Chapter 4

4

Sadie Lewis sat in the recording studio and wiped at her brow. The lights were beating down on her, but they weren't the only thing making her sweat. King McGrath sat with Austin, staring at her through the glass from the adjoining room.

"King?" Austin Steel, the music producer said into his microphone. "Can you join Sadie in the recording booth?"

"But she's not done with her verses," King said.

"I know. I want to try it with you both singing the chorus and then doing some voice layering."

"But that's not how the song is written," King argued.

"You're right," Austin said, sounding impatient. "But we're going to try it anyway."

King scowled but got up and did as Austin said without another word. The door slammed shut behind him as he walked into the booth, and the two of them stared at each other for a long moment.

Sadie swallowed the lump in her throat as she waited to see what he'd do.

Finally he sighed, grabbed the acoustic guitar from the stand next to Sadie, and sat on a stool as he turned his attention to Austin. "You've got me in here. Now what do you want?"

Austin rolled his eyes. "Obviously I want you to sing with Sadie. Try it with her singing the first verse, you both sing the chorus, and then you come in on the second verse. If it works, we'll do some voice layering on the bridge. Understand?"

"Sure," King said, focusing on his guitar.

"Sadie?" Austin asked.

She cleared her throat, praying she didn't look like she wanted to bolt from the room. Ever since she'd gotten there, King had either been hostile or had ignored her completely. It made for a tension-filled session. Sadie wondered if she should just walk out. Was a record deal worth putting herself through the torture of dealing with a hostile rock star? But if she did, that would be the second time in her life she'd walked out on King, and that just wasn't something she could bear. Sadie lifted her head high and said, "Yeah, I'm ready."

The music started, and Austin pointed at Sadie, giving her the signal to start recording.

The music washed over her and as always, the notes seemed to seep right into her very soul. Music had always had a hold on her, and when she sang, it was the only time she felt completely whole.

It was also when her empath ability kicked in, and she could sense other people's emotions. Immediately, she was overwhelmed with an onslaught of King's emotions. Anger heated her skin, and it was all she could do to get her verse out before her throat closed from the intensity of it all.

As soon as her notes faded away, she opened her eyes and stared at the man sitting across from her. His gaze was locked on her, and Sadie felt herself shrinking into herself, wishing the floor would just open up and swallow her whole. How in the hell was she going to endure recording an entire song with a man who hated her for something that had happened a decade ago?

But as soon as she started in on the chorus and King's voice joined hers, the anger started to dissipate. And underneath all that emotion, she felt pain that was buried in a deep-seated wound, and she couldn't help but wonder if her actions all those years ago had contributed to the beautiful man's trauma.

King raised his gaze to hers and together they finished singing the chorus, their voices melding into the beautiful melody. Magic crackled around them as all the pain and emotion faded away, replaced by something that made her feel alive and like everything was just right. It was as if the universe had conspired to bring them together to sing this song in this place at that very moment.

Sadie stared into King's eyes and got lost in the blue sea that was reflected back at her, and she poured every ounce of herself into the song. She was lit up from the inside, feeling more alive than she ever had before.

Memories of her time with King all those years ago rushed in. The two of them on the beach. King singing a song he'd written. Them walking hand and hand under the moonlight and sharing secrets neither had ever shared with another. They'd been young, not quite eighteen, and both were struggling with difficult family situations. But she'd known instantly that they'd crossed paths for a reason. It was a connection she'd never had before and hadn't had since. And one she'd missed every day of her life after her dad had shown up and abruptly unrooted her to Salem without any warning.

The song ended with Sadie and King staring at each other. The magic still crackled around them like electricity, and Sadie couldn't help the small smile that claimed her lips. "Did you feel that?"

He raised one eyebrow in question.

"We just made something special, King. I can feel it in my bones."

His eyes suddenly narrowed, and he stood abruptly, nearly knocking his chair over before he stormed out of the booth.

"King?" Austin called, his voice booming over the intercom. "Where are you going?"

The beautiful man with the deep blue eyes and a voice like an angel didn't respond as he disappeared through another door.

Sadie met Austin's gaze through the glass and said, "I think that went well, don't you?"

Austin let out a loud laugh and shook his head. Then he pointed at the door and said, "Go find him and bring him back. We still have work to do."

"Me?" she asked, pressing a hand to her chest. "I'm pretty sure he left because of me. Maybe we just need to let him clear his head."

He frowned. "He's been trying to work through this for a week now. After what I just witnessed, it's clear no amount of time is going to help until you two clear the air."

"And if we can't?" Sadie asked, staring at the door where King had disappeared. Every time she'd tried to talk to him this week, he'd run from her. It didn't look like he was interested in clearing anything up between them.

"You can and you will," he said gently. "And it's not because of the contracts you both signed. It's because of what just happened when you two were singing. That's something very rare, and all three of us know it. So go. Work it out. I'll be here when you're both ready to finish this song."

Sadie's limbs felt like lead as she stood and forced herself to follow King while being fully prepared for him to bolt again. He wasn't hard to find. Once she stepped outside into the parking lot that was behind the building, she found King pacing and holding an unlit cigarette between his fingers. Sadie slowly walked over to him and said, "Do you need a light?"

He paused and glanced over at her. "I don't smoke."

Her gaze traveled to the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger.

"Okay, I used to snoke when I was a dumb teenager. Holding one helps me settle when I'm agitated."

"Understandable." Sadie's grandmother used to smoke. She'd watched her hold her cigarettes in exactly the same way when she had something on her mind. "Austin sent me out here to clear the air."

He just nodded.

Sadie swallowed the lump in her throat and decided to dive in instead of giving him another chance to bolt. "I'm sorry for the way I left Westhaven. I should have told you. Should have said goodbye. I just… couldn't."

