Chapter 12: Walk-Off

Ashton climbed the steps to the stage.

Four hundred people watched him in silence, and I watched his back.

Rex put an arm around his shoulders and offered him the microphone.

Lila stood on his other side with her hands clasped and her eyes on the floor.

Ashton took the microphone.

He looked down at it for a long moment.

Then he looked up and found me across the room.

"Thank you, Rex," he said, and his voice was easy and warm.

"Thank you all for coming."

The room relaxed.

Rex smiled.

"I've been in this business since I was nineteen," Ashton said.

"Rex gave me a start, and I'm grateful for that.

"I want to say something honest, and I hope you'll forgive me for saying it in front of the people who love me."

A few people laughed softly.

He straightened up.

"I am not engaged to Lila Ardmore.

"I never have been."

The laughter stopped.

Rex's hand tightened on his shoulder.

"Ash," he said, under his breath.

"For three years I've been in a relationship that was a clause in a contract.

"It was a story, and I was paid to tell it.

"I stood next to Lila in front of cameras and let you believe it, and that was wrong of me."

He turned to Lila.

"I'm sorry," he said, gently, "for all of it."

Lila's head came up.

I have thought about the look on her face a hundred times since then.

It wasn't triumph and it wasn't rage.

It was something closer to hope.

"The contract says I can't say this without losing my first three albums," Ashton went on.

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