Page 60 of Keeping Happily Ever After

She nodded numbly, took a deep breath, and, with all eyes on her, put a smile on her face just the way she’d rehearsed and stepped out onto stage.

She didn’t know how she did it. But somehow, the music took hold and when Bella opened her mouth, the words came out. She closed her eyes and saw Jeremy’s face while she sang. She felt him there with her.

One song after the next, each one sounded better than the last. She sang her heart out for almost two hours and completely lost herself in the music.

There was a small audience made up mostly of media and industry people. Bella’s parents and grandfather were there, but she didn’t allow herself to look down. She couldn’t. If she saw the empty chair that Jeremy should have been in…

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t planned to be there…that he should have been at his own ceremony. He should be receiving his own accolades right now. But he was lying in a hospital and…

Tears filled her eyes and she heard her voice crack a little.

It was the finale. A powerful song of love lost.

Bella could only hope the audience would think her emotion was because of the song she was performing and not her own love lost.Almostlost.

Jeremy was okay. He was in the hospital. She could have lost him. But she didn’t. And she wouldn’t.

She’d go to him. She’d make it right. She’d…

Her voice faltered as a sob rose up in her chest. She dropped her head, unable to continue.

Jeremy.

The music continued around her as the orchestra played on.

“Bella.”

It was her imagination. It had to be. But it sounded just like Jeremy. His voice in her ear. His voice urging her on.But…

Her eyes flew open and she lifted her head to finally look at the audience.

And Jeremy.

In the front row. Dressed in scrubs and sitting in a wheelchair, but it was him.

But how?

Bella turned, searching for Steph backstage. Her friend stood in the wings with a smile on her face. She gestured to Bella to keep going. “No distractions.” She mouthed the words and then shook her head, but Bella got the meaning.

She turned and without missing another beat, continued singing.

This time, with Jeremy there and okay, there was a renewed energy in her singing. She belted out the finale and as the final notes played, Bella locked eyes with Jeremy. With everything she had, she hoped he could read all of the emotions in her eyes. All the love she had for him. And that she’d never again walk away from it.

ChapterNineteen

Seeing Bella on stage,looking every bit the movie star she was about to be, was a moment Jeremy would never forget. She looked like an angel, and her voice…it filled him. Being there, hearing her, he knew in that moment he couldn’t have been anywhere else.

And the fact that he’d asked her not to do it killed him. The memory of that moment caused him physical pain that was far beyond what he’d felt when he woke in the hospital.

When she sang the last note, looking straight at him, into his soul, he knew that no matter what had happened between them, it would be okay. They were meant to be together. He knew that with the same certainty that he needed air to breathe. She was his. He was hers. Always.

He sat, transfixed, eyes only for her as the crowd roared to life around him. It wasn’t until the curtains closed and the lights came up in the auditorium that Jeremy blinked.

Next to him, Charlotte, who’d accompanied him, and the nurse they’d insisted upon as a condition of release from the hospital, both wiped their eyes.

“Mr. Davis?” A man with a headset appeared. “My name is Bryan.” He walked around to the back of his wheelchair. “You’re needed backstage.”

Without waiting for a response, the man clicked off the brakes of the chair the nurse had insisted on and moved him quickly up a ramp into the dark curtained backstage area where Bella stood.

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