PERFECT COMPOSITION

Midas Series #2

by Tracey Jerald

Cover & Excerpt Reveal

Release Date: August 2, 2021

Cover Design: Tugboat Design
Photo: Wander Aguiar Photography
Model: Clayton Wells

Genre: Billionaire contemporary romance
Trope: Small town, rockstar, second-chance

I kept my silence for twenty years.

I worked hard to become a woman everyone respects. I’ve earned my medical degree, established my practice, and did so under the scrutiny of a town that will not forget I had a baby out of wedlock.

In all that time, the name of my daughter’s father has never slipped out. It wasn’t to protect him but to give her the security she deserves. I never wanted her blindsided with the same emotions I was every time she walked into a grocery store to find his face splashed on the cover of yet another magazine.

Beckett Miller – the reason my heart beat under the Texas sun. And the reason I had a purpose of getting up every morning these last twenty years.

I’m not surprised he composed a life without me. I always believed he could do it once he was no longer tied down.

I guess that included me.

What shocks me is the forbidden sense of longing that wells up inside me when we come face-to-face. I don’t know how I managed to get a word out, how I managed to blink. After all, the last day I saw him, we made plans to leave. I was just left behind.

He loved me – or so he said.

I spent years thinking this gorgeous, tattooed rock god was a monster.

The problem is, I just found out he isn’t. But there’s one that threatens my family. And I’ll have to confront it because my daughter needs her dad.



Now that he knows.

I toss my head back and laugh. “Oh, please, Beckett. There’s no need to tell me pretty little lies at this late date.”

“I wasn’t…” He protests. I hold up my hand to stop what he was about to say. “What I said was nothing less than the truth,” he defends himself.

“Don’t,” I plead shakily.

He squares his shoulders. “What would you say if I told you my feelings never changed?” His fingers dance along the back of his tattooed hand nervously.

My stomach roils at both the trite pickup line and the tiny seed of hope that gets flamed. I hate myself for feeling anything, so my voice is guttural when I reply, “Please don’t. I have enough on my plate without looking back.”

Beckett winces, but doesn’t say anything.

Damn my soft heart. I rush to add, “It’s just hard. I loved you so much.”

“And I loved you. God, a part of me always will.”

“Same.” Somehow, I have to find the strength inside me to cut these bonds between us — except for those he now has between him and Austyn. Whatever little nugget of guilt he has about me needs to be dissolved so he can be free to live the life he was meant to lead. And inspiration strikes. “Say goodbye, Beckett.”

“What?” he bursts out loudly.

I wish I could hold my hand to my chest to stem the bleeding. Instead, I whisper, “The reality is we’re not the same people we were. Maybe this was always the way it was going to be.”

“You can’t…”

“Give me the kiss you should have given me twenty years ago. Then leave. Go. I’ll send Austyn back to New York in a few days.”

“You’re trying to get rid of me?” He confirms incredulously.

“You clawed and dreamed your way away from here. Maybe if…” Then I regain my wits and start to back away. “Never mind. What a terrible idea. Just put it down to my being…”

Before I can get another word out, he hauls my body back against his. His tattooed hand surges into my hair, tilting my head just the way he used to when we’d be in a field of trampled down, sun-warmed grass —his other arm bands tightly around my waist. But just like the first time he ever kissed me, I’m lost in the ferocity of his eyes.

It wasn’t the first time our lips met that I understood why the blue is the hottest part of the flame.

Without breaking my gaze, Beckett dips his head and nips at my lower lip, causing me to gasp. Instead of immediately plundering inside like every whose lips have met mine, he takes his time—sweeping his tongue across my lower lip, drawing it in between his lips —savoring the taste, savoring me.

Just like he always did right before he made me forget the universe existed.

Tilting his head, he fits his mouth to mine and deepens our connection. Our tongues duel back and forth, brushing up against each other, twining together.

If it’s possible for a kiss to say more than words, ours would declare all the apologies, forgiveness, and wishes we would hope for the other. Tears mist in my eyes at the gentle beauty of the moan that escapes his lips.

My fingers score up his pecs as they make their way to his neck, his hair. My body melts into his to accept him — any part of him — against me. The beauty of this offering makes me long for things I can’t want any longer and remember the perfection of the past with searing clarity. I can’t prevent the shiver that racks my body. It’s always been more than desire with this man; it was an all-consuming love.

And I love him enough to let him go back to his life, not be tied to the town he fought to escape.

Eventually, he brings me back down. I wrap my arms around myself to protect what’s left of my shredded emotions. Turning away, I murmur, “I should have known better than to have done that.”

“It wasn’t a mistake, Paige,” he replies hoarsely.

“Chuck it up to a naive heart, Beckett. I’d just appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything to anyone.” I twist my head around. “Even in song.”

Indignant, he starts, “I would never…”

“‘Guess Now I Know Better?’” I quote one of his song titles.

He flushes.

“‘Live the Dream’” I name another, which is all about how stifling living in a small town is.

“That was about this place, not you,” he replies hotly.

That’s when I remind him. “Aren’t you the one who said to me within minutes of meeting me I was the ruler of all I surveyed?” I spin in a small circle. “You escaped, Beckett. Don’t let yourself get trapped again.”

He opens his mouth and shuts it without saying a word. Then he storms off the lanai, slamming the door behind him. A few moments later, I hear the front door slam as well.

And that’s when I sit down in the chair, sightlessly knowing I did the right thing.

I let him go so he could compose the life he was meant to live, even if it was meant to be without me.

And for just a moment, I allow myself the luxury of a strong woman’s tears. I figure one day I’ll be able to look back on this moment and equate it to waking from a perfect dream.

Even if that day is on my deathbed.

“Be happy, love. That’s all I ask.”

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Other Titles Within the Series

Tracey Jerald knew she was meant to be a writer when she would re-write the ending of books in her head on her bike when she was a young girl growing up in southern Connecticut. It wasn’t long before she was typing alternate endings and extended epilogues “just for fun”.

After college in Florida, where she obtained a degree in Criminal Justice swearing she saw things she’ll never quite believe and never quite forget, Tracey traded the world of law and order for IT.

Her work for a world-wide internet startup transferred her to Northern Virginia where she met her husband in what many call their own happily ever after. They have one son.



When she’s not busy with her family or writing, Tracey can be found in her home in north Florida drinking coffee, reading, training for a runDisney event, or feeding her addiction to HGTV.