Pouting, she put on her shoes and went to the main house. She needed a drink—and to corner Chance to make sure he’d made things right with Roger Leif.
Chance was already there, standing with a tumbler in his hand, and Ante Up investigating close by. He was talking to Bijou and another man who had his hand on her sister’s back.
KT frowned and marched over to them. “Who are you?” she asked the dude straightaway.
Bijou rolled her eyes. “Will, this is KT. Aren’t you glad she missed all her sessions now?”
Will smiled and shook her hand. “Hello, KT. For the record, I don’t believe you’re as crazy as Bijou says you are.”
Bijou hit his shoulder, laughing.
Holy crap. KT gaped at them. Her sister was in love with a therapist, only he looked just her type.
“No kiss for me, sweet pea?” Chance slid his arm around her waist and kissed her lightly. “We missed you. Were you primping again?”
“Yeah, right.” She turned to study the therapist. Her mom would have said he had a nice aura, and she’d have been right. More than that, he looked at Bijou like the sun rose and set on her.
She wished Chance looked at her that way. She turned her frown on him. How
did
he look at her?
He bent to kiss her neck, whispering, “If you don’t stop looking at me that way, I’m going to sling you over my shoulder despite all the cookies you ate last night.”
“Karma, sweeting, there you are.” Her mother swept toward them. Tonight she was in full diva-mother-of-the-bride mode, wearing a pale blue sequined top and a matching silk sarong skirt, with silver stilettos. She had a million silver bracelets on her wrists and one dangling feather earring, her hair in an elaborate braid at the back of her head. Her eyes were smoky and her lips were sultry—and frowning. “What in the name of Buddha are you wearing, Karma?”
KT looked down at herself. “Clothes.”
“Really, sweeting, you look like you’re on your way to a funeral, not your own wedding.” She looked accusingly at Bijou.
Her sister threw her hands out defensively. “I’m not her keeper. She doesn’t even like me much right now.”
“Don’t be silly, Bijou. She loves you.”
Chance wisely interrupted at that moment. “Lara, you look stunning. It’s good that I met KT first.”
Her mother laughed delightedly, giving him a kiss on his cheek. “We’ll keep you, darling, and I’m so happy you’re ours now.”
KT felt him tense, and she immediately turned to make sure everything was okay. Outwardly, he looked the same, but she knew that was his poker face in place. The hand at her waist gripped harder.
She remembered how he wanted to set roots, and that his family had been taken from him in one fell swoop. Her heart broke for him all over again. It must have meant so much to have a family again. She covered his hand with hers and kept him to her.
Except it wasn’t in the cards. She was going to take it away when they broke up, just like she’d cost him the job he really wanted.
The doorbell rang, and Nellie yelled from the hallway. “I’ll get it.”
“Where’s Dad?” Bijou asked, craning her head as though he could be hiding somewhere in the empty room.
“I distracted him while he was changing.” Their mother flashed a sultry smile. “He’ll be down shortly.”
KT turned to Chance and mouthed,
Save me
.
He chuckled and kissed her temple.
Nellie escorted her friend Griffin and his woman, Nicole, into the living room. Grif looked like the rock star that he was in cowboy boots and a flashy shirt and a big white smile. Nicole looked like she belonged right alongside him, in red knee-high boots and a sassy dress.
Grif winked at KT but went to Lara first, giving her a big hug.
Lara closed her eyes and squeezed him back, and then held him at arm’s length, looking at him fondly. “You did good, Griffin. Your new record is holding at number one, and that’s not even your greatest accomplishment.”
He looked at Nicole with love in his eyes.
The KT of several weeks ago would have pretended to gag, but this engaged, foreign KT got misty eyed.
Grif greeted Bijou and then turned to KT. “Karma Taylor.”
She flipped him off.
Laughing, he grabbed her in a hug. “There’s the KT I know and love. You scared me when I found out you were engaged. I thought the world was ending.” He turned to Chance. “Griffin Chase. KT and I go way back.”
“Chance Nolan.”
“You’re getting a diamond here,” Grif said. “A rough one, but flawless nonetheless.”
She elbowed him. “Shut up.”
