Just prayed she’d find her peace in the middle of it. Understand the reason.
That some part of her would know that I would love her forever.
I took the five concrete steps up to the glass double doors that led into the building and swung open one side to the blaring heavy metal music that screamed from the overhead speakers. It pumped into the waiting room that was nothing but a bunch of dingy couches and overflowing ash trays and the stench of stale beer.
Energy flashed.
A shockwave.
Fingers twitching and spirit rising to take note.
This sense like I was coming home.
The girl behind the reception desk with teal-blue hair and a septum ring and two diamonds in her cheeks pulled her attention up from her phone, her expression morphing from idle disinterest to shock in a second flat.
She shot forward.
I shoved my hands into my jeans’ pockets. “Don’t have an appointment.”
A snort blew from her nose. “You think you need one?”
I cocked my head. “Do you?”
“Pretty sure you can go on back.”
It was almost a grin that pulled at the corner of my mouth. I roughed a hand through my hair, walking toward the next set of double doors, shooting her a parting glance and wondering why the fuck I felt nervous. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
I pulled open a door to the half-hearted practice going down inside.
Members of A Riot of Roses were spread out, tipping back warm beers and fumbling through a set that I doubted made a whole lot of sense any longer.
Van saw me first, head pulling up from the electric guitar he held on his lap where he sat on a couch. He froze, blue eyes going wide in surprise.
Slowly, he stood and set his guitar aside.
Arsen and Hunter noticed right after, sensing the shift in the air. This feeling that was rushing wide and fast.
My oldest friends.
Arsen’s attention jerked up from where he was tuning his bass. “Royce.”
Hunter stood from behind the practice kit set up at the far end of the room, carefully, like he had no clue what to make of me being there.
A built-in studio was in the room behind them, production room on the right and the booths to the left.
This place had once been an abandoned warehouse that we’d sneaked into to practice at all hours of the night, punks out living life for ourselves, large and without apology, feeling like thieves causing trouble as we’d chased down a dream.
Had seemed fitting to buy it when the time came right.
Another thing that had been swiped out from under my feet.
Another missing piece.
I stopped inside the door, all eyes on me.
Speculation and fear and hope.
“Royce,” Van chanced, tipping his chin toward me in question.
“Hey, man, long time.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. He eyed me up and down. “You here to play?”
“Heard you might need somebody.”
He scratched at his chin before he cracked a grin. “About fuckin’ time.”
Thirty-Three
Royce
It was late by the time I pulled up to my house in the Hills. Place lit up where it was perched on a small cliff, a thousand times smaller than that monstrosity a mile up the hill where my stepfather had reigned.
Still, it was perfectly fitting for my role as Mylton Records’ head of A & R.
Contemporary luxury with a multimillion-dollar view.
Headlights cutting through the night, I eased into the garage.
I’d stayed at the studio all day and evening, hours passing as we’d just . . . jammed. Going through old songs that had filled me with a gutting sort of nostalgia and new ones that I’d not been partner to, refusing the bitterness and instead embracing the chance.
Choosing life.
Maggie had texted me that she was staying at a friend’s tonight. She’d spent the weekend away and had just gotten home yesterday, but she was already out and about again.
Made me fucking glow that she was feeling so confident.
Stepping out of her comfort zone.
Taking the reins of her life and letting it lead her into the future rather than remaining chained to the past.
Of course, made me itch to think about her out on her own, too. Antsy with the onslaught of protectiveness that lined my veins when I thought of her vulnerable.
Worrying like she was a little kid and not the woman she was becoming.
But she didn’t need someone trying to shelter her, to keep her under their wing.
Not when she was ready to soar.
Coming to a stop in the garage, I blew out a strained sigh when I cut the engine. The night crept over me, silence echoing back, wrapping me in its loneliness.
I scrubbed a palm over my face, trying to break it up, hoping it would keep down the barbs of pain that spiked. It was only a reminder that I’d taken what I shouldn’t have. That I’d gotten greedy and stolen something for myself when that wasn’t what this had been about.
Before I lost myself to the desolation, I opened the door and stepped out of my car. The city teemed around me, the trill of bugs in the palm trees that swished in the gusts of wind that blew through the hills and rushed across the valley, the drone of cars a dull hum in the distance.
I pressed the button to close the garage and took the two steps up to the interior door.
Pushing it open, I stepped into the vacancy.
It echoed back across the shining travertine floors.
Though tonight, it was different.
A disorder in the quieted hush.
Angling my head, I peered into the house.
Everything was still, nothing but the bare glow from the lights in the kitchen spilling into the posh living space.
Still, I felt it.
Energy.
Life that stirred the void inside of me.
God.
I was losing it.
I attempted to shove the feeling down. Couldn’t get lost in my mind. In the remnants of my bleeding heart.
