She let it ring. She’d call him in a few minutes, she told herself. When she decided. But the risk that he might involve other people made her press the answer button.

Too nervous to remain sitting, Harper stood. “Hello?”

“Harper?”

She winced. “Yes?” she said tentatively. She expected him to start yelling right away. So she was surprised when he seemed to be at a loss for words.

Curling her fingernails into her palms, she tried to think of some way to begin the conversation herself. But then he said, “Please tell me that wasn’t what it sounded like.”

Was there any chance she could claim otherwise? She thought back over the way she’d been moaning, and what she’d said to Tobias right after they’d finished, and knew there wasn’t. She wished she could just disappear. “Would you believe me if I said yes?” she asked.

“Wow…”

She squeezed her eyes closed.

“Holy shit,” he added. “It was real.”

She gripped the towel that much tighter. “I didn’t mean to call you, Axel. It was an accident. I’m sorry.”

“When I told Rory what I thought I was hearing, he said you were faking it. That you were probably alone and trying to make me jealous.”

Rory was the band’s drummer. As she’d feared, she’d upset Axel so badly he’d started talking to other people about it. She just hoped he hadn’t called any of his family—or hers. “No. Like I said, it was an accident. I wasn’t trying to make you jealous.”

Silence.

“Axel? I’m sorry that…that it happened.”

“Is he there with you now?”

“No.”

“He’s gone?”

“Yes!” she clarified impatiently.

“Who was he?”

She rubbed her forehead in an effort to relieve the headache that was starting. “Just…someone I met.”

“Where?”

“Here in Silver Springs.”

“Already? You haven’t been there very long.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Our divorce isn’t even final!”

She stiffened. “You’re saying you haven’t slept with anyone else?”

It was his turn for silence.

“That’s what I thought,” she said.

“So you were trying to get even.”

What she’d done was so out of character he was still looking for answers. But she didn’t have any to offer him. She hadn’t expected to do what she’d done, and she certainly hadn’t planned it. “No! It wasn’t like that at all. It was a pocket dial. Do you think I wanted you to hear what…what you heard? Something that private? I’m mortified!”

“Private. Are you forgetting who you’re talking to?”

No, but he hadn’t been in that room with her. She hadn’t even been thinking of him, which she’d considered a great thing at the time. “We’re no longer together,” she said, relying on that as her only defense.