I feel it in every inch of my body.
“And if you realize that the stage is still your calling,” she continues, voice husky now.“If performing is what keeps your heart beating ...”
She swallows.Her throat moves.
God, I want to taste her again.
“Cleo can help you.Maybe even Julian—if you ask the right way.”Her mouth curls up slightly, but her voice stays serious.“There’s Barret.”
She’s listing off the people who hate me.And she’s still offering them like a lifeline.
“You’ll have to convince them you really want this.”
It’s everything I didn’t know I needed to hear.Not permission.Not pity.Just truth—clear and undeniable, laid out between us like a blueprint of what could be.
“We’ll start slowly,” she adds.“Maybe one of them can take you to the studio.We’ll see what you can do this week.”
“I haven’t been able to play,” I admit.It slips out.Raw and too close to a confession.
“And you came to demand your career back?”She rolls her eyes.“You arrogant, infuriating man.”But there’s no venom in her voice.Just heat.“I hope you’re going to therapy.I hope you start realizing the world doesn’t revolve around Roderick Wilder.People don’t exist to cater to your needs because of your last name.”
She exhales, sharp and fast.“I also hope you understand we can’t work together.I’ll help you find someone who can.Someone who’ll show you how the real world works—the one that doesn’t hand-feed you adoration and enable your self-destruction.”
That’s what I want.That’s what I came here for, my career.To earn it.To survive it.To start over.
“I don’t deserve that,” I whisper.My voice breaks, thick and uneven.“I don’t deserve you doing that.”
Kit stares at me.Her expression unreadable.
“No.Maybe you don’t,” she says.“But that doesn’t mean I won’t do it.It’s what Mom would’ve wanted.I ...just stay away, okay?”
We stay like that—too close, too still, the space between us pulsing with something volatile.
My pulse climbs into my throat, fast—unrelenting.Her eyes don’t move from mine.Her body doesn’t move either.She’s right fucking there—close enough that the heat between us coils around my skin, like her breath could rewrite mine if I just leaned forward.
And, fuck, I want to kiss her.
I want to kiss her as if we had never stopped.
Like every year apart was just a dress rehearsal for this moment—this one impossible, aching second where she’s within reach.
I want her lips crushed to mine, want the sound she makes when she breaks apart in my mouth, want her hands fisting my shirt, dragging me closer until she forgets why she ever told me it was over in the first place.
I want her gasping, trembling, pressed against me like she’s trying to erase every inch of space we ever allowed between us.
I want her.
Right here.Right now.
But I don’t move.
I don’t even breathe.
Because if I move forward—if I exhale too hard—I might lose everything, and I can’t afford that.
My need for her is a live wire humming under my skin.It’s frantic.It’s begging.It’s clawing at my restraint, whispering to just take the moment and fucking claim her.
But I’m not that reckless anymore.I’m not the boy who thought desire was enough.
