“Please, Chase. Let me go.” She moved in the direction of the kitchen, but he blocked her. She swung around toward the front door.

He grabbed her arm. “I love you.” The words slipped from his soul.

She stiffened as if he’d hit her, but she didn’t meet his eyes. The words lay like a gauntlet thrown down between them. He hadn’t meant to say them. He wasn’t even sure what those words meant, but it felt right with Natalie.

Her words were whispered to the door. “You pretend to be in love for a living.” Her arm shook under his touch. “How do you know what’s real?”

Her words cut him to the quick. He drew her away from the door and turned her. He tilted her face up. Tears streamed down from huge eyes. Her eyes were devoid of hope. It ripped through him.

“You’re real. What I feel is real.” How could he convince her? What more could he give her?

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Pretend. Make believe.” She jerked her arm from him and swiped at her cheeks. “Someone to play house with. Someone to pretend to have a normal life. You’ll never have a normal life. You’re Chase Booker, movie star, producer-”

“I’m a man, dammit.” Chase could feel the years slip away, and he was that teenage boy trying to explain to his girlfriend to ignore the cameras. They didn’t matter. Only the two of them did.

Natalie tried to walk past him to go to the garage again, but he blocked her way. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She jerked away with tears in her eyes, pressing her fingers to her lips.

“We can’t, Chase. We can’t be in love. We don’t live in the same world.” She spun and yanked open the front door.

“Fine.” He wouldn’t crucify himself anymore. If she wanted to leave, she’d leave. If his love wasn’t enough to keep her, she could go.

Her shoulders slumped and she nodded. She glanced back over her shoulder at him, but he maintained a look of indifference. He’d begged enough.

As she looked forward again, a flash went off.

Chapter Sixteen

“Back to our catch of the day,” the television blared. “It would appear Alexis Brandt has been replaced by a younger woman. Photographers got these pictures of the young woman leaving Chase’s house earlier today. The woman hasn’t been identified yet. Friday, allegations of an office romance had been released by Pandora Productions’ ex-CFO, Martin Morrison.”

The TV showed Natalie’s Honda Fit racing out of Chase’s driveway. What it didn’t show was that she’d managed to get away before anyone was able to hop into their cars. She’d driven around a little before returning home, just in case.

Why had she gone out the front door? Because she couldn’t stand to walk around Chase and through his house to escape. Because if she’d walked through his house, he might have changed her mind, and she would have stayed.

“We don’t have to watch.” Rachel plopped down on the couch next to her and handed her a bucket of Cherry Garcia ice cream and a spoon. Rachel swiped at the used tissues that littered the couch and the floor.

“I know.” Her insides were hollow. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Chase had told her he loved her, and she’d thrown it back in his face. Because she thought it was for the best.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rachel straightened the blanket over Natalie’s legs.

“No.” The tears overflowed her eyes again. It hadn’t been for the best, because the paparazzi were going to figure out who she was. She couldn’t avoid work. She’d promised Chase she would carry the workload until they could hire a CFO.

“Wanna watch a movie?”

“No.” Her favorite movie that saw her through the bad times would never be the same again. She couldn’t watch Chase on the screen and not remember those same eyes staring into hers, that body pressed against hers, those words… Those simple words that meant everything to her, but weren’t enough.

Natalie and Rachel decided if she wore her glasses maybe the swarms of paparazzi wouldn’t be able to recognize her. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail. It had been down when she’d left Saturday morning and had obscured part of her face.

Natalie could barely breathe let alone walk and talk. A sense of numbness surrounded her. She borrowed Rachel’s car to get to work.

When she pulled up to Pandora Productions, it was worse than she’d imagined. A crew from E! stood outside recording an intro piece. The parking lot was filled with photographers leaning against their cars waiting.

She hoped they wouldn’t realize she was the woman they were waiting for. She parked the car and steadied herself. Pushing her glasses up her nose, she walked toward the door.

“Chase Booker and Robert Addler brought allegations of fraud against their CFO on Friday morning.”

She breezed past the camera crew and made it through the door. The receptionist glanced up at her and went back to the computer screen.

Shrugging her purse back over her shoulder, Natalie shuffled down the hallway to her desk. She flipped on the computer and glanced around. No one felt the urge to strut this morning, which suited Natalie just fine. She didn’t need to be reminded she wasn’t tall, thin and gorgeous on top of everything else.

Her water bottle was empty, but there was no way she was going to pass by Chase’s office to get more water. What if he was in there? She had to pretend he didn’t matter.

She opened her e-mail, and the computer downloaded two messages. Both were from Jared Anderson. Sighing, she clicked on the first one. It was his contact information, along with a note of how they’d talked on the phone.

She closed it and opened the second one, which had been sent this morning. If you need to talk, you know where to find me. She deleted the e-mail. It was inevitable that people would put two and two together and figure out she was the one Chase had been seeing.

But she wasn’t going to help them along. She pulled a stack of invoices over and started to enter them into the computer. She needed to keep herself busy.

Walking into Pandora had been a nightmare of saying “No comment” and “I have nothing to say.” His sunglasses helped to hide the rings under his eyes from his sleepless night.

He’d already told his publicity director to give no comments. Alexis had agreed to keep Natalie’s name a secret as long as she could say that she dumped him and the office worker was a rebound. He hadn’t cared. Business as usual.

The receptionist glanced up and gave him a wan smile before returning to her work. He walked up to her and waited for her to hang up the phone.

“Hold all my calls. If anyone asks, Robert and I will have a press release this afternoon about Martin’s departure.” He’d been so wrapped up in Natalie that he hadn’t even thought about firing Martin, which had served to increase the number of reporters outside.

“Yes, sir.” She dropped her eyes back to the computer screen and answered the line.

He straightened his shoulders. Natalie would be here already. He had to keep her secret for as long as possible. The hallway was mostly empty as he walked toward his office.

He glanced nonchalantly toward Natalie’s desk. Her head was bent over some papers and her glasses dangled on the tip of her nose. He almost stumbled, but ripped his gaze from her and continued forward.

Taking a deep breath, he unlocked his office. Ten minutes after he settled behind his desk to read a script, Robert came in.

“We need to talk.”

Chase set down the script. He hadn’t been able to read it anyway. The image of Natalie half-naked on his desk kept interrupting his train of thought. “What’s on your mind?”

“Are the rumors true?” Robert slumped into the chair.

“Which ones?” Chase looked up at the ceiling. He should have stayed home, but every room smelled of her. Her smile followed him. Her words haunted his steps.