R
eggie jumped as Max snapped his fingers in front of her nose. “Sorry. I spaced out for a minute.”
Max sighed, shuffling and restacking the notes scattered around her coffee table. “It’s fine. We’re almost done here, anyway.”
They were going through the list of potential show topics for the upcoming season. Even though she wasn’t scheduled to start shooting again until March, she didn’t mind getting ahead of the game.
Besides, since she’d handed in final revisions on her book and wrapped shooting on
Simply Delicious, USA
nearly a month ago, she needed something to fill the hours.
Anything to keep her mind off of him.
Which was why she’d invited Max over to review show ideas even though she was leaving for New York tomorrow for the Cuisine Network’s Live Christmas bash.
Sure, she still had to test her recipe for the live Christmas Eve special, wrap presents and deliver them to Natalie for distribution since she was missing Christmas, and pack.
But who needed to sleep?
Or go to bed at all, when most nights she lay awake, staring at the ceiling, feeling hollow as a jack-o’-lantern. Like someone had scraped out her insides with an ice cream scoop.
She walked Max to the door, taken aback when he pulled her into an awkward embrace. Max wasn’t generally the most touchy-feely guy. Still, it felt nice to be held by a man, even if he was her gay producer. She leaned into him, wrinkling her nose at the scent of expensive, potent cologne. Gabe had always smelled perfect, like dryer sheets and soap.
She sniffed harder, driving the memory of Gabe’s scent from her brain.
“You need to take better care of yourself, Reggie,” Max admonished.
Smiling feebly, she stepped out of his arms. “I’m fine. And now that the stalker seems to have relented, it’s one less thing I have to stress about.”
As though to mock her, since Gabe ripped her apart she hadn’t heard one word from the pervert. Zip. Nada. Zilch. As though he was playing into Gabe’s assertion that it was all some big scam.
“And I’m saving a boatload of money not paying for full-time security.”
That’s it, Reggie, always look on the bright side, no matter how dim
. It was true, though. Over Natalie’s protests, she’d refused to hire another full-time security person, but had given in when Natalie insisted that she at least have someone escort her to public appearances.
Otherwise, she made do with friends walking her home and having her neighbors be on the lookout for any weirdos.
Max reached for the doorknob.
“Wait,” she cried, rushing to enter the security code for her alarm. That was one procedure she hadn’t abandoned: setting the alarm every time she entered her apartment, whether she was alone or not. Even though the stalker had laid off, she wasn’t completely foolish.
“Sorry. Wouldn’t want to summon the cavalry,” Max said in an odd, breathless tone. “Especially now that your goon has abandoned you.”
Turning, she got the oddest sensation that Max had been staring at her ass. But now his eyes were pinned firmly, innocently on her face.
Abandoned. What a perfect word choice. She wished Max Merry Christmas and locked the door behind him.
“This is really how you want to spend Christmas?”
Gabe tilted his head against the back of the overstuffed armchair and met Adrienne’s irritated gaze. He took a sip from his fourth—or was it fifth?—scotch. Who cared. He wasn’t working today, anyway. The CEO he’d been hired to protect, a friend of Brian’s, was safe at home and well guarded by his domestic security staff.
“You’d rather sit here by yourself, drinking yourself into a stupor, than come with us to Brian’s sister’s house.”
Gabe took another sip of scotch, pretending to consider the two options. Spend Christmas Eve by himself getting plowed, or go to his brother-in-law’s sister’s house where he’d have to act civilized and make small talk with someone else’s family.
No contest.
“Yep, I’ll be fine. I even have a Hungry Man turkey dinner waiting in the freezer. Besides,” he said, flicking on the fifty-two-inch plasma TV mounted on the wall, “it’s too late now, anyway.”
“Really, we’ll wait if you want to come.”
Even though Brian waited at the door with her coat, Adrienne didn’t seem inclined to leave. She stared down at him, like if she held his gaze long enough, her powers of mind control would convince him to get his ass out of the chair and into the shower.
“Hi everyone, I’m Reggie Caldwell. Welcome to
Simply Delicious
.”
Adrienne gasped and Gabe instinctively lifted the remote, thumb frozen over the channel up button.
Caught red fingered.
