Page 38 of Noah
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.
Ithrew 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.
