Google was quickly becoming the bane of my existence.

What had started as curiosity about Caleb McMannus had blossomed into a full-blown obsession. Once you Googled, there was no going back. I was disgusted with myself.

Not only because it seemed I’d banged a guy whose dick had already been in half the female population of the United States, but also because I couldn’t stop thinking about the stupid man-whore. It was a sickness. A gross, disappointing sickness that I’d spent weeks trying to cure myself of to no avail.

Each gossip column of his sexcapades, each picture of him in a compromising position—and there were many, all of them with a different woman—was cringe-worthy. But I couldn’t stop myself from searching them out.

What was worse, I couldn’t stop thinking about our night together. It had been the most intense, toe-curling experience of my life. And even though I pretty much hated him for forgetting about me, I wanted it again.

Damn my needy, traitorous vagina!

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

I’d been so ensconced in my online stalk-fest that I hadn’t heard Sophia come up behind me. I’d been hunkered down close to the screen because… well, because I thought I could see a hint of abs in one of the pictures of him, and at the sound of her voice I shot up straight, slammed the lid of my laptop down, and spun around in my swivel chair.

“What? No! Nothing! Huh? What are you talking about?” As if my screechy, rapid-fire questions weren’t telling enough, I started laughing like a manic hyena.

She looked at me like I’d just lost my mind. “Uh, okay, crazy. Tone it down a bit, would you? You have creepy killer eyes right now.”

I unscrewed the loony from my expression and tried to look as normal as possible. “Sorry, you scared me is all. I thought you’d already left for the day.”

“I did, but I forgot my cell phone and the number for that Chinese delivery place is in it, so I had to come back. What are you still doing here?” she asked, looking at me with suspicion.

“Oh, uh… I just got distracted doing a little online shopping,” I lied. “Lost track of time, I guess.”

“Online shopping, huh?” she asked with a knowing smirk. “Wow, I didn’t realize that hottie from the hall a few weeks ago was for sale. You should totally buy that.”

Son of a bitch! I dropped my head in my hands and groaned. “Ugh. Fine, you caught me. I was… Googling.” I swallowed the last word down as if it left a terrible taste in my mouth.

Her smirk turned wicked as she propped her hip on the edge of my desk. “Ooh, interesting,” she teased, crossing her arms and stroking her chin creepily.

I curled my upper lip. “Will you stop doing that, weirdo? You look like a skinnier, less-bald version of Dr. Evil with boobs.”

She laughed and dropped her hand. “Okay, fine. But seriously, why are you scoping pictures of… what’s his name again?”

“Caleb McMannus,” I answered way too quickly. And it wasn’t lost on her.

“Mmhmm.” She bit her lip to suppress her smile and I clenched my fists to suppress the urge to smack her. “Anyway, why are you scoping pictures of Caleb McMannus? I thought you hated the guy. You came back all rage-y after you talked to him.”

“I did… I do. I was just… I mean….” I gave up on my excuses and dropped my forehead to bang it on my desk. When I sat back up, I admitted, “I kind of had sex with him a few months ago.”

“You what?”

I winced at how shrill her voice got. “I had sex with him,” I enunciated. “And you mind not shrieking like that? The glass can’t take it.”

She pushed back, sitting fully on the desk. “Oh my god,” she said quietly. “You slept with him? When did this happen? How did you meet? Was it any good?” she asked in rapid-fire questions.

“Yes. Almost three months ago. I picked him up at a bar when he was trying to pick me up. And….” I hesitated to tell the truth, but finally admitted, “It was the best I’ve ever had.”

She did that high-pitched girly squeal thing and clapped excitedly. “That’s so awesome! Wait… if it was the best you ever had, why’d he act like it was the first time he saw you in the studio?” My cheeks flamed with humiliation as realization dawned on her face. Her eyes rounded, her jaw nearly hitting the floor. “Oh. My. God. He didn’t!”

“He did,” I confessed in a hushed voice. “He acted like that because the bastard didn’t remember me.”

Her mouth opened even wider and her eyes looked like they were at risk of falling out of their sockets. “That son of a bitch!”

That time, instead of bitching at her about her screaming, I joined in. “Right? I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything, but I’m damn good!”

“I just… I can’t believe you had sex with the guy and he didn’t remember you!”

I shot her a look I hoped would set her hair on fire. “You know, you don’t have to keep saying it. I’m already embarrassed enough as it is.”

“What an asshole!” she declared. “I hate that guy. We hate that guy, right?”

“Uh, yes!” I replied sarcastically. “We definitely hate the guy.”

Sophia quirked an eyebrow. “So if we hate the guy, then why are you cyber-stalking him?”

