Page 225 of Perfect Pitch

“Yeah, Beats?”

“I love you.” She disconnects the call before I can return the sentiment but that’s okay.

She knows I love her too.

I board the elevator, which swiftly climbs to the LLF legal suite. Beckett is glowing while Paige is basking in Carys’s admiration of her impromptu press conference.

As accolades are being handed out around the room, I feel the tension mount. Something inside me tells me she’s near. I’m about to text her, but the door slams open again.

I have to turn away to avoid laughing. She looks like a family of birds has taken up residence in her hair and she slapped her clothes on in a hurry. As she passes in front of me, I murmur, “Nice sex hair.”

She glares at me. “It’s your fault.”

I smile because, yeah. Yeah, it is my fault. Beckett, getting a look at his daughter’s disheveled appearance, glares at me. He knows damn well what she was doing before she arrived.

And with whom.

Instead of lingering with me, Austyn brushes past me to ask, “Mama? Dad? Is everything okay?”

Beckett opens his arms wide and catches her on the run. “We’re fine.”

Her body relaxes as the byplay continues. She looks back at me over her shoulder and I know what she’s thinking, what’s racing like the wind behind the back of her eyes. This isn’t the family either of us imagined but we’re grateful for the one we have. In a perfect world, we’d have our Columbia, and yes, I’d still have my brother.

Choices were made for us, taken from us.

What we have instead is the future—our future. As loss and hate seep from our lives like grains of sand, we’re still left with strength and love.

Now, we stand ready to do battle for members of our new, extended family, I realize the most important lesson about love I learned from almost losing Austyn. To fight. For love is worth fighting for.

* * *

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN

Rock and roll legend, Beckett Miller, married his childhood sweetheart, Dr. Paige Kensington at the Conservatory Garden located in the northeastern corner of Central Park.

Attending the groom were Brendan Blake, Mick Ceron, Jesse Kensington, and Ethan Kensington. The bride was attended by her daughter, DJ Kensington, as well as Carys Burke-Lennan, Angela Fahey-Burke, and renowned security expert, Leanne Miles.

Other notable guests included Danielle Madison, Ward Burke, Mitchell Clifton (DJ Kensington’s husband), Zapatta, The Rind, Kristoffer Wilde and family, Joshua Basset, CEO of Moore Software Worldwide, with fiancée Liza Hina, Chairwoman of Send Me an Angel, Ursula Moore and her husband—yours truly.

After, the wedding guests attended a special gathering at the building LLF is headquartered in—though one might wonder what’s so interesting about holding your wedding reception in an office building?

I’ll never tell and it has nothing to do with my NDA.

Congratulations, Becks and Paige. This has been a long time coming.

—StellaNova

“What on earth are you wearing?” The words slip past my lips before I have a chance to contain my laughter. Austyn is beautiful in anything she wears, or better yet, nothing at all, but this?

Seriously?

This is a train wreck.

“Mitch!” Her humor is palpable. Dark lashes flutter down to narrow over blue eyes—eyes that have haunted my dreams since the first time our eyes collided after she sang at River View years ago. There have been so many memories since then. So many firsts.

Our first date. The wild car ride around Manhattan. Our first kiss. The first time she told me she loved me.

And just as many lasts. Some make my heart ache and some leave me aching with anticipation.

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