Bargaining with the Boss (Honeybrook Love, Inc. 2)

"No you won't." She tried again, but he only smiled, opened the door, and walked away.

Chapter Six

"Good evening entertainment fans, tonight we have an exclusive interview with the woman who has been commanding the headlines: none other than Gianna Torreini. Gianna, how are you this evening?" The helmet-haired anchor nodded toward the sniveling blond in the white leather seat beside her, no doubt trying to look sympathetic in spite of the shark-like gleam in her arctic gaze.

Natalie rolled her eyes, but sat back on the couch, hoping against hope that the blonde was about to retract everything she'd said about Franco in the past few days.

Fat chance.

Instead, she shook back her wave of golden hair and sniffed away nonexistent tears. "You know, I'm hanging in there. I feel more free than I have in a long time."

"Tell me what you mean by that." The anchor reached toward the model in a show of comfort and, probably, for the photo op that would inevitably grace tomorrow's papers.

"You know, break-ups can be so hard, but now that Franco and I are no longer together, I can see all of the flaws that I used to ignore." Gianna reached for a tissue and dabbed at her bone dry cheeks.

"I can't believe I wanted to have children with that man. He's...well, I don't want to say anything negative, but he hates children. He said--"

That was quite enough.

Natalie flicked over to the next channel, debating between reaching for her cell phone or just stuffing her face in her sofa cushion and screaming for a good long while.

She'd already called Franco five times since she'd gotten home, and it was all to no avail. With any luck, he'd been too busy trying to negotiate with Gianna's PR team. More likely, though, he was lounging in his living room, drinking a beer, watching Sports Center, completely unaffected by the slander that could wreck his entire life.

The dummy.

If she didn't do something, she was going to while away her whole night trying to fix his problems only to have him, in all likelihood, not listen to her advice. No, she had to do something to get her mind off of Franco and Gianna and...

And Brooks.

She pulled her bathroom tighter around her and walked toward the kitchen. Maybe moving around would help her shake that anxious excitement that settled in her chest whenever she thought of Brooks.

Which, of course, was stupid.

She'd decidedly shrugged him off. For sure.

Franco didn't want her help, and after what had happened in that hotel room...

Pasta sauce.

She was going to make her special homemade pasta sauce. That always calmed her down, and at the very least an influx of carbs would make her artificially happy. Which, if she didn't think about it too hard, was almost like the same thing.

After bustling into the living room and turning up the TV, she went into action. Opening cans, mincing garlic, dicing basil. All the things she used to do when she'd been cooking for more than just herself.

Not that it had ever been good enough. She'd learned the recipe from scratch, practiced it for weeks before her husband's birthday and then...

She sighed.

None of that mattered now. She liked her sauce and there was no point in making it if she was just going to find something else to drive herself insane over. No, she had to put every man she'd ever known aside and focus on food.

Like healthy people did.

Once the butter had melted she added the rest of her ingredients into the pot and stirred, breathing deep. Yep, once this sauce was done, she'd feel like herself again. She'd be a whole new woman, ready to take on the world and--

Ding dong.

Her heart flipped over in her chest. Nobody visited her. Ever.

She met with friends at their houses, never threw parties, never—