Dropping The Ball - A New Year’s Billionaire Romance - Weston Parker Page 0,74

her. It was on a couple watching her closely from a table nearby. The woman had her phone up, nudging the man sitting beside her.

They looked proud of Amy, and I concluded they were her parents. I remained on high alert, as did Bart, judging from the rigid set of his shoulders and his sharp gaze, but neither of us moved or waved the girl away.

If she was just a fan who’d spotted Rylee in a restaurant, we were okay. That was part of her job. We couldn’t run off everyone who admired her just because there were a few with some screws loose out there.

“Can I have your autograph?” Amy asked shyly, producing a small notebook and a pen from behind her back. “Mom and I went to watch you in Frozen a couple of years ago. We bought the DVD. I watch it at least once a week.”

Rylee grinned so widely I thought her cheeks might crack. “Sure. I’m glad you enjoyed it. It was a very fun show to do.”

Accepting the book and pen, she thumbed to an empty page and clicked the ink out. “Who was your favorite character?”

“You,” Amy said without any hesitation, and Rylee chuckled until the girl asked her next question. “Are you coming back to Broadway? Mom didn’t want to me ask. She said it was rude, but you seem so nice.”

The smile froze on Rylee’s beautiful face, but then she signed the book and handed it back. “You’re not rude, sweetheart. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but thanks for the love.”

Amy asked a few more questions about the play she’d seen and the people in it before skipping back to her table. I watched as she showed the couple Rylee’s autograph, and noticed her glancing our way every so often for the rest of our meal.

When we were done eating and went our separate ways from Tani and Bart, who were “splitting a cab home,” Rylee wound her arm around my waist.

“I’m not quite ready to go home yet,” she said. “Do you think we can walk around for a while? Maybe go ice-skating?”

Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, a red scarf wrapped around her neck. The streets were still decked out for Christmas, and her eyes were soft as they took it all in.

I slung my arm around her shoulders, nodding before pressing a kiss to her hair. “Sure. Let’s do it. I know how much you love the lights and decorations.”

“How do you know that?” Her brow furrowed before she laughed. “Right. You get paid not to miss anything.”

“I do, but I’d have noticed everything about you anyway.” I pulled her against my side and couldn’t resist kissing her mouth when she looked up at me. “Let’s go ice-skating, Naples. I should warn you that I haven’t done it in a long time. You might have to catch me if I fall.”

“Always,” she promised, a question in her eyes that I wasn’t ready to answer yet. “As long as you promise to do the same.”

“I won’t have to catch you because I’ll never let you fall. I’ll always already be there, holding you up.”

If she’d already fallen in the other sense, then I was right there with her. If it were up to me, I’d never let her go.

Chapter 26

RYLEE

There were a ton of words Carter and I didn’t say in that exchange. The air between us was heavy with them, but then I tore my gaze away from his and fixed a cheerful smile to my face.

“Good to know, but whether I fall or not might not be up to you.”

In more ways than one. The moment my legs had given out underneath me onstage had been playing through my mind a lot more often recently.

Knowing that I was about to take the stage again had brought back a lot of the nightmares that I’d thought were gone. Doubts about whether I was doing the right thing plagued my mind until Carter quietened it with his mouth and body every night.

I’d tried to get an appointment with my doctor, but I was told he was out of the country. I had an appointment with him the day before my performance anyway, and so I tried to take comfort in the fact that everything seemed okay.

Something was looming, though. I could feel it. I’d chalked it up to being about nothing more than anxiety over going back onstage, but for some reason, every time I looked