Page 117 of The Encore’s Crown

My fingers loosen around her wrist.

“That’s what I’m sorry for. I let you believe you weren’t enough when the truth was I never believed I was.”

Her face crumples for half a second before she pulls it back under control. I release her. She’s breathing hard now, chest rising beneath the blue silk. Her eyes move over my face as though she’s trying to find the lie and can’t.

For one insane moment, she looks like she might forgive everything. Like she might close the last inch between us, as if ten years could collapse beneath one honest answer.

Was it always that simple? Could I have stood in that hotel room while she cried and said my father hurt us, and I’m afraid I’ll hurt you too? Would she have stayed? The question nearly breaks me.

Over her shoulder, the man at the bar has stopped pretending not to watch. His whole body is turned toward us now, expression dark enough that I can practically see him deciding whether to come over and reclaim his place beside her.

Radhika notices my gaze. She looks back at him, then closes her eyes briefly. When she opens them again, the distance returns. She takes one careful step back.

“Thank you,” she says.

Her voice trembles on the first word. She clears her throat.

“I should’ve said it years ago.”

“It was real.”

I nod.

“And honest.” She draws in a slow breath. “It wasn’t anything like I imagined.”

“What did you imagine?”

She looks down, then back at me.

“A speech.” Her mouth twists faintly. “Something charming. Carefully rehearsed.”

“That sounds like me.”

“It sounds like who you were.”

I don’t know what to do with that. We stand there nodding at each other like strangers trying to end a business meeting neither of us prepared for. Her companion shifts near the bar.

I can feel the time between us is closing.

“Do you still spend half your time in L.A.?” I ask.

Radhika hesitates, then nods.

“Most of it, when I’m not filming.”

“Right.”

Another silence. I rub my palm against my thigh.

“Maybe I’ll see you there after the tour wraps up.”

Her eyes search mine again. I don’t know what I’m asking for. Coffee. A conversation. Another chance to apologize without whiskey being involved and ten years staring over our shoulders. Maybe something I have no right to want. Radhika looks toward the man waiting for her, then back at me.

“Maybe,” she says.

It isn’t forgiveness or a promise.

But it isn’t no.