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Chapter Thirteen
Mia was halfway to the door when Ford reached out and slid an arm around her waist to stop her. The blood was pumping in his veins at the thought of opening himself up to her. It would be easier to continue to keep his feelings about his family hidden.
Easy...and empty.
Five years ago, she’d given him everything—not just her body, but her heart and soul, too. But he’d been too scared shitless to do the same. He needed to find a way to fight that fear now.
Or he’d lose her.
“The reason I hate the name Rutherford is because my parents gave it to me.”
He felt her shock at his sudden statement, and the way he’d just made his feelings about his parents perfectly clear to her in one simple sentence. That shock was what held her where she was in his arms a few seconds longer, her back to his front.
“Rutherford is the son they’d planned to have. Blue blood. Privileged. Top of the class in French. English literature. Polo. Lacrosse. Rutherford was supposed to attend an Ivy League school, graduate with top honors, then proceed to acquire a law degree.”
He’d never said this much to anyone else about his parents. Journalists had probed like crazy over the years, but he’d never given them so much as a sound bite. But there was a big difference between telling his story to Rolling Stone and finally sharing it with the woman he loved. So even though each word felt like gravel in his throat, and every instinct in him said he should stop and protect himself the way he always had, Ford knew he only had this one chance to prove to Mia that he could change for her...and that he could now give her what he’d been unable to give her before.
“I remember everything you said to me about how close you are to your family, and I just saw what love means to the Sullivans. It means everything. And that’s obviously what Marcus and Nicola are going to give each other. Absolutely everything, nothing held back, not out of pride or any other reason.” His hand shook where it lay across Mia’s stomach. He needed her now to hold on to and was glad that she hadn’t yet tried to move away from him. “Rutherford never had a chance in hell of finding love. Not with his parents, and not with anyone else. I wasn’t even ten when I figured out that all that kid was ever going to have was money and status and ice-cold emptiness. That’s when I became Ford...and I vowed to never, ever let myself turn back into the machine my parents had tried to create with nannies and tutors and endless lists of what was and was not appropriate.”
Finally, Mia turned to face him, and he wasn’t sure she realized she was still in his arms as she asked, “Do you honestly believe they’re not impressed with you? You’re one of the biggest rock stars in the world, and it didn’t happen because you’re part of some industry machine. It’s because of how good you are at what you do.”
She was so beautiful and so earnest in her belief that any parent would be proud of him, that he was sorely tempted to kiss her. But now that it looked like he’d finally made some headway, he knew better than to blow it with an unwanted kiss.
“My career is inconsequential at best, a total embarrassment at worst. The sons of my parents’ contemporaries are stockbrokers and gallery owners and run charities.”
“But you give away a fortune every year, probably to those very charities.”
He raised an eyebrow at her admission that she knew something about his life.
“I’d have to be deaf and blind not to hear and read the news, but I just don’t see how your parents could miss the fact that they have a truly remarkable son.” She rolled her eyes as she belatedly realized what she’d said. “I mean that from a career achievement point of view, of course. Because even when I hated you, I couldn’t quite bring myself to hate your songs.”
Compliments were a dime a dozen for Ford. But hearing Mia call him remarkable meant more than a million accolades from fans ever could.
“My parents dislike every single song I’ve ever written and performed,” he said with perfect certainty. “Rock music breaks every rule I was bred to follow. Hell, even bringing an oboe into a string quartet is pushing it for them.”
Her mouth tipped up a teeny bit in each corner as she said, “And you love breaking those rules, don’t you?”
He smiled back at her. “I first picked up an electric guitar to hurt them the way they’d hurt me. And the honest truth is that the first time I turned that amp up to eleven and hit the A chord so that it shook the walls all the way down the hall to the formal dining room where they were having a dinner party, is still one of my favorite memories. I had no idea music would save my life by finally giving me something to love. But even though it saved me for so many years, I realized too late that it isn’t enough.”
“You have millions of fans. Everyone around the world loves your songs. How can that not be enough?”
“Because music can’t tell me when I’m being a self-obsessed jerk. Music can’t light up my day with nothing more than a smile. Music can’t love me back. And—” He paused to gently caress her cheek. “—music will never be you.”
Back when they were lovers, Ford had been amazed by the way Mia could let herself be strong in one moment, then soft and pliable the next. Today, with her emotions running high from the wedding, he sensed that he could easily push her into not just another kiss, but so much more. Ford desperately wanted to feel her bare skin against his, needed so badly to hear those beautiful, breathless sounds she made when she came apart in his arms.
But he needed a future with her more than he needed a few fleeting moments of pleasure that would surely end with all of her walls back up.
“I want us to start over fresh, Mia.” He reached out to tip her chin up with his finger so that she had to look him in the eye. “No ultimatums this time. I know you’re going to need time for me to convince you that I can be the man you need me to be.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” She looked truly shocked by her realization that he meant every word he’d said to her since Friday morning. “You actually didn’t set up the showing at the tower house to mess with me for a laugh, did you?”
“I’ve never been more serious about anyone or anything in my life, Mia. I want you back.”
“Why do you keep pushing when I’ve already said no so many times?”
“Because what I see in your eyes, and what I feel in your touch, have both told me something else entirely.”
