Grinning, Molly sipped some of the miso soup she'd ordered to have with her sandwich. "Won't T-Rex mind if you run off with a rock star? He seems to be unable to do without you."
Charlotte stabbed at her sushi. "T-Rex can go bite himself."
Startled at the hostile statement from her sweet friend, Molly pushed at Charlotte's practical little black heel with her foot. "Spill."
"That meeting in Queenstown?" Charlotte ate a piece of sushi with grim-eyed focus before continuing. "Afterward, he made me go with him to every single jewelry store in the city to find the perfect bracelet for some woman he's dating."
"Oh." Molly winced, feeling awful she'd encouraged Charlotte in that direction. Luckily, Charlotte seemed more mad than sad. "That must've sucked."
"Yeah." Charlotte stabbed at her sushi again. "Every time I pointed one out just to end the whole excruciating experience, he questioned me in that Spanish Inquisition way of his until I finally gave him my actual opinion."
"What did you pick?"
"Here." Charlotte pulled up an image on her phone. "I was sneaking a photo of it when he caught me."
The bracelet was a stunning delicacy of diamonds and emeralds set in platinum, the design evocative of tiny flowers and spring leaves. It was made for someone as fine-boned as Charlotte, would accent rather than overwhelm.
"Isn't it beautiful?" A soft sigh, hazel eyes melting before a self-satisfied smirk curved her best friend's lips. "It also put a significant five-figure dent in his wallet."
Laughing, Molly thought hmm and considered the fact T-Rex had bought the one piece Charlotte had truly loved. Either he was an insensitive jerk or he was displaying the cool, strategic intelligence that made him a feared opponent in the business world. Molly wanted to believe the latter for Charlotte's sake, but it was hard to say when she'd never seen the two of them together. Still...
"Forget him," she said and saw Charlotte's fingers tighten on her chopsticks. "I think we both agree that Ernest is never going to be lover material, not for you"--a twist of Charlotte's lips, followed by a reluctant nod--"but what about Derrick? Didn't you say he sent you a flirtatious e-mail a couple of weeks ago?"
"Yes, but he didn't follow it up in person. Figures. He's a wimp."
Molly's mouth dropped open. "Charlie!" Her friend was never unkind.
"If I can stand up to T-Rex," Charlotte said with an adorable hint of pride, "I can't exactly respect a man who goes off with his tail between his legs each time the boss snarls."
"Okay, you have a point." Even if T-Rex was an idiot who couldn't see what was right in front of him, he was doing fantastic things for Charlotte's confidence. That alone put him in Molly's good graces.
"Anyway," Charlotte said, "I'm not the one with the exciting life." She looked pointedly at Molly's shirt. "Funny how that helpfully covers your neck."
Molly felt her skin heat. "It's one of my favorite shirts."
"Oh, please. You have a love bite, don't you?"
"Yes." Fox had left his mark on her and each time she thought about it, her stomach fluttered. "He's..." She bit her lower lip. "He asked me if I wanted to change the rules." And then he'd loved her with a tenderness that made her heart ache.
"Do you want to?" No lingering amusement in Charlotte's eyes.
Molly swallowed the single word she wanted to say, the declaration she wanted to make. "Where can it lead?" She put down her spoon, the soup forgotten. "He has a life on the other side of the world." A life lived in the glare of media attention, something it made her nauseous to even consider. "Mine is here. My work is here. You're here."
"I love that you put me on your list." A vivid Charlie smile. "But I can and will always visit you wherever you are." She closed her hand over Molly's. "The real question is--can you live with 'what ifs' for the rest of your life if you don't try to see if it could somehow work?"
For such a sweet person, Charlotte had a way of asking the most difficult questions. Could she walk away from the promise of a life with Fox? If she did, Molly knew her cowardice would haunt her for the rest of her life. But how could it ever work? "Charlie, I..." Breaking off, she just stared at her friend, lost and scared and fragile with hope.
Charlotte squeezed her hand. "Come on, let's treat ourselves to fancy coffees, then we can discuss that scene in the book you lent me."