Grif swung his arm around her shoulder and motioned Nicole to meet Chance. The four of them chatted while other people arrived. Bijou and her man joined them, launching into an animated discussion of a friend they discovered they all had in common.
Fine with KT. It gave her a moment to lean into Chance and ask, “Have you talked to Roger yet?”
He shook his head, sipping his drink.
“You should call him.”
“This probably isn’t the best time to discuss this,” he said for her ears only.
“It’s been on my mind a lot.” She gripped his arm. “I don’t want you to miss this chance.”
“I’m not sure it’s such a great opportunity.”
“Since when?”
“Since it’d mean working with a person who’d hire someone like Tiffany Woods.” He looked at her. “What brought this on?”
She shrugged, worrying the hem of her shirt. He felt this way now, but one day he’d wonder
what if
, and he’d see her as the reason he didn’t have what he wanted. “I guess in a couple weeks all this will be over,” she said to reassure herself, “then you can go for it.”
He faced her, his face a stony mask. “What if I don’t want it to be over?”
“It has to be over,” she said, feeling miserable.
“Karma,” one of her mom’s friends called out. “Are you going to play for us tonight?”
There was a wave of laughter through the room.
KT stiffened. Was that mockery in the woman’s voice?
Chance squeezed her hand. “It’s okay,” he whispered to her. “Don’t pay attention.”
How could she not? Everyone was watching her. They all knew—a fair number of them had been there that day when she’d freaked out at the piano.
Bile burned at the base of her throat, and she swallowed it down, painful and bitter.
It was always going to feel this way, too.
She pulled her hand from Chance’s. “How can you be with me? I’m broken, and I’m just bringing you down, too.”
“KT—”
Shaking her head, she hurried out of the room. She needed air. She needed to get away.
Her dad was coming down the hall, his blissed-out and happy expression morphing into confusion as she rushed past. “Karma, where are going?”
She made a beeline for the door. If she could just get to the hedge and hop over—
Chance’s hands closed on her shoulders, and he swung her around.
She shook her head. “I can’t do this.”
“Breathe, babe.” He stroked her hair. “It’s all going to be okay.”
“It’s not.” She tugged at the ring. Damn it—it wouldn’t come off.
Her mother joined them, concern softening her gaze. “Sweeting, what are you doing?”
KT struggled with the ring. “I can’t do this.”
Bijou stood behind their mom. “KT—”
“Damn it.” She tried to pry the ring off. “
Damn it.
It won’t come off.”
Chance took her hands in his and forced her to look at him. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She looked into his eyes and felt her heart break. “I’m calling it all off.”
“Why?” he asked calmly.
“Because it’s all wrong.” It killed her, but she stepped back. “You’re losing what you wanted most because of this fake engagement.”
Her mother gasped. “Fake?”
Bijou groaned.
“I’m coming clean,” she said to Chance. Then she turned to her mom. “Chance and I were faking seeing each other to get me out of having to perform. I thought if you were distracted by the other things I was doing, you’d let me out of the concert and still let Bijou perform.”
“Oh, Karma.” Her mother shook her head.
“I’m sorry I lied to you.” She yanked at the ring, which still wouldn’t come off.
“It hasn’t been a lie,” Chance said.
They all turned to him.
Chance was only looking at her though. He pulled her closer, hands at her waist. “Our feelings haven’t been a lie,” he said softly, just for her.
She’d never feel his hands again after this, and that made her feel wretched. “You wouldn’t have proposed to me if it weren’t for my mom and the cannibal.”
“I disagree.”
“You’re just being stubborn.”
“I’m telling you how I feel. My feelings haven’t been a lie. Even our first kiss wasn’t a lie. We may have justified getting together for other reasons, but our relationship was always true. You’re being a coward.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m trying to be nice here, to give you space to make the career move you wanted to make, and you’re calling me names.”
“I don’t want you to be nice. I want you to be yourself,” he said. “You’re running away because you’re scared. You were scared to play the piano, and you’re scared to admit how you really feel about me.”
She stepped out of his arms. “You don’t know everything about me, Chance.”
