Chapter 1

Lena Holloway loved Blake Vanderbilt with everything she had. He was her world, her music, her future.

When he told her about the rare degenerative nerve condition, the one that would steal his ability to play guitar, her heart shattered.

"There's an experimental treatment, Lena," he'd said, his voice raspy, eyes full of a fear she felt deep in her own bones. "But it's... it's expensive. So expensive."

Eighty thousand dollars.

The number echoed in her small Nashville apartment, a sum so vast it felt like another planet.

Lena worked gig jobs, barely scraping by, her dreams of making it big as a songwriter feeling more distant each day.

Blake, he said he was just like her, a struggling indie musician, far from his wealthy East Coast family who didn't support his dreams. She believed him.

She wrote songs, pouring her soul into melodies and lyrics, and Blake sang them. He was getting a little buzz, people were noticing. He always said, "We're a team, babe. Your words, my voice."

It made her feel a little less invisible.

But eighty thousand dollars.

There was only one thing. Her father's guitar.

A 1959 Gibson Les Paul. Vintage. Priceless, not just in money, but in memory. It was all she had left of him, his music, his legacy.

He'd taught her to play on it, his calloused fingers guiding hers.

The thought of selling it made her physically sick.

"Lena, no," Blake had said, his voice weak when she suggested it. "I can't let you do that. It's your father's."

"Your career, your health, it's everything, Blake," she'd insisted, tears welling. "What good is a guitar if you can't play? If *we* can't make music together anymore?"

He'd pulled her close, burying his face in her hair. "You're too good to me."

She found a collector, a man with cold eyes and a fat wallet. He knew its worth.

"Eighty thousand," he said, his voice flat. "Cash."

Her hands trembled as she signed the papers. The case felt impossibly heavy as she handed it over. A piece of her father, a piece of her soul, gone.

She cried all the way to Blake's apartment, the envelope of cash clutched tight in her hand.

He was sitting on his worn couch, looking pale.

She knelt before him, placing the money in his lap. "Here. For the treatment. You're going to get better."

Tears streamed down his face. Real, she thought. They had to be.

He pulled her into a desperate hug. "Lena. My Lena. You saved me. I'll never forget this. Never."

She clung to him, the emptiness where her father's guitar used to be a raw, aching void. But Blake would be okay. That's all that mattered.