I pushed into the house, footsteps reverberating across the floor. I started to turn right so I could take the stairs up to my bedroom when I froze.
Awareness pricked my senses.
A skitter of need rustling through the air.
My attention snagged on something on the floor in the foyer.
Edging back, I slowly moved that way, pulse thrumming like a live wire.
Slowly, I knelt and picked up the piece of ripped journal paper, eyes tracing her words.
Come to me
I’ve been waiting for a break
Looking for something to save me from myself
Emily.
My breaths turned ragged.
Shallow.
Emily.
Fingers twitching with greed, I edged deeper toward the main area of my house, drawn down the hall that led to the great room and kitchen. Emotion crashed when I found another scrap of paper left in the middle of the floor, and I swore, I could feel the ground shake when I knelt down and picked it up, this one inscribed with my handwriting.
Have you been looking for someone
To fill up what you’re missing
Who is it who’s gonna stop you
From the circle that keeps going ’round
Tremors rumbled, and my eyes were racing, latching onto the next slip that had been left ten feet ahead.
My soul hinged on eternity.
My life a spiral
You sent me spinning
I’ve lost control
Now I’m questioning everything I think I know
I kept moving forward.
Compelled.
Hooked
Chained.
I already hit rock bottom
Waiting to catch you now
It’s you, little mind-wrecker
Trippin’ me up long before you could know
<
br /> I guessed I really was tripping when I edged forward and picked up the next slip that waited close to the open sliding door that led out to the patio.
I’m in a free fall
Don’t let me drown
Years spent wasted
Waiting on you to catch up to me
Catching up to you
Tension rippled, energy stretched taut.
Pulling between us. Heart in my throat, I stepped outside onto the patio that overlooked the city.
A negative-edge pool lined the back, the bright teal-blue of the water looking as if it poured off the side, a canvas of city lights that seemed to stretch on forever.
That million-dollar view that made this place worth more than a small fortune.
But it was her . . . Emily, that was the sight.
The view.
The only thing that mattered.
Staggering, gut-wrenching beauty.
Mind-wrecker.
She sat on a stool facing out over the city, wearing a white backless dress that showed off all that silky flesh, blonde curls mounded on her head, a few tendrils dripping down to caress her skin.
My guts fisted in a shock of lust while my spirit screamed for its match.
My chest filling to overflowing.
Love rushing out.
Soulshine.
She had a guitar balanced on her lap, and she was singing softly.
Singing slow.
The last words I’d written and left on my nightstand five nights ago. Written when I couldn’t sleep.
My soul crushed with how fucking bad I was missing her.
I never knew what it meant
I thought my heart was breaking
Turns out it was only making room for you
So catch me
Catch me when I fall
I’m right here
Waiting for you to catch me when I fall
Her lithe body rocked as she strummed the mesmerizing melody.
She clutched my soul and made me stumble forward a step as she continued to sing our song that had finally been synched.
Years spent wasted
Waiting on you to catch up to me
Catching up to you
Years spent wasted
You were waiting for me
I never knew what it meant
I thought my heart was breaking
Turns out it was only making room for you
So catch me
Catch me when I fall
She looked back at me as she sang the last, the chorus slowing, her eyes filled with a trust I thought I’d never deserve.
So catch me
Catch me when I fall
Jade eyes shimmered in the moonlight. “Will you, Royce? Will you be there for me? To catch me when I’m fallin’? Will you be my life’s song?”
It slammed me like a landslide.
The intense love I had for this girl.
Her presence all around me.
Cherries and the sky and the breaking day.
The sun climbing over the darkened horizon.
Blinding and bold.
I moved for her.
Purposed.
Each step desperate in its possession.
Desperate in its surrender.
Because that’s what this was.
Possession.
Surrender.
Chills flashed across the skin of her bare back. Goosebumps raced in time with the shiver that rolled through her gorgeous body.
Anticipating my touch.
I edged forward until I was standing right behind her, my chest heaving with the pants that jumped from my lungs. My heart careened as I leaned forward and dragged my nose up along the column of her neck.
Inhaling as I went.
Sweet, sweet, sweet.
Every cell in my body clutched. My words were rough at the shell of her ear. “I want to see you fly.”
“I think I’ve been flyin’ since the moment you walked into my life,” she whispered into the night, into the shadows that lapped from the pool and tumbled across the stone deck.
My hand spread out over the front of her neck, drawing her back. Her pulse ran wild beneath my touch. “It’s me you set free.”
Her head shook. “No, Royce. It was you who gave everything to set us free. I know what you did. Why you came for me. You saved me. It was you in that hotel room. And I know what you did for your sister. You fought for us. I know what you did for the band, too.”
Energy trembled. “I’d do it all over again, a million times,” I told her, mouth moving up and down the column of her throat, unable to stop myself.
