Page 32 of The Kiss that Captured a Billionaire

She paused mid-sweep, staring out over the stage as the bristles stilled. The silence wasn’t empty—it was filled with everything she missed.

Her gaze drifted to the grand piano at stage left.

It resembled the one in the Beast’s castle—carved scrollwork, rose-gold trim—but beneath the glamour, it was a working instrument. A heavy, beloved thing that had been decorated repeatedly depending on the play.

Her grandfather had tuned it like an altar—devout, precise, and reverent.

Wordlessly, she set the broom aside and walked toward it. Her fingers hovered over the keys, hesitant, trembling slightly. She hadn’t touched the ivory keys since her grandfather’s death—and they felt colder now, heavier somehow.

She sat down slowly, her spine straight, posed like her grandmother had taught her.

She exhaled, her fingers caressing the smooth surface before she began to play.

At first, it was just single notes. Wandering tones that had no place to go.

A tentative smile curved her lips as the notes seeped into her soul, calling to her, awakening her love for music. Piece by piece, her fingers began to find the notes rising in her mind. Thechords came—tentative, like the start of a thought. Then deeper, fuller, as an image rose to replace her uncertainty.

Theo.

She didn’t try to stop the memory of him. She let it come—his voice in the dark, his smile when he looked at her like she was the only woman on earth.

Her fingers moved faster, coaxing life into the melody. Not written. Not remembered. Just… hers.

A song just for him.

A song of love and longing.

A world bloomed behind her closed eyes: she and Theo, barefoot in a candlelit ballroom that existed only in dreams. His hand pressed low against her back. Her laughter rose like champagne bubbles as he twirled her under gilded archways. The dark gleam in his eyes before he pulled her close again.

Her lips parted before she realized she was singing, the notes shaping into words she hadn’t meant to release.

Her voice was husky, low, edged with a tremble that made it richer, more human.

She sang of what could never be spoken aloud.

Of wanting.

Of being seen.

Of kisses that didn’t count but felt like a beginning.

Of the fear that what was growing between them might be real?—

—and that it might vanish like all good things in her life had.

Her voice cracked. She faltered, as if the poetic words held an unspoken tragedy.

She thought of Theo pulling away after that kiss, of the way he’d stood so still before turning into the night.

She thought of what it would feel like when he didn’t come back. When she watched him walk away for the last time.

The final chord held beneath her fingers, vibrating with loss and longing. And then it was gone. A breath. A whisper.

A memory already fading.

She bowed her head over the keys. Her hands slipped into her lap, trembling now.

That was the thing about the songs she created.