Full Summary

A serious field accident ended Edward Cullen's career as a war correspondent six years ago, and left him with more scars than are visible to the naked eye.
After a personal and professional betrayal uprooted her life in Europe, Isabella Swan has navigated a sexist and elitist industry by smashing stereotypes and glass ceilings everywhere, one concert and one social media post at a time.
They have nothing in common, until their worlds collide one fateful day for an interview that can't be rescheduled.
What kind of havoc will Isabella's appearance wreak on Edward's monotonous, solitary life?

OlderWard. PianistElla. Set in Boston.


Thank you for joining me on this new journey.

Big thanks to Team Momo who work tirelessly to help me make this readable.
Alice's White Rabbit and Midnight Cougar are in the editing chairs. AGoodWitch, IAmBeagle, Driving Edward and RobsmyyummyCabanaBoy pre-read.
I continue to own nothing of this, it's all SM's sandbox and I just like to play in it - with EditorWard.

Thank you for all the alerts and reviews! I treasure each and every one of them.

This is the last short-ish chapter. We get to meet someone in their own words next week.


BEHIND THE IVORIES – CHAPTER 3

PEOPLE – EXCLUSIVE – JUNE 6, 2017

Award-winning concert pianist James Fray marries Italian actress Victoria Delgado on Lake Como, Italy

French-born, Milan-based, acclaimed performer James Fray and his long-time fiancée, Italian actress Victoria Delgado, tied the knot last Saturday in a lavish ceremony at the exclusive Villa d'Este resort and hotel on the pristine shores of Lake Como.

On their very own version of D-Day, the famous couple welcomed about 300 family members and close friends. The bride, who shone in a custom-made Alberta Ferretti number, walked down the aisle accompanied by her father Aristide "Aro" Delgado, a prominent orchestra conductor, and the current artistic director of the Teatro Alla Scala philharmonic orchestra in Milan.

Their guests arrived at the lakeside venue on horse-drawn coaches in a parade that was met by a small crowd of enthusiastic well-wishers.

Sources close to the couple tell us they will celebrate their nuptials by escaping to a secluded villa on a Greek island for the next few weeks, before Fray's next round of summer concerts at classical music festivals and events throughout Europe kicks off in early August.

Fray, thirty-one, a prodigy piano performer since youth, earned a bachelor's and master's degree from the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris while collecting accolades and awards as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician. He landed a record deal with Erato/Warner Classics, and his first recording for them was his acclaimed performance of Bach's Piano Concertos in 2015.

Since then, he has performed all over North America with the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. In his native France, the Théâtre des Champs Elysées presented a Bach cycle with James Fray performing Bach's keyboard concertos, Sonatas with Renaud Capuçon, and Goldberg Variations during its latest season.

Delgado, twenty-nine, has made a name for herself on the stage and behind the cameras in the last decade, appearing in a slew of top-notch theatre productions throughout Italy and Europe. Her labors culminated in the well-earned accolades of the Anna Magnani and Eleonora Duse prizes, which she won respectively in 2013 and 2014. Rumor has it that she may shortly be involved with a leading role in Paolo Sorrentino's newest endeavor after his Oscar nod of 2013 with La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty).

Fray and Delgado met years ago when Fray first moved to Milan from Paris for a series of concerts at the Teatro Alla Scala, directed by his now father-in-law, Aro Delgado. Earlier reporting indicated it was a whirlwind romance that did encounter a few bumps along the way. At the time, James Fray was romantically linked to composer Isabella Swan, who had just gained major nationwide recognition when a few of her compositions were picked up to accompany Ferrari's ad campaign for their latest automotive dreamboat, the California Revamped.

Since then, Isabella Swan has moved to New York City. People—not for lack of trying—could not find any reliable indications on her current relationship status. Her press representatives had no reply to our request for a comment on this story at the time of posting.

Georgina Goldsmith – Society Columnist


From: ChocBFlat

To: Ask_Alice_Already

Date: June 6, 2017

Subject: Even a clean slate still stings

Dear Alice,

I've written to you before, and you were kind enough to respond. I want to thank you for giving me that final push. I did make my great escape and snatched a fresh start an ocean away.

It's not all been smooth sailing, but life never is, right?

Life is, though. And it's one thing I've been learning to appreciate. It has mysterious ways of steering us in the right direction, even if we don't see it at the time.

It was reductive to frame my great escape as quitting when it was the healthiest thing I could have done for me, and my life, back then. So, for that, I'll thank you again.

For the most part, I put the betrayal and humiliation behind me. I've also put behind me the heap of professional ostracism and snobbish dismissal I've encountered in my new endeavors. I just try to shake it off.

I've been fortunate in reconnecting with old friends—one of whom has elected to be my gatekeeper of sorts—and in meeting new ones—one of whom has been my biggest champion so far.

