Jacinda had come on stage ready for whatever the night threw at her—but Liam wasn’t one of the possibilities she’d imagined. She listened to him sing, captivated and disbelieving, and in that moment, everything shrank to him. His hands on the guitar, his ocean-blue eyes on her, his intentions clear.
She was standing on a stage in Los Angeles, but she was on a beach under South Pacific stars.
She was twenty-seven, and she was seventeen.
She was lost, and she was found.
As he sang, the words touched her like they did the first time…except it was different. The two of them were different. Everything was different.
The earth turned true and brought you here
Your stars in my eyes, a galaxy near
The moon and tide in quiet awe
My waiting arms still wanting more
Where oceans break, my heart goes too
The only thing I want is you
Once, those words had led her to a decision that changed everything. To a guy who was charming, and handsome, a high school hero who didn’t love her. But she hadn’t loved him either—they were only kids, venturing into an adult world that held challenges they couldn’t have anticipated.
Now, though…she was a grown-up, and so was Liam. Both battle-scarred, but unbeaten. They’d been on opposite sides, but when they suspended hostilities it had been the hottest, sweetest truce in history.
She hadn’t thought a permanent peace was possible…but after that phone call, he’d come all this way to persuade her otherwise. Taken the risk of widening the rift in his family. Acknowledged his screw-up—in front of thousands of people—and asked her for a chance.
Maybe it was possible.
Maybe they weren’t on opposite sides after all.
She watched him sing, the simple melody carrying his lyrics on that dirty-sexy voice she’d had no idea he possessed. To her left, the audience was now a hundred per cent with him, the rectangular fairy lights of their phones setting the slanted seating of the Greek aglow. When the last note of the unnamed song echoed into the sky, they went crazy, clapping and cheering. But the sound seemed to wash over him as he held her gaze, focused only on her. His feet were planted squarely on the stage, the guitar resting low and easy against his body, but she could see the tension in his jaw, and the intensity in his eyes. He looked a little weary—maybe jetlagged from the flight—but he carried the edge of tiredness and a five o’clock shadow with a rugged sexiness. She wondered how much sleep he’d had over the last days, while she’d been rehearsing, fending off requests to do press, and trying not to think about him every minute of the goddamn day. Every minute of the day, until he turned up here in her world—the world he’d once resented her for being part of.
Her heart was pounding.
He waited.
The audience waited.
Just as she opened her mouth to speak, a shout came from the seats. “Kiss him!”
“Kiss him!” yelled another voice, and then another, and then all five thousand plus voices were raised in a repeating chant of “Kiss him, kiss him.”
She felt her cheeks flame, because that was exactly what she wanted to do.
He grinned, but turned toward the front of the stage and held out his hands, palms downward, trying to hush them. Finally, they settled down, and she spoke.
“So you wrote that song for me,” she said.
He nodded. “I did. For my sins.”
“I like it. A lot.”
“That was the plan.”
She remembered the beach, the bonfire, and the flickering flames. Two brothers, both talented, smart, and handsome. One with a self-assured exterior hiding his very human vulnerability. The other always in the background, with a quiet strength he’d been forced to draw on for all the years since. She was suddenly struck with regrets for everything that had happened—her past decisions, one on top of the other, that had built toward the ending she never saw coming.
“I wish I could change things,” she said. “I wish I could go back and do it differently.”
“I know.” There was understanding in his eyes. “The past never really goes away, especially one like ours. But everything we do from here on, in the future, is making a new past. And I want to make it with you.”
He made it sound so simple, like explaining time travel without the pesky paradox. And when he said it, she believed him. Right now, if he gave her some explanation for why yawns were contagious, or what was outside the universe, she would totally get it.
“So…can we make it okay?” he asked. “For us?”
It was the question that had pushed them forward, and the stumbling block that had tripped them up. And now, it was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question that would decide their future…and their future past. And the answer was easy.
She nodded. “I think maybe we can.”
But he shook his head. “I heard a maybe from you before, and that didn’t turn out so well. I came a really long way, you know. And there’s no leg room in economy. I’m going to need a better answer than that.”
She laughed, looking up at him. “I think we’ve both come a long way.” And instead of an ocean away, he was within arm’s reach. She wanted him closer. A lot closer. “My answer is yes.”
And suddenly he didn’t look tired at all. He looked like a light had gone on inside, sending hope and possibility into the darkest corners.
“Can you just kiss him now?” someone yelled.
It was the best idea she’d heard in forever. She stepped forward, and he stepped forward to meet her, two wanderers each rescuing the other. But as they collided, their guitars clashed together, sending a sudden, discordant noise blaring through the speakers, and a roar of complaint went up from the audience.
“Sorry,” she said, to them, and to Liam, and to the band. “Sorry!”
She pulled off her headset and unhooked the transmitter from the back of her waistband, and passed them to a roadie who’d raced onstage. As she unplugged the lead and pushed her guitar around to her back, Liam lifted Eli’s guitar off, and the roadie took it too.
Then Liam looked steadily at her, and she knew what he must be seeing. Her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. What he couldn’t see was how her heart was sending a happy, anticipatory heat through her whole body.
Or maybe he could.
What had she told herself? Nothing was guaranteed. She’d do what her heart told her was right. And what she’d once thought was wrong—what they’d both thought was wrong—had turned out to be totally, completely right.
“So…can you just kiss me now?” he asked, echoing the fan’s question.
And she did.
She stepped forward again, then stood on tiptoe under the lights, put her arms around his neck, and pressed her lips to his. He took her head in his hands, tangling his fingers in her hair, and she felt the tension leave him, as though all the complication and confrontation and remorse had finally found a release.
It was the simplest kiss, under a spotlight with nothing to hide.
It was escape, but not running away. Redemption, but not regret. Moving on without forgetting. Desire without doubt.
It was just them.
And a cameraman.
And five thousand enthusiastic onlookers.
As the audience applauded and hooted, finally getting the satisfaction of a happy ending, the band started playing again. She heard Eli say, “Jacinda Prescott, ladies and gentlemen!” before he launched into yet another hit song, and the camera guy turned away from them to focus on the performance.
She pulled Liam offstage, half kissing, half laughing, until they were safely in the wings. He gathered her into his arms, and she pressed herself against him. He was sweet surety in a messy world, the safe place she she’d visited, but never thought she could stay.
“I’m glad you came all this way,” she said, over the music. “But you still have a bit farther to go.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “How far?”
“All the way,” she replied, pulling him even closer. “All the way.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “I’m in.”
“In trouble?”
“The best kind,” he replied. Then he put a hand against her cheek, letting his thumb brush the corner of her lips. “So…remember how I said I was in love with you, back then?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Was isn’t exactly the right word.”
She started to reply, but he kissed the words away, an unspoken signal that he didn’t want her to say anything she wasn’t ready for. When they parted, she looked at him for a moment, and smiled. Then she silently took his hand, and led him away from the stage area, toward the stairs that led to her dressing room.
This man, with his own grown-up kind of trouble, was welcome in there any time.