.”
He bristled at the word we and lost the grin. The notion that his family had engaged in a group
chat about his current life choices sent a prickling sensation through his veins. “And what pattern is
that?”
“You’re drifting.”
He rolled the smoke between his fingers and put up his defenses. “Maybe I’m a drifter.”
“Something happened, Oscar. You weren’t always like this. What made you so restless? This has
been going on for a while. I still can’t figure out why you left college only to enroll in culinary school
and then drop out six months later.”
His stomach tightened into a knot. “My dad is a legendary chef, and Charlotte is an acclaimed
photographer. I grew up surrounded by cooking tutorials and the art of capturing a subject. I don’t
need to waste money on some piece of official university-endorsed paper,” he shot back, trying to
play it off. Too bad he sounded more like a whiny teenager.
“Does it have to do with your mom?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He wasn’t about to get into that—not with Inez—not while he already
had too much on his mind.
A chilly breeze picked up as he tapped the ashes out the window and peered into a nearby
alleyway. “Why did anything have to happen? Maybe I’m just not cut out to stay in one place.”
“Fair enough. But as someone who guided many successful careers, I’ll give you this advice.”
Inez paused. “It’s okay to move around when you’re following your passion. But it’s an entirely
different ball game to flit from here to there because you’re running from your demons. Take it from
me, kid. One way or another, they always catch up with you.”
 The knot in his stomach tightened.
“What is this? A therapy session?”
Inez didn’t reply.
He rubbed the muscles at the base of his neck. “I’m not running. I’m working,” he answered,
hating that his response had a hollow ring to it. “And what do I have to escape? I’m six four and built
like a linebacker. I’m not scared of anything.” He knew damned well that wasn’t what she was
alluding to, but he couldn’t come up with anything better.
“Are you smoking again?” she asked in a tone that said she knew the answer.
Shit! He ground out what was left of the cigarette in a to-go box. “No.”
“Mm-hmm,” Inez hummed.
He stared at a stream of cars passing by and didn’t utter a word. Better to say nothing than keep
digging that hole.
“I’d like to discuss something else with you,” she added, her tone softening.
“Okay.”
“The Telluride house is under contract, Oscar.”
He glanced at the pack of smokes on the dash, wishing like hell he could light up.
“It’s as good as sold. The buyers agreed to the asking price. I’m still surprised you asked me to
put it on the market.”
He pictured a gravel drive winding up to a cabin nestled in a blanket of evergreens. He could
hear the splash of rocks dancing across the creek and feel the coolness of the stones against his palm.
He recalled the hum of his Polaroid camera as he snapped shots of carpenter ants and mule deer
hiding among the aspen trees that graced the slopes of the mountainous terrain.
And then he heard a voice.
Oscar, sweetheart, your grilled cheese sandwich is ready. I made it with apple butter the way
you like it.
He swallowed past the emotion in his throat. “It’s just a house. It’s been empty for years.”
“It was where you lived with your mom.”
He hardened his heart. “She’s been gone a long time. And . . . it wasn’t the only place that was
special to us.”
Why the hell had he said that last part? Perhaps it had to do with his current location.
He exhaled a jittery breath. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. If he didn’t have to stay in the
shadows, he’d happily join Inez in knocking out a marathon. “Do I need to do anything with the sale?
Sign anything?” he mumbled, then glanced at his laptop and refreshed the page, sharpening his focus
on his covert project.
“That’ll come later. A couple wants to purchase it. I believe the realtor mentioned they wanted a
place in Colorado. You’re making quite a bit of money. One point five million, to be exact. For that
chunk of change, you could settle down and get yourself a bachelor pad just about anywhere.”
The thought of staying in one place sent a ripple of panic through his chest.
“Do you think you’ll ever settle down?” Inez pressed.
He parted his lips, unsure how to answer, when another call came in—a call from his little sister.
“Inez, I need to go. It’s Ivy.”
“I understand. See you soon,” she replied smoothly.
See you soon? She had to have misspoken. But he didn’t have time to worry about Inez’s slip of
the tongue.
It was almost eleven on the East Coast and nearly nine p.m. where his sister was in Denver. It
Another random document with
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Sibylle de Cumes et bien d’autres. Mais elle savait si bien se servir
d’un art inconnu de nos jours, qu’elle pouvait paraître belle et toute
jeune.
Elle se fait jeune et belle par son art qui en a trompé beaucoup
comme Roger. Mais l’anneau vient déchirer le voile qui depuis de
nombreuses années déjà cachait la vérité. Ce n’est donc pas miracle
si, dans l’esprit de Roger, toute pensée d’amour pour Alcine s’éteint,
maintenant qu’il la trouve telle que ses artifices ne peuvent plus le
tromper.
Mais, comme le lui avait conseillé Mélisse, il se garda de changer
de manière d’être, jusqu’à ce que, des pieds à la tête, il se fût revêtu
de ses armes trop longtemps négligées. Et, pour ne point éveiller les
soupçons d’Alcine, il feignit de vouloir essayer ses forces, et de voir
s’il avait grossi depuis le jour où il ne les avait plus endossées.
Il suspendit ensuite Balisarde à son côté, — c’est ainsi que
s’appelait son épée, — et prit également l’écu merveilleux qui non
seulement éblouissait les yeux, mais qui frappait l’âme d’un tel
anéantissement, qu’elle semblait être exhalée du corps. Il le prit, et
se le mit au cou, tout recouvert du voile de soie avec lequel il l’avait
trouvé.
Puis il alla à l’écurie, et fit mettre la bride et la selle à un destrier
plus noir que la poix. Mélisse l’avait prévenu d’agir ainsi, car elle
connaissait ce cheval qui s’appelait Rabican, et elle savait combien il
était rapide à la course. C’était le même qui avait été porté en ces
lieux par la baleine, avec le malheureux chevalier, à cette heure
jouet des vents sur le bord de la mer.
