Page 27 of Christmas Music
She narrowed her eyes. “Your Parker? You’re going to need to learn a thing or two about industry language, buddy. Now go get our girl. And you better not hurt her this time.”
I turned and ran for the hallway Olivia had gone down. I didn’t have any plans to hurt her.
Not this time.
* * *
I caught her just before she hit the exit, and grabbed her hand, spinning her around to face me. “You left,” I said, letting all of my emotion into my voice.
She looked up at me, eyes big and green and mouth open in surprise. “Well, we finished the song, so...”
“A song you gave me. You didn’t have to do that.”
She shrugged like it didn’t matter, and looked down. “I know what your family’s going through. It was the right thing to do.”
I slid my fingers under her chin and made her look back up at me, searching her face for the lie. It had to be a lie. That had been more than the right thing to do. It had been an incredibly big sacrifice. She’d given away a sure-fire contract.
And I wanted to know why.
“Why did you do it?” I whispered.
She bit her lip, and right then, I could see the truth in her eyes. The confusion and hope and feelings that she couldn’t keep down. The knowledge of exactly what she’d given up.
And I knew she was feeling the same thing I was.
I backed her up against the wall, caged her in with my arms, and leaned down toward her, breathing out slowly. “Tell me why you did it,” I whispered.
She paused for a moment, balancing her words before she said them. “Because I wanted you to win the contract.”
“Why?”
Another long, heavy pause, and then “Because I think I might be in love with you.”
I claimed her mouth with mine, jerking at the energy that surged through me when I touched her, and dove into her, reveling in the scent and taste and feel of her as the rest of the world melted away, replaced by Olivia Johns.
A girl I’d been in love with through high school, and who’d never talked to me.
The girl who’d just saved me... and who I was falling in love with all over again.
Epilogue
OLIVIA
Iwoke to the sound of my phone buzzing, and hit it repeatedly to make it stop. Then I stared up at a ceiling I didn’t know. Where on earth...
Oh. The memories came rushing back in, and I smiled softly to myself. The stage. The song. The execs and the hallway and the hand on my arm.
Standing there kissing Connor Wheating until I was dizzy with need for him, and then following him to the one and only hotel in town, where we booked a room and ran up the stairs together, giggling like school children who had finally realized that four years of not talking didn’t cancel out the feelings we’d both had. I’d gone to sleep smiling hours later, his chuckles the last thing I heard before I fell asleep.
And here I was, waking up next to him.
My phone buzzed again, and this time I actually looked down to see who was calling. It was my agent. Calling twice in a row.
Dammit.
I leapt out of bed and hustled into the bathroom, closing the door and sitting down before I accepted the call.
“Dinah, what is it?” I whispered. “I’m not really in a place where I can talk right now.”