Not wanting to.
Surrender.
“I need to know one thing, Royce. I need to know if it is real. If what you feel for me is real or if it’s some sort of twisted pity? If you got caught up in the act of protecting me from Cory?”
Teeth grating with restraint, I shifted her around on the stool. Struck by the magnitude of this girl. Her face and those green eyes and her blinding soul.
Slowly, I took the guitar from her and set it aside. I moved back for her and took that precious face in my hands.
“I tried not to love you, Emily. Tried to stay away. Tried to remember my purpose. When it came to you, it was a two-part game. Second I heard you sing, I knew you were probably the most talented person I was ever going to get the honor to work with. I might not have given a shit about Mylton Records, but you? Your band? I wanted to be a part of you being discovered. Then Cory . . .”
My jaw clenched when fury flamed.
Wasn’t sure that was ever going to go away.
“I’d come to Atlanta to watch the show. Fitzgerald wanted Carolina George signed that night. I’d gone to the hotel to talk with Richard, see if we could all meet, seal the deal. I was on my way to his room . . .”
My hold tightened on her cheeks, my spirit pitching, reaching to meet hers. “I felt something, Emily. Something that was all wrong. Knew I was going to be on edge because Cory would be there, my old band, wounds too ripe. But it was different. It was you.”
I swallowed around the jagged rocks gathered at the base of my throat. “I searched through that disorder, not even knowing what I was looking for, moving up and down the hall until I heard you. Your heart and your spirit and then it was a scream.”
Old agony and faith flickered through her expression. “When he cut me.”
I flinched, hating that he had hurt her but knowing it was how I’d found her. “Yeah.”
“Wanted to end him that night . . . part of me wishes that I would have . . . but somehow I managed to stop. To find my focus. To try to see the full plan through because me going back to jail wasn’t going to be a benefit for my sister.”
My sister.
A grin played at the corner of my mouth when Emily’s eyes lit up at the mention of her. And I knew this had everything to do with the little meddler.
Couldn’t complain.
“I did my best to pretend like you hadn’t affected me that night. That I hadn’t felt you in a way I’d never felt anyone before. I was going to see the signing through. Take down my stepfather and Cory and make sure you were safe in the process until the job was done.”
My thumb brushed across the tear that slipped from the corner of her eye. “But it was a lie I was telling myself, Emily. Moment I saw you in that bar that night? Something took me over. Something I didn’t want to admit. Pretty sure I fell in love with you right then and there.”
She blinked through the emotion, her sweet mouth trembling. “I’ve never felt someone the way I felt you then. This . . . feeling like I was stepping into something different. Turns out, I was falling into you.”
I held her face like the treasure that it was. “And I promise, I will always be there to catch you. Don’t want to live my life without you . . . these last four weeks . . .”
I trailed off, unable to describe the brutality of living without her.
Heartbreak slashed thro
ugh her expression. “I missed you. So much.”
Guilt clotted my voice. “I should have told you from the beginning. I was just terrified of failing my sister.”
“You should have trusted me to love you,” she murmured.
My chest stretched tight, my lips brushing across hers in the softest caress. “What I didn’t trust was me loving you.”
Attraction flashed at the bare contact.
Love and lust.
I gripped her by the upper thigh, shifting her to make space for myself between those legs that drove me out of my mind.
“But I was a fool. There was nothing that could have stopped me from loving you.”
Tears streaked down her face, and I kissed them away, the salty wetness coating my lips. I murmured across her cheeks, “I love you. I love you.”
“You are the meaning of every song that I have written,” she breathed back.
My chest clutched. Soared and shifted.
I reached out and pulled her face back, needing her to understand before she decided to stay. “My daughter . . .”
“Anna.” She whispered it like praise.
Adoration.
It was that very second the girl owned every piece of me.
“Anna.” I could barely get her name to break out of the lock of emotion on my tongue. “My daughter is five, Emily, and I haven’t seen her since she was nine months old. But I’ve never stopped loving her. Missing her. Not for a second. The main goal was getting her away from Cory. But now that he’s gone? I’m going to fight for her. Know you didn’t sign up for a family, but I won’t go on living without her in my life.”
Emily brushed her fingertips through a lock of hair draping across my forehead, those eyes flickering across my face. “That’s exactly what I signed up for, Royce. I signed up to spend my life with you. And that little girl is a part of you.”
A smile swam across her teary face. “I want it all, and I want it with you. I want to sing. I want to play. I want a family. Do you want that with me?” she asked, her tone dipping into a plea.
My forehead dropped to hers. “More than anything.”
She reached out and took my hands and pressed them both to her flat stomach. “Do you feel that?” she whispered, her gaze peeking up to meet with mine. “Us living inside of me? We’re goin’ to have a baby, Royce.”
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