Set The Stage
Daniel De Lorne
romance.com.au/
Set The Stage
Daniel De Lorne
He’s the Banksy of the international theatre scene – daring, anonymous, renowned. So when playwright ‘Draven’ bequeaths his latest play to the rural Rivervue Theatre, the stage is set for drama.
While the redevelopment brief for Rivervue Community Theatre moulders on his desk, a phone call from an unrequited past love sends architect Gabriel Mora running back to his artsy hometown. Afraid of worsening his mother’s health, Gabriel is forced to hide his involvement in the redevelopment. It’s just one more secret to keep, along with his feelings for a certain red-headed stage manager.
Bruce Clifton can build anything. But the jobs mean nothing if he’s not getting paid. On the cusp of losing his home, Bruce needs to find a way to call in those debts without showing his community how much trouble he’s got himself into. With Gabriel’s return to town stirring up past hurts, soon it’s not just his home Bruce has to worry about losing, but his heart.
Can Bruce and Gabriel work together for the good of Rivervue, or will their hope for a second chance exit stage right?
About the author
DANIEL DE LORNE goes for the heart. Whether it’s irresistible vampires, paranormal paramours, or hot everyday men, he promises stories with a magic trifecta of ruin, romance and redemption. In love with writing since he wrote a story about a talking tree at age six, his first novel, the romantic horror Beckoning Blood, was published in 2014. This was followed with the rest of the Bonds of Blood trilogy and the romantic suspense Echo Springs series. In his other life, Daniel is a professional writer and researcher in Perth, Australia, with a love of history and nature. All of which makes for great story fodder. And when he’s not working, he and his husband explore as much of this amazing world as they can, from the ruins of Welsh abbeys to trekking famous routes and swimming with whales.
To get to the real heart of the matter, take a look around his website at danieldelorne.com and sign up to his newsletter for a free story.
Acknowledgements
The idea for Rivervue came from an off-handed chat with Nikki Logan over breakfast at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in 2018. Why weren’t there more romance books set in theatre? And why weren’t we writing those books? We love theatre! And so with little more than a few couple pairings, we approached Escape Publishing and pitched them the idea. This is that result. Nikki and Fiona, this has been a lot of fun and not without its own drama. Rewrites? Yep. But we got there and it was so great to work closely with you both and make this the best it can be. Next stop is to actually build Brachen. Thanks to the team at Escape and Harlequin Australia for thinking this was a good idea. And finally thanks to my husband Glen for his support and not being too annoyed when I point out narrative structure and therefore ruin movies, TV and books for him. Love you!
To my dad, John
Who slept through a lot of plays,
but always managed to stay awake during mine.
Contents
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing …
Chapter One
Rivervue Revitalisation.
Gabriel Mora had stared at those two words more over the past three weeks than at any others in his life. And every time he looked at them, he hadn’t been able to go beyond them. The initial discussion with his boss had involved talking about some of the designs and concepts the architecture firm was keen to include but when he sat alone at his desk, he failed to make it past the first page of the scope.
He hadn’t needed to.
He knew Rivervue so well he could have drawn it from memory. The scale might have been off—things had a way of seeming bigger to a kid—but the layout, the corridors, the backstage, the foyer and the landscape would have been easy to replicate by hand.
And now he had to disembowel the place and use its bones to turn it from a theatre for the Brachen community into apartments for the wealthy.
Rivervue Revitalisation.
More like Rivervue Wrecking.
‘Excellent, Gabriel.’
He jumped as his boss, Andrew Wyman, spoke behind him.
‘It’ll be good to have something from you on Rivervue soon. I’m excited to see what you come up with.’
Gabriel swivelled in his chair, hoping to block his screen and the obvious lack of work. Andrew was in his mid-forties and already had a shock of white hair. Behind thick-rimmed glasses his eyes were wide with encouragement; he looked like some trendy owl. ‘Of course, sorry I haven’t shown you anything yet. The other projects took longer than I expected.’
But not as long as he would have liked. A mixed-use residential complex in western Sydney and a boutique hotel in Surry Hills didn’t hold nearly as much emotional impact as Rivervue. Part of him wished Andrew would take the project from him and give it to someone else. Someone who wasn’t going to be a traitor to their hometown and mother.
‘And that work was wonderful. The clients were ecstatic but I’m keen to see how you bring your personal connection with Brachen to the revitalisation.’ He’d made a big deal of the insider-knowledge angle when he’d given Gabriel the assignment, thinking it would smooth the waters in the town.
Or act like a Trojan horse.
‘I’ll do my best, Andrew.’
‘You always do. But if you could get something to me by the end of the week …’ He raised his eyebrows.
That was about as impatient as Andrew ever got yet it was enough to twist Gabriel’s stomach. He nodded rather than bleat more excuses.
Andrew
