27. Kate #2
“There are a surprising number of doors in your hallway.”
“Only one of them has a bathroom behind it.”
“I know that now.”
“You don’t think testing locked doors crosses a privacy line?”
“I tried the handle, Kate. I didn’t break the lock.”
The fact that he considered that restraint told me everything I needed to know.
“That’s a very low standard.”
“For me, it’s substantial progress.”
He took another sip of scotch and watched me over the rim of the glass. His tone remained casual, but Michael Waters did nothing casually. He’d waited until we were alone, relaxed, and halfway undressed before asking.
This was an interrogation.
A gentle one, but an interrogation all the same.
“I figured it might be where you used to write your music,” he added.
He was giving me an answer I could use. Maybe even hoping it was the truth.
Some of my old music was in that room. Sheet music, notebooks, instruments, contracts from songs I’d sold. Everything I needed to tell a convincing story without revealing the property records, corporate documents, zoning maps, or files connecting me to the companies that kept outbidding him.
“It’s my study,” I said. “And yes, some of my music is in there.”
His shoulders eased slightly. “Why lock it?”
“Because it’s private.”
“From everyone?”
“Yes.”
“Even me?”
“Especially you.”
He gave a quiet laugh, although the question remained in his eyes.
I stood and crossed to the bar. Rather than pour myself a drink, I took his glass and tasted the scotch. It burned all the way down.
“Music wasn’t something I decided to do,” I said, returning the glass. “It was how I learned to survive. It became a part of me.”
Michael’s expression changed. “What do you mean?”
I leaned against the counter beside him, looking toward the windows instead of at his face.
“My grandmother played piano. Nothing professional. She played at church, weddings, community events. She could hear a song once and sit down at the piano and find it without sheet music. When I was little, I thought it was magic.”
“Was she the one who taught you?”
“She started teaching me before I was old enough to read. I’d sit beside her on the bench and copy whatever her hands did.”
The memory arrived clearly: my grandmother’s rings catching the afternoon light, the patient rhythm of her fingers, my feet swinging well above the pedals.
“When my parents died, I stopped talking.”
Michael placed his glass on the bar.
“How old were you?”
“Eight.”
His hand found mine. He didn’t interrupt or offer an apology that couldn’t change anything. He simply threaded his fingers through mine and waited.
“For months, I barely spoke. Everyone thought I needed time, but my grandmother knew I was trapped somewhere I couldn’t get out of. She stopped asking me to explain how I felt and put me in front of the piano instead.”
I looked down at our joined hands.
“All that grief came out through the keys. I could play things I couldn’t say. Angry things. Sad things. Sometimes I’d sit there until my fingers hurt and my grandmother would have to close the piano to make me stop.”
Michael’s thumb moved slowly across my knuckles.
“Then came the violin,” I continued. “The piano wasn’t enough anymore, so she found me a teacher. After that, the cello.”
“You play cello?”
“I do.”
His eyebrows lifted. “What else?”
“Flute.”
“You’re serious?”
“I had a lot of feelings.”
A smile touched his mouth. “Apparently.”
“I learned almost anything anyone would put in my hands. Music gave shape to things I didn’t understand yet. Eventually, I started writing my own.”
“And selling it.”
“Later. Much later.”
“How old were you when you sold your first song?”
“Seventeen.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Seventeen?”
“It wasn’t a huge song.”
“It did well enough for you to remember.”
“I remember all of them.”
“Even now?”
“Especially now.”
That was the cruelest part. I remembered every lyric, every melody, every moment a song had arrived fully formed in my mind. I could still hear them, but I couldn’t create anything new. It was as if the door had closed after I’d spent my entire life believing it would always remain open.
Michael stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the city.
“You said the music was gone.”
“It is.”
“No. You said you can still play.”
“Playing and creating aren’t the same.”
“They come from the same place.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
I looked at him.
There was no challenge in his expression. Only certainty.
“You’ve convinced yourself that because the music stopped coming the way it used to, it left you,” he said. “Maybe it changed. Maybe you did.”
“That’s easy to say when it isn’t your life.”
“You’re right.”
The immediate concession surprised me.
Michael tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
“But I know what it’s like to inherit one version of yourself so young that you can’t imagine becoming anything else. That doesn’t mean the other parts disappear.”
For a man who solved most problems with money, influence, or violence, he occasionally reached inside me with startling precision.
“Will you play for me?” he asked.
My chest tightened.
“I haven’t played for anyone in a long time.”
“I’m not anyone.”
“No. You certainly aren’t.”
His thumb followed the curve of my cheek.
“Not tonight,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“Sometime, maybe.”
“I’ll take maybe.”
“That’s unusually reasonable.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
He kissed my forehead and pulled me against him. I rested my cheek on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart beneath his shirt.
Amber lifted her head from the stolen pillow, checked that neither of us was leaving, and went back to sleep.
Michael’s hand moved slowly along my back.
I’d told him the truth.