She inherited the one thing Keir never lied about.
The music.
And Callum is standing far too close to the fire.
God, he wants to hear her play again.Because no matter the words, the notes spinning from her fingers were like magic.The artistry, the skill, even her voice, left him reeling from the music she created.
And yet, she’d just destroyed the man he loved.His second father.
Chapter5
The party is wrong.
That is Isla MacLaren’s first coherent thought as she steps into the long gallery of the castle and takes in the soft light, the circulating trays of champagne, the low murmur of conversation that hums with an energy entirely too alive for the day they’ve just endured.
Grief, apparently, has an expiration date.Right after the funeral.In the background, her father’s music is softly playing.
She pauses just inside the doorway, spine straight, hands loosely clasped in front of her, as if posture alone can keep her emotions from spilling out.The echo of the chapel still rings in her ears, the brutal quiet after her song, the way the silence had pressed down like a held breath, like the world itself had stopped to listen.
She had expected outrage.
She had expected tears.
She had not expected the murmured approval that followed her down the aisle afterward.The whisperedbrave,finally,someone said it,offered by strangers who believed her pain belonged to them now.
She hadn’t done it for them.
She had done it because she refused to lie.She refused to grieve for a man she’d never known.
And standing here now, watching people toast her father’s life as though it were a successful album launch instead of a complicated wreckage, Isla feels something sharp and dangerous unfurl in her chest.
Pride.
She didn’t fake grief.
She hadn’t bowed her head and played the dutiful daughter.She hadn’t softened herself to preserve a myth.She hadn’t swallowed the truth to make other people comfortable.
Whatever comes next, she will not regret playing at his funeral.
“Smile,” her mother murmurs beside her.“People are watching.”
Isla doesn’t turn.“Let them.What is there to be smiling about?”
Alisa MacLaren exhales sharply.“This is not the time to be difficult.”
It’s never the time.All her life, her mother just wanted her to obediently be the daughter she trained.The musician who was a concert pianist and not a rock star like her father.
Standing beside her mother, she scans the room instead.
The gallery stretches the length of the castle, ancient stone walls lined with portraits of people who look like they never asked permission to exist.Chandeliers cast a warm glow over polished floors.Servers move gracefully through clusters of mourners, offering champagne and delicate food no one seems to be eating.
Celebrities lean against centuries-old stone, grief tailored and elegant.Musicians gather in small knots, trading stories that sound suspiciously rehearsed.Industry people network even now, their sorrow compartmentalized and efficient.
Isla feels like a wrong note in a carefully rehearsed performance.
Softly, she slips away from her mother and drifts toward a tall window overlooking the green grass below.Outside, the fog has lifted just enough to reveal dark grass and bare trees, the land stretching outward like something ancient and watchful.
Her reflection stares back at her in the glass.
