Prologue
I raced out of the suite and down the hall. The wall of windows to my left overlooked the pool and yard just beyond.
A storm bared down. Gusts of wind that lashed through the trees. It sent them whipping and shivering and howling beneath the moon that burned through a thin break in the clouds.
My heart raced as I took in the man who was a shadow beneath it, his shoulders hitched high as he strode across the yard toward his little home.
If he even had one.
The man lost.
A wanderer who raged as he searched through the Earth for where he fit.
I wanted to carve out a place for him. Show him what it was like to belong. To be treasured and loved, the way he showed me without asking for a thing in return.
I burst through the door, pummeled by a squall of wind.
A fierce fury that blasted through the air.
“What if I don’t want you to go?” I shouted above it. “What if I want you to stay, right here, with me?”
In the distance, he froze, as if he had been impaled by the plea. Staked to the spot.
Slowly, he turned. Rain began to pelt from the sky.
“I keep telling you that you don’t want me. That you don’t have the first clue what you’re asking for.”
I didn’t.
I didn’t have the first clue what he was going to do to me.
If he would love me or if he would wreck me.
Maybe I should have turned my back right then.
Taken heed of the warning that flashed across his gorgeous face.
But I stepped out into the rain.
And I took the chance . . .
One
Mia
“Are you okay?” Lyrik asked just loud enough for me to hear over the din of live music that echoed through the air. A clatter of voices and laughter mingled with it, glasses clinking as the sounds of the extravagant party carried around us.
My older brother had hauled me into a deserted hallway where we were hidden from view of the rest of the guests who overflowed his mansion, the man holding tight to my elbow as he searched my face.
I got the sense he was worried it was the only way he could keep me from floating away.
“Lyrik, I’m fine.” As fine as I could be with my heart a jackhammer in my chest.
Nerves rattled.
Breaths jagged and shallow and exposing everything I wanted to keep hidden from my brother.
You know, the straight up lie I was spouting.
But sometimes telling them were the only way to get by.
Lyrik caught it. Did I expect anything else? He’d always read me better than anyone.
Dark eyes flared as he glowered down at me. “Bullshit.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. That I freaked out? That I overreacted? Or that I really was scared?”
All of the above.
I didn’t know how to fix it short of locking myself in a room forever and never coming out.
Lyrik would probably think that was a fantastic idea.
“Honestly, if it was my choice, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.”
A mix between affection and disbelief rumbled in my chest.
I knew him, too. Knew him inside and out and back again. And that meant I knew he was hurting almost as badly as me.
Worried.
Aching for a way to take it away, to make it better, and realizing it didn’t matter how much fame had come his way or how many zeroes he had sitting in his bank accounts, he had no power over this.
What was done was already done.
Buried six feet underground.
“That is ridiculous and impossible and you’re being overbearing again,” I tried to reason, to calm him down. I was riddled with enough anxiety for the two of us.
“I’ll show you ridiculous,” he warned, glancing around like the monster would suddenly make himself known in the middle of one of the biggest galas of the year. “Told you the lengths I’d go, Mia. Wasn’t joking.”
“And you know I would never ask that of you. This isn’t your responsibility. You’ve already done enough.”
Lyrik scowled.
I swore, the man appeared nothing less than a demon in the shadows of the private hall, towering over me while I tried to remain standing and not break down from the accidental brush of a stranger’s hand.
Lately, crowds and I hadn’t been friends.
Problem was, being alone was worse.
“Who was it? Just point him out, and he’s out on his ass. No questions. Not gonna tolerate that kind of bullshit going down under my roof. Asshole should know better.”
“That’s not necessary, Lyrik.” My head shook as I gathered myself. “He . . . caught me off guard, that’s all. He didn’t even mean to touch me. I’m sorry that I made you worry.”
There’d just been something in the stranger’s seedy eyes that had sent my mind spiraling back to what had happened at my gallery three weeks ago. Something that had sent me running out of the room, close to suffering a full-blown panic attack.