"I'm home in my apartment, why?"

"Because we need to talk. I'll be there in about twenty minutes."

"About what?" she asked, but he'd already hung up. She met Ella's concerned gaze. "Guess he's coming to talk."

"Could this day get any weirder?"

Avery shivered, still cold from pa.s.sing out and uneasy after speaking to her father. Ella rose and grabbed an afghan from the chair across from the sofa and wrapped it around Avery's shoulders.

"Thank you." She snuggled into the warm blanket and scrolled through her phone. "Wow."

"What's up?" Ella asked.

"That wasn't the first time my father called this morning," Avery said, glancing at three missed calls and one voice message with his name on it.

She tapped on the voice mail and played his message out loud.

"Avery, this is your father."

"No s.h.i.t," Ella muttered, and Avery couldn't help but grin.

Her father continued. "I don't appreciate the fact that your new relationship is dragging up my ancient history, and you need to make this go away. Call me immediately."

"Is he kidding?" Ella asked in disbelief just as a knock sounded at the door and Rick let Grey inside. As Grey entered, Rick turned to her. "I'll be right outside if you need me."

"Thank you."

"And I'll be in my room so you two can talk. But same thing. Yell if you need me," Ella said. "Especially when you-know-who gets here."

Ella and Rick both left them alone.

Grey, looking edible in a pair of jeans and a faded Tangled Royal concert tee shirt, slid onto the couch beside her.

"Are you okay, sugar?" He skimmed his knuckles down her cheek, his green eyes boring into hers.

She didn't realize how much she'd been holding inside her until she heard the concerned tone in his voice, and she broke down. Tears came, unbidden and unwanted, but she couldn't make them stop.

"I'm just so tired of ... this." She gestured to herself. "I want to be stronger than this. I am stronger than this."

"Crying doesn't make you weak. Your actions are the thing that define you, and you're doing pretty d.a.m.n good if you ask me."

No, Avery thought. She wasn't. But she would be. "My father called. He's coming to talk. Apparently he's upset that my personal life is bringing up his past indiscretions. Can you imagine that?"

Grey blew out a deep breath, managing to hang on to control by a thread despite the blood pumping hard through his veins. First she was put through the wringer by the press because of him, and now her father was blaming her for it?

"No. And I'll make d.a.m.n sure he knows if he wants to get to you, he needs to go through me."

She reached out and touched his arm. "It's time I handled my father." Because she believed Ella had had a point earlier. "He needs to know how much damage he's done to me and my life."

Grey didn't like letting her deal with her angry parent, but he respected her need to do it. "I'll be by your side," he said. "That's nonnegotiable."

A smile lifted her lips, and some color finally returned to her face. "Deal."

When he'd walked in, she'd been so pale it'd frightened him. And considering he'd driven here in a panic, ignoring the speed limit to get to her, that was saying something.

"If I were a better man, I'd let you go. I'd settle in L.A. and make sure that the press and the paparazzi never had a reason to come near you again," he said, the words taking him by surprise.

She narrowed her gaze. "Don't you dare make those kinds of decisions for me."

He appreciated her guts even as guilt swamped him. He'd never wanted the uglier side of his life to touch hers. But he wasn't leaving her.

"Don't worry. I'm not that better man," he said wryly. "I came home and made my play. What kind of fool would I be to walk away from you now?" He chuckled but sobered quickly. "But you're the one suffering from being with me."

"You're wrong, Grey." She grasped his hand tightly and opened her mouth to continue when the doorbell rang. "We're going to have to pick this up later, okay?"

"I'm not going anywhere," he promised her. If she couldn't handle the s.h.i.t that came with Grey Kingston, she was going to have to be the one to walk away.

The thought made his stomach cramp and his heart feel empty, but he refused to dwell on the negative. From everything she'd said and done so far, Avery was willing to step up and fight for them.

Starting with her father.

Avery braced herself as she let her father inside her apartment. She wanted to have a calm, rational, thoughtful conversation with her parent. One that let her explain the things she kept inside and maybe helped forge a new understanding.

"What's with the bodyguard?" he asked, and that one question destroyed any chance for Avery to remain calm, rational, or thoughtful.

Avery blew out a long breath. "Really, Dad? You have nine children, and none of them told you what's going on in my life? Or is it that you only pay attention when something impacts you? Or one of Savannah's kids?" she asked, that last part shocking even Avery.

Robert blinked, obviously startled. "Now, Avery-"

Suddenly, she felt Grey's hand on her shoulder, his strong presence telling her he had her back. A ma.s.sive lump the size of a boulder formed in her throat, and tears threatened once more. She'd had her mom and her siblings, but until now, this very moment, she'd always felt alone.

