Dropping The Ball - A New Year’s Billionaire Romance - Weston Parker Page 0,42
funny. You have nothing to worry about. He’s very happily married and he has a set of twins on the way.”
“I’m not worried,” I murmured, but both of us knew I was lying.
She didn’t call me out on it, though. Instead, we settled into an amicable silence while they were singing and talked whenever they weren’t. During one of the breaks when the director called Dustin and Rylee closer, Tani turned to me.
“Has she told you about the time she ran into a vase of flowers during opening night?” she asked. “She didn’t just tap them. She ran full speed into them.”
A surprised laugh tore out of me. I cleared my throat, but she kept right on going. “It was hilarious. Someone had moved the flowers about two feet from where they were supposed to have been, but they were exactly in her path. Rylee, of course, didn’t skip a beat. She stood up after stumbling, winked at the audience, and started singing her song.”
“She’s a natural up there,” I said. “I don’t know too much about this world, but I’m assuming a lot of other people would’ve handled it differently.”
She widened her eyes and nodded. “So much differently, but Rylee’s just not one to cause drama. You know? She loves her job, but she doesn’t take herself too seriously.”
Thirty minutes later, the rehearsal was over. During that time, I’d learned two new things about the girl I’d known since elementary school. One was that she had great taste in friends. I liked her best friend already. If it hadn’t been for Tani, I didn’t know how I’d have kept sane when I saw the performance between Rylee and Dustin for the first time.
The second thing was that I had no idea how I hadn’t seen one of her shows before. She exuded the kind of star-power that made me realize I should’ve known about her. Everyone should know about her.
Which only made me want to drag her back to her place and never let her out again. It was terrifying coming to the realization that Bart had been right. I suddenly also understood why there were threats against her. She was no passing sensation. She was a celebrity talent in her own right, and the consequences of that knowledge scared the shit out of me.
Afterward, we took my bike to Fifth Avenue for dinner and to see the Christmas tree. Rylee’s arms wrapped around me and her head buried between my shoulder blades made me feel like the luckiest bastard alive.
Sure, she wasn’t mine—regardless of what that beast inside me thought—but I was the one who got to have her holding on to me. I also got to have her trusting me to keep her safe, to protect her, and that felt like everything to me.
Since we were out in public, I was pretending to be her boyfriend again. We huddled up together in a booth at the back of a trendy bistro, a fire roaring next to us and festive music flowing over hidden speakers.
“What did you think?” she asked quietly enough that I knew it was only for me. “Have I still got it?”
“Are you really worried about it?” I asked. “Because you shouldn’t be. You’re phenomenal on stage.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, reaching across the table for my hand. My heart skipped a few beats when her skin touched mine. “It felt good being back. I missed it more than I realized.”
Over the last week, we’d had plenty of conversations but they’d mostly been lighthearted and casual. “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready. It’s still none of my business. I just can’t imagine why you would’ve stopped for so long.”
Her piercing blue gaze caught on mine, her thumb stopping its movements in my palm. Moving her eyes from one of mine to the other, she snuggled closer to my side and tilted her head up so she could still look at me.
“It’s not that I’m not ready. I want to tell you. I just don’t know if I’m ready for the way you look at me to change.”
I frowned, bringing my hand up to cup her face. She leaned into me, and another one of the bricks in the wall I’d tried to construct between us popped out.
“The way I look at you is inappropriate at best. It should probably change, but it won’t.” I ran my fingertips across the smooth skin of her cheek. “There’s nothing you can say to me that’s