A Poor Girl Sang to Save Her Dying Mother Without Knowing the Millionaire Judge Was the Father Who Abandoned Her

The rain had returned to Memphis by the time Julian’s sleek black Maybach pulled up behind Marcus’s battered Honda outside the run-down apartment building on Union Avenue.

Julian stepped out into the pouring rain, ignoring his driver holding an umbrella. He didn't care about his thousand-dollar suit being ruined. He looked up at the peeling paint, the rusted fire escapes, the broken front door.

His stomach turned over.

This is where she’s been living? While I sat in a twenty-million-dollar mansion in Malibu?

Lily led him up the three flights of stairs, her small sneakers clicking against the worn linoleum. Julian followed close behind, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

They stopped at Apartment 3A.

Lily pulled her key from her jacket, unlocked the heavy door, and pushed it open.

"Mom?" Lily called out softly. "I'm back. I brought someone."

The apartment was cold. A single lamp glowed in the corner of the small living room.

Grace Parker was lying on the faded sofa, wrapped in two thin blankets. Her skin was dangerously pale, her dark hair damp with cold sweat. She stirred slowly, her gray-green eyes opening with difficulty.

"Lily...?" Grace’s voice was barely a raspy whisper. "Baby, is that you? Did... did you find Miss Nora...?"

"Grace," a deep voice spoke from the doorway.

Grace’s body went stone-still.

Slowly, agonizingly, she turned her head toward the door.

Standing beneath the dim light of her entryway stood Julian Vance. He looked older, broader, dressed in luxury, but the eyes—those dark, intense eyes that had haunted her dreams for eight long years—were unchanged.

Grace’s breath caught in her throat. A tear slid silently down her hollow cheek.

"Julian...?" she whispered, thinking her fever was finally causing her to hallucinate. "No... no, you're not here."

Julian crossed the room in three long strides. He dropped to his knees right beside the couch, pulling her frail, thin hands into his own. They were ice cold.

"It's me, Grace," he choked out, pressing his forehead against her trembling knuckles, tears finally spilling freely down his cheeks. "My God, Grace... it's me."

"How... how did you find me?" she sobbed softly.

"Your daughter," Julian whispered, turning to look at Lily, who was standing by the door holding her guitar, watching them with wide, curious eyes. "She stood on my stage today, Grace. She sang our song."

Grace’s eyes moved to Lily, then back to Julian’s grief-stricken face.

"Julian..." Grace rasped, her hand trembling against his face. "I didn't take the money. Eight years ago... your father came to the apartment. He told me you had already signed with the record label in Los Angeles. He gave me a check and said if I loved you, I’d walk away so I wouldn't ruin your career with a scandal."

Julian froze, horror dawning on his face. "My father...?"

"I tore up the check, Julian," Grace cried softly, coughing weakly. "I tore it up and threw it in his face. But two days later, your assistant sent me a letter saying you had moved on, that you were engaged to that heiress, and that I should never contact you again."

"I never sent a letter!" Julian roared softly, a terrible, murderous rage filling his blood as he realized the web of lies his wealthy, controlling family had spun to separate them. "Grace... I spent two years looking for you! They told me you took five hundred thousand dollars from my father’s trust and moved to Europe!"

Grace shook her head slowly against the pillow. "I never had five hundred dollars, Julian... let alone five hundred thousand."

Julian looked down at her frail, wasting body, feeling the faint, weak pulse in her wrist. The anger vanished, replaced by an overwhelming wave of sheer panic.

"We don't have time for this now," Julian declared, reaching under her blanket and lifting her into his arms effortlessly. She weighed almost nothing.

"Julian, what are you doing?" Grace gasped, clinging to his neck out of reflex.

"I lost eight years with you, Grace," Julian said, his voice dropping into a register of absolute, terrifying determination as he carried her toward the door. "I am not losing eight minutes more."

He turned to Lily. "Lily, grab your backpack. We’re leaving."