Il aurait pu aussi prendre l’hippogriffe qui était attaché à côté de
Rabican, mais la magicienne lui avait dit : « — N’oublie pas, tu le
sais, combien il est indocile. — » Et elle lui promit que le jour suivant
elle le ferait sortir de ce pays et le lui amènerait dans un endroit où
elle lui apprendrait à le dompter et à le faire obéir en tout.
En le laissant, du reste, il ne donnerait aucun soupçon de la fuite
qu’il préméditait. Roger fit comme le voulait Mélisse qui, toujours
invisible, lui parlait à l’oreille. Ainsi dissimulant, il sortit du palais
corrompu et efféminé de la vieille putain, et il arriva à une des portes
de la ville où aboutissait la route qui conduit chez Logistilla.
Assailli à l’improviste par les gardes, il se jeta sur eux le fer à la
main, laissant celui-ci blessé, celui-là mort, et, peu à peu, gagna le
pont en dehors duquel il prit sa course. Avant qu’Alcine en eût été
avisée, Roger avait franchi un grand espace. Je dirai dans l’autre
chant quelle route il suivit, et comment il parvint chez Logistilla.
 CHANT VIII.

Argument. — Après avoir surmonté divers obstacles, Roger

s’enfuit de l’île d’Alcine. Mélisse rend sa forme première à Astolphe,
lui fait retrouver ses armes et tous deux se rendent chez Logistilla où
Roger arrive aussi peu après. — Renaud passe d’Écosse en
Angleterre et obtient des secours pour Charles assiégé dans Paris.
— Angélique est transportée dans l’île d’Ébude pour y être dévorée
par un monstre marin. — Roland, trompé par un songe, sort déguisé
de Paris, et va à la recherche d’Angélique.

Oh ! combien d’enchanteresses, combien d’enchanteurs sont parmi

nous, que nous ne connaissons pas, et qui, par leur adresse à
changer de visage, se sont fait aimer des hommes et des femmes !
Ce n’est pas en évoquant les esprits, ni en observant les étoiles,
qu’ils font de tels enchantements ; c’est par la dissimulation, le
mensonge et les ruses, qu’ils lient les cœurs d’indissolubles nœuds.
Celui qui possèderait le talisman d’Angélique, ou plutôt celui de
la raison, pourrait voir le visage de chacun dépouillé de tout artifice
et de toute fiction. Tel nous paraît beau et bon, qui, le masque
tombé, nous semblerait peut-être laid et méchant. Ce fut un grand
bonheur pour Roger d’avoir l’anneau qui lui découvrit la vérité.
Roger, comme je disais, armé et monté sur Rabican, était arrivé
en dissimulant jusqu’à la porte. Il prit les gardes au dépourvu et
quand il fut arrivé au milieu d’eux, il ne garda pas son épée au flanc.
Laissant les uns morts, les autres fort maltraités, il franchit le pont,
rompit la herse et prit le chemin de la forêt ; mais il ne courut pas
longtemps sans rencontrer un des serviteurs de la fée.
Ce serviteur avait au poing un gerfaut qu’il s’amusait à faire voler
chaque jour, tantôt dans la plaine, tantôt sur un étang voisin, où il
trouvait toujours une proie facile. Il avait pour compagnon son chien
fidèle, et chevauchait un roussin assez mal équipé. Il pensa bien que
Roger s’enfuyait, quand il le vit venir en si grande hâte :
Il se porta à sa rencontre, et, d’un ton hautain, lui demanda
pourquoi il s’en allait si précipitamment. Le bon Roger ne voulut pas
lui répondre. C’est pourquoi, de plus en plus certain qu’il s’enfuyait,
le chasseur résolut de l’arrêter. Étendant le bras gauche, il dit : « —
Que dirais-tu, si je t’arrêtais subitement, et si contre cet oiseau tu ne
pouvais te défendre ? — »
Il lance son oiseau, et celui-ci bat si rapidement des ailes, que
Rabican ne peut le devancer. Le chasseur saute à bas de son
palefroi, en lui enlevant du même coup le mors, et le cheval part
comme la flèche chassée de l’arc, mordant et lançant des ruades
formidables. Le serviteur se met à courir après lui, aussi rapide que
s’il était porté par le vent et la foudre.
Le chien ne veut pas paraître en retard ; il suit Rabican avec
l’impétuosité du léopard qui poursuit un lièvre. Roger a honte de ne
pas les attendre ; il se retourne vers celui qui arrive d’un pied si
hardi, et, ne lui voyant d’autre arme qu’une baguette avec laquelle il
dresse son chien à obéir, il dédaigne de tirer son épée.
Le chasseur s’approche et le frappe vigoureusement ; en même
temps le chien le mord au pied gauche. Le destrier débridé secoue
trois ou quatre fois sa croupe, et rue sur son flanc droit. L’oiseau
tourbillonne, décrit mille cercles et le déchire souvent avec ses
ongles, de telle sorte que Rabican s’effraye de tout ce vacarme et
n’obéit plus à la main ni à l’éperon.
Roger est enfin forcé de tirer le fer, et, pour se débarrasser de
cette désagréable agression, il menace tantôt les bêtes, tantôt le
vilain, de la pointe de son épée. Cette engeance importune ne l’en
presse que davantage, et deçà, delà, se multiplie sur toute la route.
Roger voit déshonneur et danger pour lui à ce qu’ils l’arrêtent plus
longtemps.
