Page 16 (2/2)

As he gaped at her, oldfish’s would, she promised herself that the next ti to cut to shreds every single pair of pants he owned

Quinn Bradford was going down and she was just the girl to do it

Chapter One

Ten years later…

Elise woke alone, in a strange bed in a strange rooy and a lot disoriented, it took her a few seconds to figure out where she was

As it turned out, those were the best moments of her day Because they were blank, empty, and for a little while—a very little while—she was just Elise McKinney, concert pianist She was in just another hotel rooive just another concert

But then the occasional beeping from the pulse oximeter next to the bed worked its way into her consciousness Followed by the throbbing in her left hand The aches and pains all over her body And the e was very, very wrong

Because it was Ellington was dead And so was her career She didn’t kno she could have forgotten, even in those first blurry moments

Using her good hand, she pushed herself into a sitting position, then shoved the hair out of her eyes and surveyed the hospital room around her Despite the numerous bouquets of flowers that lined most of the available surfaces, it felt empty Impersonal Lonely

Kind of like her life

Panic assailed her at the thought, had her grabbing onto the side rails of the bed as she fought to cal heart It worked, but her injured hand protested the movement and she ended up curled on her side in the fetal position, trying to keep her breathing under control

What was she going to do?

What was she going to do?

A knock at the door distracted her and as she looked up, her first thought was that she’d obviously hit her head harder than the doctors thought A lot harder Because she could swear that Quinn Bradford was standing casually in her doorway, s like it had been ten minutes and not ten years since she’d last seen hiinity in Brussels and then disappeared—from her life and his oithout soto end up

Oh, theher with dark, concern-filled eyes wasn’t the same Quinn Bradford she’d spent so ainst—no tuxedo, no perfectly trimmed hair, no fake sht look more like the rock and roll star he’d become than the classically trained pianist she used to know, but that didn’t nize him anywhere As would her heart, which had already started beating fast and frantic in her chest

Embarrassed by her reaction to hilanced at the monitor beside her bed Hoped he wouldn’t notice the sudden spike in her pulse rate that was detailed there

“I don’t know if you remember—” he started

“Of course I reency on her tongue, a brand on her soul, this man who had always hid more than he showed, always listenedhere?”

He s up of his lips that had a diht cheek She closed her eyes and tried not to think about how many times she’d kissed and licked that dimple when she was seventeen

“I live in Austin now I heard about the accident on the news” His grin disappeared “I’ton”

“Yeah, me too” Tears bloomed in her eyes—the sa ever since they’d pulled her froled wreck of the liton James had never approved of excess emotion, had never put up with the passionate displays other priular basis To cry now, here, would just er—and best friend—all theher emotions under wraps Now didn’t seee that

Quinn crossed the rooo hysterical at anyelse, convinced her she wasn’t having aural and visual hallucinations Because the Quinn Bradford she remembered had been just as uncoton had been As her father had been The one time she’d cried all over him, he’d looked so freaked out and terrified that she’d forced herself to pull away To bury the tears, and her sorrow, deep inside herself

She did the sa now, but it wasn’t nearly as hard this ti it for years with such success that et she had emotions at all

Her father would have been so proud

“Did they say how badly you were hurt?” Quinn asked after athe aardness that stretched between them like a particularly discordant note He eyed the scrapes on her face, the bandages that covered the stitches on her right arm The cast on her left hand

Terror welled up inside her as she thought of that cast—and the broken, led hand below it

The broken, led future that stretched out in front of her

“I’m fine Bumps and bruises A mild concussion” As she had with the tears, Elise sed back the fear until she didn’t feel anything but numb Just the way she’d learned to like it Then she said the words that had shattered her world as coton’s death had “A broken hand”

Broken didn’t exactly cover the mess the accident had made of three bones and several tendons in her hand Nor did it enco and the three others they’d explained she still had to get through But she didn’t want to think about those, let alone talk about them with Quinn Beautiful, perfect, obscenely talented Quinn

Besides, if she outlined the das were—and what those injuries would mean to her career

Like Ellington’s death, her new reality wasn’t so she was yet ready to face Not with an old friend, and definitely not with the stranger who stood before her Because if she wasn’t a classical pianist, she wasn’t anybody It was the first of h to reach the piano keys