“You’re pathetic, you know that?” Adrienne said, her voice full of sympathy.
Didn’t he know it. Crying in his scotch while he watched on TV the woman who’d pulverized his heart.
He felt the comforting warmth of his sister’s hand on his shoulder as she stood next to the chair, both riveted by Reggie’s face on the screen.
“She looks so nice on TV,” Adrienne murmured. “And the way you talked about her…it’s hard to believe she’d do what you said.”
His thumb punched down hard on the remote, not letting up until the screen flashed the speed and noise of motocross racing on ESPN. “Not the first time I’ve made a bad decision,” he said curtly.
Leaning down to kiss him on the cheek, Adrienne said good-bye and left him to his wallowing.
Inexorably, the satellite box tuned back to the Cuisine Network, just in time for the live Christmas Eve celebrity bash.
His throat swelled like he’d swallowed a softball when he saw her, wholesome good looks emphasized by her tight leaf green sweater.
I can’t believe she’s capable of the things you said.
Christ, when he looked at her, he couldn’t believe it either. Didn’t want to.
He grabbed the bottle of single malt from the end table, this time not even bothering with ice or a glass. It was the liquor that made his eyes sting and his throat hitch, not the sight of Reggie, her lush lips spread in a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Not Reggie, who, when he focused through the alcohol haze, looked thinner than he remembered, her rounded cheekbones sharpened into high relief, her collarbone standing out above the V-neck of her sweater.
For a split second, he allowed concern to ooze through. Shit, if she looked that thin on TV, what did she look like in person? And now that he looked closer, he could see the tired, unhappy lines that bracketed her mouth, even as she struggled to keep up her bright, cheerful mask.
Panic clogged his throat, the way it had more than once over the past month. Panic that he’d been completely, horribly wrong.
He was actually reaching for his cell phone when she chortled at another chef’s comment. Any soft emotions he might have nurtured fled. He took another sullen gulp of the scotch.
Look at her. Smiling, laughing
. He was kidding himself thinking she’d suffered for a second over their split. She was exactly where she wanted to be, and he was an idiot if he wasted any time worrying about her.
A week after the live Cuisine Network Christmas Eve special aired, Reggie was back in San Francisco. A mere month and a half ago, she’d envisioned spending New Year’s Eve having wild, hedonistic sex on the beach with Gabe. Instead, she was in rainy San Francisco, alone and dateless. At least she was working instead of sitting at home crying her way through another bottle of cabernet.
“And now we put the finishing touch on the filet mignon with Gorgonzola Madeira sauce.” She discreetly scratched behind her ear as she sprinkled parsley across the plate. The headset mic itched like crazy, but she had to wear it if she wanted to be heard above the crowd gathered for the Save the Bay Fund’s annual New Year’s Eve Gala.
Reggie was just one of several local celebrities putting in an appearance tonight. Having nothing better to do, she’d offered at the last minute to do a cooking demo and had also donated a private cooking lesson and a chance to attend a taping of
Simply Delicious
to the silent auction.
She smiled aimlessly out into the crowd, unable to distinguish any faces with the spotlight beating down into her face. Max was here somewhere. And Natalie was out there, she knew, draped in a sexy turquoise spaghetti strap BCBG gown. Along with her favorite accessory—a smoking-hot, tuxedo-clad Tyler.
Waving one last time at the crowd, Reggie absently wiped her hands on her chef’s smock. Normally she would have been as excited as Natalie to dress up and go all out on hair and makeup, but this year she was glad she had an excuse not to.
Frumpy smock, check. Basic black pants and sensible shoes, check. The blah ordinariness of her outfit more than matched her incessantly bleak mood.
She stepped down from the stage, discreetly trailed by the female security guard she’d hired for the evening. Working her way through the throng, she found herself suddenly blocked by a wall of hard, male chest.
And suddenly she wished passionately that she was wearing a slinky cocktail dress, sexy stilettos, and a fresh coat of lip gloss when she looked up to see that the chest belonged to none other than Gabe.
God, he looked good. Mile-wide shoulders encased in black gabardine, a lock of dark hair spilling over his forehead.
Pain sliced through her, so sharp she couldn’t speak for several seconds. She stared up at him like an idiot, swallowing convulsively as her throat went as dry as Death Valley.