Il sait que, s’il reste un peu plus en cette place, il aura sur les
épaules Alcine et toute sa populace. Déjà une grande rumeur de
trompettes, de tambours et de cloches se fait entendre par toute la
vallée. Pourtant, contre un serviteur sans armes et contre un chien, il
lui semble inutile de se servir de son épée. Le meilleur et le plus
prompt est donc de découvrir l’écu, œuvre d’Atlante.
Il lève le drap rouge dont l’écu était resté pendant plusieurs jours
couvert, et la lumière, dès qu’elle frappe les yeux, produit l’effet mille
fois expérimenté. Le chasseur reste privé de ses sens ; le chien et le
roussin tombent, et les ailes de l’oiseau ne peuvent plus le soutenir
en l’air. Roger, joyeux, les laisse en proie au sommeil.
Alcine, qui pendant tout cela avait été prévenue que Roger avait
forcé la porte et occis bon nombre des gardes, vaincue de douleur,
resta comme morte. Elle déchire ses vêtements, se frappe le visage,
et s’accuse de stupidité et de maladresse. Elle fait appeler sur-le-
champ aux armes et rassemble autour d’elle tous ses gens.
Puis elle les divise en deux troupes : elle envoie l’une sur la route
que suit Roger ; elle conduit l’autre en toute hâte au port, l’embarque
et lui fait prendre la mer. Sous les voiles ouvertes, les flots
s’assombrissent. Avec cette troupe s’en va la désespérée Alcine, et
le désir de retrouver Roger la ronge tellement, qu’elle laisse sa ville
sans garde aucune.
Elle ne laisse personne à la garde du palais. Cela donne à
Mélisse, qui se tenait prête, une grande commodité, une grande
facilité pour arracher de ce royaume funeste les malheureux qui y
étaient retenus. Elle va, cherchant à son aise de tous côtés, brûlant
les images, rompant les charmes, détruisant les nœuds, les
caractères magiques et tous les artifices.
Puis, accélérant ses pas à travers la campagne, elle fait revenir à
leur forme première les anciens amants d’Alcine qui étaient, en foule
nombreuse, changés en fontaines, en bêtes, en arbres, en rochers.
Ceux-ci, dès qu’ils furent délivrés, suivirent tous les traces du bon
Roger et se réfugièrent chez Logistilla. De là, ils retournèrent chez
les Scythes, les Perses, les Grecs et les Indiens.
Mélisse les renvoya dans leur pays, après leur avoir fait
promettre d’être désormais moins imprudents. Le duc des Anglais fut
le premier qu’elle fit revenir à la forme humaine. Sa parenté avec
Bradamante et les prières courtoises de Roger lui furent très utiles
en cette occasion. Outre les prières que Roger avait adressées à
Mélisse à ce sujet, il lui avait donné l’anneau pour qu’elle pût mieux
lui venir en aide.
C’est donc grâce aux prières de Roger que le paladin fut remis
en sa forme première. Mélisse ne crut son œuvre achevée que
lorsqu’elle lui eut fait retrouver ses armes, et cette lance d’or qui, du
premier coup, jette hors de selle tous ceux qu’elle touche. D’abord à
l’Argail, elle appartint ensuite à Astolphe, et l’un et l’autre s’étaient
acquis beaucoup d’honneur en France avec elle.
Mélisse retrouva cette lance d’or qu’Alcine avait remisée dans le
palais, ainsi que toutes les autres armes qui avaient été enlevées au
duc dans cette maison maudite. Puis elle monta le destrier du
nécromancien maure et prit en croupe Astolphe. De là, elle se
dirigea vers la demeure de Logistilla, où elle arriva une heure avant
Roger.
Entre temps, Roger s’achemine vers la sage Fée, à travers les
durs rochers, les ronces touffues, de précipice en précipice, et par
des chemins âpres, solitaires, inhospitaliers et sauvages. Enfin il
arrive, à l’heure ardente de midi, sur une plage exposée au sud
entre la montagne et la mer, aride, nue, stérile et déserte.
Le soleil ardent frappe la colline voisine, et sous la chaleur
produite par la réflexion, l’air et le sable bouillent. Il n’en faudrait pas
tant pour rendre le verre liquide. Tous les oiseaux se taisent sous
l’ombre molle ; seule, la cigale, cachée dans les herbes touffues,
assourdit de son chant monotone les montagnes et les vallées, la
mer et le ciel.
 La chaleur, la soif et la fatigue qu’il éprouvait à parcourir cette
route de sable faisaient à Roger grave et ennuyeuse compagnie sur
la plage déserte et exposée au soleil. Mais, comme je ne puis ni ne
veux m’occuper toujours du même sujet, je laisserai Roger dans
cette fournaise, et j’irai en Écosse retrouver Renaud.
Renaud était très bien vu du roi, de sa fille et de tout le pays. Le
paladin exposa à loisir et clairement le motif de sa venue qui était de
réclamer, au nom de son roi, l’appui des royaumes d’Écosse et
d’Angleterre, et il crut devoir appuyer la demande de Charles des
raisons les plus justes.
Le roi lui répondit sans retard qu’autant que ses forces le lui
permettaient, il était disposé à agir pour le service et pour l’honneur
de Charles et de l’empire. Dans peu de jours il aurait levé le plus de
cavaliers qu’il pourrait, et s’il n’était pas aujourd’hui si vieux, il aurait
pris lui-même le commandement de ses troupes.
Une semblable raison ne lui paraîtrait pas toutefois suffisante
pour le faire rester chez lui, s’il n’avait son fils, à qui il donnerait le
commandement, comme au plus digne pour la vigueur et l’habileté.
Bien qu’il ne se trouvât pas alors dans le royaume, il espérait qu’il
serait revenu avant que les troupes fussent réunies. Dans tous les
cas, une fois l’armée prête, il saurait bien trouver son fils.
