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Knowing he was going to regret it, he said, “Okay, where do I need to be?”

He wrote down the name of the restaurant in Boston where she’d be filming the next morning and glanced at the clock. With luck, he could still make a red-eye.

In the meantime, he told her to switch hotel rooms and have Natalie rebook all of her future reservations.

“Don’t you think that’s being a little paranoid?” Reggie protested. “All he did was send me a doctored picture from a Victoria’s Secret catalog.”

He gritted his teeth, anticipating several weeks in alternating states of sexual lust and frustration as Reggie questioned every single decision. “Listen, Reggie,” he bit out, “if I’m going to help you, we have to do things my way. I don’t care if this guy is sending you Hallmark cards with little kitties on them, we take every communication seriously. If I work for you, your safety is my number-one priority, and everything I do is to further that goal. So if I tell you to change hotels, you change hotels. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.” He could practically hear her sarcastic salute over the phone.

“Good. Now that’s settled, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Gabe showed up at Gianni’s Trattoria shortly before noon the next day. Reggie was still irritated by his high-handed treatment over the phone last night. Clearly, the man had control issues. Still, he was currently her only guarantee of keeping this job, so she mustered up a wave and an approximation of a friendly smile.

Gabe responded with a brief, impersonal nod.

Reggie turned her attention back to this segment’s guest, Gianni Carposi, a plump exuberant Italian man in his mid-forties. Gianni was funny, flamboyant, and harmlessly flirtatious.

Still, the shoot wasn’t without its hiccups, as Reggie struggled to get into the groove and accustom herself to sharing screen time with another person. Gianni was boisterous and talkative in his own right, and they found themselves talking over each other more often than not. Judging from her pinched look and the way she dug her thumbs into her temples, Carrie wasn’t overly impressed with Reggie’s performance.

It didn’t help that Reggie had barely slept the night before. Even though she had faith in the room’s deadbolt, she found herself jumping at every ping of the air conditioner, every muffled footfall outside her room. Damn Gabe and his contagious paranoia. After only a few hours of sleep, Reggie woke up feeling like crap and looking worse.

Natalie had offered a quick over-the-phone consult on how to cover up under-eye puffiness and circles. Reggie had swallowed her embarrassment and purchased a small tube of Preparation H from the airport newsstand before she boarded her flight.

She had to admit, in a pinch the ass cream worked. Now if only her on-camera persona could be so easily perked up.

They took a break a few hours later, and Reggie, Gianni, and the crew took the opportunity to snack on the handmade gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce they had made. She waved Gabe over from his position in the back of the kitchen. Thanking him for coming on such short notice, she made the only available peace offering at hand. “Come have some food.”

He shook his hand, holding up a palm in refusal. “I’m fine.”

Reggie rolled her eyes and grabbed a small plate and a fork, piling on a small helping of gnocchi. His expression was resigned as she approached. “You must be starving. Just have a little.”

“Reggie, it’s not your responsibility to feed me. I carry plenty of food with me.”

She scanned him in puzzlement. From what she could tell, he carried only a small briefcase, nothing big enough to hold enough food to keep a man of his size running.

He pulled something out of the pocket of his sport coat. Reggie took it and turned it over until she could read the label. “Are you kidding me? I have homemade gnocchi for you, and you’re refusing it in favor of Power Bars?”

A tiny vein throbbed at the corner of his jaw. “I prefer not to take meals with my clients,” he said quietly so no one else could hear. “It brings a personal element to the working relationship that I’m not comfortable with.”

So this was how he wanted to live the next six weeks of their lives? Struggling to tamp down her frustration, she waved the fork in front of his face as though feeding a toddler. “Yummy, yummy, open wide.” She pressed the fork against Gabe’s lips. “Come on. Just a bite. It’s really good.”

Narrowing his eyes in a look that promised future retribution, he opened his mouth. Reggie slid the fork between his lips, mesmerized by the sight of their full firmness closing over the tines. A sudden image flashed behind her eyes, a vivid memory of his full, firm lips closing over her nipple, his tongue darting out to flick the delicate skin of her breast.

Maybe feeding him was
not
such a good idea.

She started to speak, then cleared her throat at its sudden dryness. She tried again. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Gabe’s expression was inscrutable as he wordlessly took the plate from her grasp and quickly polished off the gnocchi. “Happy?”

