Slowly, I took the guitar from her and set it aside. I moved back for her and took that precious face in my hands.
“I tried not to love you, Emily. Tried to stay away. Tried to remember my purpose. When it came to you, it was a two-part game. Second I heard you sing, I knew you were probably the most talented person I was ever going to get the honor to work with. I might not have given a shit about Mylton Records, but you? Your band? I wanted to be a part of you being discovered. Then Cory . . .”
My jaw clenched when fury flamed.
Wasn’t sure that was ever going to go away.
“I’d come to Atlanta to watch the show. Fitzgerald wanted Carolina George signed that night. I’d gone to the hotel to talk with Richard, see if we could all meet, seal the deal. I was on my way to his room . . .”
My hold tightened on her cheeks, my spirit pitching, reaching to meet hers. “I felt something, Emily. Something that was all wrong. Knew I was going to be on edge because Cory would be there, my old band, wounds too ripe. But it was different. It was you.”
I swallowed around the jagged rocks gathered at the base of my throat. “I searched through that disorder, not even knowing what I was looking for, moving up and down the hall until I heard you. Your heart and your spirit and then it was a scream.”
Old agony and faith flickered through her expression. “When he cut me.”
I flinched, hating that he had hurt her but knowing it was how I’d found her. “Yeah.”
“Wanted to end him that night . . . part of me wishes that I would have . . . but somehow I managed to stop. To find my focus. To try to see the full plan through because me going back to jail wasn’t going to be a benefit for my sister.”
My sister.
A grin played at the corner of my mouth when Emily’s eyes lit up at the mention of her. And I knew this had everything to do with the little meddler.
Couldn’t complain.
“I did my best to pretend like you hadn’t affected me that night. That I hadn’t felt you in a way I’d never felt anyone before. I was going to see the signing through. Take down my stepfather and Cory and make sure you were safe in the process until the job was done.”
My thumb brushed across the tear that slipped from the corner of her eye. “But it was a lie I was telling myself, Emily. Moment I saw you in that bar that night? Something took me over. Something I didn’t want to admit. Pretty sure I fell in love with you right then and there.”
She blinked through the emotion, her sweet mouth trembling. “I’ve never felt someone the way I felt you then. This . . . feeling like I was stepping into something different. Turns out, I was falling into you.”
I held her face like the treasure that it was. “And I promise, I will always be there to catch you. Don’t want to live my life without you . . . these last four weeks . . .”
I trailed off, unable to describe the brutality of living without her.
Heartbreak slashed through her expression. “I missed you. So much.”
Guilt clotted my voice. “I should have told you from the beginning. I was just terrified of failing my sister.”
“You should have trusted me to love you,” she murmured.
My chest stretched tight, my lips brushing across hers in the softest caress. “What I didn’t trust was me loving you.”
Attraction flashed at the bare contact.
Love and lust.
I gripped her by the upper thigh, shifting her to make space for myself between those legs that drove me out of my mind.
“But I was a fool. There was nothing that could have stopped me from loving you.”
Tears streaked down her face, and I kissed them away, the salty wetness coating my lips. I murmured across her cheeks, “I love you. I love you.”
“You are the meaning of every song that I have written,” she breathed back.
My chest clutched. Soared and shifted.
I reached out and pulled her face back, needing her to understand before she decided to stay. “My daughter . . .”
“Anna.” She whispered it like praise.
Adoration.
It was that very second the girl owned every piece of me.
“Anna.” I could barely get her name to break out of the lock of emotion on my tongue. “My daughter is five, Emily, and I haven’t seen her since she was nine months old. But I’ve never stopped loving her. Missing her. Not for a second. The main goal was getting her away from Cory. But now that he’s gone? I’m going to fight for her. Know you didn’t sign up for a family, but I won’t go on living without her in my life.”