Chapter 99

Kai POV

I shouldn’t have come.

From my seat in the VIP section, I watched Nova accept her Grammy with that smile I knew wasn’t real. Ten years apart, and I could still read every expression on her face like sheet music.

She was searching the crowd. Looking for him. For Darren Blake—the man who’d stolen everything from me.

My hands clenched into fists on the armrests of my chair. The other billionaires around me were clapping politely, but I barely heard them. All I could see was her. Nova. The girl who used to sing to me under the old oak tree behind her house. The woman who’d become a star while I was building an empire in the shadows.

She looked exactly the same and completely different. Still that wild dark hair that caught light like fire. Still those green eyes that used to look at me like I was her whole world. But now she wore diamonds that could buy small countries, and her smile had sharp edges it never used to have.

Darren had don