“I am so sorry, Ms. Thorne. I was pushed. I…”
— “I don’t care about your excuses!”
Isabella grabbed a cloth napkin and rubbed frantically at the stain, which only made it worse. She turned her fury on Eleanor, her eyes burning with malice.
— “Manager! Where is the manager? I want this girl fired. No, I want her blacklisted from every establishment in the city!”
Mark, the floor manager, appeared instantly, sweating profusely.
— “Ms. Thorne, Mr. Sterling, my deepest apologies. Eleanor, go to the kitchen immediately. You’re finished here.”
— “Wait.”
One word cut through the chaos like a knife. Julian Sterling remained seated, swirling the wine in his glass. He looked up, his expression unreadable.
— “Julian, stay out of this,” Isabella snapped. “She ruined my dress.”
— “It was an accident, Isabella,” Julian said, his voice deep and level. “And frankly, the wine matches the silk. It’s an improvement.”
Someone at a nearby table stifled a laugh. Isabella’s face flushed a deep red that had nothing to do with the wine.
— “You’re defending the help?”
Julian looked at Eleanor for the first time. He saw the frayed collar, the tired eyes, the strands of brown hair escaping her bun. But he saw something else, too. She wasn’t crying. She stood straight, her jaw set. She was terrified, yes, but she wasn’t broken. It intrigued him.
— “I’m just saying,” Julian drawled, leaning back in his chair, “that firing her seems boring. We’re celebrating our engagement, aren’t we? Let’s have some fun.”
— “Fun?” Eleanor whispered, barely audible.
Julian stood up. He towered over her. He walked over to the small stage where a string quartet had just finished a light serenade. A musical score was open on the stand. It was an incredibly difficult aria from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” Specifically, the Queen of the Night aria, which the hired soprano had struggled with earlier that evening.
Julian picked up the sheet music. He looked at Isabella with a hard glint in his eyes. He was tired of Isabella’s pretension. Tired of her calling herself a patron of the arts when she couldn’t tell Mozart from a pop song. He wanted to highlight the absurdity of her elitism.
— “Listen up,” Julian said, his voice carrying across the restaurant. “Isabella says you have no talent, no dignity, just clumsiness that ruins expensive things. But I believe talent can hide in the most unexpected places.”
He walked back to Eleanor and shoved the score into her hands.
— “Sing this,” Julian said, his tone laced with dark sarcasm. “It’s the Queen of the Night. It requires a high F. If you can sing this—and I mean really sing it, not screech like a dying cat—I won’t let Mark fire you.”
He paused, a wicked smile touching his lips as he looked at the shocked crowd. He decided to raise the stakes to an impossible level, just to mock the sanctity of his own engagement.
— “In fact,” Julian announced loudly, “if you can perform this Mozart masterpiece perfectly, I’ll break off my engagement with Isabella and marry you instead.”
The room gasped; Isabella’s jaw dropped.
— “Julian, that isn’t funny.”
— “I’m perfectly serious,” Julian lied, looking Eleanor straight in the eye. “Come on, waitress. Sing for your supper. Sing for a billion dollars.”
It was a cruel joke: a billionaire mocking a servant by giving her an impossible task. Everyone expected Eleanor to crumble, drop the papers, and run to the kitchen in tears. Eleanor looked at the notes. The symbols blurred before her eyes. *The Queen of the Night. Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart.*
She knew these notes. She knew them better than her own name. Eleanor looked up. She wasn’t looking at Isabella; she was looking directly at Julian Sterling.
— “Does the orchestra know the key?” she asked softly.
Julian’s smirk faltered for a fraction of a second.
— “What key?”
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