"Dad, this is Grey Kingston." Avery didn't know if her father remembered her high school boyfriend, and she didn't care.

"I recognize you. And I wish I could say it's a pleasure, but your antics are having a negative impact on my family and my business, young man."

Grey's fingers tightened around her shoulder. "I promised Avery I'd let her deal with you, sir, but make no mistake, if you insult her or hurt her in any way, that promise will mean nothing. So I suggest you tread lightly."

Avery swallowed hard, her heart bursting with emotion and love for this man. She needed him in her life, appreciated how he was influencing her to fight for herself and, as a result, for them.

"Avery, we need to talk alone."

She shook her head. "No. Grey stays. Say whatever it is you came to say." Then she had words of her own for her father.

"Fine. I want to know what you plan to do about the fact that my old dirty laundry is being dredged up again thanks to your relationship with this man?"

She stared at her father and felt very little emotional pull toward him. There were good memories, some holidays, maybe a time or two together as a happy family, until things had fallen apart. But not many, because whenever any of them had needed him, be it for a school event, award, or an illness, he was always working. Or so he'd told them. They'd realized later, working had been a euphemism for being with his other family.

"Avery, I asked you what you plan to do to fix things," he said, his exasperation with her clear.

"Nothing," she told him.

"Excuse me?"

"I don't plan to do a thing. Would you like to know why?" She went on before he could answer. "Because you never gave a d.a.m.n when your choices impacted me or the rest of the family. One day you came home and blew Mom's world apart. You told her you had another woman you loved and four other kids, and as if that weren't enough, you needed us to be tested for bone marrow to save Sienna's life. And what did Mom do? She agreed!"

Her voice rose and Avery didn't care. She just needed to be heard. Her thoughts and feelings needed to get out of her head and maybe get into his.

"Did you even read what that article said today?" she asked. "Do you care that the whole world now thinks that you used me to save the daughter you loved more?"

"Avery," Robert said, his face pale, his voice shaking.

He tried to touch her, and she stepped back into the hard wall of Grey's chest. She trembled inside and out and was grateful for his silent support.

She swallowed hard. "You didn't pick up the phone when a stalker came to my door, you don't care that I'm spearheading this prom for kids with cancer. You aren't proud of me, only of Sienna. And you only think about how these news articles show you in a bad light."

He blinked, his shock genuine as he processed her words. He was that egotistical.

But Avery wasn't finished. "How can you be so surprised? Your actions sucked. Your choices sucked. And after the truth came out, you didn't do anything to make it better for us. Your first family." She was shaking now, and Grey wrapped his arms around her, keeping her secure. Safe. "Do you realize you never thanked me for what I did for Sienna? And I don't care. I don't need or want your thanks. But back then, I needed and wanted you."

"I was so wrapped up in Sienna's illness, in her having cancer, I didn't think-"

"That's the problem," she said, her voice breaking. "You don't think. You have no idea how that time period impacted me. My life." She drew a deep breath. "My sanity."

Before Robert could react, Grey eased her into his side and faced her father. "I think that's enough. Avery's had a rough day, and I'm calling a stop to this."

"He's right," Avery said. "If you want to talk, call me, and maybe we can get together when this mess has died down and I'm calmer." Not that she was holding her breath.

Ian had told her that their father had apologized to him once and encouraged him not to make the kind of mistakes he had in life. But clearly Robert hadn't learned from his own past.

"I love you and your brothers and sister. I didn't know," he said again.

Avery shook her head. "That's just it. You didn't know. But you also never bothered to ask or find out." Avery dropped into the nearest chair as Grey let her father out, feeling lighter for finally having expressed her feelings to the one man who'd set the bar for all the pain and agony in her life.

Grey returned to her and knelt by her feet. "Sugar, you have no idea how proud I am."

"Thanks. I'm feeling ... pretty good myself." Her adrenaline was riding high now, and she wanted to take advantage.

She grasped Grey's hand. "I have an idea, and it's going to sound crazy. But I have the press's ear now, right?"

He met her gaze warily. "Right ...?"

The idea had come to her as she'd been yelling at her father about the event and her role in it. "I want to use that attention to raise money for the cancer center at the hospital. I don't care if they think I'm using you or keeping you with me because I'm so needy I can't be alone. We know the truth, right?"

A beat of silence lay heavily between them before Grey asked, "What is the truth?" He sounded uncertain, and her heart twisted for all the pain she'd inadvertently caused him while trying to protect herself.

He'd stepped up from the beginning, while she'd been hesitant and unsure. She'd never expressed her feelings, not even after he had.

