Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Books by Fabiola Francisco
Social Media
Reader Note
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Sneak Peak — Roping Your Heart
Sneak Peak — Promise You
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © 2019 by Fabiola Francisco
Cover design by Amy Queau, Q Designs
Editing by Rebecca Kettner, Editing Ninja
Cover photo by Big Stock Photo
Interior Design by Cary Hart
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Standalone
Perfectly Imperfect
Red Lights, Black Hearts
Twisted in You
Memories of Us
All My Truths & One Lie
Promise You
Love In Everton Series
Write You a Love Song
Roping Your Heart — November 2019
Coming in 2020
Pretend You’re Mine
Make You Mine
You Make It Easy
Then I Met You
My Way to You
Rebel Desire Series
Lovin' on You
Love You Through It
All of You
Restoring Series
Restoring Us (Complete Series)
Resisting You (Aiden and Stacy Novella)
Sweet on You Series
Sweet on Wilde
Whiskey Nights
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Newsletter
For my future husband—if you don’t like Frito pie and snowball fights,
I don’t think it will work out.
Knox
The flashing car lights I’m anxious to leave behind are a blur as I speed down the highway. I can’t drive fast enough to escape my past. I scrub a hand down my face, the other tightening around the steering wheel as my knuckles whiten.
The radio is silent. I don’t want a reminder of the one thing that stole everything from me. The swooshing of the other cars I race past is enough music for my ears. The pelting rain on my car adds the only drumming I need right now.
An angry breath moves through me, and I blow out air from my lips. All I can think about is her. Her and the pain in her eyes that mirrored the same pain I put there four years ago.
It’s done.
It was done a long time ago, and I’m the only one to blame.
I squeeze my eyes shut despite my flying speed. I’ve lost control of everything in my life. Little by little, I gave a piece of my life to a dream I thought would offer everything I ever needed.
Instead, it destroyed me. It destroyed my passion. And now, the media is having a ball with it all, blowing it all up, making mountains out of invisible grains of sand. Enough to hurt both her and me.
I was naïve, and she was strong.
I flick the turn signal and take the exit, the shrilling sound of an incoming call interrupting my thoughts.
“What?” I bark out.
“Where are you?” My friend and manager, Harris, asks.
“You know where.” I go to hang up, but his voice comes through.
“Don’t do it,” he demands.
“You can’t tell me what to do anymore.”
“Knox, we’ll get through this. We’ll get a new label. Hell, you’re famous enough you can create your own label and release whatever you want,” he tries to convince me. This is about more than my music. This is about something bigger than a label, it’s about a culture.
“I’m done, Harris.”
“When will you be back?” His voice rings with resignation.
“I don’t know.” I hang up and pull into the airport.
Grabbing my suitcase, I stalk through the doors, cap low on my face and head bowed. I go through security, never glancing back at the city I’m leaving behind.
Knox
two months later
I stare out the glass doors that lead to my patio and out onto the frozen lake behind it. I’ve always loved this view. When I bought this house six years ago, I imagined a different use for it. I pictured a family running around and holding the woman I love while we sit by the fireplace, talking about our day.
That image is gone now. In its place is an empty house that I haven’t visited in far too long.
The woman I love has moved on. I can’t blame her. I didn’t expect her to wait for me when there was nothing to wait for. I made choices and the consequences have placed me exactly where I am in this moment.
My career is at a crossroads. I never thought that at the age of thirty-five, I’d be in the middle of a scandalous divorce to a woman I never loved and only married because of my career. A power couple, my ass.
I got tired of acting. I got tired of pretending I was happy when each day I’d lose more of myself and my love for making music. Time here in Everton will do me good. Nothing beats being home.
“Hey, man.” I turn around to see my brother, Axel, standing by the stone fireplace in my living room, his cowboy hat casting a shadow over his face. I didn’t even hear him come in.
“What’s up?” My hands in my pocket, I walk up to meet him, leaving behind the peaceful view that’s keeping my sanity in check. I haven’t had this much free time in years.
“How are you holding up?” He rubs his hands together in front of the fire.
“I’m okay.” Truth is that for the first time since I’ve been a kid, I feel lost. I’ve been in the public eye for years, a country music superstar. People have followed my career since the beginning, and that included my marriage to Amelia. What no one ever knew was that my heart belonged to another woman whose heart I broke the day I chose music over her. Every promise I made her was swept away with the string of a guitar, and now I have to lie in the bed I made.
