She groaned at the memory of seeing her phone lit up on the floor of Tobias’s bedroom, alerting her to the fact that she’d somehow placed a call.

“I’m such an idiot,” she muttered as she passed the decorations in the yard and let herself in through the front door. She knew if her sister or brother-in-law checked the security system on the house, they’d find no record of her leaving in the first place. But at this point, she had bigger things to worry about.

Determined to ignore her ringing phone, she stripped off her clothes, dumped them in the hamper and went straight to the shower, where she stood under the hot spray far longer than she’d ever stayed there before. It was the only place she felt safe; she didn’t want to face the outside world.

But then she started thinking about Axel and how he might react. He was so vocal, so excitable. If he couldn’t get through to her, he might decide to call her sister.

“Oh, no!” she cried as soon as the idea struck her, and she got out, dried off and grabbed her phone.

It wasn’t vibrating anymore. But she had missed ten calls from him.

Clasping a towel around her, she sank onto her bed and navigated to voice mail.

Sure enough, Axel had left a number of messages. Before calling him back, she listened to each one. She figured they might tell her how best to approach the situation.

Message #1: “Harper, are you kidding me? What the hell was that?”

Message #2: “Harper, you’d better pick up the damn phone! Who are you with?”

Message #3: “Seriously? You’re not going to answer? In case you’ve forgotten, we still have two children together!”

Message #4: “Harper, where are our daughters while you’re fucking this guy?”

That one struck a hard enough blow that she almost couldn’t continue. But there were six more—and she forced herself to listen to them all. He wasn’t just angry; he was furious. It was eight hours later in London, so she’d interrupted him while he was having dinner with his bandmates and their manager. How would she like it, he yelled in the last one, if he called and made her listen to him screwing another woman, especially while she was at a business meeting?

How was she going to explain?

There was no good way. She’d never even mentioned that she was dating someone—because she wasn’t. And the fact that it came out of nowhere only made the whole thing worse.

The screen on her phone lit up again. Damn! There he was. She’d wanted to take the initiative so it wouldn’t look like she was avoiding him.