“No, I don’t, but I know quite a bit. I know you love your sister so much you’d do anything for her, including come up with crazy, complicated schemes. I know you make music that’s from the divine. I know you love teaching piano to a surly teenager.” His voice dropped low, just for her. “I know the look you get when I slide my hand in your pants, and how you sound just before you come. I know you sleep with your hands tucked under your cheek, like a princess. I know you laugh from your belly and how selective you are about the people you let hear you laugh. I know that you have a lot of strength and determination on the inside, and that you can be stubborn as hell. You can do anything you want, even play in front of people, if you decide to let yourself do it.”
She would
not
tear up. “It’s not that easy.”
Chance crossed his arms. “Actually, it is.”
The ring suddenly popped off her finger, like it hadn’t been stuck at all. She stared at it, not wanting to give it up. But she wasn’t who he thought she was, so she held it out to him.
At first, she didn’t think he was going to take it, but then he slipped it in his pocket. “For the record, I never pretended, KT.”
Her eyes stung with tears. She watched him leave out the front door, the click of the handle very final.
Turning, she looked helplessly at her mom, dad, and sister. Bijou sighed, and her dad looked like he wanted to cry for her, too. But it was the pity in her mom’s eyes that got to her. She turned and ran, not unaware that she was really good at that.
Chapter Twenty-three
Will came to her immediately after she re-entered the parlor. “Is everything okay?”
Bijou shook her head. “No, it’s not.”
Taking her hand, he started to guide her back into the hall, but she stopped him. Her parents were out there, and she didn’t want to see them right at this moment. “This way,” she said, leading him through the crowded room and out the terrace doors to the courtyard.
They walked in silence to the gazebo. She let go of his hand when they got there and began to pace. “KT broke off the engagement.”
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t think so. She loves him. It’s so blazingly clear.” She winced, thinking of the shattered look in her sister’s eyes. Normally, Bijou would have followed her, but KT still wasn’t really talking to her.
It made her feel powerless.
And the feeling of that she lacked power only worsened when she thought of the concert. “Mom’s going to mandate that KT perform again. But she won’t, which means I’m out of luck, too.”
When Will didn’t say anything, she stopped and faced him. “Well? You’ve got nothing to say?”
He sat on a stone slab, looking comfortable. Unflappable. Then he asked, “You don’t need this concert, Bijou. Go out on your own terms. Do your own concert. People will want to hear you.”
“You don’t understand.” She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not? You don’t need mommy and daddy’s permission.”
She crossed her arms and glared at him. “This isn’t what I came to you for.”
“Why did you come to me?”
“Because I was upset,” she said, her voice raising in frustration.
“Who are you more upset for, Bijou? Your sister, or yourself?”
She recoiled, feeling like she’d been slapped. “What?”
“It’s a valid question.”
“You’re doing it again.” She yanked the front of his shirt, until he stood in front of her. “I don’t need a therapist right now. I need a boyfriend.”
“You don’t act like it.”
She threw her hands in the air. “I maul you every chance I get. How much more direct can I be?”
He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Bijou, do you want me to be your boyfriend?”
Faced with the question, she paused. Her heart pounded, knowing she’d only have one shot at this.
“If you want me, you’re going to have to accept all parts of me,” he said, facing her head on. “I’m a therapist, but I’m also a musician, and that’s never going to change.”
That was the part that got her each time. She pulled away from him and began to pace again. “This wasn’t the discussion I wanted to get into.”
“But you brought it up.” Will crossed his arms and stood in her path, not letting her evade him. “If you want a boyfriend, you’ve got to deal with the whole package.”
“What whole package?” She mirrored his stance, scowling at him. “The one where one minute you’re nice to me and the next you treat me like crap?”
“If you assume every relationship is like the one you had with one selfish ass, you’re in for a lonely, miserable life.” He pinned her with his gaze. “Do you even know what a real boyfriend does for his woman?”
She poked her finger in his chest. “A real boyfriend listens.”
“Yes. And he boosts her up when she feels insecure. He helps her when she needs help, like with a song she’s writing.” He gave her a flat look. “Most of all, he protects her at all costs, even when it’s from herself.”