“Molly, m’dear, you know I never mess around with money.” Her older sister’s uptilted eyes, a burnished brown, were suddenly dead serious. “And Zachary Fox, known to his gazillion and one fans as Fox, and to any woman with a functioning sex drive as hot with a capital H, is serious money. As are the other members of Schoolboy Choir.” Putting down her empty champagne flute beside Charlotte’s cocktail glass, she said, “Come on, I’ll introduce you both to him.”
Charlotte shook her head. “No thanks. You know me and gorgeous men—I turn into a Charlie-shaped statue.” Having kept her phone in hand, she now looked down as the screen flashed. “That’s a message from my cab driver. He’s downstairs.”
“You’re sure about going home alone?” Molly couldn’t help but worry about her best friend. Charlotte was fierce and strong and the only person who’d stood by her when the scandal broke, but she knew Charlie’s own past had left invisible wounds that had never quite scarred over.
“Yes—I use this driver a lot for work stuff. He always waits while I unlock the door to my place and disarm the security.” She hugged Thea good-bye before doing the same to Molly, leaning up to whisper, “Live a little, Moll. Take the hot rock star home, then tell me all about your night of wild monkey sex.”
Molly’s breath caught at the idea of it, foolish and impossible though it was. “If only.” Over an hour into the party and Fox hadn’t even looked in Molly’s direction, that’s how high she registered on his radar.
“Fox knows who you are,” Thea said after Charlotte had left. “He saw a photo of us in my L.A. office—the one from after we went through the caves.”
Molly groaned. “You mean the one where we both look like drowned rats, have giant black inflatable rings around our waists, and dented helmets on our heads?” The trip through the waters of the underground cave system had been fun, but it did not make for alluring photos. “Let’s not forget the ancient gray wetsuits that made it look like we were molting.”
Choking on her laughter, Thea nodded. “He was interested in doing the black-water rafting thing when I told him where we took the photo. I’m sure he’d love to talk to you about it.”
Molly fought the temptation to get close to him any way she could, and it was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. “No thanks,” she said, her mind awash in visions of what it would be like to meet him in a much more private setting, run her fingers over the firm lines of his body… bite down on his lip. “I’d like to keep standing over here with my fantasies.” Distance or not, the needy, achy feeling in the pit of her stomach continued to intensify, her response to the rock star across the room scarily potent.
Thea raised an elegant eyebrow.
“If I meet him,” she added through the shimmer of heat that licked over her skin when he laughed at something one of his bandmates had said, the sound a rough, dark caress, “and he’s an arrogant snob or worse, a stoned-out idiot, there go my fantasies.”
“Fox is neither a snob nor a stoner.” Thea’s lips kicked up. “The man is the whole package: intelligent, talented, and a nice human being unless you piss him off by pushing too hard about his private life—and I don’t think there’s any chance you’ll go paparazzi on me.”
“That just makes it worse,” Molly pointed out, trying not to watch as Fox bent his head to speak to a bombshell brunette in a dress the size of a handkerchief. “How can I fantasize about him ripping off my clothes in a moment of reckless passion if he politely shakes my hand and says it’s nice to meet me?”
Molly had learned her lesson about reality versus dreams as a teenager—once destroyed, some dreams could never be resurrected. And for some reason, she couldn’t bear for this silly, unattainable dream to be splintered by reality.
“If you change your mind,” Thea said with a shake of her head, “speak up soon. Fox never stays long at these things.” She picked up a gorgeous cobalt blue cocktail from the tray of a passing waiter. “I’d better go make nice with the other guests.”
Watching her publicist sister expertly work the room, Molly smiled in quiet pride. Though they’d joyfully connected after a lifetime of not knowing the other existed, the bond was yet new, fragile, and no one who wasn’t aware of their family history would ever guess they were related. Twenty-nine to Molly’s twenty-four, not only was Thea naturally slender in contrast to Molly’s curves, she had the smooth golden skin of her Balinese mother as well as Lily’s eyes, but she’d gained her height from Patrick Buchanan, topping Molly by a good five inches.