Puis il envoya dans tous ses États ses trésoriers pour lever des
cavaliers et des gens de guerre, et fit approvisionner ses vaisseaux
de munitions, de vivres et d’argent. Pendant ce temps, Renaud
passa en Angleterre, et le roi l’accompagna courtoisement à son
départ jusqu’à Berwick, et on le vit pleurer quand il le quitta.
Ayant le vent favorable en poupe, Renaud s’embarqua après
avoir dit adieu à tous. Le pilote démarra les câbles pour le voyage, et
l’on fit voile jusqu’à ce qu’on fût arrivé à l’endroit où le beau fleuve de
la Tamise voit ses eaux devenir amères au contact des flots salés.
Poussés par le grand flux de la mer, les navigateurs s’avancèrent
par un chemin sûr, à la voile et à la rame, jusqu’à Londres.
Renaud avait reçu de Charles et du roi Othon, assiégé avec
Charles dans Paris, des lettres authentiques, contresignées du
sceau de l’État, pour être remises au prince de Galles. Ces lettres
portaient que tout ce qu’on pourrait lever dans le pays de fantassins
et de cavaliers devait être dirigé sur Calais, pour porter secours à la
France et à Charles.
Le prince dont je parle, et qui occupait, en l’absence d’Othon, le
siège royal, rendit à Renaud fils d’Aymon de tels honneurs, qu’il n’en
aurait pas fait autant pour son roi. Pour satisfaire à sa demande, il
ordonna à tous les gens de guerre de la Bretagne et des îles
voisines de se trouver sur le rivage à jour fixe.
Seigneur, il convient que je fasse comme le virtuose habile qui,
sur son instrument flexible, change souvent de corde et varie de ton,
prenant tantôt le grave, tantôt l’aigu. Pendant que je suis occupé à
parler de Renaud, je me suis souvenu de la gentille Angélique que
j’ai laissée fuyant loin de lui, et qui venait de rencontrer un ermite.
Je vais poursuivre un instant son histoire. J’ai dit qu’elle avait
demandé avec une vive anxiété comment elle pourrait rejoindre le
rivage, car elle avait une telle peur de Renaud, qu’elle se croyait en
danger de mort si elle ne mettait pas la mer entre elle et lui, et
qu’elle ne pensait pas être en sûreté tant qu’elle serait en Europe.
Mais l’ermite cherchait à l’amuser, parce qu’il avait du plaisir à rester
avec elle.
Cette rare beauté lui a allumé le cœur et réchauffé les moelles
engourdies. Mais, quand il voit que cela ne lui réussit pas, et qu’elle
ne veut pas rester plus longtemps avec lui, il accable son âne de
cent coups pour activer son pas tardif. Le plus souvent au pas,
quelquefois au trot, il va sans permettre à sa bête de s’arrêter.
Et comme Angélique s’était tellement éloignée que, d’un peu
plus, il aurait perdu sa trace, le moine retourne à sa grotte obscure
et évoque une troupe de démons. Il en choisit un dans toute la
bande, et, tout d’abord, l’informe de ce qu’il aura à faire ; puis il le fait
entrer dans le corps du coursier qui emporte loin de lui sa dame et
son cœur.
Souvent un chien bien dressé et habitué à chasser sur la
montagne les renards et les lièvres, voyant la bête aller d’un côté,
prend par un autre, et semble dédaigner de suivre la trace. Mais à
peine le voit-on arrivé au passage, qu’il l’a dans la gueule, lui ouvre
le flanc et la dévore. Ainsi l’ermite, par une voie détournée, rejoindra
la dame où qu’elle aille.
Ce que peut être son dessein, je le comprends fort bien, et je
vous le dirai aussi, mais dans un autre moment. Angélique ne
soupçonnant en rien ce danger, cheminait, faisant chaque jour une
plus ou moins longue étape. Et déjà, le démon est caché dans son
cheval. Ainsi, parfois, le feu couve, puis devient un si grave incendie,
qu’on ne peut l’éteindre et qu’on y échappe avec peine.
Quand la dame fut arrivée près de la grande mer qui baigne les
rivages gascons, elle fit marcher son destrier tout près de la vague,
là où l’humidité rendait la voie plus ferme. Celui-ci fut soudain
entraîné dans les flots par le démon féroce, au point d’être obligé de
nager. La timide donzelle ne sait que faire, si ce n’est se tenir ferme
sur la selle.
Elle a beau tirer la bride, elle ne peut le faire tourner, et de plus
en plus il s’avance vers la haute mer. Elle tenait sa robe relevée pour
ne pas la mouiller, et levait les pieds. Sur ses épaules, sa chevelure
flottait toute défaite, caressée par la brise lascive. Les grands vents
se taisaient, ainsi que la mer, comme pour contempler sans doute
tant de beauté.
Elle tournait en vain vers la terre ses beaux yeux qui baignaient
de pleurs son visage et sa poitrine. Et elle voyait le rivage s’enfuir
toujours plus loin, décroître peu à peu et disparaître. Le destrier qui
nageait sur la droite, après un grand détour, la porta sur un écueil
parsemé de roches noires et de grottes effroyables. Et déjà la nuit
commençait à obscurcir le ciel.
Quand elle se vit seule dans ce lieu désert, dont la seule vue lui
faisait peur, à l’heure où Phébus couché dans la mer laissait l’air et
la terre dans une obscurité profonde, elle resta immobile, dans une
attitude qui aurait fait douter quiconque aurait vu sa figure, si elle
était une femme véritable et douée de vie, ou bien un rocher ayant
cette forme.
 Stupide et les yeux fixés sur le sable mouvant, les cheveux
dénoués et en désordre, les mains jointes et les lèvres immobiles,
elle tenait ses regards languissants levés vers le ciel, comme si elle
accusait le grand Moteur d’avoir déchaîné tous les destins à sa
perte. Elle resta un moment immobile et comme atterrée ; puis elle
dénoua sa langue à la plainte, et ses yeux aux pleurs.
