Molly dropped her head in her hands. “What am I doing, Charlie?”
“I told you,” her friend said softly, “being the brave one.” She jumped as her cell phone rang. “It’s His Carnivorousness,” she muttered after glancing at the caller display, then answered in a professional tone. “Hello, Charlotte speaking.”
A pause, Molly watching in interest as Charlotte’s eyes sparked fire.
“Yes, I realize that,” her best friend said, still in that polite tone. “However, I did work well beyond my contracted hours yesterday.”
Another pause. Charlie’s teeth gritted as her fingers clenched on the phone. “Yes, I am,” she said in response to whatever she’d heard. “In fact, we’re about to check into a hotel.”
Molly squeaked, slapped a hand over her mouth. “Did you just tell your boss you were about to check into a hotel with Ernest?” she asked when Charlotte stabbed the End key.
Charlotte’s eyes went huge. “Oh God!” she wailed, as if only now realizing what she’d done. “I told you he was driving me insane.”
Molly nudged Charlotte’s head between her knees when her friend began to hyperventilate. “Breathe, Charlie.”
It took several minutes, Charlotte’s face bright red even after she’d sat up for another couple of minutes. “I can’t go back to the office now. I’ll have to quit.”
“No, you don’t.” Delighted that dealing with T-Rex was forcing Charlotte out of hiding, Molly dragged her to her feet and walked her to her office. Charlotte’s breathing was choppy again by the time she stepped through the automatic doors.
“Be brave,” Molly mouthed when her friend paused in the open doorway and looked over her shoulder.
A shaky smile, then Charlotte squared her shoulders and mouthed the same thing back at her. Be brave.
Chapter 15
Having taken two days off work, Molly stepped out of the Arrivals gate at Sydney Airport early afternoon the next day to find a driver waiting for her. He held a sign that said only SC Crew. Already in her roadie disguise, complete with jeans, cap, and a long-sleeved, checked shirt, she followed him to the car and got in. No one seemed to pay her any special attention—either at the airport, or when she checked into the hotel—though according to Fox, she had the room that directly connected with his.
His room wasn’t booked under his name, of course, but that of another roadie. The other man was having a luxurious time up on the penthouse floor with the other members of the band while Fox and Molly had the invaluable gift of privacy.
As she walked into her room, having brought up her own luggage—a single wheeled suitcase—she couldn’t help but think how smooth the whole operation had been to this point. That, of course, led her mind to wonder how many times Fox had done this type of thing before and with how many different women. She’d grown up with a man who juggled women like multicolored balls, knew how—
“Stop, Molly!” She cut off the hurtful train of thought the instant she realized where she was headed, annoyed with herself for doing her best to ruin the weekend before it began.
Fox wasn’t her father.
In fact, the two men didn’t even belong to the same species. Her father had been a particular kind of slime, and it wasn’t the fifteen-year-old girl he’d been discovered with who’d been his first victim. Thea’s mother, Lily, had been an innocent and trusting nineteen-year-old when he’d seduced her after convincing her that his marriage was about to end, only to arrange for her deportation when she fell pregnant.
Linking Fox to Patrick in any way was an insult to Fox.
With that mental reminder, she dumped her luggage on the stand in the corner, then pushed aside the curtains to expose an incredible view of Darling Harbour. The water glittered under the bright sunlight, the restaurants and cafés around it busy with locals and tourists both, while yellow water taxis bobbed at the nearest edge.
“This is the life,” she murmured, shaking her head.
What in the world was she doing here?
A glance at the connecting door gave her the answer. Beyond it lay the room and the bed of a man who’d become her addiction. He made her come alive in ways she’d never believed she could, had taught her she had the capacity to feel with a wild passion she hadn’t thought existed inside her. What would she do when he left?
The stab of pain in her gut was answer enough.
Walking over to the connecting door before the promise of future agony could paralyze her, she undid the lock on her side and tried the handle. It turned easily and while the room beyond was empty, she knew without a doubt it was Fox’s. His aftershave lingered in the air, one of his T-shirts was thrown across the bed, and a blue-green guitar pick lay on the bedside table. It was the one he’d used when he’d come to her house, the one that was his second favorite.
Smiling, she picked it up from the pile of papers on the bedside table. Blank sheet music, she noted absently, then realized not all the pages were blank. The one partially sticking out at the bottom had notations made in the light blue ink of the hotel pen that had rolled to lie against the lampstand.
She touched her fingers to the notes, feeling as if she’d glimpsed a secret. She’d known Fox had written a number of Schoolboy Choir’s songs, the majority in concert with David, but she hadn’t realized he had formal musical training. It simply made him more fascinating, made her wonder how many more facets of him she hadn’t glimpsed… would never get the chance to know.