"Couldn't?" he asked with a bite in his tone. "Why is that, Sadie? Was it just too much trouble? Or were you afraid I was so pathetic that I'd beg you to stay?"

"What?" she asked, startled by what appeared to be self-loathing in his tone. "No. That wasn't it at all." She stared at his hand that was holding the cigarette and desperately wished she had one of her own just to have something else to focus on.

"Then tell me," he demanded, sounding both anguished and angry. "Do you have any idea what it was like waiting for you at Westies only to have you not show up? And then when I called, your phone was disconnected. You couldn't have made it any plainer that you didn't want to see or talk to me."

Tears burned Sadie's eyes, and she blinked rapidly to fight them back. "Kevin, I?—"

"It's King now."

"Right. Sorry." Her throat was tight as her anxiety shot through the roof. She wasn't proud of the way she'd handled things back then, but she had the opportunity to at least explain herself now. "When I got back to my grandma's that night we met on the beach, my father was there."

"Your father?" He frowned. "The one who abandoned you and your mom when you were six?"

Sadie nodded, surprised he'd remembered that detail. "Yeah. The one and only. He came with a court order giving him custody, and I had no choice but to go to Salem with him. My grandmother and I begged him to let me stay, but he said if I didn't go, he'd get the authorities involved. He threatened my grandmother by saying he'd file a complaint and drag her through the courts if she let me stay there. It was really combative and ugly, and I just…" She shook her head. "I didn't know what to do."

King was frozen as he took in her confession. "So your dad came in and yanked you away from your grandmother just three months after you'd lost your mom?"

"Yeah. That's pretty much it." Sadie's mom had died just before her seventeenth birthday. She been devastated. Not only had Steph Lewis been her mother, but she'd been her best friend, too. Her grandmother had visited them often, and the three were extremely close. She'd been there when Sadie's mom had passed, and not long after, she'd packed Sadie up and taken her to Westhaven, the beach town where she'd lived her entire life. While Sadie hadn't wanted to leave Keating Hollow, she'd wanted to be with her grandmother more.

"Sadie," King said softly.

She cleared the tears in her eyes and looked up at him. "Yeah?"

King stuffed the cigarette into his pocket and swiftly crossed the distance between them and wrapped her in his arms.

Sadie melted into him, clutching his shirt as tears streamed silently down her face. She hadn't wanted to cry. Hadn't wanted to have a meltdown while apologizing for ghosting him. But that was one of the reasons she hadn't had the courage to go see him before she'd left Westhaven. "King, I didn't find you before we left because I was afraid I'd beg you to run away with me."

He let out a chuckle that made his entire body vibrate. "You wouldn't have had to beg."

"I know. But we were just kids with nothing. I couldn't let you leave your foster home. Not after you'd finally found a decent one. If we'd run off, who knows where we'd be now?" She buried her face into his chest until her tears stopped and then finally pulled away, wiping at her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make this all about me."

He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets and hunched his shoulders, suddenly looking uncomfortable. "Thank you for telling me. But for the record, I think if we had bolted, we'd probably be international rock stars by now." His lips twitched up into a twisted smile. "I heard there was a scout in the audience at Westies that night."

"He didn't sign you on the spot?" she asked, already thinking the guy must have been an idiot. King McGrath had a voice like no other.

He chuckled. "Hard to sign someone who no-shows on a gig."

"Wait. You didn't show up either?"

"Oh, I did," he said. "But when you didn't show up, I took off looking for you. I was worried. I went to your grandmother's house, but no one answered. I was too upset to play."

Sadie's heart ached for what she'd put him through. If she'd just had the courage to tell him, or even leave him a voice mail or text, he wouldn't have been worried about her safety at least. She cleared her throat. "My grandmother moved to Salem with us. She died five months later. The minute I graduated from high school I came back here to Keating Hollow to my mother's house."

"I'm sorry, Sadie. I know how much you loved her."

She nodded. "I did."

"But you never came back to Westhaven?" he asked.

"No," she said with a small shake of her head. "That was a rough time, and it was all I could do to keep my head above water."

"Understandable." He reached out and squeezed her hand briefly before dropping it and stepping back again. They were silent for a long moment before he said, "We should probably get back inside."

"Sure." But Sadie didn't move.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Are we okay? I mean, okay enough to work together, because that song?—"

King held his hand up, stopping her. "We're recording that song. No doubt about it. I'll tell you what…"

She raised one eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

"How about we let the past go and just focus on the future?" he asked.

"That sounds perfect." Sadie smiled, and it felt like she was beaming. But then she sobered. "There's just one thing I have to know."

"If it has to do with the contract or payment or anything like that, you'll have to talk to Austin. He has people who handle that stuff."

"No, it's not that." She had to refrain from rolling her eyes. "I need to know how it is you have all those memories from Westhaven, but you didn't recognize me earlier in the evening last week."

"You didn't recognize me either," he countered.

"That's because you have a new name and about another fifty pounds of muscle." Sadie let her gaze run the length of him before she looked him in the eye again. "You're like a Greek god now. Back then…" She shrugged one shoulder. "You were a skinny teenager, not… this."

"I could say the same about you," he said, not bothering to hide that he was checking her out.

"But I didn't change my name," she said, accusation in her tone.

"True, but I always think of you as Kitty, so it took me a minute to make the connection."

Sadie clasped her hand over her heart that was trying to pound right out of her chest. She could still hear her mother call up the stairs, Kitty! Dinner.

"Oh hell," she said. "Are you trying to break me?" Kitty was the nickname that her mother had given her when she was still a toddler.

"Not today," he said with a smirk before adding, "Come on. Austin is waiting." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her back inside.