“Yes, I’d hate to have that argument in front of my parents tonight.”

Gabe looked up from his empty plate, his eyebrows raised.

“We’re having dinner with them in an hour. And I’d eat up if I were you. I didn’t inherit my cooking talent from my mom.”

After a quick stop at the hotel to clean up, they drove out to Newton, the affluent suburb outside of Boston where Reggie had grown up. Gabe parked the rental car in front of a two-story Cape Cod. In the dark, all he could tell was that the house was painted a light color with darker shutters on the windows. A rambling porch empty of furniture spanned the front of the house and a wide expanse of lawn sloped down toward the street.

He reached for the door handle, but Reggie’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the forearm. “Wait,” she said, flipping down the lighted visor mirror. She pulled out a powder compact and a tube of something and proceeded to pat and rub at a spot on her right cheekbone. “Do I look okay?” she turned to face him. “All the makeup I’ve been wearing is making me break out.”

Gabe leaned in for a closer look. Granted, the dim light of the rented Ford Escort didn’t show every detail, but from what he could see, she looked perfect. Her dark eyes looked huge against her pale skin, her rounded cheeks glowed with color, and her sexy plump mouth looked perfectly suckable, shiny pink with a gloss that gave off a faint, fruity aroma. As for the skin she seemed so worried about, it was as smooth and fine grained as a child’s. “You have the nicest skin I’ve ever seen on a woman,” he said, immediately wishing he could bite back the reply.

Her eyes widened in surprise, and her lips parted in that infectious smile of hers. “Really?” she asked in surprised delight.

He swallowed convulsively, an electric pulse rocking his system as he remembered vividly how silky smooth her skin was…everywhere. “Yep. From what I can tell, you hardly need makeup.”

She looked back in the mirror. “Trust me, my mother will notice every flaw.”

Finally, she shoved the makeup back in her purse. Once they got to the door, Reggie gave it a quick rap and squared her shoulders as though girding herself for battle.

The door flew open and a tall, jovial-looking man with Reggie’s big brown eyes and a masculine version of her upturned nose greeted them.

“Daddy,” she squealed, throwing her arms around him. Her father hugged her hard, lifting her up off her feet.

“Reggie, I’ve been so worried. We saw that thing on the news about you and you haven’t returned our calls.”

“Dad, it’s fine, really. In fact, this is Gabe.” She turned to introduce him. “Gabe is a security consultant I’ve hired to travel with me.”

Gabe held out his hand and introduced himself.

“John Caldwell.” He stepped back and motioned them into the foyer. “A bodyguard? Is it as dangerous as that?”

“As yet, no,” Gabe said, “but you never—”

“It’s just a safety precaution, Daddy.” Reggie waved dismissively. “Mostly the network bigwigs wanting to protect their investment. Don’t worry about it.”

John led them into the living room, motioning them to sit on the couch in front of a platter of vegetables and dip.

“Where’s Mom?” Reggie asked.

“Kitchen.” John indicated the direction with his thumb.

Gabe wasn’t sure, but he thought father and daughter shared a grimace.

“What’s this about the news?” Gabe asked, reaching for a celery stick and dipping it in the dip. Reggie gave him a funny look and shook her head. Gabe ignored her, waiting for John’s answer.

“It was on
Good Morning America
this morning. ‘Celebrity chef has a ravenous fan.’”

Reggie sat back with a sigh. “Tyler didn’t waste any time. Gabe, you might not want to—”

Too late. He’d already taken the first bite of the celery and dip. After the first chew he realized it was not so much the taste, but rather the texture, that was truly abominable. Where he had expected something creamy and savory, his mouth was instead filled with a grainy, lumpy mixture that reminded him of ranch-flavored gelatin.

Reggie’s hand covered her mouth, but he could see the telltale shaking of her shoulders as she laughed.

John watched him in sympathy. “My wife doesn’t share Reggie’s cooking skills.”

His voice broke off abruptly at the swift tap tap of heels striking the highly polished hardwood floors.

Reggie’s mother was about Reggie’s height, with the same thick dark hair, but that was where the resemblance ended. Where Reggie’s body was sweetly curved, her mother was bone thin, giving a glimpse of what Natalie might look like in her late fifties.