Molly's emotional equilibrium was no longer so shaky when she and a smiling Charlotte arrived at the entrance to the building where her best friend worked... just as someone else was about to stride up the steps, having appeared from the other side of the street. "Ms. Baird. Good, you're back," said T-Rex, his black hair lifting slightly in the breeze. "I need you with me at a meeting in ten minutes."
Her free hand clenched by her side, Charlotte sipped silently at her frothy mochaccino as the six-feet-five stone wall dressed in a flawless Italian suit who was her boss glanced at Molly. She went to introduce herself when he said, "You must be Molly. I'm Gabriel."
"It's lovely to meet you," Molly said, wondering how he knew who she was.
"Likewise." Steel-gray eyes shifted from her to Charlotte. "You have foam on your upper lip."
Then he was gone.
"Yes, he's hot," Molly said consideringly, though inside she was dancing a delirious jig. No man noticed such a tiny fleck of foam on a woman's lip unless he was paying careful attention to those lips. "Kind of big for you though."
It was like poking a hornet's nest.
"Just because I'm not an Amazon doesn't mean I can't handle T-Rex!"
"Aha! So you admit you want to handle him?"
Charlotte growled at her, threatening to tip her drink all over Molly's white shirt. "You're an awful friend. Go away."
Molly's laugh bubbled out of her. "Do you think he's built in proportion?"
Charlotte pinked and avoided her eyes as she said, "I have to go before he decides to fire me again today."
"Wait," Molly said, not taking the teasing any further because if, despite all evidence to the contrary, T-Rex wasn't interested in Charlotte and she put herself out there, the rejection would crush her friend. "How does he know who I am?"
"Because he thinks my business is his business." Turning at the automatic doors, her best friend held Molly's gaze, a deep caring in her expression. "Think about what I said."
Molly did think about it. And knew Charlotte was right--she couldn't live with the "what ifs," couldn't watch Fox walk away because she was too scared to reach for him.
Her nerves were in knots by the time she returned home after work, but she wasn't about to chicken out in her decision to talk to Fox, standing forever in place, caged by the grief and anger of the fifteen-year-old girl she'd once been. He wasn't in the apartment, but his scent lingered in the air. Hugging a pillow to her chest for a minute, she breathed deep, then got moving; giving herself too much time to think would only ratchet up her nerves.
She was in the middle of preparing dinner when the sound of a key in the door had a smile breaking out over her face. "Thank you for the flowers," she said and walked into his arms, the material of his black T-shirt soft against her cheek.
Duffel sliding to the floor and guitar already propped up beside the door, Fox massaged the back of her neck as he kissed her slow and deep. "I had images of you naked on a bed of petals when I picked out the roses." He stroked his finger down the shell of her ear with that sinful confession, his lips curved. "What are we doing tonight?"
She'd intended to suggest they stay at home and talk, but all at once, that felt too confining, too claustrophobic for what she needed to say. "I thought dinner, then maybe we could drive up Mount Eden?" The volcanic cone offered sweeping views of the city, the vista breathtaking at night.
"Sounds good."
An hour and a half later, Molly realized she shouldn't have delayed, her nerves so frayed that Fox had watched her with careful eyes throughout dinner. However, he hadn't said anything, and now he parked the Ferrari at the top of the mountain she'd suggested
, in front of the huge, sloping crater that told of a massive explosion millennia ago.
Getting out, he whistled at the view of the city spread out around them in every direction, thousands of lights glinting against the silky black of the night. "Damn. It's three hundred and sixty degrees."
His pleasure fed hers. "It's one of my favorite places in the city." Sliding her hand into Fox's when he held it out, she walked with him along the path that led to another vantage point on the other side of the crater.
And in his touch, she found her courage. "My mother," she began into the silence broken only by the whispering of the long grasses moving in the slight breeze, "loved my father." It had been a toxic love that meant Karen Webster couldn't walk away, even when loving Patrick Buchanan was a cancer on her soul.