“Because he’s the best I ever had!” I shouted, throwing my hands in the air. “He broke me, Sophia. I haven’t been able to have an orgasm since that night!”

She gasped loudly. “Seriously? Not even by yourself?”

I nodded pathetically.

“Holy shit,” Sophia breathed, lifting her fist to her mouth. “That’s just… I can’t….” Then she burst into laughter. I stopped suppressing the urge and slapped the shit out of her arm. “Ow! You bitch!” She rubbed her arm and bit her lip while frowning. I could have sworn she was fighting a smile.

When I tried to kill her with my eyes, she held up her hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I’ll stop, I promise.”

My temples began to throb. “God, Soph,” I groaned, massaging at the pain. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I mean, the asshole doesn’t even remember screwing me, but I can’t stop thinking about him! What is that? Something is seriously wrong with me.”

Her hand rested on my shoulder. “Sweetie, there is nothing wrong with you. More than likely, your issues with getting off are all in your head. This guy’s gotten under your skin in a serious way. The only way to fix it is to work him out.”

“Oh?” I asked with a roll of my eyes. “And how do you suggest I do that?”

Sophia’s finger on my shoulder convulsed as a wicked smile stretched across her face. “There’s only one way to do it. Bang him like crazy until you’ve gotten your fill, and then walk away.”

I shot out of my chair, letting out a very unladylike snort. “You’ve officially lost your mind. I’m not sleeping with him again! He’s a man-whore! He’s screwed so many women he doesn’t even remember our faces. I’m never, ever having sex with Caleb McMannus again!”

I feigned revulsion at the idea to mask the fact that her theory was actually something I was considering. Truth was, I’d been able to think of little else since that jerk walked into our studio a few weeks earlier. My brain wanted to punch him in the neck while my body wanted to cuff him to my bed and have its naughty, dirty way with him.

“Okay, honey,” Sophia said sarcastically, giving my shoulder a condescending pat. “Keep telling yourself that.”

She walked away, leaving me all alone with my self-pity. I opened my laptop back up and made a noise of disgust at myself when the image of Caleb I’d been drooling over popped back to life.

“You’re pathetic, Daphne,” I chided as my desk phone began to ring. I looked at the unfamiliar number flashing across the caller ID and picked up the line. “This is Daphne King.”

“Hey, Ducky.”

At the sound of the voice, my lungs deflated like two balloons without helium. A painful, raspy wheeze emitted from my chest through the phone line.

“Daphne? Hello? You there?”

I sputtered for a few seconds before I was finally able to speak. “Stefan?”

“Yeah.” I could hear his smile through the handset and imagined what he looked like at that moment, with those stupid capped teeth shining in all their bleached glory. “So good to hear your voice, Ducky.”

Christ, that name. When we first got together, he’d playfully shortened my name to Daphy, then thought it would be funny to call me Daphy Duck. That eventually led to Ducky. It was a stupid fucking nickname that I’d hated so much my teeth clenched each time I heard it, but I’d thought I was blissfully in love at the time so, like an idiot, I let it slide. Now it was like hearing nails being scraped down a chalkboard.

“Can’t say I return the sentiment, Stefan. Why the hell are you calling me?”

“Look, Ducky—”

I cut him off with a groan. “Please, for the love of god, stop calling me that. You sound like a dumbass.”

He cleared his throat, and from years of experience, I knew he was tugging at his earlobe just then. It was something he did any time he was uncomfortable. Any time we fought, he’d make that noise like he was trying to hawk something up and pull at his ear. It was so annoying. “Okay, I’m sorry. I-I’m just nervous. I didn’t actually expect you to pick up.”

“Yeah? Well had I known who was on the other line, I wouldn’t have answered, trust me.”

“Come on, Duck—er, Daphne. Please don’t be like that. I know we left things in a bad place—”

“In a bad place?” I laughed a bit hysterically. “That’s what you call it? Really? Because if I remember correctly, where we left things was with you buried balls deep in my mother!”

“Daph, I’m sorr—”

“Nope,” I broke in, officially over the conversation. “Don’t you dare apologize to me. I don’t give a shit if you’re sorry. I don’t care how you feel at all. I can’t for the life of me understand why after seven years either of you would try reaching out to me, but I’ll tell you now, it’s pointless. I want nothing to do with either of you.” He tried to get a word in, but I was done. “Nope. I don’t want to hear it. Unless you’re calling to inform me that the backstabbing cow gave you a raging case of herpes so bad your dick shriveled up and fell off, you’ve got nothing to say that I want to hear. Never call me again.”

With that, I hung up, slamming the phone back down in the cradle so hard it almost broke.

I grabbed my purse and started toward the elevator bank. My destination was the nearest possible place to get alcohol, because after that conversation, I felt the need to get really, really drunk.