And damn, Natalie better have a donut soon, because the future wasn’t pretty.

It wasn’t that she was unattractive. But her face had a tight, drawn look to it, her skin stretched so taut her cheekbones looked like they might slice through at any moment. Her dark eyes had none of Reggie’s luster, sunken in her skull, eyebrows pulled up into an unnaturally surprised curve by plastic surgery.

Reggie stood and greeted her mother, hugging her with none of the warm affection she’d shown her father. No wonder, since Reggie risked busting her mother’s ribs if she squeezed too hard.

She released Reggie and turned to Gabe. He took her proffered hand gently, aware of the birdlike fragility of every bone. “Virginia Caldwell,” she said in an upper-crust Bostonian accent.

“Gabe Bankovic.”

She raised her eyebrow. “How very…ethnic.”

Gabe released her hand and gave her a tight smile. “It’s Croatian.”

“Mom, Gabe is a security consultant who’s traveling with me.”

Virginia shuddered dramatically under her cashmere cardigan. “Oh, yes, that nastiness. Your father and I saw it on the news this morning. I can’t believe you didn’t tell us, Regina.”

Reggie seemed to shrink under her mother’s censorious gaze. She nibbled listlessly at a naked carrot. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

Virginia shook her head and held the bowl of vile dip up to Reggie. “Reggie, you must try the dip.” Reggie reluctantly dipped her carrot into the gelatinous white goo, extracting about a milliliter. She crunched down on her carrot, admirably concealing her disgust.

Virginia turned to Gabe with a sly smile. “I keep telling her, you don’t have to cook with all that fat to make it taste good. That dip is made with tofu and fat-free mayonnaise, and I bet you couldn’t taste the difference.”

“Ah, tofu. That would explain the texture.”

Virginia went on to extol the virtues of tofu as a substitute for everything from hot dogs to whipped cream. Reggie had sucked down her third glass of cabernet by the time Virginia led them to the dinner table.

Dinner wasn’t any better than the appetizer. “Here, Gabe, let me give you the biggest piece.” Virginia placed a miniscule piece of sad-looking white fish adorned with a tired smattering of herbs. Then she heaped on a pile of green beans that, he realized when he tasted them, were flavored only with lemon juice.

He thought back wistfully to the rich, cheese-laden gnocchi Reggie had fed him earlier.

Reggie poked listlessly at her fish, taking tiny bites between sessions of arranging and rearranging her food. Gabe made a mental note to hook her up with a Power Bar later. Or if they were lucky, they’d pass a Taco Bell on the way back to the hotel.

“I hope you don’t mind our simple fare,” Virginia continued. “As you can see,” she cast a sidelong gaze at her husband, “my husband’s side of the family is prone to heaviness. Poor Reggie didn’t inherit my slender genes.”

Genes??!! Anyone would look like a starvation victim on this diet.

He was surprised when Reggie didn’t come back at her mother with a snappy remark, or tease her about her own lack of cooking skills. Instead, Reggie seemed oddly diminished as she sat at the table, answering all of her parents’ questions without her usual vivacity.

Her father seemed to understand and tried to keep the conversation light and insubstantial, focusing on Reggie’s new show and asking about her new cookbook.

“You’re going to regret it if you keep cooking that way, using all that butter and oil,” Virginia sighed.

“Mother, studies have shown that olive oil is very good for your heart, and almost everything I make is healthy.”

Virginia piously chewed on her unadorned fish, then smiled ruefully. “After the example I set for you girls, I can’t believe you’ve ended up doing work that’s so menial. Gabe, do you know that I went to Harvard Law school when the girls were babies? I nearly killed myself, first to get my degree, then to make partner, and what do I end up with? One daughter who gives up a successful accounting career to be a cook, of all things, and another who humiliates me by hawking feminine hygiene products.” Virginia’s laugh trilled shrilly through the dining room.

Gabe froze, fork halfway to his mouth as he glanced uncomfortably at Reggie and her father. John’s cheeks were red, and his lips were pursed as though he’d learned after many long, hard years of marriage not to bother arguing with his wife.

Reggie’s face was purple as she stabbed murderously at her green beans. “Menial? Mom, who are we, the Kennedys? What, a best-selling book and two TV shows aren’t enough for you?”