"After the scandal broke," Molly continued, Fox's hand strong and warm around her own, "she resigned her board positions with various charitable organizations and stayed home with my father. I think she was waiting for him to dust himself off as he'd always done before." Patrick Buchanan had been like the proverbial cat with nine lives. "She didn't seem to understand how serious the charges were, that he'd certainly end up in prison."
Arriving at the vantage point, the spot otherwise empty tonight, Molly gave herself a break and pointed out the glittering lights of the cars snaking over the Harbour Bridge, Auckland a city surrounded by water.
Fox wrapped his arms around her from behind, a tall, strong wall of protective heat. "Nice view, but you know the view I like better." He bent to kiss her throat.
Shivering, she angled her neck for another.
"You figure people are making out in those cars where we parked?" Fox asked after fulfilling her silent request.
"I saw steam on the windows of the hatchback." A long, quiet minute as she luxuriated in the feel of being held under a starlit sky while the city sparkled like a jewel-bright carpet below them. "Do you want to hear the rest?" she asked when she felt strong enough to face the past again. "It's not particularly unique."
"It's about you." Fox spread his legs, drew her even closer. "I want to know."
Holding on to his forearms where they crossed her chest, Molly drew in a trembling breath. "When they granted him bail, my father came home and literally never left again until the day he died. He became an apathetic shadow of the brilliant, manipulative, controlling person I'd always known."
To this day, Molly didn't know if his withdrawal had been driven by shame, or simply disbelief that he, Patrick Buchanan, had been caught and held to account. "My mother... it was like she couldn't function on any level without his orders." Molly could still remember the bewildered look in her mother's sky-blue eyes.
"After I came home and found her passed out drunk every day for a week"--Molly's stomach churned at the remembered smell of alcohol drenching the air--"while my father sat staring at his computer, I began opening the mail that had piled up. That's when I saw what he'd been doing."
Chapter 23
"Drugs?"
"Close." Her hands had begun to shake as she looked at the bank statements and final notices for bills. "Online gambling. He'd bankrupted us in a matter of weeks." Worse, he hadn't paid any of the insurance premiums since the day of his arrest, invalidating all the policies.
Fox's voice was harsh when he spoke. "No man has the right to do that to his family."
"I confronted him--I think part of me was hoping I'd misunderstood." Like a child wanting to be assured the bogeyman wasn't real. "When he stirred enough to yell at me to get the hell out, I waited for one of my mother's sober days and showed her the papers. The way she looked at me... I broke her heart into a million pieces that day." Molly would never forget that instant, never forget the unvarnished agony that had sent Karen Webster to the floor in a fetal curl.
Molly had begged for her mother to talk to her, said sorry a hundred times, but she'd continued to lie there, mute and fractured. "I don't think she was ever sober again."
"That is not on you." A ruthless declaration as Fox turned her to face him. "Baby, you have to know that." He crushed her against the strong planes of his chest and only then did she realize she was crying.
Wrapped tight in the protective circle of his arms, she felt so safe that she couldn't fight the crashing wave of shattering emotion--feelings she'd hidden away for so long that she'd almost convinced herself they no longer existed. That none of it had the power to hurt her any longer.
Her nose was stuffy, her throat scratchy, and her eyes wrung dry when Fox spoke against her ear, the whiskey and sin of his voice an addiction--and that was the greatest irony of her life.
"You're telling me this so I'll know how bad you're messed up?"
Molly leaned back enough to meet his gaze, the smoky green black in the darkness. "Yes." He'd read the newspaper reports, knew what had happened next--the loss of their family home and everything else not already consumed by escalating legal costs, her parents' deaths in a car crash on the way to a court appearance, her mother later discovered to have been five times over the legal limit.
The only miracle was that Karen Webster had taken only her husband with her, her car smashing not into another vehicle but into a concrete pylon. When it came out that there had been no skid marks on the road, the media had called it a murder-suicide. Molly wasn't sure they were wrong.
