“Do you understand how much money they’re offering us? We could pay off this house and send the kids to Harvard for medical degrees. And I could do a few shows that mattered. Tully said I could spotlight places in the world that are in trouble. Do you know what that would mean to me?”

“Is that how you want your career to be from now on—starting everything with, Tully said?”

“Are you asking if I can work for her? The answer is hell, yes. I’ve worked for a lot worse people than Tully Hart.”

“Maybe I’m asking if you should be working for her,” Kate said softly.

He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Is that what this is about? One night a million years ago?”

“She’s an incredibly beautiful woman. I just think . . .” She couldn’t finish, couldn’t put her old fears and insecurities into words.

The look he gave her was so hot she felt herself melting, disappearing. “I don’t deserve that.”

She watched him storm up the stairs, heard the bedroom door slam shut.

She sat there a long time, staring down at her wedding ring. Why was it that some memories could never be erased? Slowly, she turned off all the lights, locked all the doors, and went upstairs.

At their closed door she paused, taking a deep breath. She knew what she had to do now, what she had to say. She’d hurt his feelings and insulted him. They both knew this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Her insecurities and jealousy couldn’t stand in the way of that.

She had to go to him, say she was sorry, and tell him she was foolish to be afraid, that she believed in his love like she believed in sunshine and rain. It was true, too. She did.

Because of all that, she should be proud of Johnny and happy for this chance and what it meant to him. That was what marriage was, a team sport, and this was her time to be cheerleader. But even knowing all that, she couldn’t quite be happy.

Instead, she was afraid.

Yes, they’d be rich. Maybe even powerful.

But at what cost?

Tully finished off her contract, had an emotional, celebrity-studded last broadcast, and said goodbye to New York. She found a new penthouse in the Emerald City and spent the next month in closed-door meetings, coming up with the plans for her new show, which she was calling The Girlfriend Hour with Tully Hart in honor of the Mularkeys’ holiday tradition. She and Johnny had spent long hours working together like the old days, hiring staff and designing the set and devising show concepts.