She turned her cheek into his palm for a brief, beautiful moment, before she drew herself away from him. “I heard what you said about giving me time to think about things, but I know you. You’re like a dog until you get your bone. And I can only imagine what you’ll do to make your case once we’re both out there at the reception. So since I really don’t want anyone in my family to know that we were once a very, very brief item—because then I’ll be bombarded with a trillion questions I don’t want to answer—how about we make a deal?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Now that I know you’re truly serious about buying a home in Seattle, I’ll agree to be your Realtor again. As a bonus, it means we’ll have a bona fide reason to know each other outside of this wedding, because I really don’t want to have to lie to my family about not knowing you at all when I’m pretty sure they’ll all see right through that.”
“Won’t they wonder why today is the first time you’ve mentioned that we’re working together?”
“I’ll tell them we had a client confidentiality agreement, which, considering you came to me as an anonymous client, I’d say we did. And that I just cleared it with you that it’s okay for me to talk publicly about our business arrangement.” She poked him in the chest. “But if you don’t stop looking at me like that in public, they’re going to figure out that there’s more than business between us.”
He’d just told her he wouldn’t push too hard, that he wouldn’t give her ultimatums. God, though, it was hard not to reach for her again, not to kiss her to prove to her exactly how good they were together.
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like I’m Little Red to your big bad wolf.”
“Well,” he said slowly, “I do want to eat you.”
She was half-laughing as she shook her head at his completely distasteful joke. “Do we have a deal or not?”
If he hadn’t noticed the wicked gleam in her eyes growing brighter and hotter during the past few minutes they’d been verbally sparring, he would simply have agreed with her initial suggestion. But he knew neither of them would be satisfied with that.
“One kiss, Mia.” He let his words—and the heat that came with them—sink in before he added, “One kiss and I’ll be your dirty little secret. Although, once you agree to marry me, you’re probably going to have to tell a few people eventually.”
“See, I knew you’d do this. That you’d tell me you weren’t going to push in one breath, then immediately start talking about my marrying you in the next.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She looked utterly taken aback. “You are?”
“I am,” he said. “Now, about that kiss to seal the deal.”
Her laughter was utterly unexpected and amazingly beautiful. All he wanted to do for the rest of his life was find new ways to make her happy.
“You and your obsession with getting a kiss out of me. You’re really pushing your luck, rock star.” But even as she said it, he could read the anticipation in her eyes. “Fine. You can have one kiss, but—” She lifted a finger to make sure he heeded her condition. “—no tongues.”
He wanted her so badly that it took his brain longer than it should have to make sense of what she’d just said. “Did you just say no tongues?”
“I promised myself that we’d have this little air-clearing chat today without my tongue ending up in your mouth.”
Jesus, just flirting like this with Mia was crazy hot. Especially because her voice was growing huskier with every word she spoke even as she informed him that he’d need to keep the kiss to a simple peck on the lips.
“What about my tongue ending up in your mouth?”
“Nope,” she confirmed as her lips yet again fought the battle against smiling. “But if you’re not up to a tongueless kiss—”
“I’m definitely up for the challenge,” he interjected. “Give me any challenge at all, Mia, and I’m going to rise to meet it.”
Her eyes darkened further as she clearly began to understand that he meant it. And as she grabbed his tie and yanked him against her so that she could control their kiss this time, the chorus of Leonard Cohen’s famous song, Hallelujah, began playing in his head.
* * *
Mia had tried to lie to herself for five years about how much Ford had meant to her. But it was pretty much impossible to keep up the ruse when he was right here with her, his mouth only a breath away, his eyes dark with desire as he waited for her to press her lips against his.
She was still reeling, not only from having him so close to her during the beautiful wedding ceremony, but also from what they’d shared with each other today. Finally, they’d addressed the past. The wounds weren’t anywhere near completely healed yet, of course, but now that she’d said her piece, she knew that healing could truly begin in earnest.
But as important as dealing with their past in an open and honest way was, it was what he’d told her about his name and his parents that had truly been a shock. And, even more than what he’d shared with her, it was his reasons for sharing that had sent her way off kilter.
He wanted to start over fresh.
But could they really?
Would she ever really be able to believe that they wouldn’t eventually end up exactly where they had the first time around?
And, more to the point, regardless of what the answers were, how could she possibly do anything right now but close the distance between them for one more kiss?
His mouth was so warm and soft against hers that a sigh of pleasure escaped her before she could stop it. There was absolutely no reason that Ford’s lips simply brushing back and forth against hers in a mesmerizing pattern of heat should be so arousing. But with every sinfully sweet brush of his mouth over hers, she fell deeper and deeper into the sensual spell that only he had ever been able to weave around her. And when his mouth moved from hers to create a path of heat across her cheek and then her jaw, she didn’t even consider fighting the instinct to tilt back so that he could press more kisses down her neck, then into the hollow of her throat.
One of her hands was still clenched on his tie, holding him tightly against her, but her other hand had slipped into his dark hair of its own volition. Arching into the sweet pressure of his mouth on her skin, she heard Ford’s low groan of pleasure as if from a distance as he cupped her h*ps in his hands and dragged her even closer.
The scratch of his teeth over her bare shoulder sent shudders through her. “Ford.”
“I’m not breaking your promise,” he murmured against her skin before pressing his lips over the slight ache he’d just created, then roaming with lips and teeth—but no tongue—across her collarbone to her other shoulder, where he took another nip.
She’d been so sure that abiding by her promise to keep tongues out of the kiss would also keep it from sending her senses into overdrive. But, oh, how wrong she’d been.
Because of all the kisses the two of them had ever shared, this one was quickly becoming the absolute hottest.