“You look like shit. Let’s go grab a beer.” Axel walks toward the door, leaving no room for discussion. While I left to chase my dreams in Nashville, he stayed here with my parents. Small-town living with a huge ranch and enough land for a community to live on.
I grab my hat by the front door and hop into his truck, my focus on the crunching sound of the tires on the snow as he pulls away from my driveway and down the road.
“Have you heard from Amelia?” Axel interrupts the silence.
<
br /> “She’s giving me a hard time with the divorce. She thinks I should pay her more. Something about breaking her heart and being caught by surprise. She’s making shit up. She knows we were never happy, it was a marriage of convenience for her as well.” I stare out the window.
“What about Reese?” he asks with hesitation.
“What about her?” My jaw ticks as I bark out my question.
“What’s going on with her?” he speaks with more confidence, no longer afraid to hurt my feelings.
“Nothing. She’s moved on. Couldn’t really expect her to wait a lifetime for me when I was off married to someone else, could I?” Doesn’t matter that I held on to my feelings for her. She had every right to make a life for herself after I left her. No, I didn’t leave her, I asked her to be the other woman in my life. All I wanted was a life with her.
I shake my head and run my hand through my hair, combing back the long, wavy strands.
“I can’t blame her.” He gives me an apologetic shrug, his eyes focused on the road.
“Me neither. It just sucks. You know what she told me? She tried so hard not to fall for someone like me, but she did just that. She has a man that’s starting off his career in Nashville. The only difference is he won’t be a pussy like me and let her go. She’ll be able to live every experience by his side, not behind closed doors like I asked her.”
“You gotta let that go. It happened, and it sucks, but that’s life. We make choices and have consequences. At the time, you thought it was the right thing to do,” Axel tries to talk me off the ledge.
“Yeah.” I drop the subject. I’ve been back in Everton for a couple of months, and I’ve stayed mostly to myself. The rumors are flying, and I don’t want people asking me if it’s true that I cheated on my wife or that the label cut ties because I abandoned my wife. The rumors are already swirling, and they’d never believe me even if I told them it’s not as complicated as the media makes it seem.
In reality, I’ve been losing my passion for music for a year now. The resentment I felt for being manipulated into something I didn’t want has simmered for years until one day I exploded. I no longer had control of my life, and that took away my joy. Even the music I loved writing was replaced by songs other songwriters created for me to sing. Their words and emotions were coming out of my mouth all for the sake of a trend.
I run a hand down my face and sigh. Thankfully, we arrive at Clarke’s Bar, a town staple. I could use something stronger than beer.
I keep my head down as I walk through the door and take a seat at the bar. Axel is right behind me, letting me take the lead.
“What can I get ya?” the bartender asks.
“I’ll have a Sam Adams,” Axel responds.
When the bartender looks my way, I say, “Macallan, neat.”
“We don’t carry that,” the bartender says with annoyance.
“What do you have?” I look behind his head at the bottles displayed on the bar wall.
“Johnny Walker.” He scowls.
“Fine. Thanks.”
“You ain’t in the glitzy cities anymore,” Axel laughs, clapping my shoulder.
“How can I forget?” I sigh and look out the window at the falling snow. I love my town but being back hasn’t been easy.
The bartender is quick in serving our drinks. I thank him and move the glass to my lips.
“Cheers?” Axel raises his eyebrows.
“Yeah, sorry.” I tap my glass with his. It’s something we’ve always done since we were kids at home. My parents always made sure to toast before we drank, and that’s carried over into our adult lives.
“Okay. I’ve let you sulk for a few weeks. Now, what’s the plan? You’re gonna stay here, but don’t you have contracts and commitments you’re breaking by leaving it all behind?”
“Fortunately, I wasn’t working on a record. The label wants to sue me for abandoning my contract, but my lawyer is working on it. I’m sure there’s a loophole somewhere. As for my fans, we had a New Year’s Eve concert planned, and I’ll do that for them.”
“So, you’re done, done? No more music?” Axel’s eyebrows pop up behind the brim of his hat.
I take a long drink of whiskey and turn to look at him. “I used to live for writing songs and performing them. It was a dream I busted my ass to reach. The grass ain’t always greener on the other side.” I scrub my face.
“Sometimes I wonder what my life would’ve been like if I stayed here and worked the ranch with you and Dad. If I had married my first high school girlfriend.”
“Nah, that life was never for you,” Axel interrupts with the shake of his head.
I shrug. “I thought a life in Nashville was for me, and as soon as a label was interested in me, they changed me. Everything was for a business purpose. It didn’t matter if I wanted to write songs about home, they wrote songs about love and made me sing it. My success was always dangled in front of me. Could I even say I was successful when it wasn’t the authentic me who was shown to the public?
