The Fate of Us (The Broken Lyrics Duet Book 2)

by Tori Fox

  “He never deserved you.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why did you say it changed nothing and everything.”

  I gather my thoughts as I search his beautiful blue eyes. “Because it made me realize the last seven years was a waste. And all my doubts I had about falling in love again weren’t needed. Because he never loved me. He never loved me the way he said he did. And all the fears that were holding me back from getting closer to you didn’t matter anymore. You and me, Noah. We are right. We are. We just are. And I won’t hold myself back from loving you anymore.”

  His eyes brighten at my words before a haze of lust covers them. “Anna.”

  His mouth is on mine. But this kiss isn’t passion and lust. This is a different kind of kiss. A kiss I can feel all the way in my bones.

  A crack of thunder overhead breaks us apart.

  Noah laces his fingers with mine. “Come on, let’s get inside before we catch a cold.”

  5

  Noah

  Something changed. And I can’t place it.

  The feelings inside of me I’ve never had before.

  A burning need to protect this woman in front of me. I can feel it through my entire body. A connection on the deepest level.

  How did one letter change everything between us?

  And those words she said.

  I won’t hold myself back from loving you anymore.

  They caused a fire in my heart.

  I want to love her.

  I am one step closer to opening my heart completely to her.

  I just need the closure she finally got.

  But I know every day I spend with her, the guard around my heart breaks down more and more.

  She gives me butterflies.

  She makes my heart sing.

  I only wish I was as good at words as her.

  The screen door blows shut behind us as we walk in from the rain. The wind is picking up from the storm causing the shutters on the outside of the house to rattle.

  She shivers from the wet cold enveloping her. “I should latch the shutters.”

  I wrap my own wet arms around her. “How about you get out of your wet clothes and into the shower. I’ll get the shutters.”

  She looks up at me and for the first time since I met her, there isn’t a trace of a ghost in her eyes. I press a kiss to her forehead and walk her down the hall to the bathroom.

  I turn on the water before I move closer to Anna. I pull the soaked cardigan off her, followed by her sweats. She grips my forearms as she steps out of them and I fight the urge to fuck her again as my gaze travels to her nipples pressed hard against her wet tank. I pull it over her head and open the door to the shower and guide her in.

  “I’ll go close the shutters.”

  She bites her lip and I know she wants me with her but she slowly nods and closes the shower door behind her.

  I head outside and quickly secure all the windows as the thunderstorm picks up its fury. As I walk back up the steps of the porch, I pick up the umbrella Anna dropped on her way in. As I go to close it, I see the rain-soaked letter stuck in the spines of it. I carefully peel it out before closing the umbrella. I set the letter on the coffee table. I don’t know what Anna wants to do with it, hopefully destroy it.

  I walk down the hall, picking up the pictures we knocked down earlier and rehang them on the wall. I smile at a picture of an older woman with graying red hair, her arms wrapped around a young Anna with a guitar in her arms. Her wild red curls blow in the wind, covering half her face but the smile that peeks through is enormous.

  There is another picture of Anna and her sister as teens sitting on the porch. Anna once again with a guitar, her sister painting her nails. I place it back on the wall before making my way to the bathroom.

  Anna is still in the shower, singing softly in the steam. Her voice is one of the most beautiful I have ever heard. Haunting, melodic, sad.

  I strip my jeans and shirt off and step inside the modest shower. Anna jumps and stops singing as I slide in behind her. “You could have kept singing.”

  “You scared me.”

  “I’ve never heard you sing before.” I step farther into the stream of hot water, my body moving flush against Anna.

  “Yes you have,” she says as she places her hands on my chest.

  I shake my head. “Only in the recordings. You never sing for me.”

  She rests her head against my chest. “I just—I don’t like singing in front of people.”

  “Even me?”

  She looks up at me, biting her lip. “I—okay, I will.”

  I smile down at her. “What were you singing about?”

  She shrugs as her arms wrap around my waist. “Just finding words to a melody I came up with this morning.” I run my fingers through her hair as she speaks. “It’s a mess now. The song. But it’s about moving on after regrets.”

  I reach for the body wash behind her and raise a brow when I see it’s the kind she left at my place.

  “I picked some up on the way here.”

  I lather up a sponge and run my hands up and down her body. The movements must relax her because she begins to hum.

  As I slide my hand down her back, her fingers trace circles around my chest and that beautiful raspy voice sings the most haunting melody.

  I forget I was even washing her as her voice gets louder, echoing off the walls of the enclosed shower.

  I’m in a trance. Blown away from not just her sound but the words she sings. A song about lost love and heartache. Fighting for a future without the pain of regret.

  My hands wrap around her face as she meets my eyes on the last note of the song.

  “I haven’t sung that in years.”

  I can’t even answer her. I am still in awe of what I just heard.

  She giggles as I stare at her. “Are you that surprised?”

  I blink a few times before pressing a quick kiss to her lips. I murmur against them, “No, I just never thought I could be so enthralled by a song before. I didn’t want it to end.”

  She smiles against my lips. “I liked singing for you. It gave me a confidence I haven’t felt in a long time.”

