Free Diva (Jit'Suku Chronicles) by Bianca D'Arc Page B

her to find such a man, only to rip them apart time after time.
    He kissed her cheeks, softly, with a tenderness she’d known only from him. He was such an amazing man, in so many ways. But she couldn’t stay in this idyllic bubble forever. The galaxy was still out there, in trouble, and they both had their separate duties to perform.
    Finding strength she didn’t know she had, she gradually pulled away from his embrace. He let her go, his eyes holding the same sadness that she felt in her heart.
    She wanted to say so many things, but words were inadequate for the depth of emotion she felt. She placed her palm on his cheek, holding his gaze for one last moment before she turned and fled out the door, unable to look back.
    If she had, he’d have seen the tears falling uncontrollably down her face. She didn’t want to leave him with that image, so instead, she ran down the corridor and straight into the waiting lift. Within seconds, she was out of his sight.
    And in the privacy of the lift, she cried. Though, by the time she reached her destination, she’d gradually pushed Maggie’s heartbreak to the background and donned her Diva mask. It was time to go to work.
    It was only much later that night, after a concert and the ensuing meet and greet period, that she returned to her hotel room. The love nest of the night before had been cleaned by the bots and returned to its ubiquitous state of impersonal cleanliness. No trace of John remained, except for the note she found on the desk, written on the old-fashioned hotel stationary supplied in the drawer of the desk.
    In a bold hand, the name Maggie was written across the front of the sealed envelope. Holding her breath, she opened it and unfolded the paper, handwriting in the same masculine scrawl covering the page in a single message.
    It read simply, “I love you, Maggie mine. Until we meet again, John.”
     
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    The Andrakian rebellion took months to quell. Diva watched the news reports like everyone else, knowing that John was in the center of the storm. She worried intensely about him, but she couldn’t let it show. She had to maintain the Diva aloofness at all costs.
    She stuck to her grueling tour schedule, though they changed up the itinerary to give a wide berth to the Andrakian sector of the Milky Way. The Diva show stayed firmly on the other side of the galaxy from the conflict, though she did insist on occasional forays closer so she could play benefit concerts for men coming out of the hot zone.
    All the while, she held that simple note, written on paper, close to her heart. John had said he’d loved her. He’d written it down, so she knew it was true. Of all the things he could’ve written, he’d wanted her to have those words to take with her into their uncertain future.
    She loved him too, but she hadn’t had the nerve to tell him when they’d been together. She wished every day that she’d been able to give him that same gift.
    She could only hope that fate gave her a chance to tell him…someday. If they were ever in the same place, at the same time, again. It was too precious a message to record on a holo or send via courier. No, this had to be said in person. She wanted to see his eyes when she told him and bask in the knowledge that her feelings were returned.
    She kept sending messages to him, but his replies were few and far between. He was in a war zone and in danger every day. She still had to be careful about how she sent her messages and what they said, lest they be intercepted, but she wouldn’t stop sending them. He’d told her how much they meant to him, and she was determined to keep the lines of communication open, even if it was mostly one-sided these days.
    On those rare occasions when he was able to get a message out to her, he was sure to tell her how much he enjoyed hearing her voice and her music. He never said the L word, but she understood he was being as careful as she was about what he said on a