Page 37 of The Encore Effect

Love. The one term of endearment she never dared write, the one she kept locked away in her heart because she could only ever hear it in his voice. And with it the reminder that love hadn’t been enough.

“You never told me.”

“You never told me. Did you think I wouldn’t recognize our story because you changed some details?”

Her mouth went dry. “They’re not our story.”

She was an awful liar.

The corner of his mouth turned down, his eyes going dark. He backed her up the few steps until her backside hit the shelf behind her, her fingers curling around the cool metal to steady herself as he advanced. But he still didn’t touch her.

“You didn’t write the story of the night we met? You sat down at my poker table in that casino and suddenly I couldn’t lose. My good luck charm. But unlike in your book, I didn’t kiss you in the elevator. I wanted to. Christ, you have no idea how I wanted to. You had on that little yellow dress with the laces at the back. You looked like the sun, and I wanted all your heat for myself.

“But there were cameras everywhere, and I knew I needed to get you alone. I had so many plans for us, love. I didn’t know you were working for the label. Didn’t know Derek had sent you to find me, that you were bringing me to him instead of to your room. But you didn’t put that part in your book. In your book, I kissed you in the elevator.”

He braced a hand against the shelf beside her head and leaned impossibly closer, her chest pressed to his, and she couldn’t breathe—couldn’t think with him this close, with his vanilla and smoke scent enveloping her and his words stripping her bare.

“In your book, I undid every last one of those laces, even though you changed the color of the dress. In the book, you let me put my hand under your skirt, watched yourself in the mirrored wall while I made you come. We didn’t do that for real for another few months. That elevator was in Paris and it didn’t have any cameras to see you come all over my hand. To watch me lick my fingers clean.”

“Beckett—”

“Or what about the one where he ate her pussy while she was on the phone with her boss? Are you going to try to tell me that’s not about us, either, because I remember that phone call, Luna. You had to mute your phone so Derek wouldn’t hear you scream my name.”

He was a magnet, and she was being pulled closer, closer, with every filthy thing he said, each gravel-edged word dragged along her skin, a memory and a promise, and she needed him to stop talking. She needed him to touch her. God, she just needed him.

“I remember it all, Luna. You can dress it up and change the names, but there is no world in which I would not recognize the way I love—” She pressed her hand to his mouth, stopping him. His eyes flashed fire.

“That’s not our story.” The words scratched her throat raw. “We didn’t get the happily ever after, Beckett. That’s not our ending.”

She had to get out—out of this closet, out of this bookstore, out of this fake relationship that was far too real, just out. She pushed past him, aware that she was only able to move him out of her way because he allowed it.

As her hand gripped the doorknob, he stopped her with a single, “Kat,” the sound a tortured scrape. “At the end of Restless Hearts, when he comes back for her, when he says—”

“Don’t.” She couldn’t hear those words from him. Not now. Not ever. Not if she had any chance of someday carving out an existence that didn’t revolve around the constant ache in her chest from missing him.

“It’s what I should have told you.”

She swallowed her sob, fighting back the stinging in her nose as she turned the doorknob, refusing to look at him as the light flooded in, breaking whatever temporary madness they’d slipped into. Because even if he had read all her books, even if he did remember how it had been, the fact remained…

“But you didn’t.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Katerina Geraldine Luna!”

Kat shook her head as she loaded her cardboard drink tray with straws and napkins. There was no point in correcting Jo. She’d just come up with another ridiculous middle name for Kat tomorrow.

“Tell me everything,” Jo demanded on the other end of the phone. “Was it amazing?”

“It was incredible,” Kat said slowly. As in, no sane person would believe that mobs of women had shown up to meet her, to get her to sign their books.

“There are so many fan photos and videos popping up online. I have three new requests for appearances in my inbox this morning.”

“You don’t!”

“I do.” Jo beamed. “You’re a hot commodity, Ms. Luna-soon-to-be-Hayes. All you have to do is tell me which bookstores you want to visit and I’ll handle the rest.”

“I don’t know,” Kat said. “Should I really be doing this while the band is on tour? I wouldn’t want Derek to think I was distracted from my job.”