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He’d walked right into her trap. She made herself look like the wronged woman even though she’d taunted him for weeks. Slowly chipping away at him. Screaming in private about how she loved him and she’d wait for him. There was nothing more important than their love.
The madness in her eyes had scared him and shamed him. Because he’d led her on. He’d thought they were having fun, they talked about how they were screwing with the reporters and paparazzi, they’d become the hottest couple on the scene. His record sales had soared and she’d ended up signing some cosmetics deal. It was a mutually beneficial hoax.
And she was beautiful and acerbically funny and didn’t seem to want anything other than to have fun.
Until that night in Vegas when everything changed.
The defining moment that he barely remembered, but had changed her view of them in every single way.
He flipped up the collar of his jacket and jammed his hands into his pockets against the spitting snow. The cold cleared his head and pushed thoughts of Aimee Collen to the back of his mind. He forced himself not to let Isabella in. He’d swallowed enough self-loathing for a day.
He slipped on aviators and walked into his favorite deli. They knew him there, but never made a fuss, never even called him by name. And that anonymity was more welcome than they’d ever know. Within fifteen minutes, he was out the door with a six pack of Southern Tier and a hot meatball sub.
When he got back to his apartment building, there was a cluster around the door. There were two other celebrities that had moved in, so it wasn’t automatically for him, but if the photogs spotted him it was all over.
A familiar doughy face made him pick up his speed and cross to a side street. He knew this area, but so did the paparazzi. Too many celebrities had taken over SoHo for his liking these days. A year ago he’d loved the quick and easy way to get his mug in the papers. A little buzz and the record company, as well as his manager, left him alone.
Oh, how things had changed.
He slid into the back alley of a Chinese restaurant. The overpowering scent of decomposing cabbage and a rancid dumpster full of refuse had him jogging up and over another street. He was closing in on his favorite exit and entry strategy when two women in their twenties spotted him.
The shrill shriek of recognition nailed him to the pavement. He held up a hand. “Hi girls. I’ll sign whatever you want, take a picture, just don’t bring the hoards, okay?”
They quickly nodded and rushed forward. The curvier girl held a small measure of composure, but her friend was about a nanosecond away from losing her shit again. He smiled and did the small talk thing, but each second it took to get them situated with phones and pens was another moment that they could be discovered.
The little firecracker of a girl with her huge dark eyes and matching hair snuggled into his side. As her friend took a picture, the girl boldly cupped his ass. He smiled through the groping and firmly moved out of her space as soon as the picture was done.
She looked disappointed, but optimistic. He didn’t like to crush hope, but the fact that he was heading for thirty-seven and she was maybe twenty-three didn’t seem to matter to her. It more than mattered to him.
And seeing the dark hair just reminded him of Iz—Isabella. This girl was too obvious with her perfectly curled hair, manicured nails, and flashing gold at her ears, neck, and fingers.
Nothing like her.
A group of people came to the mouth of the side street. He winked at the curvy girl. “Cover for me?”
She blushed, but grabbed her friend and turned around with sagging shoulders. “He escaped inside.”
Logan heard the excited voices and the slapping of feet as he slipped inside. As he shut the door, he sa
w Brian, the photographer that stalked him almost as much as Aimee, snapping shots of him.
He closed the door firmly. Evidently he was going to hit the rags today anyway. He shut himself in the elevator, pulled a beer from his six pack, flicked off the top with his keychain bottle opener, and took a long swallow.
People would know he was in SoHo within the hour.
Dammit.
Four
“What do you mean you’re not going to Vancouver?”
Bella moved up in the ticket line. “I just dropped off the Seattle book. Another pleased customer and I need a break.”
“Are you sure? All you’ve been talking about is that open auction that Sandra and Thomas are doing.”
Bella bit back a sigh. Nichole, her best friend, knew her far too well. The fact that they’d lived in each other’s pockets for the last ten years only had a little to do with that. Running a business together was the other.
“Oh, I don’t know. Possibly the extra eleven hours tacked onto this last trip did me in.” She flipped her carry-on to the other arm and fed her credit card into the ticket kiosk. “And I called Sandra and talked her out of The Canterbury Tales and the hand painted Atlas she’s been teasing me with.”
