Her lover’s face was everywhere. Nick Gentry Found! Nick Gentry Discovered! Nick Gentry, Hiding in Plain Sight!
And then her knees went weak.
Her face was everywhere, too.
Had everybody in that restaurant where she’d so foolishly imagined people were being discreet done nothing all evening except snap cell phone pictures of Nick and her?
There was a shot of them at their table. A shot of them holding hands during dinner. A shot of them outside the restaurant, she in the circle of Nick’s arm.
And, on every site, blowups of Nick kissing her as they’d been leaving the restaurant, of him kissing her as they’d waited for the valet to bring the truck.
Only the breathless headlines varied.
Nick’s Mystery Woman.
Nick’s Mystery Babe.
And, finally, on a site known for the dirt it dished: Mystery Woman in Nick Gentry’s Secret Life Identified!
There it was. Her picture. Her name.
Her heart rose into her throat.
She felt—violated. That was the only word for it. Her name, her face out there for the world to see…
It got worse. Much worse.
Side-by-side photos of her, one in her toque and chef’s coat, snapped as a publicity shot for Raoul’s, the other of her in jeans and a T-shirt in the beat-up old kitchen at the Triple G, probably taken with a long-range lens.
And the crowning touch, the headline that tied the two together.
Lissa Wilde! She couldn’t make it in Hollywood! Interview with ex-live-in, actor/restaurateur Raoul Desplaines!
The world spun. Bile rose in the back of her throat. Don’t, she told herself. Don’t throw up, don’t pass out, don’t, don’t, don’t….
“Hey!”
She jerked around. A guy had come up behind her, a quizzical smile on his face.
“Aren’t you that woman, the one who helped hide that actor?”
She spoke without thinking. “He wasn’t hiding.”
“But you’re her, right? That woman? The cook?”
A taxi pulled up beside her. Lissa grabbed for the door, flung herself into the back seat and yanked the door shut.
“Where to, Miss?”
The guy on the sidewalk was bent over, grinning like an idiot as he aimed his phone at her through the closed window.
“Anywhere,” she said desperately.
“Miss. I need an address—”
“Just start driving!”
The cabbie’s eyes met hers in the mirror. “Sure,” he said, and pulled away from the curb.