Elle disait : « — Fortune, que te reste-t-il encore à faire pour
avoir rassasié sur moi tes fureurs et assouvi ta soif de vengeance ?
Que puis-je te donner de plus désormais, si ce n’est cette misérable
vie ? Mais tu n’en veux pas. N’as-tu pas été prompte tout à l’heure à
m’arracher à la mer, quand je pouvais y trouver la fin de mes tristes
jours ! Pourquoi sembles-tu désirer me voir encore livrée à de
nouveaux tourments, avant que je meure ?
« Mais je ne vois pas que tu puisses me nuire plus que tu ne
m’as nui jusqu’ici. Par toi j’ai été chassée du royal séjour où je
n’espère plus jamais retourner. J’ai perdu l’honneur, ce qui est pis ;
car si je n’ai pas en réalité commis de faute, j’ai pourtant donné lieu,
par mes courses vagabondes, à ce que chacun dise que je suis une
impudique.
« Quel bien peut-il rester au monde à une femme qui a perdu sa
réputation de chasteté ? Hélas ! mon malheur est d’être jeune et de
passer pour belle, que ce soit vrai ou faux. Je ne saurais rendre
grâce au ciel de ce don funeste, d’où provient aujourd’hui toute ma
perte. C’est lui qui a causé la mort de mon frère Argail, auquel ses
armes enchantées servirent peu.
« C’est à cause de lui que le roi de Tartarie Agrican a défait mon
père Galafron qui, dans l’Inde, était grand khan du Cathay ; et depuis
j’en suis réduite à changer d’asile soir et matin. Puisque tu m’as ravi
fortune, honneur, famille, et puisque tu m’as fait tout le mal que tu
peux me faire, à quelles douleurs nouvelles veux-tu me réserver
encore ?
« Si tu n’as pas jugé assez cruel de me faire périr dans la mer, je
consens, pour te rassasier, à ce que tu m’envoies quelque bête qui
me dévore, mais sans m’outrager davantage. Quel que soit le
martyre que tu me destines, pourvu que j’en meure, je ne pourrai
trop t’en rendre grâces. — » Ainsi disait la dame, au milieu
d’abondantes larmes, quand elle aperçut l’ermite à côté d’elle.
De la cime d’une roche élevée, l’ermite avait vu Angélique, au
comble de l’affliction et de l’épouvante, aborder à l’extrémité de
l’écueil. Il était lui-même arrivé six jours auparavant, car un démon
l’y avait porté par un chemin peu fréquenté. Il vint à elle, avec un air
plus dévot que n’eurent jamais Paul ou Hilarion.
A peine la dame l’a-t-elle aperçu, que, ne le reconnaissant pas,
elle reprend courage ; peu à peu sa crainte s’apaise, bien qu’elle ait
encore la pâleur au visage. Dès qu’il est près d’elle, elle dit : « —
Ayez pitié de moi, mon père, car je suis arrivée dans un mauvais
port. — » Et d’une voix interrompue par les sanglots, elle lui raconte
ce qu’il savait parfaitement.
L’ermite commence par la rassurer par de belles et dévotes
paroles, et, pendant qu’il parle, il promène des mains audacieuses
tantôt sur son sein, tantôt sur ses joues humides. Puis, devenu plus
hardi, il va pour l’embrasser. Mais elle, tout indignée, lui porte
vivement la main à la poitrine et le repousse, et son visage se
couvre tout entier d’une honnête rougeur.
Il avait à son côté une poche ; il l’ouvre et il en tire une fiole
pleine de liqueur. Sur ces yeux puissants, où Amour a allumé sa plus
brûlante flamme, il en jette légèrement une goutte qui suffit à
endormir Angélique. La voilà gisant, renversée sur le sable, livrée à
tous les désirs du lubrique vieillard.
Il l’embrasse et la palpe à plaisir ; et elle dort et ne peut faire
résistance. Il lui baise tantôt le sein, tantôt la bouche ; personne ne
peut le voir en ce lieu âpre et désert. Mais, dans cette rencontre, son
destrier trébuche, et le corps débile ne répond point au désir. Il avait
peu de vigueur, ayant trop d’années, et il peut d’autant moins qu’il
s’essouffle davantage.
Il tente toutes les voies, tous les moyens. Mais son roussin
paresseux se refuse à sauter ; en vain il lui secoue le frein, en vain il
le tourmente ; il ne peut lui faire tenir la tête haute. Enfin il s’endort
près de la dame qu’un nouveau danger menace encore. La Fortune
ne s’arrête pas pour si peu, quand elle a pris un mortel pour jouet.
Il faut d’abord que je vous parle d’une chose qui va me détourner
un peu de mon droit chemin. Dans la mer du Nord, du côté de
l’Occident et par delà l’Islande, s’étend une île nommée Ébude [50] ,
dont la population a considérablement diminué, depuis qu’elle est
détruite par une orque sauvage et d’autres monstres marins que
Protée y a conduits pour se venger.
Les anciennes chroniques, vraies ou fausses, racontent que jadis
un roi puissant régna sur cette île. Il eut une fille dont la grâce et la
beauté, dès qu’elle se montra sur le rivage, enflammèrent Protée
jusqu’au milieu des ondes. Celui-ci, un jour qu’il la trouva seule, lui fit
violence et la laissa enceinte de lui.
Cet événement causa au père beaucoup de douleur et de souci,
car il était plus que tout autre impitoyable et sévère. Ni les excuses,
ni la pitié ne purent lui faire pardonner, tant son courroux était grand.