“For fuck’s sake, I married a woman I didn’t like and broke the heart of the one I loved to make millions. What kind of person does that make me?” The question is rhetorical, but Axel answers regardless.
“At the time, you thought it was the right choice. You were advised that the industry worked that way.”
I shake my head. I’m tired of excuses. “I was a stupid kid.” It’s been eight years since I met the woman I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with, and six since I left her for someone else.
“If you keep kicking yourself, you’ll never overcome this.”
I shake my head and order another round for both of us.
“Hey, Adam. Sorry, I’m late. The snow started up as I was driving here.” I turn to see a blonde woman move behind the bar.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m finishing up here and will leave,” the bartender, who I now know is Adam, smiles at her. I guess I need a pair of tits to get him to smile. My attitude probably didn’t help with how he served me.
She ties a waist apron around her body and smiles at us. “I’m Ainsley. If you need anything, let me know.”
“Hey,” Axel smiles at her.
“I know you know my name, but he doesn’t so I thought I’d be professional and introduce myself,” she continues to talk.
“My brother, Knox,” Axel tilts his head toward me.
“Well, I know who he is. Everyone does.” She looks at my eyes and smirks. “Nice to meet you.” She reaches her hand out for me to shake.
I look at it for a beat and grab it. “Likewise.” Then, I take a gulp of my scotch, letting it warm me. Snow continues to fall, the weather always unpredictable this time of year. It isn’t rare for snow to fall in October, but it’s been snowing more than I remember.
“Be nice. She’s kinda new to town,” Axel warns.
“You got a thing for her?” I raise my eyebrow.
“Nah.” He shakes his head. “But she’s a friend.” He mirrors my lifted eyebrow.
I nod and finish off my drink, ready for round three.
“Neat?” Ainsley asks when I signal to my glass.
“Please,” I nod.
I watch as she dances behind the bar, serving drinks and laughing with customers.
“She’s something else,” Axel says, noticing me watching her.
“How long has she been living here?”
“A few months.”
I nod my response and turn when I hear my name being called.
“Hey,” Eli, my best friend, pats my back. “Haven’t seen you around.” He smirks.
“What’s up?” I stand and shake his hand.
“Just here to grab a drink. Hey,” he turns to Axel.
“Hey,” Axel juts his chin in greeting.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Eli smiles at Ainsley. I can’t keep track of all the Heys thrown around in the matter of seconds or the way I feel like an outsider amongst my brother and best friend. “Can I get a beer?�
�� He takes a seat next to me.
I squint my eyes as she smiles and shakes her head at him. “The usual?”
“Yup.” Eli turns to me. “You’ve been hiding at home? You could’ve called when you got here. Been too long. How are you holding up?”
“Needed some time. I’m okay, happy to be here,” I tell him. There’s no need to go into details in a public place.
“Well, it’s about time you came to visit, even if under shitty circumstances.”
“Thanks,” I chuckle. “The choice was mine, you know?” I shake my head. Gotta love Eli’s transparent honesty.
“Yeah, yeah. You must be insane to leave that hot wife of yours.” I know he means well, but I grind my teeth to stop myself from saying something I’ll regret.
“Eli…” I warn. “You don’t know shit.”
“Got it,” he raises his hands. “Well, you’ve been missed around here. Younger Bentley isn’t the same as you.” He points to Axel.
“I’m more fun than this guy.”
I laugh at them. It’s just like when we were kids. Eli loves messing with Axel.
“Cheers,” Eli holds his glass up to us. We join him. “To old friends and new beginnings.”
I nod, able to get on board with that toast.
It’s nice to catch up with Eli. The more I drink, the more relaxed I become. I leave my self-pity for a while as I join Axel and Eli in conversation and watch as Ainsley’s mood affects everyone who comes into the bar.
Clarke’s is full of people coming in for a drink and a bite to eat. She knows almost everyone who sits at her bar, personalizing each conversation according to their life, drink order, and even kids.
When I get back into Axel’s truck, he looks at me. “What did you think of Ainsley?”
“What?” I meet his gaze.
“Saw you staring,” he states with raised eyebrows.
“It’s not what you think,” I defend.
“Whatever,” he shrugs, not buying my excuse.
“I’m not looking for anything right now. I thought it was cool that she’s been here for a short time and knows the town so well. People seemed to love her. That’s all,” I explain.
“Okay.” He drops it and turns the ignition.
Write You a Love Song Page 1
