Page 40 of You Found Me

No roses.

No note.

A little sigh of relief escaped her lips, and the knots in her stomach began to unwind.

“You okay?” Piper asked under her breath.

“Yeah. Let’s do this.” She shut the door behind them, leaving Ward and her nerves on the outside.

Four hours later, Della waited behind the curtain at the steps leading up to the stage for Piper to finish winding up the crowd. The anticipation and excitement that always filled her when she was about to go on had been slow and sluggish to build. She bounced on her tiptoes as the show started to coax her energy level up where it should be.

She was as ready to see her fans as they were to see her, but her body didn’t seem to realize that. She felt…off.

“You know who’s here, right?” Piper asked the crowd in a teasing tone.

“Della! Della! Della!” the audience cried.

Della glanced to her left. Ward watched her from the bottom of the steps, his gaze fixated on her.

That was it, she realized. That was why she was having such a hard time getting into the mood tonight. He was just…there. He radiated disapproval and danger signals. He was a constant reminder of how she’d felt in the dressing room. She hated that he could trigger that feeling with just a glance.

She closed her eyes to shut out that burning stare. She had to give her full attention to the music and her fans, not to the man who was starting to make her feel paranoid.

“You want her, you got her!” Piper shouted. “Everybody say hey to my sister Della!”

The background music kicked up a notch. It was her cue.

Della opened her eyes, slapped on a beaming smile and rushed onto the stage. She waved madly at the people who’d come to see them. “Hello, Los Angeles! How’s it going tonight?”

The music kicked up into the first song. She gathered her breath and launched into the first verse. The audience joined in, and they rode the musical wave together.

Greg guarded the steps to the stage on the right like he always did when she performed. Usually, his head would bob up and down in time to the music while he watched the crowd.

Tonight, his head didn’t move at all.

She glanced to the left.

Ward was still there. Watching.

He wore a dark suit and stood with his feet apart and his arms crossed. If he had on sunglasses, he’d look like every FBI agent she’d seen in the movies.

His gaze followed her wherever she went, and his serious, forbidding expression never wavered. She was on stage in front of thousands of people screaming her name and none of them looked at her with that kind of intensity. It made her feel naked. Exposed.

Self-conscious.

She danced to the far side of the stage and stayed there so long Piper shot her a confused look, then took her by the arm and dragged her back to center.

During their second song, she threw herself into the performance, hyping it up until she was breathless in an attempt to get past the feeling that she was being judged.

Singing to a crowd had never felt this way before. Nerves tumbled in her stomach, disrupting her flow and rhythm.

She blamed Ward. It was hard to look into the faces beaming up at her and not wonder if one of them was the one who’d left the letter in her dressing room.

Piper put her arm around Della’s shoulders during the chorus. Her sister’s expression told her she’d gone a few steps overboard. She dialed it down and refused to look in Ward’s direction for the rest of the song.

She could feel the weight of his stare. It was a tangible thing with tentacles and teeth that latched on to her and refused to let go. She couldn’t get away from it.

What if the stalker was waiting somewhere nearby? What if he was planning something worse than roses and a letter?