The joy continued to hum in her blood this morning, even though she hadn’t heard from Fox again. Conscious of the time difference and not wanting to add pressure in case there was a real problem with the David situation, she decided to wait till early afternoon to check in. As it was, she barely had time to glance at her phone all morning.

Clearing her e-mails when she had a half hour to spare at last, she flicked over to the website of the country’s biggest newspaper, her plan to scan the day’s news before knuckling down to write up an after-school program they’d decided on at the midmorning meeting. The big headline was about a politician who had an interesting way of getting herself into the media for someone who professed not to value self-aggrandizement and work only for the people.

Rolling her eyes, she skimmed over the rest of the page, then clicked across to another news site more irreverent in tone. It often had at least one article that made her smile. Glancing at the updated feature links on one side of the page as she began to flip open her handwritten notes from the meeting, she was about to close the browser when her eye caught on the third link in the list: Fox Partying it up with Mystery Redhead in Sydney!

Her blood went cold, then hot, then cold again. Feeling as if she were watching someone else, she clicked on the link. It brought up a full-color image of a shirtless Fox with his arm around a stunning, voluptuous redhead who had her hand on his chest, the eyes she’d turned to the camera screaming her claim on him.

Molly attempted to read the text but her vision was blurred, her heart thundering in her ears. Swiveling in her chair to stare out the window behind her, she tried to breathe through the agonizing pain in her chest. It was hard. A long, gut-wrenching minute later, she forced herself to turn back to the screen and read her way through the article. According to the reporter, “superstar rocker Fox” had met the woman at a private party hosted by the hottest club in Sydney.

A source at the hotel confirmed they’d last been seen heading into his room, his mouth “devouring” hers.

Numb, Molly closed the page and got to work typing up the proposed program. Her fingers moved on autopilot, as did her body when it came time to move on to other duties. She was grateful the library continued to be hectic as the hours passed. So long as she didn’t have time to think, she was fine. The only person who would’ve immediately guessed something was wrong was Charlotte, and her best friend had flown down to the capital this morning with T-Rex for a big meeting.

Fox messaged her around three p.m. David’s in the clear. Be home tomorrow. xx

Where the xx and the use of the word “home” would have made her melt last night, today it seemed a mockery. Numb still and not knowing what to do, she ignored the message. Around four came another: In area with bad cell coverage. Talk to you when I return to the hotel.

Molly had no intention of talking to him. When she finally made it home, having opted to stay late to help a colleague with a project, she took off her clothes and stepped into the searing heat of the shower… only to collapse into a shattered ball on the floor. The block of ice within her chest bled a shivering chill through her veins and tears wracked her body, her throat lined with broken glass. It hurt, but nothing hurt as bad as knowing Fox had slept with another woman.

“Stupid, stupid, Molly,” she castigated herself, continuing to shiver under the white-hot spray. She’d known who he was from the start, and still she’d allowed herself to fall for his promises, to trust the rock star who’d just driven a knife through her heart.

Five hours later, she stumbled out of bed and walked to the living room to see the message light blinking on her machine. She’d turned it on before crawling under the blankets after her shower, having also switched off the ringer on the phone. Her cell phone, too, was off. Staring at the machine as if it might grow fangs, she reached out and pressed the Play button.

Thea’s smiling voice cut through the silence. Fox, Molly thought on a wave of blinding fury, likely had other priorities. She allowed the embers within her to simmer as she listened to Thea’s message. Better to be angry than to return to the heartbroken mess she’d been earlier. And if the anger was only a paper-thin crust covering devastating pain, it was enough to keep her going, keep her functional.

Leaving the machine on after the message had played, she walked into the kitchen and deliberately focused on the salad fixings in her fridge, well aware of her tendency to comfort herself with food. But her eye caught on the cheese and wouldn’t let go. One toasted cheese sandwich isn’t going to kill me, she thought mutinously and grabbed the block of cheddar.

Turning on her mini countertop toaster oven, she popped in the prepared sandwich and glanced at the clock. Three a.m. Great. She had to be up in less than four hours. Then again, it wasn’t as if she was going to get any sleep with her mind running the photo of Fox with the redhead in a continuous loop.

When the answering machine clicked on without warning, she jumped before realizing she’d never turned the ringer back on.

“Baby, it’s Fox. I know it’s late, but I wanted to hear your voice. Just got back into the country after hitching a ride on a friend’s jet. Call you later.”

Molly reached out to shut off the toaster oven when the cheese began to burn. Removing the sandwich, she put it on a plate and went to the table. She finished it with slow, deliberate focus, drank a huge glass of water to wash it all down, then replayed Fox’s message. He sounded so carefree, so normal. As if he hadn’t kicked her in the teeth, then stomped on her heart. How dare he!

Grabbing the phone, she began to stab at the keys, inputting the number for his cell phone… and paused halfway through, his declaration from their last fight blazing into her mind.

“You trust me, that’s what you do!”

Her fingers clenched on the phone. What if the paper was wrong? It was the first time her mind was clear enough to consider that, consider the fact that if Fox had slept with someone else, it meant he’d lied to her face when he’d told her he was hers for the duration. Not only that, he’d have had to have been with the redhead while he was messaging Molly, while he was telling her he was planning to stay late at the party because he didn’t want to go back to the hotel room without her.

Fox was too blunt, too honest, to play those kinds of games.

Or was he, another part of her asked. After all, what did she know about him? She’d known him for under two weeks.

He told me about his family, about his grandparents.

Yes, the cold facts were public knowledge, but the emotions he’d shared weren’t.

And he’d held her, comforted her, come to her on a boat in the middle of the night when she’d told him about her father. Could a man like that so recklessly trample on her heart? She wanted to say no, but the truth was that Fox’s lifestyle was a world apart from her own—he existed in a world where friends had jets and life was lived in the fast lane. For all she knew, he might not think it counted as cheating if she was in a different country at the time.

“God.” Sinking into the chair again, she shoved her hands through her hair, elbows braced on the table.

Maybe it was pointless to try to figure out any of this when she’d have lost him in just over two weeks in any case. “But he was supposed to be mine till then,” she said to the air, the words torn from her bleeding, wounded heart. She was too emotionally raw to any longer avoid the tiny bubble of hope that had bloomed inside her in Sydney. Hidden deep, deep inside her, that fragile hope had whispered that perhaps her and Fox’s relationship didn’t have to end; it was too powerful, too beautiful, too honest.