“You don’t watch Broken?” That was another passenger.
“Ohmigod, it’s so good!”
Haven had warned Elisa that this would happen. Celine was a new star, not yet a household name, but she had a show that was rising in the ratings and people would recognize her, wherever she went. “As much of a pain as it is,” Haven had said, “you have to let her do it. They’re her fan base.”
“If we stay out of the way?” Elisa asked the uniformed woman.
The flight attendant sighed. “Okay. Until we get the beverage service going, she can sign in the back. But make sure people can get to the restrooms.”
A small shy smile had crept over Celine’s face as she surveyed the outstretched hands clutching paper and notebooks and business cards.
“Give me a minute. We need to talk about this weekend,” Elisa told Brett.
“I don’t see what there is to talk about.”
“You can’t just—”
“Folks,” the male flight attendant said in a stern voice.
“Come here a sec,” Elisa said, starting toward the back of the plane. It wouldn’t help her cause if she got them arrested for creating a disturbance on an airplane.
The fans followed, crowding into the back of the plane. Some startled bathroomgoers looked at them strangely, but others joined in, digging in pockets or squeezing through the throng to grab pens from their bags. Brett leaned against a galley wall, right behind Celine, frowning.
Elisa, heart still pounding, waited next to the red-haired flight attendant while Celine happily held court. Her loyal subjects produced napkins or their own arms for her to sign.
“Can you sign this for my daughter?”
“Can you write ‘Love to Suze’?”
“Do you watch Broken?” the flight attendant asked Elisa.
Elisa nodded. “Do you?”
“I record it on TiVo.” She was a pretty woman, with a smattering of freckles and a nice smile. “But we’re never home, so we don’t get to watch much TV.”
We. “You and—?” Elisa gestured to the male flight attendant who was chatting jovially with a passenger just out of their earshot.
“What? No!” She laughed. “He’s gay. ‘We’ is me and my roommate.”
“He’s not gay,” said Elisa. “Trust me.” Elisa pulled her business card from her pants pocket and handed it over. “It’s my job to notice these things.”
“Dating coach?”
“Yep. You want my suggestion?”
The flight attendant nodded, eyes eager.
God, Elisa loved her job. “Ask him if he wants to buy you a drink when you land. You’ll see. He’s not gay.”
The redhead looked doubtful.
“My cell number is on the card. Text me and tell me what happens.”
The flight attendant hesitated. “You sure?”
“Positive.” Elisa would be willing to bet a thousand dollars they’d be lovers within a week. If the woman took her advice.
That was a big if. People were shockingly bad at doing what was best for them.
Like Celine, who had apparently acquired a traveling companion somewhere between yesterday afternoon—when Elisa had helped Celine pack her suitcase—and this morning when she’d boarded a plane for the boot camp weekend. What had she been thinking?
Papers and pens still shuffled across the galley, voices ringing out with questions for the actress.
“Is it true they’re going to kill off Jonah?”
“Celine, will you have dinner with me?”
A voice rose from among the others. “Celine, who’s the new guy? Hey, new guy—can you move in a little closer to Celine for me?”
All motion stopped, and there was an instant of total silence. Everyone turned to look at the person who’d asked that, a man whose face was mostly veiled by a black hoodie. And then they turned to look at Brett, leaning against the wall behind Celine.
Elisa opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Brett pushed off the wall, took a threatening step forward and said, “Put that thing away.”
Hoodie guy’s mouth slowly tipped up into a smile, and he raised his hand. He had something clutched there, and for a brief, heart-stopping second, Elisa actually thought it might be a gun. Then she saw what it was and wished she’d been right in the first place.
Camera. Big camera. Real camera.
Paparazzo.
His smile got bigger as he began shooting, the shutter whirring as it squeezed off shot after shot of Brett and Celine.
* * *
THE LOOK ON Elisa’s face, pure panic, spurred Brett to action. He slid past her, jostling other passengers out of the way, and lunged at the photographer, yanking the camera out of the guy’s hands.
“That’s personal property!” The guy grabbed for it, but Brett turned his back and ran his hands over the camera’s casing, probing for the slot where the memory card lived. He found its catch, withdrew the card, dropped it to the floor and ground it into the carpet. The cheap plastic splintered. He closed the slot and handed the camera back to the photographer.
“Here’s your personal property.”
“What’s going on?”
It was the male flight attendant, followed by a well-built guy in a business suit. Sky marshal, Brett would wager. Most of the other passengers had dispersed at the sight of this new authority. The flight attendant glared at both Brett and the hooded paparazzo.
“Nothing’s going on.” Brett looked around at the remaining passengers, daring them to disagree.
No one spoke up. His good luck—paparazzi were so loathsome that fear of the crazy man in the aisle paled in comparison.
The guy in the hoodie hadn’t spoken.
“I’m going to need all of you to return to your seats, please,” the flight attendant said sternly.
Brett shot a glance Elisa’s way as she edged back toward her seat. The panic was gone, but she wasn’t making grateful Bambi eyes at him, either. She looked pissed. He guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. She was probably as bewildered by his intrusion into her boot camp weekend as he was to find that his old friend was a third wheel on his Caribbean getaway.
“Hey.” He touched her arm, trying to soften her. “I meant what I said. Why don’t you and Celine take the two seats in first class? I’ll take yours. I’m sure you guys have some talking to do.”
“There weren’t two in first class when I tried to book.”
“Last-minute cancellation. Or Celine’s persuasive power.” He shrugged. “Take the seats, okay?”
Elisa gave a tight nod. Man, she was pretty. He’d forgotten. Or made himself forget. She had hair the exact color of gingerbread and hazel eyes and the smoothest skin, like a porcelain doll. He still remembered the feel of that skin pressed against his cheek, under his lips. He craved it, nights when he was tired and weak. That and the weight of her breast in his hand, her nipple hard against his fingertips, her needy noises tracing a straight line to his cock.
He was getting hard thinking about it, and that meant less blood to the brain, which couldn’t be good in a screwed-up situation like this one. Concentrate, man, he commanded himself.
“Let