23. Molly
23
MOLLY
I stumbled into my room in shock, my feelings jumbled and confused. What the fuck just happened? One minute I’d been in the elevator lobby, handling the press—many of whom I knew personally—and telling them a story about having been up late talking with Noah and needing coffee. Sure, there had been questions and they’d been loud, but I’d had everything under control.
I worked with the press, now. I knew how to spin a story. And I’d been around the boys long enough to know what the reporters expected of them, so I was making it believable. The band needed a new contract, which everyone knew, and Noah had just had that meeting with the first set of record execs. He was nervous and wanted to bounce some ideas off me.
And the press wasn’t even surprised about that part. Many of them had covered the Authors before and knew that Noah and I were close. It was no big deal. I had the whole thing under control.
Until Noah came storming in there, trying to play hero and messing it all up. He’d offended the press—as usual—and then made it sound like we’d actually spent the night together, as in spending the night together not just brainstorming ideas between old friends. Of course the press had jumped right on that, because that was their fucking job, and Noah made it all even worse by grabbing me and running away from them.
Then shoving me into a closet.
Again.
I was getting really, really tired of being shoved into a closet, both physically and metaphorically. I didn’t know what Noah and I were doing—nothing good—and honestly I didn’t even know what I wanted from him. I hadn’t had two seconds to think about it.
I knew I didn’t like being hidden.
But I was also terrified that Noah had made a big enough mess that it was going to get back to the tour managers. And Janette. If there were pictures of me and Noah from this morning and they came with a story that implied we were sleeping together…
I was already going to be in big enough trouble when Janette found out I knew the band she’d set me up with.
If I was also sleeping with one of them, it was going to mean my job.
M y worst fears came true about an hour later, when I got a text from Janette demanding a video call.
I mean, at least I’d had a shower by that tine.
I pulled my laptop out and accepted the call with my heart in my mouth and a list of excuses sitting next to me. I didn’t know what the call was going to be about, but I suspected we’d be covering two things: Noah and me spending the night with him. I’d prepared a number of reasons I’d done so, and I thought some of them were pretty good.
Hopefully good enough to save me.
“Janette,” I said, trying to sound perky and knowing I sounded tired and stressed.
Jannette looked me up and down, looking displeased. “You look like shit.”
Of course I did. I’d been up last night sharing a bottle of whiskey with my best friend, and then up the rest of the night fucking him. And now I was on a phone call with my boss about it. She, I noted, looked gorgeous, as usual. Soft, smooth ebony skin; large eyes; and natural hair. She looked like she’d just stepped out of the salon, where she’d had a thousand-dollar facial.
Fuck, maybe she had. That sounded like the sort of thing she’d do.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling wryly. “I was up late last night.”
“Figuring out how to do the spread I asked you to do, I hope,” she said quickly.
Well, shit. “Um… Not exactly.”
Janette’s face went from at last relatively friendly to stern. “Molly, I already told you what’s at stake, here. I like the pictures you’re sending but they’re not Tempest style. You need to shoot sexier stuff. Less high school artsy, more edgy. I sent you out with rock stars and I want rock star pictures. Give me the grunge and drama. The dirty edge of being on the road. I thought I made myself clear about that.”
“Right, you did, but I’m just not sure I can do it,” I said quickly. “I don’t know if any of the guys is going to be willing to go that far.”
Janette put her hand down on the table and leaned toward the screen. “And I’ve heard that you actually know this band, which you didn’t tell me before. I’m willing to overlook that little omission for one reason, and one reason only. It gives you an in. If these boys are your friends, then you can convince them. Get to Noah Michael. Tell him you want to do this shoot. Get him to agree to it, for old time’s sake. Threaten him if you have to.”
I had never seen this side of Janette, and honestly, it scared me. I’d thought she was friendly and charming and artsy.
Now I realized she was as cut throat as the movies always made people like her look.
“Threaten him?”
Her face turned a shade colder. “Tell him your job depends on you getting this shoot done. If he’s the friend you think he is, he won’t turn you down. Get me that spread, Molly. And remember the rules. No talking back. No questioning orders. No fucking around with the stars. I like you. I’d hate to have to fire you for breaking your contract.”
She hit a key and the call ended, leaving me staring open-mouthed at my computer.
No talking back. No questioning orders. No fucking around with the stars.
I was batting 0-3 on those rules so far. And Janette didn’t even know about the last one, yet. At least…
God, I hoped she didn’t.
I had to make sure she never found out. I had to do that shoot. And I was going to stay as far away from Noah as possible, from here on out. He might be the sexiest, most amazing guy I would ever meet, and I suspected that I was already a little bit in love with him.
But I knew his record, and me being in love didn’t mean a damn thing. He didn’t keep girls around, and I didn’t believe in relationships, anyhow. I’d seen how little they mattered to people. You could be their husband, their wife, and they’d still leave you.