"I've worn the coat of being a well-balanced, 'normal' person for so long that I almost believe it myself most days," she confessed, "but I'm not. I have stuff inside me that chokes me up until I can't breathe. I'm really messed up."
Fox rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks, wiping away the remnants of her tears. "I got plenty of fucked-up parts inside me, too. Yeah, they kick my ass sometimes, but I wouldn't be me without those parts, and you wouldn't be you." His voice dropping, holding her captive. "That's the Molly I want, the messed up, smart, sexy one standing right in front of me."
Passionate and edgy and starkly romantic, his words kissed the torn-up places inside her. "This," she said, her voice husky, "us. It's not working."
Molten fury, Fox's skin pulling taut over his cheekbones. "Hell it's not."
"Wait." Molly pressed her fingers to his lips. "That didn't come out right." She swallowed, blurted out the words that had been building inside her since the moment he asked her if she wanted to change the rules. "I don't want a deadline." Her heart ripping open, the exposure terrifying. "I don't want to pretend like my mother did, that my life--our relationship--is something other than what it is."
Fox's heart staggered at hearing the words he'd been waiting for since the instant he'd first realized she was his. Parting his lips to speak, he suddenly became aware of a large group of energetic and giggly teens racing down to the lookout. "Shit."
Grabbing Molly's hand, he led her back up the rise, head angled to avoid being recognized, and drove home as fast as legally possible. This was one night he definitely did not need to be pulled over. Backing Molly against the closed door of her apartment the instant they were inside, one hand on her hip, his other arm braced over her head, he said, "Let me get this right." His heart ricocheted inside his ribcage. "You're saying you want us to go on for longer than a month? No limits?"
Molly nodded.
When he simply watched her, she wet her lips, spoke in a throaty whisper. "Yes. I want to change the rules."
"You sure?" No doubts, there could be no doubts in her mind. "Because once you take that step, I won't allow you to back away."
"Yes." The single word was potent with emotion. "I'm sure. I want to be with you in every way... I want to see who we'll become together."
A dazzling kaleidoscope exploding in his mind, Fox thrust his hand into Molly's hair, unraveling her ponytail to fist his hand in the silky black strands. "No more hiding," he ordered. "You're mine, in private and in public. Do you understand?"
"Yes." It was a thready sound, her throat moving as she swallowed. "You want the same thing?"
"Baby, I never had any intention
of letting you go at the end of the month." Fox's words shattered everything Molly thought she knew. "You're like the perfect song and I knew that the first night we spent together."
The perfect song.
No one had ever said anything so beautiful to her. Already-gritty eyes burning, she said, "H...how do we do this?" Her fingers curled against his back. "Will you fly down to spend time with me after your tour is complete?"
"No half measures, not ever," was his unbending response. "You come with me."
Again, he'd hit her with the unexpected. "I can't." Breathless words, her pulse in her mouth. "My life, my friends, everything is here."
"I'm not."
It was a simple, absolute fact. Shaken, she gripped at him to keep herself upright. "If I choose to stay here?"
"I told you, no half measures." His expression was brutal, all the niceties stripped away to reveal the strong, determined man at the core of him. "If you don't come with me, what'll we have? A few weeks a year?"
"We could make it work," she argued, so overwhelmed by the careening speed of this that her mind scrabbled to find steady ground.
"No." A flat rejection. "I want to take you out to dinner. I want to walk with you down the street. I want to pretend not to be bored while you shop. I want to kiss you before I go onstage. I want you in my bed every damn night."
Each word he spoke, it echoed her own secret desires.
"So you decide, Molly, once and for all, if you want me enough to take the chance."
"That's not fair." She adored him, but he was asking her to alter the course of her life in a way that could never be undone. "I want to be with you more than I've ever wanted anything--"
Kissing her without warning, his mouth hot, his tongue stroking deep, the slight abrasiveness of his callused fingertips familiar on the side of her face, he whispered, "Say that again."
"I can't bear to think of being alone in this apartment again," Molly said, her voice shaking, "of watching you leave... of hearing that you've found someone else. You're mine." A raw claim.