  “You can sing for me whenever you want, Anna May.”

  She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me into her, kissing me slowly, deliberately. “I could get used to this.”

  I pull away slightly. “Kissing me? I think we both feel that way.”

  She laughs as her lips brush against mine. “No, Noah. Falling for you.”

  My hands slide to her hips as I pull her into me, kissing her deeply.

  I could get used to this too.

  After we stepped out of the shower, I told Anna to take a nap while I planned dinner. There wasn’t much in the house so I made a quick trip to the store. I check on her before heading back into the kitchen. She barely even moved while I was gone. I smile as I watch her sleep. She looks peaceful, relaxed, like she can finally breathe for the first time in seven years.

  I scramble around the kitchen looking for pots and pans. Everything in here is dated and old. I feel like I am cooking in Dottie’s kitchen. My grandma never cooks, always orders takeout or has dinner with her neighbors. I don’t even think she has looked at her cooking utensils in years. So I can easily manage since I do it all the time at Dottie’s.

  I find a few candlesticks in a closet and set them on the dinette just as a pair of arms wraps around me from behind.

  “You didn’t have to do all this,” she says.

  I might have gone a bit overboard with the salad and garlic bread and lobster ravioli but I wanted today to be special for her. I bought firewood and started a fire to warm the house up a bit since the storm brought in a cold front.

  “I wanted to,” I answer as I turn her around to face me. She looks adorable in the pajamas she has on.

  “What?” she asks as she looks down at her outfit. “I had nothing else to wear. These are all old clothes I used to have here. I had
to wash them in the sink to get the mustiness out.”

  “It’s cute,” I say as I tug on the oversized t-shirt she has on to bring her lips to mine.

  “It’s crazy how this stuff used to be tight on me. I never thought I would see the day where it was too big.” She pulls on her shirt to cover the bit of stomach that was showing where she tied it. “I’m glad you didn’t know me then. Or you never would have kissed me.”

  I rub my hand over the scruff that is growing on my face. “Anna, baby, it doesn’t matter what you look like.”

  She rolls her eyes and tries to step away from me but I hold her in place. “I’ve seen the pictures of you but your body had nothing to do with what I saw. It was the happiness on your face, the way your eyes shined with laughter. Your smile makes me weak in the knees.”

  “You wouldn’t be saying all that if you knew me back then.”

  I grip her chin. “Trust me. I would have. Don’t get shy on me now, Mayberry. I know the confidence you have. The way you show it in the bedroom. You can have that anytime. Just believe in yourself. No one is judging you by your weight.”

  I drop my hands to her ass, gripping it firmly. “I don’t care how much you weigh. You look fucking fantastic now. And if you had a little more here,” I grip her ass hard before running my hands up her stomach, “or here,” my hands move to her breasts, groping them under her shirt. She lets out a mewl and I grin. “Or even here. I wouldn’t feel any different about you.”

  “How do you always know the right things to say?”

  “How do you always know the right words to sing?”

  She smirks. “Fair enough.”

  I hate how self-conscious she is. I know it was hard when she was younger and I am not lying when I say I would be attracted to her no matter what she looked like. I am lucky she looks like a fucking siren now with her hourglass shape. A temptress in disguise. I just want her to feel comfortable and confident like she is with me when we’re naked.

  I change the subject because I know it will take time for her to gain her confidence. “Let’s eat.”

  “Okay.”

  I pull her chair out as she goes to sit down. The table is small but I manage to fit all the dishes on the table. I chuckle as she dives into the pasta.

  “Oh my god, this is fucking delicious. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

  “Thanks.”

  She grins at me after swallowing a piece of garlic bread. “Look what happens when you actually have a kitchen. You made it seem like you didn’t know what you were doing.”

  I shrug. “I knew what to do. I just didn’t care. I survived just fine.”

  “And now you care?”

  “Now I have you.”

  Her cheeks blush and I want nothing more than to wipe everything off this table, set her on top, and make the rest of her body blush as I devour her for dessert. But I restrain myself even though my dick is begging for it.

  “So how did you find me here, Noah?”

  I set my fork down and take a sip of water. “It wasn’t easy. I got lucky, really. I looked for you everywhere, Anna. I went to the daisy field. Everywhere in town your sister and parents said you might be. I called Seraphina and even Liam. No one had heard from you. It wasn’t until my conversation with Jed that I remembered you telling me about this place. Of course, I had only a vague recollection of where it was. When I talked to Tyler, I mentioned the color and he knew this place.”

  “It kind of stands out a bit.” She smirks.

  “Yeah it does. But I was willing to drive up and down the entire Carolina coastline looking for you.”

  She grabs my hand. “I’m glad you found me.”

  “Now tell me about this place. I saw the pictures of you on the wall. Probably would have been a lot easier to find if I just talked to Jess.”

  Anna sips on her wine before answering. “Jess wouldn’t have known.”

  “She’s been here though,” I say.

  Anna nods. “She has, but no one knows I own it.”