But every now and then, there's a blip on the radar. Static noise on the airwaves. And as much as I'd like to dismiss that, it still reaches me. It gets close enough to sting. Being the bigger person and counting my blessings only goes so far when the source of that betrayal and humiliation is splattered all over the tabloids.

You may think I'm being a whiny brat. And it may be the case. I find myself to be whiny on occasion. I'm aware of my limits.

But it stings. To be reminded that I was somehow not good enough. That I didn't fit the mold. That I didn't deserve to be told to my face. I had to find out for myself. That they found happiness, and despite my blessings, I haven't.

I feel the weight of that loneliness tonight. And I don't know how to come back from that brink. I don't know how to trust again. The last time I made myself trust, it didn't end well.

But don't mind me and my musings.

I needed to vent, and you're offering me a safe venue to do so. So thank you. Again.

From the bottom of my chocolate-addicted heart.

Choc B Flat


Alice Brandon-Hale stared at her computer screen; she was unable to shake the feeling she'd seen that pen name before.

Most of the messages she received for Ask Alice Already, her advice column on The Back Bay Tatler, came under the guise of pen names. As a rule, people didn't want their real names traveling through the ether when they were unloading about their nearest and dearest.

But that particular pen name rang a bell.

"Choc B Flat, Choc B Flat … now, where did I hear that one? When did I hear that one?" Alice mused aloud while she leafed through the neat stacks of papers on her desk. "No, it's not here. It has to be older."

Being an advice columnist—or "agony aunt," as her coworkers still cheekily referred to her—required a great deal of empathy, a capacity to relate to people she didn't know, and the ability to dispense advice with a distinct "no nonsense" attitude. But these were the soft skills of the job, and Alice Brandon-Hale had those in spades. Her column was the most viewed page of the magazine's online edition. She received crates and crates of snail mail every week, on top of the torrents of emails that flooded her inbox.

The more technical, practical skills she needed to be effective in her job weren't visible to the public. It all came down to her first-rate filing skills. She had devised a filing system and a database to keep track of all the mail she chose to publish and answer on the advice column, both online and in print. The online column allowed her to answer about a dozen letters a week, and the print edition showcased five to seven letters in the monthly issue of the magazine that hit newsstands in the first week of the month.

She did this to keep track of the issues she addressed and where/whom the letters came from, just so she was able to ensure the column would discuss a variety of problems from a diversified cross-section of the population. Of course, her datasets were not scientifically perfect; people were purposefully vague in providing information that could identify them. But she had developed a pretty good eye for detail, and whatever she inferred from her readers' letters, she marked as speculative in her files.

One thing she did track religiously were pen names and the email addresses where the letters came from. That was an easy thing to record. And pretty objective to boot.

She located her file and double-clicked, waiting for the bedsheet-sized file to load all its pesky details in neat columns and rows. She entered "Choc B Flat" in the search field, waited patiently for the search to run, then erupted with a screech of, "Eureka!" when the results highlighted a lone record from a few years earlier. She'd replied to Choc B Flat's first email in May 2014. Almost three years to the day. A little longer, in fact.

A gnawing sense that she was missing something gripped her. "I need to find that first letter," she whispered aloud. Her words echoed off the frosted glass walls of her office as she drummed her nails on her desk, pondering what to do next.

She could treat this email as any other—just publish this second letter and provide a reply. It sounded like Choc B Flat was badly in need of a good listener and a comforting pat on her shoulder. But would this best serve her reader's needs?

As she searched her archive for the first letter she'd ever received from Choc B Flat and quickly located it, again thanks to her scientific filing system, a more complete picture emerged from the details the reader dropped here and there.

Mentions of a niche industry where everyone knew everyone could apply to just anything. Snobs were a dime a dozen in any sort of elitist milieu—and the demands of Choc B Flat's two-timing bastard of an ex-fiancé reeked of elitism a mile away, of that Alice was sure. But one detail screamed at her—tabloids. This person must have had—or still had—some claim to fame, for the ex-fiancé to end up on the pages of gossip rags.

Publishing her second letter had the potential of shining too big a limelight on her. Even if Alice had no clue where she lived—Boston or Timbuktu, that wasn't relevant. Protecting Choc B Flat's thoughts and concerns was more important than publishing a letter that could attract more clicks than advisable.

And with that thought paramount on her mind, and a pang of regret in her heart, Alice closed Choc B Flat's second email. She longed to help her but couldn't. Not from the pages of her advice column. Too many eyes for such a private display of hurt and sadness.

Those were the instances of her job that she didn't like—when she was powerlessly detached from the people she longed to help. Choc B Flat needed a hug and a mug of steaming hot chocolate, and Alice couldn't give her that. Not with a bunch of bytes on a webpage.

She sighed and thought of another person in her life in a similar predicament.

And then she shut down her computer, clicked off her desk lamp, grabbed her tote bag, and left the office for the day.

"One problem a day, Alice," she muttered to herself. "One problem a day."