Moonlight dances across the darkened living room, glowing against the black veneer of my baby grand piano. My fingers twitch to play, but I don’t anymore. I have a useless piano, just like Marina has unplayed games.

Well, unplayed until tonight. Maybe there’s hope for me, too.

The bench creaks when I sit down. The keys practically glow under the moonlight. The dogs bark and settle around the piano like they’re getting comfortable for a performance—strange, considering they’ve never heard me play it. Blackbeard nudges my side, either begging for attention or encouraging me.

I imagine playing, and thinking of Marina’s CD collection in her bedroom, I decide on Norah Jones. The slow, sultry notes alight in my thoughts alongside the words. Come away with me in the night… Come away with me, and we’ll kiss… My fingers dance over the correct keys but don’t fall.

I haven’t played since my last good day with Emma.

“Why do you keep the piano then?” Marigold once asked.

“It’s a part of me that I can’t let go,” I answered vaguely. It’s the truth, but more than that, I don’t want to forget.

In the shower, I wash myself clean of horses, barns, and the night’s frustrations, but not Marina. Her red hair, darkened from dampness, her cold skin, the robe clinging to her wet body, I think to purge my thoughts of her, right here and now. It’s devastating how much I want her. It’d be easy, letting my imagination take the reins with her fresh in my mind and finding release in the safety of this closed private space.

But I can’t do that either. It feels wrong, disrespectful even. I want all of her or nothing, not even imagined pieces she doesn’t know I’m taking.

Too much has been taken from her already.

I lie awake in bed, restless, staring at the ceiling, where tree branches shimmy in the moonlight beyond my window.

Marina is okay. She’s done with Ashe and the Sullivan monarchy. She’s nearly healed. She’s got a new job that she’s somehow excited about. Her transportation issue has been solved, judging by the truck with character parked outside her place. She’s even found a new friend in Marigold. She doesn’t need me.

And I don’t want to need her.

I reinstate my life code and decide to limit my involvement to only what’s necessary for the deal with Wade—a good decision that will spare us both. She’s too young, too gorgeous, too goddamn sweet for me. She deserves more than the man who wrecked her life.

26. Grady

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Grady

Two days later, my determination to stay away is shot to hell. I show up at her all-hands meeting, though I have no good reason to be here. I simply want to be.