She met his gaze and held on, looking into his eyes. "I love you, Grey Kingston. I always have. And if I've handled everything thrown at me in the last few weeks, I think the future can only get easier."

If eyes could truly lighten in color, his did. A slow, easy smile spread over his handsome face, and as she gave her heart completely into his hands, she saw he would take the very best care of it. And her.

"I love you too, Very." He kissed her nose and the side of her lips before devouring her mouth and lingering long enough for her to drown in his taste and scent.

He broke the kiss, his hands cupped around her cheeks. "I loved you when we were eighteen, but when I met you again, I fell even harder. You understand me, and you make me want to be a better man. Less selfish, less concerned about the outside world, and more focused on you. And family. The things that matter, that I lost sight of for too long."

She grasped his hands. "You've done the same for me. You made me want to push past the fears that bound me for my entire life. I faced my father for the first time, and I feel ... free."

She wasn't stupid. She didn't think that just because she'd expressed her feelings to her father her anxiety was gone for good. But she did believe she was more equipped to handle it now. And most importantly, she wasn't running. "I'm here for the long haul. Whatever that may be."

Before he could answer, Ella called out, "Is the ogre gone?" Her laughter broke the intensity of the moment.

"Later," Grey whispered, his gaze holding on to hers. "We'll define that long haul later."

Her heart skipped a beat, and she nodded, finally ready for whatever life had to offer.

Grey didn't trust silence. Especially when that silence came from Simon Colson. Over the next few weeks, things fell into place neatly. Almost too neatly and Grey was nervous.

First Dawn Mills replied to his message and, through her representative, issued a statement along with pages from her deceased husband's diary. All confirmed that Grey Kingston had done more than co-write the alb.u.m with Alden Mills. While her husband had been extremely ill, Grey had done most of the work on their collaboration including writing the lyrics. Simon didn't have another salvo, and he'd stopped messing with Grey's life.

Whoever had defaced Avery's apartment door hadn't resurfaced. Ella moved back into their apartment, but Avery remained with Grey. Tyler demanded a bodyguard remain with each woman, and Grey insisted on covering costs. He didn't trust Simon's silence any more than he believed the stalker was a one-time thing.

But life went on, and Alden's words from the grave turned Grey into even more of an icon than he had already been. Offers for collaboration and requests for him to write lyrics were piling up, so he had finally given in and hired a new agent to help him sort through things.

Every day he expected Avery to freak out and think he'd find a reason to leave town, but she was steady. As a rock. True to her word, the day after the confrontation with her father, she'd asked Grey to contact a reporter he trusted to put the correct spin on a story. And together, they'd sat down for an interview.

She'd held his hand and told about how her experience as a bone marrow donor as a young girl had led her to volunteer her time with the patients at the hospital today. She elaborated on the prom and explained how she'd like to do various events for the kids throughout the year, but the hospital lacked funds. And when Avery Dare, with Grey Kingston by her side, asked for money for the kids, contributions poured in.

The largest donor to the now-named Dare Fund for Kids was Robert Dare. His financial contribution was substantial ... and promised yearly. And though Avery and her father's relationship was by no means solid, the man was making an effort, and Avery was trying to meet him halfway.

As for Avery, between filming her upcoming videos, some of which she decided to do outdoors, and working on the prom, she had little time for worry. She did, however, make plenty of time for Grey. And he couldn't deny that things between them had never been better. Which was why he'd planned his surprise as tonight's main event.

The rest of his life hinged on this evening. And Grey Kingston, who performed in front of hundreds of thousands and was never nervous, had a raging case of stage fright.

Avery spent the entire afternoon setting up at the hospital, and she couldn't wait to see the end result tonight. The normally staid, often sad hospital floor and its doctors, nurses, patients, and volunteers were buzzing with contagious excitement. Thanks to pressure by the kids, Avery and Ella agreed to dress up in gowns too. Avery left the kids with the makeup artists and hairstylists so she could go home and change.

She stood in Grey's bedroom and straightened his bow tie, resisting the urge to undress him, b.u.t.ton by b.u.t.ton. The desire to pull this handsome man onto the bed and have her wicked way with him was strong, but they couldn't miss the whole evening. One last tug on his tie and she finished and stepped away, heading into the bathroom to fix her makeup and put on her dress.

The door was open, so she talked to Grey as she touched up her mascara. "I'm so happy you invited your parents tonight. And they're not just attending, they're working."

"They can't wait," he said.

She had planned to stay late and clean up, but to her surprise, Grey had arranged for his parents to come help with the setup, serving, and cleanup at the end. He tried to play down the significance, but Avery knew better.