“Gabe,” she finally managed in a feeble croak, barely audible above the low roar of the crowd.
She met his dark gaze and felt like she was dying, crumbling inside as she simultaneously fought the urge to heave herself into his arms and never let go or knee him in the groin for making her feel so hideous.
His lips were set in tight lines, and his eyes were full of grief and torment.
He missed her too.
Tell me you’re sorry,
she thought frantically, trying to telepathically project her thoughts to his brain.
I’ll forgive you, I’ll take you back no questions asked. All you have to say is you miss me and you’re sorry.
Instead, he blinked, and when his eyes opened they were flat, black, revealing nothing. He nodded curtly and made to move past her.
“Wait,” she grabbed frantically at his arm, withering inside as he pulled it gently but deliberately from her grasp.
“I’m working.” He tipped his chin in the direction of a paunchy, tux-clad man with salt-and-pepper hair a few feet to his right.
“Yeah, me too,” she said stupidly, then stepped aside.
“Is everything all right, Ms. Caldwell?” Jill, the bodyguard she’d hired for the night, was at her left elbow. Unlike Gabe, who seemed to suck all the oxygen out of any room he entered, Jill was so quiet and unassuming, Reggie forgot for a moment that she was right next to her.
And had no doubt witnessed Gabe’s humiliating brush-off.
Was everything all right? Let’s see. She was starting the year off with a lacerated heart, a bruised ego, and, oh yeah, a crazed fan who, although he hadn’t made any moves lately, might very well be waiting for the opportunity to “punish” her.
But on the bright side, she’d lost at least ten pounds in the last month, and even her mother told her how thin she’d looked on the live Christmas special.
Assuring Jill she was fine, she set off to find Natalie and Tyler. She had to get out of here. As though caught in a tractor beam, her gaze kept landing on Gabe. Now that she knew he was here, she couldn’t seem to lose track of him no matter how hard she tried.
He seemed to have no problem ignoring her.
Reggie was sure that if she looked down at her smock, she’d actually see blood bubbling out of the left side of her chest.
“Reggie, that was fabulous.” Max dashed up, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pressed a sloppy kiss to her cheek. Jeez, a few glasses of champagne and he was loving on everybody.
Jill stiffened at her side.
“It’s okay,” Reggie reassured her and performed a quick introduction.
“Was that Gabe the gorilla I saw you with?” Max asked, lips pursing as though his champagne had just turned to cat’s piss.
Reggie nodded tiredly. “I can’t believe how much it hurt to see him.”
She took Max’s dark look for one of sympathy, then excused herself to renew her search for Natalie, who had also spotted Gabe, and from the looks of it was ripping him a new one as Tyler physically held her back.
“…and I’m going to tell your client that you suck,” Natalie sputtered, flushed with anger and liquor courage, “that you fuck your clients and quit on them when they need you, because you’re a paranoid psycho who can’t see the truth when it’s in front of him.”
Gabe, of course, remained impassive, looking somewhere past Natalie’s shoulder as he ignored her rant. When she finally paused to take a breath, he seized the opportunity to escape.
As he turned, his gaze locked momentarily with Reggie’s, and for a split second she saw something—anger, hurt, disgust. Then the icy curtain dropped once again and he turned away without a word.
“I’m going home,” Reggie announced. Natalie, still fuming, muttered something about what she’d like to do to Gabe’s genitalia. But when she focused on Reggie, her gaze immediately softened.
“Are you sure? It’s not even midnight yet, and the party’s just getting started.”
Oh great. She could stick around and watch everyone kiss each other Happy New Year and get all drunk and romantic while the man she loved by turns ignored her or looked at her like she was something he’d scraped off the bottom of his shoe.
Sounded fabulous.
Reggie shook her head. “I’m exhausted and…”
Every time I look at Gabe I feel like someone is sticking a red-hot meat skewer through my heart.
Natalie nodded, reading her thoughts perfectly. “I’ll come with you and spend the night.” She looked up at Tyler who, to give him credit, admirably covered his disappointment with a resigned smile.
Touched by the show of sibling support, Reggie nevertheless refused. “Don’t let me ruin two nights,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Jill will see me home safe. Besides, I think I need to be alone.”