But he wasn’t stupid enough or young enough anymore to pretend that the day when he’d be too old to run around on a stage every night wasn’t coming. Especially considering how much a three-hour show took out of him now. What would it be like in five years at this relentless pace? In ten? Where would he go then? And who would he go there with?
He couldn’t see himself back where he’d grown up in Boston—or in New York City, Los Angeles, or London, where he did the bulk of his non-touring business. No matter how hard he tried to stop it, his brain always circled back to Seattle, where he’d spent one incredible week with the most beautiful girl in the world.
“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”
Over the years, Ford had worked with many musicians who were recovering alcoholics. He understood that, even if an addict was sober for years, one sip was all it would take for their addiction to come raging back even stronger than it had been before, as if the years of abstinence had never happened. Now, he knew exactly what that felt like, because he couldn’t stop staring at the computer screen where Mia’s beauty and vitality drew him even more now than it had then.
“Five years.”
“Have you ever tried to get back in touch with her?”
Again, his answer was a curt, “No.”
He’d done everything but that. He’d worked like hell to try to forget, to try to bury what he’d felt for her. He’d moved from one woman to another, one city to another, one stage to another. But, God, just thinking about having Mia back in his arms sent long-simmering yearnings and cravings rushing through him.
“Why haven’t you?”
How could he explain how good it had been with Mia...and then how badly it had ended? Especially since, even if he could put words to it, he knew he shouldn’t tell Natasha anything more. Not when he’d already told—and shown—her too much. Because if she decided to break her promise to him and go public with any of this, his grave was already dug. Deep.
Only, just as writing a song felt like discovering the mystery of what he truly believed, one lyric at a time, he was surprised to find that so did this very unexpected conversation.
Finally, he admitted, “We were young.”
But that wasn’t the whole truth. Not even close. He’d made every mistake in the book with Mia. Pride. Ego. Blame. They’d all been huge forces in his leaving her and then staying away.
“I was young. Stupid. Just like you said, I thought the whole world should be waiting at my feet. Including her.”
“We were all young and stupid once,” Natasha pointed out, “but if you ask me, the fact that you’re still in love with her trumps all of that.”
She waited then, as if to give him a chance to try to deny that he was still in love with Mia. But he couldn’t.
Not when he now realized that every word of the denial would be a bald-faced lie.
“The way you looked at her from that stage in Seattle five years ago...I wish I had been filming you just now so that you could see how you looked at her on my computer exactly that same way. And, Ford, what if she’s still just as much in love with you, too?” Her voice gentled as she added, “I know people think you have everything. Fame. Success. Packed stadiums and hit songs. And I’ve personally seen that you really enjoy what you do.” She looked around at the luxurious interior of the tour bus. “But I have to wonder—if the two of you could make things work this time around, what would you be willing to give up to have her back?”
The word everything busted into his brain at the exact moment that the old backstage video clicked back on. Watching it, he remembered that Mia had just told him her name when several scantily clad groupies had pushed between the two of them. Even as he’d given the women their autographs, he’d been counting down the seconds until he could be with Mia again.
Now, as he stood in his tricked-out tour bus, Ford realized he’d never stopped counting those seconds for the entire five years since the last time he’d seen her.
Once upon a time, he’d believed that his music, his guitar, and his songs were everything he needed. But tonight, as his tour bus roared down yet another highway to yet another stadium, Ford finally realized that his songs and audiences could never even come close to filling the hole inside of him.
Only one thing—only one person—had ever been able to do that.
Only Mia.
Chapter Two
Mia Sullivan knew nothing about the man she was about to meet...except that he must be rich.
Really stinking rich.
Mia had been contacted the previous day by a lawyer representing a client who was in the market for a home in Seattle. The budget? Ten million dollars, give or take a few million, if necessary.
The location? On the water, of course.
The time frame? Immediately.
The client? Anonymous until today’s showing.
As the owner of Sullivan Realty with a half-dozen agents working under her, Mia already had a full slate of showings and meetings set up for Friday morning. Plus, she’d found the anonymous-buyer aspect more than a little suspect. What possible reason could a potential client have for keeping his or her identity a secret from her? Especially when she’d previously sold property to some of the wealthiest men in the world, not to mention being cousin to movie star Smith Sullivan and pro-baseball player Ryan Sullivan. Quickly running through various possibilities in her head, Mia figured it was possible that the buyer might be a wealthy and dangerous convict who had done his time and now wanted to restart his life with a big house on the water in the Pacific Northwest.