  I raise a brow at her and she continues. “It was my great-aunt’s house. I used to come here for a few weeks every summer with my sister. She hung out on the beach all day. I learned music. Aunt Sheila was the one who bought me my first guitar. She was a musician herself. She taught me everything. Tempo, melody, songwriting, guitar, piano, saxophone.”

  “You play saxophone?”

  “Trust me when I say you don’t want to hear me try.” I laugh as she tells her story. “Aunt Sheila got me into music. Taught me how to find the passion behind a song. She was my mentor and my best friend growing up. She passed away ten years ago. I was surprised as hell when a lawyer showed up at my apartment on campus. She left me this house. I came here all the time when I needed to get away from school. I wrote some of my best music here.”

  “When you were in the band with Kyle?”

  She nods. “Yeah. I wrote all the songs. I never let anyone come to this place. No one in the band ever knew about it.”

  “You said Jess wouldn’t have known you were here?”

  She eats the last bite of her food and sets her fork down. “My parents had a falling out with Aunt Sheila when I was sixteen. They wanted me to be a scientist or a doctor. I wanted to pursue music. She was my dad’s aunt and they never had a good relationship. But they let me and Jess come here because it gave them time to take a trip every year. Once I told them I wanted to be a musician like Aunt Sheila, they stopped talking to her. She didn’t have any other family, no kids, just the ones she taught music to. So the last few years of her life she spent mostly alone. Whenever I was able to make it out here, she would be so happy.

  “I never told my family she left me this place. And they never asked the lawyers from what I know. They probably assumed it was sold on behalf of the executor to her estate.”

  I clean up our plates and carry them to the sink. “When was the last time you came here?”

  Anna brings our glasses to the sink then leans against the counter. “I’m going to need a lot more wine for that conversation.”

  She helps me clean up from dinner. She washes the dishes while I dry them. We make small talk while we clean. I don’t want to pressure her into talking about what I am sure is going to make her upset.

  The storm outside quieted down for a bit but a huge crash of thunder outside makes us both jump. Within minutes, the power goes out.

  The fireplace gives off enough light for us to see but the rest of the house is completely dark with the shutters closed.

  Anna passes me the bottle of wine. “Go sit down. I know there are candles here somewhere.”

  I sit down on the couch and find it as uncomfortable as hell. I move around and fluff the cushions but no matter what I do, I sink into the bottom.

  “I wouldn’t sit on that couch.” Anna laughs.

  “I realize that now. But I don’t think I can get out. I think it’s eaten me alive.”

  Anna sets down a basket of candles on the floor and helps pull me out of the human eating couch.

  “I swear that couch has been here since this place was built in the fifties.” She opens a chest by the front door and pulls out blankets and giant floor pillows. “I much prefer to sit in front of the fireplace on these.”

  I laugh as she hands me a leopard print blanket. “Are we gonna sit on this or fuck in front of the fireplace? I mean it’s not quite a bear skin rug but it’s close.”

  She punches me in the arm before setting everything up in front of the coffee table. “My aunt had eclectic taste. What can I say?”

  I watch her as she sets candles up around the tiny living room. I can’t help but stare at her ass the whole time. Even in those five sizes too big pajama pants, I know what’s underneath. I might not have been joking about the blanket.

  She shakes her ass as she lights the last candle, knowing full well I was taking in the view.

  I pull her to the floor in front of me, caging her in with my legs. I wrap my arms around her
middle as I suck on her earlobe. “I like this.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You and me here. Alone. Like we have our own little world.”

  She turns toward me and smiles a sad smile. “I’m happy you’re here to make the memories fade.”

  “What happened?”

  She reaches behind us and grabs the wine I poured for us. She must see the letter on the table because the light in her eyes fades a bit as she grabs it.

  She swallows down half her glass of wine, her fingers fumbling with the letter. Mine rubbing up and down her legs. “I haven’t been here in seven years.” She takes a deep breath, her fingers tracing the words on the page. “I brought Kyle here when we graduated college. He was so thrilled to finally see the place I talked about. He knew about it when we were kids and knew I came here to write songs. But I never let him see it.

  “I was so in love with him. I thought we should celebrate graduating by making love and listening to the waves break on the shore. We spent a lot of time here that summer. He proposed here. He suggested we move in here after we got married. Of course in those fifteen months between his proposal and the week before the wedding, things changed drastically. We rented a house in our hometown. He started working for his dad. Stopped playing music. Told me to stop my dream. I never understood why until I found out he cheated. Honestly, it wasn’t really until this damn letter.”

  She folds it up and crumples it into a ball. “I should have known when he started having an affair. It was when everything changed about him. After he died, I tried to escape sometimes and come here but I couldn’t write music here any longer. It was as if the magic of this place was gone. I never really understood. I thought it was because he proposed here and it all turned out to be a lie.

  “But as I sat here for two days, my mind played conversations over and over in my head. Conversations with him. Conversations with Becca. And then I remembered a comment Becca made once about this place. The fact there wasn’t a coffee pot. Back then I assumed I told her about that. But I don’t think I ever did. There were times Kyle had to go away for business trips. Becca sometimes would say she was headed to the beach. I never put two and two together. Not until I read this.