“Autumn?”

“My sister. She likes to cook. She’s taught me a thing or two.”

Oh. Somehow it seemed odd to me that O’Dea had family. He seemed like the kind of man who was a lone wolf.

“I ate,” I said. “I wasn’t starving myself. I just couldn’t eat well because I had to eat cheap.”

He nodded, like he understood. He didn’t understand. No one could unless they’d been in my situation.

“The omelet is good,” I offered reluctantly when the silence felt too heavy.

But it was followed by more silence, the only sounds between us that of cutlery on plates and the soft sipping sounds of us drinking. I could barely finish the omelet, not used to eating something so substantial in the morning. O’Dea’s brows pinched together as he took my plate, but he didn’t say anything.

“I need a shower.”

“There’s an en suite in the bedroom. Fresh towels, soap, shampoo and conditioner in there too.” He reached into the carrier bag on the counter and pulled out a brand-new electric toothbrush and tube of toothpaste. He offered them and feeling a little unbalanced by the gesture, I took them. “There’s a hair dryer in the bathroom as well. Your backpack is in the bedroom.”

I nodded, not quite able to thank him again after the last attempt.

“I’ll be out here when you’re done. We’ll get straight to the audition.”

And suddenly I didn’t care about thanking him. Throwing him a look of disgust, I disappeared into the bedroom and slammed the door behind me.

Unfortunately, a few minutes later, I had to come out of the room again. I found him sitting on the couch, drinking coffee, and scrolling through something on his phone. O’Dea looked up at me with an eyebrow quirk. I hated that eyebrow quirk.

I lifted my wrist with the cast. “I need something to cover this.”

Without saying a word, he got up, put his coffee and phone down on the island, and rummaged through one of the large drawers beside the range. He turned around with cling-film in his hands and gestured me to come to him with an odious curl of his finger. Internally huffing, I strode over to him and held out my wrist.

“This place is pretty well stocked,” I grumbled.

“We like to make sure every need is catered to.”

I harrumphed.

Then O’Dea triple-wrapped my cast with such gentleness, it stunned me silent.

I was still standing holding out my arm while he put the cling-film away. I frowned at his back, puzzled by his complexity. That is until he turned around and gave me that eyebrow again.

Just like that I was back to being annoyed and desperate to get out of his company.

My building resentment toward him only increased the moment I saw my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

How the hell could he look at me like this and demand that I audition?

Bluish bruising covered my puffed-up, swollen eye and upper cheek. My lower lip was swollen on one side where it had split. And underneath the injuries, my cheekbones cut sharply against my pale skin. The shoulders of my T-shirt hung down on my arms because my shoulders were too small for it.

I looked like a battered waif.

Skylar Finch was no more.

My intent had been to let her go. Let her disappear. Instead it looked like I’d starved and beaten her out of existence. If I let it, the shame and guilt would overwhelm me.

So I couldn’t let it.

It was better to turn that anger toward Killian O’Dea. The heartless A&R executive.

However, as I awkwardly showered with one hand, enjoying the coconut-scented shower gel and the expensive brand shampoo and conditioner, my anger momentarily faded away. My stomach felt comfortably full, the power shower was freaking amazing, and despite my resentment toward the Scot out in the living room, I couldn’t deny that I felt safe.

In pain, but safe.

I hadn’t thought that I’d felt unsafe sleeping in that cemetery, probably because I never imagined I’d get attacked. Yet, I realized the whole time I had felt like I was always on the edge of peril. The weather had scared me.

But now I didn’t feel afraid.

I think I resented O’Dea for that too. That a man like him could make me feel safe. It reminded me of Micah. Of having a man make me feel safe and yet horribly used at the same time.

By the time, I got out of the shower, I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to drop down in that beautiful king-sized bed and sleep the rest of the day. I used the toothbrush he gave me, first wincing at the painful stretch against my cut lips when I opened my mouth too wide, and then flinching against the vibration of the bristles. It had been so long since I’d used an electric toothbrush, it felt uncomfortably weird against my teeth. I had to dab fresh blood from my lip afterward.

But once I’d changed into clean underwear, jeans, and a hoodie, I’d made the decision that O’Dea was right. We’d struck a bargain and it was time to suck it up and fulfill my end of it.

He was on the phone when I stepped out. He gave me another head-to-toe once-over before he said, “We’ll discuss it when I get into the office. I have to go.” He hung up without saying goodbye. “You look marginally better.”

“I look like shit.” I shrugged and sat on the sofa. “Let’s get this over with. What do you want to hear?”

He sat down in the button-back chair looking ridiculously too tall and masculine for it. “All of it.”

“You’ve already heard a few of my songs.”

“I want to hear them again. But I also want to hear something new.” At my silence he continued, “Why don’t you start with the one about the moon and the stars.”

O’Dea referred to my song “Ghost.” It was one of my more upbeat melodies.

Looking away from him, out of the French doors to the river below, I prepared to sing. It felt weird starting the song straight into the lyrics because I loved my intro on the guitar to this one. This song, like quite a few I’d written over the past eighteen months, was a collision of perky sound and melancholic lyrics. “Ghost” had a folky, countrified riff and that was obviously difficult to capture without my guitar.

Still, I opened my mouth and began to sing, surprised my voice came out clear and true, despite the battering I’d taken the night before.

“The plane landed in Rome

And I shook off the past,

Oh, I hope it’ll last.

Then I hopped on a train to take me

From my name.

Oh, it’s gone now.

“Yeah, I’m a ghost,

Drifting coast to coast.

“I slept under the stars

Trying to make them my friends.

But just like a cleanse

They all wanted my amends.

So, I left them behind me

And turned to the moon.

For less gloom, yeah.

“’Cause now I’m a ghost,

Drifting coast to coast.

“The moon took me to Berlin

Where we started a fight

With the stars about light

’Cause they tried to shed some

Over all of the past

That I’d buried in Rome.

Oh, stop forcing me home!

“’Cause now I’m a ghost,

Drifting coast to coast.

Yeah, I’m a ghost,

I don’t wanna go home.

What is home,

But a grave left in Rome.

“I settled down in Glasgow

With the moon on my side.

And the stars they all died,

Withered under my will.

They couldn’t stand the chill.

But I can, yeah.

“You know I’m a ghost,

I’m not misdiagnosed.

Yeah, I’m a ghost,

I’m not misdiagnosed.

You know I’m a ghost,

And I ain’t ever going home.”

Without my guitar, my music, the song seemed short and ended awkwardly. I flushed, feeling vulnerable in a way I never felt when I was performing on the streets.

O’Dea gave me nothing. He merely demanded, “Another.”

And so I sang another.

“Are we done yet?” I asked as soon as I finished.

“I want to hear something I haven’t heard. Something even more real than all the others.”

My stomach flipped at the thought. “Those two were pretty personal.”