Pride, I realize.
It’s been so long since I’ve felt it, the sensation almost surprises me.
I’m walking toward my car when I hear it.
“ChrisTIANNA!”
I turn, walking backward, and see Meg hurrying toward me, a devilish grin on her face.
She throws her arms around me. “I’m so damned proud of you. Seriously, how Rasmussen ever pulled his head out of his ass long enough to land second chair, I will never know.”
I throw my head back and laugh, the sound unguarded. We haven’t done this in a long time.
I grab her free hand with mine.
“Let’s go celebrate.”
Chapter thirty-nine
Remy
We’d all been trying to catch up to Christianna when Meg shouted her name and ran after her.
It wasn’t the chase that stopped me.
It was the emphasis.
Chris–Tianna.
My feet root to the floor.
Little Tianna.
The girl who lived next to our sugarcane fields. She used to wander over while I worked, barefoot and fearless, singing like the whole world was listening. She told me once, very seriously, that she was going to marry me.
I’d laughed. I’d adored her.
She kept me company during chores, bright and impossible to ignore.
Then one day she was gone.
My father had been out of town. Later I was told her father died of a sudden heart attack, that she’d gone to live with her people.
I never believed that was the whole truth.
I turn to Erik. “She’s my Tianna,” I whisper, disbelief rough in my throat.
Erik watches her as she and Meg head for her car.
He nods once. “Something broke loose in her.”
Then he says something that floors me.
The man may be blind to most things, but the artist in him sees what I miss.
“It’s appropriate you recognized her now. I don’t think she could have been Tianna again before today,” he says quietly. “She’s changed.”
Chapter forty
