“I bet.”
He quirked a brow. “Have you listened?”
I huffed out a reticent sound. “I did my best not to, but seein’ as how every time I turn on the radio of late, your band is suddenly playin’, it’s been a whole ton harder.”
I sent him a wry smile.
Superstar.
I shouldn’t care to be proud, but I was.
A light chuckle rumbled off Richard’s tongue, and he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. “After playing that awards show, things happened fast.”
My brow pinched, realizing I’d missed so much. Six years gone, and I had no idea what had happened in between.
“But I thought that big record company had been trying to get y’all to sign a long time ago? All the way back to when…” I trailed off at that because I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
Back when we’d come to our end.
Anger flashed across Richard’s face. So sudden and shocking it jarred me back.
“It wasn’t a good deal for us.”
I could feel the frown pinching my brow. “If you didn’t sign, how did Emily end up back there? In that position?”
That lump in my throat throbbed. The same horrible, sick feeling I’d gotten when I’d seen Emily on the news. What I’d felt when Richard had mentioned it back in his truck.
The vein in his thick neck pulsed, and the hand on the table that had been relaxed tightened into a fist. “We were back in talks with them when everything went down.”
Uncomfortable laughter filtered out because I didn’t have the first clue how to navigate this. Actually talking with Richard. Not when every time I mentioned something serious, I could see the barricades go up. Walls fifteen miles high. The man giving me nothing but vague answers and indistinguishable reasoning.
Every word laced with ambiguity. With an undercurrent of a warning.
The problem was, when he looked at me with those eyes, I felt like a floodgate had been opened somewhere in those colossal walls. An access point.
It was becoming harder and harder to disregard what my daddy had said. About him having secrets. Ugly secrets.
Him telling me he was in trouble.
God. Maybe I should just cut and run. Save myself the agony. I glanced toward the door as if making the escape might eradicate it all.
The hurt and the questions and the need that wouldn’t let me go.
His hand shot out, pinning mine to the table. “Don’t be afraid. Not of me.”
I laughed a harrowed sound. “You might be an asshole, Richard. Selfish to the extreme. But I know you’re not a monster.”
Richard stared me down, looking at me through the lapping flame of the candle in the middle of the table, the man revealing more than he’d ever shown.
This stark, cutting grief.
“Want to make it right, Vi. I’m asking you for that chance.”
I flushed when the waiter suddenly returned with our drinks, and I jerked my hand back, thankful for the reprieve.
The weight too heavy.
The questions more than I could bear.
The man rattled off five or six specials that I barely processed.
Because it didn’t matter how desperately I was trying to protect myself, I was too enraptured by the man sitting across from me.
I fought for normalcy. To act like this was no big deal. That we were just two old friends catching up and I couldn’t feel myself splintering apart.
I ordered a filet, then I took a shaky sip of my drink, and I was back to searching for lighter subjects before I fell.
Stumbled.
Completely tripped.
I forced a bright smile. “But now you have a new label. That’s so great. Just like I knew y’all would. When are you going to be recording? Is anything going to change for y’all? When do you leave? Is there a big tour coming up? Goodness, I bet you get to fly on a private jet now.”
I was slinging out the words like they could fill up the space and blot out the tension. Like I could erase the things we were really wanting to say.
A smirk quirked his sexy mouth, and he set his elbow on the arm of his chair, his index finger propped against his temple to keep his head supported.
The locks of his brown hair flopped that way.
Gorgeous.
Sexy.
A punch to my senses.
I shifted in my seat.
“What, are you trying to get rid of me?” The words teased from that wicked tongue.
“I think I’d be wise to,” I told him honestly.
“And what if I asked you to keep me?”
“Then I would ask you to stop breaking my heart.”
Nope.
There were officially no safe subjects with us because in an instant, we were already right back in the toil of it.
The waters holding us under starting to boil.
Richard leaned forward, the movement stealing my breath, his features flashing grief. “I’m sorry, Violet, so fuckin’ sorry that I wasn’t there for Daisy. That I wasn’t there for you.”
Hurt slashed with the mention of her name.
So intense and fast that a shudder raked through my body. My hands shot to the edge of the table to cling to it for support.
I guessed he really did want to talk.
Cutting out the fluff and going right for the gullet.
“Are you?” It wheezed from my aching throat. “Are you really sorry, Richard, for taking the easy way out when I reached out to you? When I swallowed my pride and begged you to come back to me? To be there for us?”
“Yes.”
He said it so simply.
Frank.
Sure.
And still with enough regret to blow me to bits.
“I don’t believe you.”
The scariest part was the words I’d tossed back were nothing but a lie. Because I did. I knew he was telling the truth, even though I was terrified to accept it.
A song came on over the speakers, playing softly like they’d been doing all night. But this time, I took notice because that captivating voice was filling my ears.
Overtaking my senses.
Richard.
Singing soft and smooth and low.
Raw, unbridled emotion.
Carolina George was playing on the radio. The lead on this one belonged to Richard, Emily’s
