I take a step back, clearing my throat.

“There’s also another option,” I say.

“You can’t go to a hotel. New Year’s is around the corner and everything’s booked.”

“No.” I lift my eyes to his. “There’s another room at the end of the hall.”

I don’t mention that I’m dying to know why the room is locked. I simply watch as his expression morphs from easy to very frighteningly dead. His thick eyebrows furrow, his eyes dim, and his jaw squares. I don’t need him to open his mouth to know it was a mistake to bring it up, but to leave no doubt, he pushes off the vanity and crowds me, his limbs easy and long and forbidding.

I swallow, but don’t cower. I tilt my chin up, not even blinking—not even when he reaches to cup the side of my neck, tilting his head sideways as his gaze scorches a path into my soul and rummages through it like it’s a stack of secondhand clothes at a charity shop.

“Let’s get one thing straight: you are not to talk about, refer to, or think about that room. You are, in fact, the very reason why that room exists. You will sleep in the sleeping bag, or you will not sleep at all. Take the sofa if you’re really into pneumonia. There’s no central heating, though, and the only heaters working are in mine and Ashton’s rooms. After that little stunt in the living room earlier, I doubt he’d let you warm his bed. And just to make things perfectly clear, you’re not welcome in mine.”

I open my mouth, about to tell him to go screw himself, when there’s pounding on the door. I jump in surprise, and he takes a step back, running his hand through his inky hair. I drop my gaze and see that he is hard. Rock hard, fully tented, and turned on. I flush pink, reaching for the door handle, desperate to get out.

Mal puts his hand on mine to stop me. Our eyes lock.

Flick. And just like that, I’m burning.

“Mal! We’re off. Make sure to wake Ashton up in about thirty minutes, okay? He has a call with Ryner booked for six pm your time. See you tomorrow. Or earlier, if you want. You have my number.” One of the girls giggles. “Ciao, handsome!”

The front door slams. Mal is the first to move. He opens the door, and we both slip out and disappear into different rooms. I go into Mal’s room to take my stuff to the living room—lack of heating be damned—and Mal goes into my former room to wake up Ashton.

I’m tucking linens into the sides of the sofa pillow when Mal walks into the front room, his face ashen. I don’t ask him what’s wrong, because frankly, I don’t care anymore.

“Richards is gone,” he tells me. “He’s not in his room.”

Our gazes connect, and we both say in unison, “Fuck.”

A NOTE FROM MAEVE

Hullo! It’s me, Maeve.

Just one little thing before you go back to your daily schedule.

To be perfectly clear: when Mal called me out of the blue, after years of radio silence, I very much wanted to ignore him. I did. He’s been horrible to me the past few years, you see.

Left me heartbroken and shattered when he said goodbye out of nowhere, without giving me a sufficient reason.

Yet I couldn’t stay away. A part of me—a small, stupid part of me—thought he might’ve changed his mind, that perhaps he saw the light and realized I was more than just a shag. That we were soulmates or something.

He proved me wrong as soon as I got to his bedroom. I swear, he was busier making me scream and the bed creak than anything else. It was obviously a revenge shag, and lucky me, I was in the middle of it, while she was listening next door.

I know she was, because she was gasping and moaning, too.

Which only made him fuck me with more stamina and speed than ever.

I felt a lot like a condom—like I was the only thing separating them from one another. It wasn’t really me he was sleeping with. It was her. And she, she imagined him, too.

Which reminded me why I’d gone and cheated on my husband every single time Mal gave me a ring, even though I’m no silly girl. I knew—know—why Mal started sleeping with me: to hurt my husband.

And why he did it last night: to hurt Aurora.

’Tis the truth that sleeping with another man when you have a family of your own is a villainous thing to do. But what about me? What about my feelings? My existence?

Shall I live my entire life washing and cleaning and feeding and cooking?

Loveless and lonely and slaving to kids who don’t care and a husband who won’t even look at me?

I didn’t mean to hurt my family.

To put what I have in jeopardy.

I didn’t mean to fall for the unattainable.

To ruin so many things along the way.

Now my Sean knows, but we are not getting a divorce.

No. He is better than that. Better than me. He just told me if I ever see Mal again in private, he would take the kids away.

I know he wants to kill Mal.

I want to kill Mal, too.

But for a different reason. I just saw the girl he fell in love with and realize I don’t stand a chance.

There’s a reason why fairytales end right after the prince saves the princess. No one likes to see her nursing postpartum depression and a drunken husband, all whilst folding the laundry.

And Mal? He was the prince who blazed by on a horse, heading in a different direction.

Present

Mal

Rory’s shivering.

I told her not to come with. Did she listen? No, she didn’t. Does she ever? Also negatory. She just grabbed her camera and flew through the door, taking this as an opportunity to work.

Of course, the fact that I am now the host of a currently AWOL, coked-up rock star whose name is synonymous with recklessness is part of why I’m ready to smash my head against a rock. Ashton Richards is an all-right guy, in the sense that he is unaware of just how irritating he is. He is one of those born-a-cunt people who thinks the world owes them something, and that others should do the job for them. The coke addiction is a byproduct of being an insta-rock star. If Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler had decided to skip on one leg four days a week as some sort of a rebellious statement, he’d have overdeveloped quads and would be late everywhere.

My phone rings a thousand times a minute.

10 Missed Calls From Bigwig Cokehead.

That’s the nickname I gave Ryner.

We trudge past the fields by the cottage, and I omit the fact that we are technically trespassing. The fields are no longer mine. I sold every inch of my land except the cottage after The Night That Ruined Everything. I didn’t want the responsibility, and I needed the money to buy a new house for Mam, Father Doherty, and Kathleen’s mum, Elaine. Then there was that emergency surgery for which we had to fly in doctors from America. That cost me a pretty penny, too.

I stop in front of a shack-like bungalow, the only house remotely close to mine, curl my knuckles, and pound on the door. The place belongs to the Smiths (the family, not the band), and the Smiths know things Rory doesn’t, so of course, I’m wary of the exchange.

“Hullo.” Brenda, a sixty-something-year-old housewife, opens the door. A warm, yellowish glow and the scent of baked pies spill out from behind her.

She wipes her swollen, veined hands with the hem of the apron wrapped around her big frame. The minute she sees me, her face alters from relaxed to pitying.