La grossesse de sa fille ne l’arrêta même pas dans
l’accomplissement de son cruel dessein, et, dès qu’il fut né, il fit,
avant elle, mourir son petit-fils, qui cependant n’avait point péché.
Le dieu marin Protée, pasteur des monstrueux troupeaux de
Neptune roi des ondes, ressentit un grand chagrin de la mort de sa
dame, et, dans sa grande colère, il rompit l’ordre et les lois de la
nature. Il s’empressa d’envoyer sur l’île les orques et les phoques, et
tout son troupeau marin, qui détruisirent non seulement les brebis et
les bœufs, mais les villes et les bourgs avec leurs habitants.
Ils vinrent également assiéger la capitale qui était fortifiée ; les
habitants furent obligés de se tenir nuit et jour sous les armes et
dans des alarmes perpétuelles. Tous avaient abandonné les
campagnes. Enfin, pour trouver remède à leurs maux, ils allèrent
consulter l’oracle. Celui-ci répondit :
Qu’il leur fallait trouver une jeune fille qui n’eût pas sa pareille en
beauté, et qu’ils devaient l’offrir sur le rivage à Protée, en échange
de celle qu’on avait fait mourir. Si elle lui semblait suffisamment
belle, il s’en contenterait et ne reviendrait plus les troubler ; mais, s’il
ne s’en contentait pas, il faudrait lui en présenter tour à tour une
nouvelle, jusqu’à ce qu’il fût satisfait.
C’est ainsi que commença une dure condition pour celles qui
étaient les plus jolies, car chaque jour une d’elles était offerte à
Protée, jusqu’à ce qu’il en eût trouvé une qui lui plût. La première et
toutes les autres reçurent la mort, dévorées par une orque qui resta
à demeure fixe sur le rivage, après que tout le reste du farouche
troupeau se fut retiré.
Que l’histoire de Protée fût vraie ou fausse, je ne sais qui pourrait
me l’affirmer ; toujours est-il que cette ancienne loi, si barbare envers
les femmes, se perpétua sur cette île dans toute sa rigueur. Chaque
jour, une orque monstrueuse vient sur le rivage et se nourrit de leur
chair. Si naître femme est, dans tout pays, un malheur, c’en était là
un bien plus grand.
Malheureuses les jeunes filles, que leur mauvaise fortune
poussait sur ce rivage funeste ! Les habitants se tenaient sur le bord
de la mer, prêts à faire des étrangères un impitoyable holocauste ;
car, plus on mettait d’étrangères à mort, moins le nombre de leurs
jeunes filles diminuait. Mais, comme le vent ne leur amenait pas
chaque jour une proie, ils allaient en chercher sur tous les rivages.
Ils parcouraient la mer sur des fustes, des brigantins et autres
légers navires, cherchant au loin et dans leur voisinage un
soulagement à leur martyre. Ils avaient pris de nombreuses femmes
par force, par rapine, quelques-unes par ruse, d’autres à prix d’or,
toutes provenant de régions diverses. Et ils en avaient rempli leurs
tours et leurs prisons.
Une de leurs fustes étant venue à passer devant le rivage
solitaire où, parmi les ronces et les herbes, dormait l’infortunée
Angélique, quelques-uns des rameurs descendirent à terre pour en
rapporter du bois et de l’eau, et ils trouvèrent cette fleur de grâce et
de beauté endormie dans les bras du saint ermite.
O trop chère et trop précieuse proie pour des gens si barbares et
si grossiers ! ô Fortune cruelle, qui pourra croire que ta puissance
sur les choses humaines aille jusqu’à te permettre de livrer en pâture
à un monstre la grande beauté qui, dans l’Inde, fit accourir le roi
Agrican des confins du Caucase jusqu’au milieu de la Scythie, où il
trouva la mort !
La grande beauté pour laquelle Sacripant exposa son honneur et
son beau royaume ; la grande beauté qui ternit l’éclatante renommée
et la haute intelligence du puissant seigneur d’Anglante ; la grande
beauté qui bouleversa tout le Levant et l’apaisa d’un signe, est
maintenant si délaissée, qu’elle n’a personne qui puisse l’aider
même d’une parole.
La belle dame, plongée dans un profond sommeil, fut enchaînée
avant qu’elle se fût réveillée. On la porta, ainsi que l’ermite
enchanteur, dans la fuste remplie d’une troupe affligée et chagrine.
La voile, déployée au haut du mât, ramena le navire à l’île funeste
où l’on enferma la dame dans une dure prison, jusqu’au jour où le
sort l’aurait désignée.
Mais elle était si belle, qu’elle émut de pitié ce peuple cruel.
Pendant plusieurs jours ils différèrent sa mort, la réservant pour un
plus pressant besoin ; et tant qu’ils purent trouver au dehors quelque
autre jeune fille, ils épargnèrent cette angélique beauté. Enfin elle fut
conduite au monstre, toute la population pleurant derrière elle.
Qui racontera ses angoisses, ses pleurs, ses cris et les
reproches qu’elle envoie jusqu’au ciel ? Je m’étonne que le rivage ne
se soit pas entr’ouvert quand elle fut placée sur la froide pierre, où,
couverte de chaînes, privée de tout secours, elle attendait une mort
affreuse, horrible. Je n’entreprendrai pas de le dire, car la douleur
m’émeut tellement, qu’elle me force à tourner mes rimes ailleurs,
Et à trouver des vers moins lugubres, jusqu’à ce que mon esprit
se soit reposé. Les pâles couleuvres, le tigre aveuglé par la rage qui
le consume, et tous les reptiles venimeux qui courent sur le sable
brûlant des rivages de l’Atlas, n’auraient pu voir, ni s’imaginer, sans
en avoir le cœur attendri, Angélique liée à l’écueil nu.
