Physical.
Mental.
Tension ricocheted.
Dancing through the flames that leapt and lapped in the secluded space.
I edged back enough to meet those eyes.
To stare into eternity.
Didn’t matter if I had her or not.
She was the forever that had been written on my heart.Twenty-OneVioletSage eyes stared me down with the sort of severity that could blast through a concrete wall that was ten-feet thick. Sear through every resistance. Blow through every reserve until there wasn’t a single thing left but vulnerabilities.
Oh God, did it ever put my rationale at a stark, glaring disadvantage.
My daddy was right.
I was not just fine.
Every fractured piece that I was trying to hold together was quaking and quiverin’, my shredded insides I’d sewn up in flimsy threads threatening to bust apart.
He hovered an inch from my face, our noses close to brushing, that dark aura shifting into something far more dangerous. The carved, sharp angles of his gorgeous, chiseled face were tense with the truth there was no denying.
That energy spiked.
Like tiny daggers impaled in my spirit.
I couldn’t allow myself to get lost in those eyes and those hands and that body. To get lost in those words that wanted to soothe away some of the hurt.
To heal a small portion of the hole that gaped from within, knowing that maybe there was a chance that this man had been as lonely as I had been.
I cleared my throat and sat back in my chair, breaking the connection that strained and swelled, doing its best to cast its hypnotizing spell.
One that could so easily leave me swept away.
Adrift.
Forever lost in his eclipse.
“Violet.” It was a soft breath. Frustration and helplessness.
“I don’t know what to say to that, Richard.”
The waiter appeared at our table, bursting the bubble.
Richard sat back with a sigh of disappointment.
“Welcome to Delonge’s. Can I bring you something to drink to get you started with tonight?”
Richard looked at me, watching me like every word I said was precious in his sight.
I cleared the agony from my throat.
This was not easy.
Not easy at all.
Sitting in his space was making it monumentally more difficult to keep my wits about me.
To remember.
“I’ll have a glass of moscato,” I managed.
“Sir?” the man asked, swiveling his attention to Richard.
“I’ll have whatever local beer you have on tap. You pick.” Richard said it like he couldn’t be bothered.
“Perfect. I’ll be right back with the specials.”
He left, allowing the tension to come sweeping back in.
Shifting, I forced a smile, swearing to myself I could get through this.
I just needed to deflect.
Stay on safer topics and not the ones that would crush me.
“Tell me about the band. About Rhys and Emily. What it’s been like the last six years. I bet you all got up to some shenanigans.”
A true smile twitched along Richard’s plush lips. He sat farther back in the chair, that lean body built of sinew and strength slung back in the seat, wearing jeans and a button-down, the sleeves rolled up his forearms that my gaze kept drifting to. He had one tattooed arm stretched out to the table so he could fiddle with the corner of the fabric napkin folded by his bread plate.
I couldn’t help but watch the muscles tick and jump. The way his easiness was fueled by an undercurrent of hostility.
“We’ve written some damn good songs, that’s for sure.”
“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.