Rock Addiction (Rock Kiss #1)(83)

Molly took a sip of her passion-orange tea. “I am.” She was starting to believe she and Fox would be okay, even in this hothouse atmosphere. “Is that stubble burn on your cleavage?”

Thea shoved her sunglasses up on top of her head to glance down, groaned. “Damn it. I thought this neckline was high enough.” She pointed a finger at Molly. “’Fess up. You told David to write memos.”

Molly gave her innocent eyes.

Snorting, Thea picked up her phone to check her e-mails.

“So?” Molly prompted, used to the way her sister multitasked.

“So… I guess we’ll see if I can trust him while the band’s on tour.” A whisper of pain, an echo of the brutal blow her fiancé had delivered, the cheating, supercilious piece of crap.

Molly didn’t know if her sister’s heart could take another beating without permanent damage; she truly hoped David was the man she believed him to be. “I thought you’d be traveling with us?”

“No, it’ll be one of my associates. I need to remain at base command for the most part so I can quickly stamp out any fires.” Thea’s eyelashes flicked up. “The other guys, how are they handling what’s happening between David and me?”

“No one’s making a big deal of it,” Molly said, conscious Thea continued to worry about the possible repercussions of being involved with a client, especially if things didn’t work out. “They mess with each other all the time, but not on this topic.” Tight as the four were, it was clear Fox, Abe, and Noah understood exactly how important this relationship was to their bandmate. “We’re all rooting for you.” Smiling, she said, “As your sister, I hope that stubble burn is the first of many.”

Thea laughed, her tension easing. “I’m considering flying in to meet up with the band during some of the tour stops, so you never know.” Spooning up the foam from her cappuccino with one hand while typing a return message with the other, she turned the conversation back to Molly. “Are you looking forward to the tour?”

“Yes and no.” Molly watched a bouncy, tanned woman walk by with two tiny dogs on leashes, each dog pure white with a diamanté collar. It wasn’t until the woman had passed that Molly noticed she was wearing four-inch Perspex heels and had another fluffy white dog in the handbag slung over her elbow, her fingers curved to show off hot-pink talons. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.”

“You’ll be fine.” Thea nibbled at her bran muffin. “Stay grounded, don’t allow all this”—a wave at the flamboyance and wealth around them—“to taint what you have with Fox.” She took a drink of her coffee before saying, “Why yes and no?”

“I’m excited because I get to travel with Fox, watch him perform.” Molly would never get enough of watching him onstage. “But I’m worried about the pressure it might put on us—it’s an intense environment.” Pausing, she admitted, “I’m so possessive of him, Thea. I hate it when he poses with female fans without his T-shirt, even though I know it means nothing to him.”

Her sister turned off her phone, gave Molly her full attention. “Have you spoken to him about it?”

“We fought about it after Sydney, but I haven’t brought it up since.”

Thea shook her head. “Do it, Molly. Otherwise, he’ll end up hurting you without knowing it, and you’ll become angry and resentful.” She held up a hand when Molly would’ve spoken. “I’ve worked in this industry for a decade and the couples that make it are the ones who have no secrets. Because even a tiny thing can act like a grain of sand against skin, rubbing and rubbing until it makes you bleed.”




Two days later, Thea’s words circled in Molly’s mind as she sat at home watching the live broadcast of a prime-time show: Schoolboy Choir was currently being interviewed by the witty, likeable host. The host’s questions—which the guys were handling without problem, shooting back good-humored retorts—weren’t what had Molly’s nerves taut. That came courtesy of the other guest, a tall, curvy blonde in a dramatic, figure-hugging dress of deep blood-orange.

A major recording star in her own right, Carina had sung a chart-topping duet with Fox for Schoolboy Choir’s most recent album, the rock ballad as hard as it was romantic. Molly had loved it. Until now. It only took her a couple of minutes into the interview to realize the other woman was intelligent as well as talented and physically blessed. She’d also clearly not been faking her enjoyment of the sultry kiss she’d shared with Fox in the music video for the song.

Molly would’ve had to have been blind to miss the flirtatious invitations Carina was sending Fox’s way. And it wasn’t just her imagination or jealous paranoia. The show had a tweet stream running along the bottom of the screen and the majority of the tweets had to do with the chemistry between Fox and Carina. Whoever was choosing the tweets to display had picked relatively tame messages, as opposed to the more sexually charged ones Molly knew had to be flooding the site, but that didn’t matter.

So shipping Carina and Fox. #perfectcouple

She is totally hot for him. Love it!

OMG, most beautiful couple or what?

We saw it first! Foxina 4ever!

Molly’s stomach knotted further with each second that passed. No one, she thought, seemed to remember that Fox had been spotted with a different woman in New York, Molly forgotten in the blink of an eye. The only thing that kept her from throwing something at the television screen was that no matter what the viewers believed, Fox wasn’t returning the signals. And Molly knew every one of his signals intimately.