Oh ! si son Roland l’avait su, lui qui était allé à Paris pour la
retrouver ! S’ils l’avaient su, les deux chevaliers que trompa le rusé
vieillard, grâce au messager venu des rives infernales ! A travers
mille morts, pour lui porter secours, ils auraient cherché ses traces
angéliques. Mais que feraient-ils, même s’ils le savaient, étant si
loin !
Cependant Paris, assiégé par le fameux fils du roi Trojan, était
arrivé à une extrémité si grande, qu’un jour il faillit tomber aux mains
de l’ennemi. Et si le ciel, touché par les prières des assiégés, n’avait
pas inondé la plaine d’une pluie épaisse, le saint Empire et le grand
nom de France succombaient ce jour-là sous la lance africaine.
Le souverain Créateur abaissa ses regards à la juste plainte du
vieux Charles, et, par une pluie soudaine, il éteignit l’incendie
qu’aucune force humaine n’aurait pu, ni su conjurer sans doute.
Sage est celui qui se tourne toujours vers Dieu, car personne ne
peut mieux lui venir en aide. Le pieux roi vit bien qu’il devait son
salut à l’assistance divine.
La nuit, Roland confie à sa couche solitaire ses tumultueuses
pensées. Il les porte tantôt ici, tantôt là, ou bien il les rassemble sur
un seul point, sans pouvoir les fixer jamais. Ainsi la lumière
tremblante de l’eau claire frappée par le soleil ou les rayons de la
lune, court le long des toits avec un continuel scintillement, à droite,
à gauche, en bas, en haut.
Sa dame qui lui revient à l’esprit — elle n’en était à vrai dire
jamais sortie — lui rallume dans le cœur, et rend plus ardente la
flamme qui, pendant le jour, semble assoupie. Elle était venue avec
lui des confins du Cathay jusqu’en Occident, et là, il l’avait perdue, et
il n’avait plus retrouvé trace d’elle, depuis la défaite de Charles à
Bordeaux.
De cela, Roland avait grande douleur ; il se rappelait en vain à
lui-même sa propre faiblesse : « — O mon cœur — disait-il —
comme je me suis conduit lâchement à ton égard ! Hélas ! combien il
m’est cruel de penser que, pouvant t’avoir près de moi nuit et jour,
puisque ta bonté ne me refusait pas cette faveur, je t’ai laissé
remettre aux mains de Naymes, et que je n’ai pas su m’opposer à
une telle injure !
 « Combien de raisons n’aurais-je pas eues pour excuser ma
hardiesse ! Charles ne m’en aurait peut-être pas blâmé, ou, s’il
m’avait blâmé, qui aurait pu me contraindre ? Quel est celui qui
aurait voulu t’enlever à moi malgré moi ? Ne pouvais-je pas plutôt
recourir aux armes, me laisser plutôt arracher le cœur de la
poitrine ? Mais ni Charles, ni toute son armée n’auraient pas été
assez puissants pour t’enlever à moi de force.
« Si du moins, je l’avais placée sous bonne garde, à Paris ou
dans quelque château fort ! Qu’on l’ait donnée à Naymes, voilà ce
qui me désole, car c’est ainsi que je l’ai perdue. Qui mieux que moi
l’aurait gardée ? Personne ; car je devais me faire tuer pour elle, et la
défendre plus que mon cœur, plus que mes yeux. Je devais et je
pouvais le faire, et pourtant je ne l’ai pas fait.
« Où es-tu restée sans moi, ô ma douce vie, si jeune et si belle !
Telle, quand la lumière du jour a disparu, la brebis égarée reste dans
les bois, et, dans l’espoir d’être entendue du berger, s’en va bêlant
de côté et d’autre, jusqu’à ce que le loup l’ait entendue de loin ;
alors, le malheureux berger pleure en vain sa perte.
« O mon espoir, où es-tu, où es-tu maintenant ? Peut-être vas-tu
encore errante et seule. Peut-être les loups mauvais t’ont-ils trouvée,
alors que tu n’avais plus ton fidèle Roland pour te garder. Et cette
fleur qui pouvait me faire l’égal des dieux dans le ciel, la fleur que je
conservais intacte de peur de troubler ton âme chaste, hélas ! ils
l’auront cueillie de force et profanée !
« Infortuné, malheureux ! Quelle autre chose ai-je à désirer que
de mourir, s’ils ont cueilli ma belle fleur ! Souverain Dieu, fais-moi
souffrir tous les maux avant celui-là. Mais, si ce dernier malheur
arrive, de mes propres mains je m’ôte la vie et je damne mon âme
désespérée. — » Ainsi se parlait, en répandant de grosses larmes
et poussant de grands soupirs, le douloureux Roland.
Déjà, de toutes parts, les êtres animés reposaient leurs esprits
fatigués, les uns sur la plume, les autres sur les durs rochers, ceux-
ci dans les herbes, ceux-là sur les hêtres ou les myrtes. Toi, Roland,
à peine as-tu clos tes paupières, que tu es oppressé de pensers
aigres et irritants. Tu ne peux pas même trouver le repos dans un
court et fugitif sommeil.
Roland se voit transporté sur une verte rive, toute diaprée de
fleurs odoriférantes. Il croit admirer le bel ivoire, la pourpre naturelle
répandue par la main même de l’Amour, et les deux claires étoiles
dans les lacs desquelles Amour retenait son âme captive. Je veux
parler des beaux yeux et du beau visage qui lui ont ôté le cœur de la
poitrine.
Il éprouve le plus grand plaisir, la plus grande joie que puisse
jamais éprouver un amant heureux ; mais voici venir une tempête qui
détruit soudain et abat fleurs et plantes. On n’en voit pas de
semblable, même quand l’Aquilon, le vent du nord ou du levant
luttent ensemble. Il semble à Roland qu’il erre en vain par un désert
pour trouver quelque refuge.