You could be their fucking newborn kid, and it didn’t matter. They’d leave you on the doorstep of a fucking orphanage without a second thought.
I had to cut him and whatever we were doing out of my life. Hard stop.
It didn’t mean anything, and it wasn’t worth losing my job over.
I threw everything in the closet in the direction of the bed, then moved to the shoes. Tennis shoes, check. Nice heels, check. Boots, check. Flip flops, check.
God, you would have thought I’d been packing for a six-month cruise rather than a one-month tour. Why the hell had I thought I needed to bring so many shoes?
Because I knew myself, I thought. I knew how much I liked to be able to throw on a different pair every hour. And it wasn’t my past self’s fault that Present Tense Molly had fallen asleep and woken up to panicked callers from Sadie and Anna asking where the hell I was because it was time to leave for the airport.
What the fuck kind of tour was this, anyhow? Why were we flying to cities rather than taking a bus like normal rock stars? Not that I would have been included on that bus, I remembered suddenly.
I wasn’t a roadie anymore. I was a member of the press.
God, that was weird.
I rushed through the closet, trying to figure out if I’d left anything, but it was clean. The bathroom was quick, as I’d barely unpacked anything in there, and within about five minutes I had everything crammed back into my bag. Camera equipment? Already packed. Laptop and the three books I’d brought with me? All in my bag.
I glanced around, breathing faster than was necessary. The room was messy, but I thought I had everything. And even if I didn’t, I knew from experience that the hotel would hold onto anything I’d left behind. I would call them if I found that I was missing anything.
Great.
I grabbed everything and started for the door, then froze when my phone rang.
Shit, had Janette found something else to hate me for? Some other way to threaten my job?
I pulled my phone out and looked at the screen, and saw a number that I didn’t recognize. Normally I would ignore it, but I wasn’t sure I had that option anymore.
“Hell?” I asked, knowing I sounded rushed. Because I was.
“Molly Rush?”
“That’s me. Who’s this?”
“You work for Tempest, but grew up in Hallows Home for Children in St. Louis, Missouri?”
Okay, that stopped me in my tracks.
“Who the fuck is this?”
“My name is Daniel Handle. I’m a PI in St. Louis. A private investigator.”
Wait, his name was Daniel Handle? Was this a joke?
“I know what a PI is, Dan. Why are you calling me? What do you want?”
News flash: I suspected I already knew what he wanted. My mind was already on the email I received from that same orphanage telling me that a man was searching for me, claiming to be my father. I’d ignored it, subconsciously hoping the problem would go away.
It looked like I’d been wrong.
“I’ve been hired by your father, Ms. Rush. Or the man who believes he’s your father. He asked me to look into the case for him, gave me the dates and locations, and it led me to you.”
I dropped into the chair right next to the door like my legs had been cut out from under me. A man who thought he was my father had hired a PI to find me. And that PI had tracked me down this quickly. This was unreal. Who the hell was looking for me, and why had he suddenly decided to do it now? Was it because I’d been hired for a job? Had that somehow triggered some national database and alerted people to my existence? I’d been orphaned twenty-five years ago.
This guy, if he was real, had twenty-five years to try to find me, and he was just now getting around to it? Twenty-five years of being cold and hungry and terrified in that orphanage, and after that, years of not knowing who I was, really. Not having anyone to call home, aside from the family I’d built for myself.
And I had built a family for myself, I thought. I’d chosen family that wouldn’t leave me behind. Brothers who would take care of me no matter what.
Rather than parents who hadn’t even tried to get to know me before they deserted me.
“I’m not interested,” I said bluntly. “Whoever that guy was, he left me on a doorstep the day I was born. I don’t want to know that guy.”
“He didn’t know,” Dan said quickly. “He didn’t know you even existed until five months ago. He got a letter from your biological mother telling I’m about you. Her mother—your grandmother—took you and dropped you off when you were born. Your father wants to know you. He wants to know his little girl.”
“If I am his little girl,” I retorted. “If he’d wanted to meet me so bad, buddy, he should have found me when I was still at that orphanage and needed a dad. I’ve already got a new family. I’m not interested.”
I hung up before he could answer, and headed for the door, trying to put him out of my mind. Because what I’d just told him wasn’t strictly true. I was interested. Every part of me was keyed up, just thinking about the idea of having a real family. It was every orphan’s dream. The parents who suddenly show up and take you home. The house with the white picket fence and plenty of blankets, where they made pancakes on Sunday mornings.
But I was keenly aware that this could be fake. Some sort of scam or something. Some other man who would get my hopes up and then let me down. I’d spent my life dealing with people like that, and I didn’t need any more of it in my life.
I’d already screwed up my job by letting Noah in too deep.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistake with this possibly fake, possibly scammy father figure. I was just starting to get my life under control.
I didn’t need the white picket fence anymore. I had myself, and that was all that mattered.
Part of me knew I was lying.
The other part wasn’t going to admit it.