Given Eve’s slow blink and her sudden intake of breath, the caller’s left-field comment had totally blindsided her.

It had blindsided him too.

As far as he could tell from his interactions with the woman sitting in the studio—along with the information gleaned from his background check—she was as genuine as they came and rock solid in her values.

Yet for the second time in six days, she’d had a bomb dropped in her lap.

There wasn’t much chance the timing was coincidental, either.

On the other side of the window, Eve’s demeanor morphed from shocked to analytical, and he could almost hear the gears whirring in her brain.

She leaned forward, the white knuckles of her clenched fingers her sole outward sign of stress as she spoke in a calm, rational tone.

“Andrew, I wish I had time left in my program to dig into the subject you broached, but we’re down to a minute and a half. I’ll have to address this on Friday—but let me assure all of you listening that the situation was not what it appeared to be, despite the way Andrew framed it.”

Her wind-down music began to play in the background, and Eve signaled Ryan to cut the volume.

The music faded out as she continued. “I’ll also be blogging about this topic later this afternoon if any of you would like to hear an explanation sooner. But let me be crystal clear. I would never condone dating a married man. It goes against every principle I believe in about the sanctity of marriage. This will be my lead-off topic on Friday. In the meantime, visit my blog later today for more details.” She signaled Ryan, and the music volume rose. “Until Friday, this is Eve Reilly, fighting the good fight.”

While Ryan flipped switches on the board in front of him, Brent focused on Eve.

If she remembered he was there, she gave no indication of it.

For a full thirty seconds, she remained where she was. Motionless.

At last she took off her headset and began to gather up the papers on the table in front of her.

“Boy . . . that came out of nowhere.” Ryan was watching her too. “Eve can’t catch a break lately.”

“Did you see any ID on that last call?”

“No. My screen was blank, like Eve’s.”

Translation? The caller hadn’t wanted to be identified.

Eve headed for the door, and he did the same. They both emerged into the hall at the same time.

Doug Whitney was waiting for Eve.

“What the heck just happened in there?” The man looked frazzled.

“I wish I knew.” She angled away from the program director. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” Brent stopped beside her.

Doug finally noticed him. “Oh. I didn’t know you were coming by again today.”