Page 118 of Perfect Pitch

“It won’t. I’ve made certain of it.” My mother leans forward and taps her briefcase. Then she remarks astutely, “But it’s hurting you, and you’re all that matters to me.”

I move over to the window and stare out over Central Park, the view from my mother’s hotel suite is remarkable. “Will the pain minimize in any way until we—you—have answers after twenty years?”

There’s stark silence between us that expands every second neither of us speaks. Finally my mother confesses, “No.”

I nod. “That’s what I thought.”

* * *

I walk in on my mother smoothing her tights up her legs before she slips into the identical patent-leather pumps I wear. Lingering at the door, she slips on a ring that matches the one I’m wearing now before muttering, “You’ll do, Paige.”

I drawl, “You’ll more than do, Mama.”

She eyes me from the top of my brightly colored hair in its usual assortment of twists and braids, down my skinny ombre leggings beneath an uber short, sheer shift dress I paired with the same Louboutin heels she just stepped into. When her eyes meet mine, and all I see is pride on her face, it fills me with an additional surge of power. “So will you, my darling.”

Before I can ask if she’s ready, she makes quick work of gathering papers and sliding them into her briefcase. Giving me one final out, she asks, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

I reach out and capture her wrist. “Mama, no matter what, I’ll have my music. Even if the lot of them get together to blackball me, nothing and no one can take that away from me.”

“But, Austyn, you could have...”

“More. It’s a possibility. But at what cost?”

“None. I’ve told you over and over I want you to be happy.”

“Then you want this for me. If I’m lucky, I’ll get the chance to look him in the eye—just once—to tell him he lost out.”

“He certainly did,” she murmurs before dragging her thumb over my brow, around my eye, to my cheek. “He missed out on you.”

I wink while I try to prevent my breath from choking me as I turn for the door. “Then let’s go. I have a date with my mother tonight for dinner. Maybe we’ll find her some hot guy.”

She visibly shudders. “Now you sound like Gramps.”

“There are worse things,” I throw out as cheerfully as I can manage under the circumstances. After I’m out of her line of sight, I slip my phone from my pocket. In the middle of the night, I’d broken down and texted Mitch,

Austyn:

I’m back in the city.

There’s been no response.

None.

My breath catches when I realize the time. “Mama? Are you coming? We’re going to be late!”

She steps from the bedroom and informs me, “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

When we’re in the hall, I loop my arms through hers not only for moral support but out of love. Neither of us lets go until we’re forced to by the pedestrian traffic outside our hotel.

* * *

Heels clicking in time against the marble floor, we pass security and board the elevator at Rockefeller Center where the LLF LLC office is located. Once inside, I can’t catch my breath. My mother reaches over and clasps my hand with the one not clutching her suitcase handle. “Calm, baby.”

“How can I?” I manage just as the elevator door opens.

We both exit. But before we pass through the frosted glass doors, opaque but for a Celtic symbol, she states, “Nothing is holding you here. You are not bound by a contract.” Nor by a vow you made in your heart, I amend silently.

“You’re right.” I reach for the door and jerk it open.

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