“Thank you.” I wipe my mouth and try to ignore the prickling sensation crawling over my skin as the crowd roars in response to the stage lighting changing, illuminating the piano with a spotlight.
I’m up.
“Go and sing,” my father repeats, gently patting my upper arm. “You’ll be fine once you get out there.”
I nod weakly, not wanting to break the look of pride and love in his eyes.
I am not fine.
I hate every second of it.
And even though he doesn’t know it, his choice of words makes me feel like I might throw up again.
“Go and sing.”
It’s exactly what Sullivan told me to do.
Right before he broke my heart.
I thought staying for that final night might have changed his mind. But it didn’t. The last time I walked out of his place, I saw what he’d left on the table by the front door, placed so conspicuously for me to see.
A key for a private suite at The Lanceford Hotel.
The press didn’t concoct the story because it sounds scandalous. That part of Sullivan’s life is real, and he wanted me to know it. It was his way of telling me that he intended to move on the moment I left. He’s probably there now, fucking some beautiful woman with toned thighs that looks like Cara.
But it’s not the sight of that key that cut the deepest. It was the realization I came to after I left his place and replayed that night in my head.
He’d asked me to read to Molly as a way of saying goodbye to her without knowing that’s what I was doing. I hate him for it. But equally, I understand why he did it. Molly might have got upset if I’d said goodbye, because I would have probably cried. I wouldn’t have been able to hold back the pain I feel at knowing I’ll never hold her in my arms again or sink my nose into her soft little curls and feel her giggling in my embrace.
I loved her as much as I loved him. Only, I can force myself to get over Sullivan. I’ll never stop loving Molly. And that’s something I’ll have to learn to live with.
“I’m good now,” I assure my dad, brushing down my dress and taking a deep breath.
“Show them what you’ve got, love.”
I pull my shoulders back and walk onstage, into the heat ofthe spotlight. Cellphone lights cover the sea of people staring at me, and I’m grateful I can’t make out their faces. The only way I get through each show is if I close my eyes and pretend no one else is here. Kind of like The Masked Maestro did that day in Grand Central Station on his final song. Maybe that song was the hardest one he’s ever played too.
That day feels like a lifetime ago now.
I sit at the piano and stare at the ivory and black keys, my heart sinking.
“This song’s calledBlue Eyes,” I say into the microphone as I slide my fingers over the cool keys.
The crowd roars.
I squeeze my eyes shut and sing.
40
SULLIVAN
“I’m raisingour fee by two hundred percent. That’s fine, right? Actually, you’re listening so hard, you’re thinking three hundred sounds better, aren’t you?”
“Mm.” I grunt, staring across my desk and into the office opposite. Molly’s in there with Arabella.
She’s coloring, her face set in a scowl of concentration. My happy little girl has changed. Arabella thought it could be the ‘terrible twos’ coming late, seeing as Molly is turning three soon.
But it isn’t just the increase in tantrums. It’s the way she’s stopped sleeping through the night and has been climbing into bed with me again. And the way she’s gone back to refusing to eat all of her meals.