Pendant ce temps, le malheureux — il ne sait comment — perd
sa dame à travers l’air obscurci. Deçà, delà, il fait retentir la
campagne et les bois de ce doux nom, disant en vain : « —
Malheureux que je suis ! qui donc a changé en poison la douceur
que je goûtais ? — » Et il entend sa dame qui pleure, lui demande
secours et se recommande à lui.
A l’endroit d’où paraît venir le cri, il va rapide, et s’épuise de
fatigue à courir dans tous les sens. Oh ! combien sa douleur est
amère et cruelle, quand il voit qu’il ne peut retrouver ses doux
rayons. Tout à coup, voici que d’un autre endroit, il entend une autre
voix lui crier : « — N’espère plus en jouir sur la terre ! — » A cet
horrible cri, il se réveille et se trouve tout baigné de pleurs.
Sans réfléchir que les images vues en songe sont fausses, et
que c’est la crainte ou le désir qui produisent les rêves, il est dans
une telle inquiétude au sujet de la donzelle, qu’il se persuade que sa
vie ou son honneur sont en danger. Plein de fureur, il s’élance hors
de son lit, endosse plastron et cotte de mailles, et selle Bride-d’Or. Il
ne veut accepter le service d’aucun écuyer.
Et, pour lui permettre de pénétrer partout sans que sa dignité en
soit compromise, il ne veut point prendre le célèbre bouclier aux
armes écartelées d’argent et de gueules. Il en choisit un orné de
noir, sans doute parce qu’il semble en rapport avec sa douleur. Il
l’avait autrefois enlevé à un Amostan [51] qu’il occit de sa main,
quelques années auparavant.
Au milieu de la nuit, il part en silence, sans aller saluer ni prévenir
son oncle. Il ne dit pas même adieu à son fidèle compagnon
Brandimart qu’il aimait tant. Mais, dès que le soleil, avec ses
cheveux d’or épars, fut sorti de la riche demeure de Tithon, et eut fait
s’enfuir la nuit humide et noire, le roi s’aperçut que le paladin n’était
plus au camp.
A son grand déplaisir, Charles s’aperçut que son neveu était parti
pendant la nuit, alors qu’il avait le plus besoin de lui et de son aide. Il
ne put retenir sa colère. Il se répandit en plaintes, en reproches et en
menaces à son égard, disant que, s’il ne revenait pas, il le ferait
repentir d’une conduite si coupable.
Brandimart, qui aimait Roland comme soi-même, ne voulut pas
rester après son départ, soit qu’il espérât le faire revenir, soit qu’il lui
eût déplu de l’entendre blâmer et menacer. A peine le jour se fut-il
obscurci, que dédaignant de rester davantage, il sortit du camp sans
rien dire à Fleur-de-Lys, de peur qu’elle ne s’opposât à son dessein.
Celle-ci était une dame qu’il chérissait beaucoup, et dont on
aurait difficilement trouvé la pareille ; charmante de manières, de
grâce et de visage, elle était douée de prudence et de sagesse. S’il
était parti sans son assentiment, c’est parce qu’il espérait revenir
près d’elle le jour même. Mais il lui arriva des aventures qui le
retardèrent dans ses projets.
Lorsque Fleur-de-Lys eut attendu en vain pendant un mois, et
qu’elle ne l’eut pas vu revenir, elle fut tellement saisie du désir de le
revoir, qu’elle partit sans escorte et sans guide. Elle le chercha dans
beaucoup de pays, comme cette histoire le dira en son lieu. Sur tous
les deux, je ne vous en dis pas maintenant davantage, car il
m’importe beaucoup plus de m’occuper du chevalier d’Anglante.
Celui-ci, après qu’il eut changé les glorieux insignes d’Almont
contre d’autres armes, alla vers la porte, et dit à l’oreille du capitaine
qui commandait le poste de garde : « — Je suis le comte. — » Et
s’étant fait abaisser le pont, par la route qui menait au camp des
ennemis, il prit droit son chemin. Ce qui suivit est raconté dans
l’autre chant.
 CHANT IX.

Argument. — Roland ayant appris la coutume cruelle introduite

dans l’île d’Ébude, soupçonne qu’Angélique y est en danger, et il se
propose d’y aller ; mais auparavant, il secourt Olympie, comtesse de
Hollande et femme du duc Birène, poursuivie par le roi Cimosque. Il
défait complètement ce roi, et remet Olympie en possession de ses
États et de son mari.

Que ne peut-il pas faire d’un cœur qui lui est assujetti, ce cruel et
traître Amour, puisqu’il a pu enlever du cœur de Roland la grande
fidélité qu’il devait à son prince ? Jusqu’ici, Roland s’est montré sage
et tout à fait digne de respect, et défenseur de la Sainte Église.
Maintenant, pour un vain amour, il a peu souci de son oncle et de lui-
même, et encore moins de Dieu.
Mais moi je ne l’excuse que trop, et je me félicite d’avoir un tel
compagnon de ma faiblesse ; car moi aussi, je suis languissant et
débile pour le bien, et sain et vaillant pour le mal. Roland s’en va
entièrement recouvert d’une armure noire, sans regret d’abandonner
tant d’amis, et il arrive à l’endroit où les gens d’Afrique et d’Espagne,
avaient leurs tentes dressées dans la campagne.
Quand je dis leurs tentes, je me trompe, car sous les arbres et
sous des restants de toits, la pluie les a dispersés par groupes de
dix, de vingt, de quatre, de six, ou de huit, les uns au loin, les autres
plus près. Tous dorment, fatigués et rompus ; ceux-ci étendus à