Page 43 of Hold Me Closer
"They found my songbook," she explains, her voice soft. "No one had ever seen it except for you. But Zoya is Zoya, so she looked through it, and then she gave it to my dad and told him that he needed to look through it, too. He read through my songs, and then he came to me and told me that his only wish for me was happiness. I didn't have to be perfect. I just had to follow my heart, no matter where it led me. And then he handed me the songbook and told me to follow my heart." She laughs ruefully, glancing over at me. "Now that I think about it, I kind of wonder if he was trying to nudge me back to you. But at the time, I thought he was giving me his blessing to run off and become a musician instead of going to college. So that's what I did."
"He's so fucking proud of you, butterfly. He brags about you to everyone who will listen.My Nadia is big star. She is genius with a pen and angel on microphone," I murmur, mimicking Knox's deep, booming voice.
Nadia's delighted laugh spills across the SUV. "That sounds like him."
"It's exactly what he says." I grin over at her. "He thinks you hung the moon."
"I think he did too," she says.
"Yeah, I know." She's always been a daddy's girl. And he's always been fiercely protective of her. I will never tell her, but he's been mad as hell at me for the last six years. At least, it feels that way.
He looks at me sometimes like he wants to know what the fuck I'm waiting for, what the fuck I'm doing. And I've never had an answer for him. I avoid him a lot when I'm home. It's easierthan seeing the disappointment in his eyes. Knox Mikhail is not a man I've ever wanted to disappoint.
I always wanted to make him proud and be someone he would be proud to call his son. I wanted him to know that he could trust me with Nadia, that I'd take care of her the way she deserved. Maybe one day, he'll trust me with her again the way he did back then.
As we approach her place, I slow to a crawl, scowling at the cars parked every which way up and down the street. "Jesus Christ, baby," I mutter. "You need security."
"Gee," she huffs at me. "I wonder why?"
A flicker of guilt rushes through me. I should have considered the ramifications of announcing that we were dating more carefully. I knew the media would jump on it, but I honestly expected them to have moved along by now. Clearly, the fuck not.
This story isn't dying out nearly fast enough. If anything, it seems to be growing by the day.
"I'll take care of it," I promise. "But you aren't staying here alone tonight. You can either come back to my place, or I'll stay with you." Either way, I'm not leaving her here with the fucking paparazzi camped nine deep on her doorstep. Fuck that noise.
"That is not going to help matters," she groans, eyes wide.
"I'll have security here before I leave tomorrow," I promise, scowling at the paparazzi as we drive past. They immediately start snapping photos and shouting questions at us. One shoves a goddamn microphone up against the window like we're really going to shout a soundbite back at him.Moron.
"Your game," she whispers, her face falling like she just remembered it.
"Yeah. We fly out tomorrow."
"How long will you be gone?"
"We'll be back on Friday."
I pull up her driveway, relieved when none of the vultures try to follow us onto her property. They're invasive as hell, but they know how trespassing laws work. Put enough of them in jail for coming onto private property, and eventually, they get the point.
I park right outside her door, killing the engine. "Bye Week is next week. We'll have three days of practice, and then the rest of the week is ours." I turn toward her, my eyes locked on her face. "Just so we're clear, I intend to spend every goddamn minute of it with you, butterfly."
"Oh, really?"
"Mmhmm."
"Well, I'll have to check my schedule. I'm a busy star, you know."
I narrow my eyes, which makes her laugh.
"But I suppose I can fit you in somewhere between the glitz of the recording studio and the glamor of…no, actually, there's nothing glamorous about practice," she says. "But you can come."
"You're saying all my favorite things right now, Nadia."
Her brows furrow with confusion.
"Fitting me in. Coming." I smirk, waggling my brows. "I'm not hearing anything here that sounds like a bad time to me, baby."
"Oh, yeah?" She unlatches her seatbelt, crawling halfway across the console to plant her hands against my chest. "Then you're going to love what I say next, Teo."
