Page 15 of The Wanderer

His eyebrows shot up. "You think this guy's going to be a star?"

"It's not about being a star. It's about being heard…" she trailed off, remembering using the same words to convince her parents why she had to follow her dream.

They'd scoffed and berated and lectured, completely clueless that her passion for music stemmed from more than teaching, that she too ultimately wanted to be heard.

Not for fame or stardom, but for the simple fact if one person got as much pleasure from listening to her music as she had from Harry's, she'd feel vindicated.

Harry had understood. It’s why he’d fostered her talent and love of music. Or maybe that had been more about his desire to plagiarise her songs than any real interest in furthering her musical career. Bastard.

"There's a story in there somewhere, right?"

She nodded. "I'm classically trained. Attended the best music conservatory in Paris. My folks expected me to return to England and take up a position in a world-class orchestra they would've used contacts to get me into."

"You didn't want that?" His intense stare unnerved her. Why didn't he finish his beer and leave? If she found the rugged tradesman sexy, this softer intuitive guy had the power to make her unravel.

"No, I wanted freedom. To be my own person. To make my own choices. To follow my own dreams."

"I can understand that." Tension bracketed his mouth and he swiped a hand over his face, but not before she glimpsed pain. "So this recording studio you're setting up is the real deal?"

Rather than bristling at his suggestion she was doing nothing more than dabbling, she took a sip of her drink. "Yeah, it's real. I want to record my songs, and songs like this guy is playing. Not for the masses, but for the simple listening pleasure for people who enjoy the indie scene."

He tilted his head, studying her, like he couldn't figure her out. "You've already proven you're not stereotypical, but what made you change from the classics to this?"

He wrinkled his nose and gestured at the guitarist, who'd moved onto a soulful ballad about loss and heartbreak. The lyrics spoke of untold sadness and she could identify. She’d been despondent once, to the point of losing her appetite and her focus. She’d trusted Willem, incredibly starry-eyed and optimistic for a pragmatist in the throes of first love, and he’d upended her well-ordered life.

He’d deliberately targeted her, not that she knew it at the time, and made her fall in love. It had been a magical, whirlwind three months that came crashing down when she discovered the truth.

That he’d never loved her, that he used her as a means to an end, that she was expendable.

Music had been her saviour. It hadn’t been the first time she’d turned to music for comfort but in those weeks following the break-up with Willem it provided her with the impetus to get out of bed in the morning. She’d written songs, listened to her favourites on repeat for hours, and spent days watching Harry jam with his band; when she wasn’t moaning about her imploded relationship, that is.

Harry had known what Willem meant to her, had known what those songs she’d written soon after represented. Yet he’d betrayed her regardless.

Her eyelids grew hot, her throat scratchy, as she quashed the memory of lost love and shattered friendship. Tears burned the back of her eyes and she blinked. This wasn’t good and she had to give Logan something so he’d stop studying her so intently.

"There was a guy…"

His lips compressed and his eyes narrowed slightly, and for a moment Hope wanted to laugh at the thought of a guy she barely knew being jealous. It was nothing more than a typical male reaction, needing to be dominant and front and centre in her mind considering they'd just had sex.

"Harry was like a dad to me." She bit her bottom lip to clamp down on the urge to bawl. "When my parents said no to me learning drums, Harry taught me on the sly. He was an old rocker who lived in a village near us and his band toured the country playing at pubs like this."

She swallowed, willing the urge to cry to subside. "He got me hooked on the indie movement, the kind of music that doesn't conform, the kind of music that can change things." She thumped a fist over her heart. "In here. It's magic."

She’d been so caught up in the euphoria and the way Harry brought music to life that she hadn’t seen him for what he was—a clever liar—until it was too late.

Even now, all these years later, she couldn’t fathom how he could do that to her. How he could take four of her original songs and pass them off as his own.

She’d been young, naïve, and starting in an industry that terrified as much as enthralled. She’d trusted him implicitly, especially after the balls-up of her relationship with Willem, another narcissistic liar.

Those songs after the break-up with Willem had been good. Heck, she could objectively say they were brilliant. Harry had thought so too, enough to steal them and obliterate her trust in people once and for all.

“It may sound corny but music doesn’t just inspire me, it’s my life,” she said, her voice wavering with emotion and she hurriedly cleared her throat.

Logan stared at her, wide-eyed, as the guitarist crooned. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, "You have no idea how turned on I am right now by your passion."

It was just the distraction she needed from her mawkish thoughts and this time, when she nibbled on her bottom lip, it was to stop from nibbling on him.

"I love what I do," she said, with a bashful shrug. "Not many people understand the dream. They see me as some rich bitch dabbling in music because I can. They don't take me seriously because I have the money to back me if I fail."

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