I nod, nervous again. He immediately hits play on a video and I’m suddenly doing just as he instructed, and what I’m watching is a young Kace August, so very young—a teenager, I believe—play his violin. The song is “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” by Johann Sebastian Bach, one of my favorites, a fast, complicated piece he masters in a way few can. This was one of his earlier versions that I remember well. The melody hums through me, his skills on full display. I hit pause. “My God, Kace. Even then you were brilliant. How old were you?”
“Seventeen. And anything I did right that day wasn’t about me. This video isn’t about me. Keep watching, baby.” He hits play.
All the more curious now, my gaze shifts back to the video, and once again, I am lost in his performance, when suddenly the footage shifts and expands. I’m now staring at my father, standing in front of Kace, directing him with fierce sways of his hands. I gasp and cover my mouth, tears springing to my eyes. There’s another shift of the camera and a little girl runs forward and wraps her arms around my father, successfully ending his dramatic direction. That little girl is me. Kace stops playing, laughing a youthful but robust laugh, and I run to him then and wrap my arms around him as well. That day explodes into my mind, crystal clear.
Kace told the truth. We had met before. I can’t believe I don’t remember, but he wasn’t the star he is now and that was a traumatic year for me. All I remember is coming here, crying every night.
I punch the pause button and turn to him, my emotions ping-ponging all over the place. I’m shocked and relieved that he really did meet me in the past, but I’m angry that he didn’t tell me, that I had to find out on my own. And there are other emotions, too, unnamed things that ball in my belly and chest, some of which may or may not even be about him.
Adrenaline surges through me and I stand up. He stands up. I step between him and the table and in front of him.
With my healthy hand and my body, I shove him back down and onto the couch. I follow, straddling him and almost fall on my hand, but he shackles my waist, catching me before I injure myself. His touch is electric, possessive, consuming. The heat between us is fiery, instant. Powerful. His blue eyes potent. “Crazy woman,” he accuses softly. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“I’m more worried about you hurting me.”
“No. Never. I would never—”
“You already hurt me. I trusted you.”
“My judgment was poor but for good reason. I will never hurt you. I’ll protect you. You’re not alone anymore.”
Not alone.
I repeat those words in my mind, but I can’t accept that they are real. Not yet. “We met before, I get that, I believe that, but you didn’t tell me.”
“I told you. I knew you were hiding. I knew you’d be spooked. Baby, I didn’t want you to run.”
“Were you going to tell me?”
“Yes. Of course. When I was sure you trusted me.”
“That feels like manipulation,” I say, repeating what has already been in my mind.
“I can see how you might think that, but that was not my intent.”
“I was eleven,” I counter, not missing a beat. “There is no way you saw me at that restaurant with Mark and Chris and knew who I was.”
“You were familiar.” His hand slides under my hair and he pulls my mouth just above his as he whispers, “Cambiano i suonatori, ma la musica è sempre quella.”
The same thing he’d said that night, “the melody changes, but the song remains the same,” but directly translated, it’s: “the players change, but the music is always the same.”
I return to that moment with him and I reply the exact way I’d replied that night, “No,” I answer in English. “The musician, the player, makes all the difference, which is why he should have an instrument worthy of him.”
“And what inspired that reply?”
“It’s what Antonio Stradivari believed,” I say, repeating what I’d thought that day when I spoke the words. “It’s why he made the Stradivarius.”
“And that, Aria,” Kace says, “is how I knew I was right about who you were. You not only understood Italian, you answered the way I’d expect your father to answer. You answered like a member of the Stradivari family. But it was also more, so damn much more. We just didn’t know yet.”
I pull back slightly to search his face. “What does that mean?”
“Six thousand miles and seventeen years later, Aria, and somehow we came back together. We are right where we’re supposed to be. Right here. Right now. Together. And there is no place I would rather be than here, with you.” His hand moves to my face, his thumb stroking my cheek, the gentle touch sending shivers down my spine. “I’m asking you to believe that,” he says. “I’m asking you to trust me. I swear to you that I will never hurt you or your family.”