He could despise me.I no longer cared.He’d not listened to me.Trusted me.Then he had ripped my life to pieces in a way that I was still struggling to patch it back together.
“Home for the holidays,” he replied in a clipped tone.
His gaze turned cold.Similar to the last night I’d seen him.A detachment that hadn’t been there before.It haunted me in my dreams still.
“That’s nice,” I replied.“I’m sure your family is happy about that.”
Because he had a family.One that loved him.Unlike me.I had no one.
I needed to go.Standing here with him staring at me that way again was too much.I had made progress in getting those shreds of myself back together, and being near him threatened that.
Kash Savelle was destruction.He’d once told me he didn’t break pretty things, but he had shattered me.
“It was good to see you, Kash.Merry Christmas,” I said, forcing a smile, then turned and hurried away before he said something that would make me stop or keep me there any longer.
My sole focus was getting to Glenda’s car, getting inside it, and driving away.I’d find a coat another day.I could go through a drive-through for lunch.One that wasn’t on Main Street.Maybe even one that wasn’t in Madison.
Seven Years Ago
Words of praise surrounded me as I stood, holding the flowers that my mother had given me, along with pink roses that Pirate had handed me.I smiled and said my thank-yous, feeling as if I was on a high.But not because of my performance tonight.No, that wasn’t it at all.
My euphoria had come from one single source.Kash had been here.My eyes met his while I sang the last song.He smiled at me and winked.He had come to see me.I knew he had.He hadn’t even known about the musical until I told him.But then he had barely acknowledged me since that afternoon outside the school.
I scanned the crowd as I nodded my head and continued to thank those who spoke to me.My mom had said she’d have Pirate wait to take me home.There was a cast party I had to attend first.She and my dad were going to go ahead and leave.
As if the sea had parted, the people around me faded as Kash stepped into view.Voices fell away, and all I could see was him.The corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked grin as he walked toward me.My eyes drifted down his body to take in the sight he made when I realized he was holding flowers.But not any like I had seen before.The daisies, daffodils, and roses in my hands didn’t compare to the round bouquet of bright orange and iridescent blue hues.They were stunning.
My eyes snapped back up to his just as he reached me.
“You came,” I blurted out.
He chuckled.“Yeah, I did.Good thing, too, because now I know you have more than one superpower.”
What?I frowned.
He leaned closer to my ear, and the scent of leather and spice sent a tingle through me.“Not only can you own a man with that face of yours, but you can claim his soul with that voice, little Songbird.”
The warmth of his breath brushed my cheek just before his lips touched it gently, and then he straightened back up.Leaving me and taking his smell and heat with him.I wanted to reach out and grab his shirt and pull him back to me.Hold him close.Bask in how it felt.
“These are for you,” he said, holding the flowers out to me.
I was completely reeling and wasn’t sure if my legs were strong enough for the effect this man had on me as I reached to take them.“They’re … incredible,” I said breathlessly, as if he’d just grabbed me and kissed me properly instead of just a simple peck on the cheek.
“Birds of paradise.I thought they fit you.Elegant and worth the wait.”
Six
Kash
Present Day
The license plate was burned into my brain.The silver Cadillac XT5 that Cressida had hastily tossed the dry cleaning into and then climbed in before speeding off looked like a mom car.I’d not allowed myself to check on her since I’d been sent to Alabama, and I didn’t look at her ring finger.Dammit.That face of hers had had me so fucking mesmerized that I didn’t do a proper check.She was even more gorgeous at twenty-three than she had been at nineteen, and I hadn’t thought that was possible.Hell, I didn’t even know what she’d been wearing.Was she married?A mom?
My gut clenched up and twisted as I stalked back to the restaurant, not bothering to enter through the back door, but going inside the front.Let them see me.The bastards knew she was back in town.The family knew everything, yet no one had mentioned it.
Forge’s eyes met mine as I took long, purposeful strides to the table, and I did my best to remain calm.Act as if seeing her hadn’t fucked my head up.Sure, I wanted to grab the chair I’d been sitting in and throw it through the goddamn window, but I wouldn’t.I was past that now.I had learned to control my temper … or rather rage.
Pulling out my chair without force and sitting down, I felt both their eyes locked on me.Had they seen us out there?Possibly.Might as well clear the air.
