Page 3 of Perfect Pitch

But even though she’s leaning on me, I can tell there’s a difference between us.

Austyn erected barriers as a method to protect her heart. Addressing my spit and polish reflection, I mutter, “As if I blame her.”

If I’d survived what she did, I’d question every road I took to lead me to what happened.

I’m not certain my heart can bear it if Austyn turns away, even if it might be the best thing for her to heal. Right now, we need to reach for each other and say to hell with what the rest of the world may think. If that means I can’t keep doing the job I’ve been doing and recover the pieces of her love I scattershot, I’ll turn my back on everything before I let her leave again thinking I don’t love her with every fiber of my body.

A surge of anger wells inside me when I think of what I found out in the last few days. I lash out at my reflection, “She was completely vulnerable.”

Then the insidious voice inside me chastises me. Because she ran away from you.

I need to remind her I’m here for keeps, even if her success keeps dragging her away from my side.

But will she let me?

Adjusting the knot of the tie I’ve looped around my neck, I hurry. My employer, Hudson Investigations, indicated that today’s debrief would be at the law office of LLF LLC—Austyn’s legal representation. Having witnessed the legal piranha, Carys Burke-Lennan, and my boss and Austyn’s father, the one and only Beckett Miller, in action, I can only imagine the explosions about to blow the roof off the building. Then again, they could shoot me with an eighteenth-century cannon, so long as it protected Austyn.

My Austyn.

Few know she’s the daughter of the most famous man on the planet. Even less know they only met in the last year.

Which causes my stomach to curdle.

Austyn’s being targeted, but why?

I know why I’m being called in and what I’ve prepared for this meeting. Yet, I’m quivering inside. I can’t imagine this setting her back. As much as I want to catch the bastard hurting her, there’s something much more critical—her healing.

Turning away, I gather what I need before storming out of the condo resolute about one thing: I’ll do anything I have to in order to protect the woman who wormed her way into my heart months ago.

There’s little traffic to contend with at this hour. I park at my employer’s before making my way over to LLF’s building on foot in the hopes of spotting something, someone.

Anyone who might want to do Austyn harm.

Shoving open the door of the building at Rockefeller Center, I gird myself for the battle ahead. There will be a fight over what I’m about to demand—I know it. But by the time we walk out of there, Austyn Kensington will damn well know I don’t plan on losing the chance to protect what’s mine.

And there hasn’t been a moment since I met her where I haven’t thought of her that way.

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

Dr. Paige Kensington, girlfriend to rock god Beckett Miller, was spotted in—Good god! Are those pajamas?—at her local Starbucks today. Has no one reminded her she has a reputation to uphold now that she’s dating the world’s sexiest man?

He can pull that look off, Paige. You can’t.

#sorrynotsorry

—Sexy&Social, All the Scandal You Can Handle

I stride into the LLF office with a tiny tip of my lips for the redhead behind the front desk. “Hey, Angie.”

“Austyn.” She pushes away from her desk and extends her hands.

With the ease of our burgeoning friendship, I bypass them and step straight into her arms to hug the woman that’s become an honorary member of my family.

So much has happened since I met her right here in this very space. It’s hard to forget since it was the same day I met my biological father for the first time. It feels like those days where I was so carefree belonged to a different Austyn when in reality it’s been a little over seven months. Seven months of dealing with the highest of highs and the lows that have you breaking your nails as you claw your way out of hell.

But through it all, I’ve had a bevy of the strongest women coalesce at my back.

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