“No,” she murmured, a little surprised by his question. She got what he was asking. She’d never considered that he didn’t know what her relationship status was. It only made sense. She didn’t know his either. She’d certainly had a bitter moment of wondering about it in the back of the hair salon when the pretty, friendly Leti had kissed him, but then he’d denied it. She glanced over at him presently, once again unable to stop herself. He looked annoyingly good, all lean, long sexy male. His masculinity was palpable. She couldn’t help but breathe it in in the confines of the SUV, couldn’t stop being rattled by it. He wore a simple black T-shirt and jeans.
And a belt.
She hadn’t noticed that belt when he applied her makeup, but his shirt hem had caught on the silver tooled buckle when he sat in the driver’s seat earlier. She couldn’t stop herself from stealing glances at his lap as they exited Los Angeles, finding the image of his long, powerful bent legs, flagrantly male crotch and that damn sexy belt buckle next to his flat lower belly a powerful pull on her consciousness.
He gripped his hands on the leather wheel, and her attention fractured even more. She’d loved his hands, even back then. She could have become addicted to the way he touched her. Unlike two years ago during their tryst, he now wore a ring on his left middle finger, a silver tooled one that looked . . . exciting next to his swarthy skin and masculine knuckles. That ring had a little surprise to it on the underside. He’d used it like a tool of his trade while he was applying her makeup earlier. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“What about your parents? Has your mother been up to see you, give you a little support during all this?” Seth asked, pulling her thoughts back to the present moment.
Gia shook her head and scratched her neck beneath the wig, grimacing. It was starting to itch, especially after perspiring during her “wrestling match,” as Seth had labeled it.
“Mom hates the press mob.”
“There are few who would love it to the degree you’ve been subjected.”
You would hate it worst of all. The thought jumped into her brain. There was something about Seth that had made her think it. He exuded independence. He certainly sidestepped the limelight. There was something so essentially private, solitary . . . even enigmatic about him.
A lone wolf personified.
“Some reporters have knocked on my mom’s door in La Jolla and e
ven followed her at the grocery store, trying to get an interview about me,” Gia explained wearily. “Mom and Stephen—her husband—were outraged. So was I.” She frowned slightly. Her mother also possessed that condescending attitude she’d ascribed to her police guards, but in a more crystallized form. While it wasn’t the cops’ place to give their opinion on her job, Gia’s mom certainly believed it was her right to lecture Gia on her choice of working in the Hollywood film industry.
She saw Seth’s dark look and knew he’d noticed her frown. “My dad came out and stayed with me for a couple weeks after McClarin was arrested. He was very supportive, but let’s face it. No one loves living in a fishbowl.”
“There’s no one who’ll support you regularly?” Seth asked.
She felt his steady gaze on her cheek as she stared out the window and shook her head. “No one loves living in a fishbowl,” she repeated quietly. That pretty much said it all, didn’t it? Seth, of all people, would certainly understand that. Isn’t that part of why he avoided actresses? She inhaled shakily, attempting to banish her anxious thoughts. “You never said where we were.”
“On the far side of Kingman,” he said.
She looked over her shoulder at the retro diner and the sun-gilded, starkly beautiful desert landscape. A smile broke free. “I remember this, from my trip with Mom. I can’t believe you got us all the way to Arizona already.”
“You were out like a light for four hours, until you started fighting there at the end. You must have been sleep-deprived. Do you want to go in and get something to eat?”
“Yes,” she agreed. She hadn’t eaten all day, and it was almost two o’clock in the afternoon. It would help to center her, to get some food in her belly. All this chaos in her life was making her feel rootless and strange. She started to reach for the door handle, stopping short when Seth lightly gripped her upper arm.
“I need to touch you up,” he said. “And get you back in.”
Understanding struck her, along with a flash of embarrassment, when he glanced down at her chest.
“Does it really matter here? Can’t I just take off the binder? No one will recognize me.”
“If we are going to do this, we can’t do it halfway. You have to be in full disguise every time you’re in public. Do you really think the people in this diner have never heard of you? That they couldn’t potentially recognize you? Doing this all the way is the only way we’re going to keep you under wraps.”
She sighed in resignation.
“Would you rather stay in the car while I go and get us some food?” he asked.
“I’d like to go to the bathroom and wash up a little.”
“I figured,” he replied reasonably. “If we can get you back to boy status, you can stretch your legs and enjoy your dinner before we take on the next stretch of road. Instead of thinking of the disguise as a burden, you might think of the freedom it’ll give you to be someone else besides Gia Harris.”
“Okay,” she agreed. What was the point of all this secrecy if she blew her own cover on their first stop on the road?
“Lean your seat back all the way again. I don’t want anyone to see what we’re doing.”
Something in his deep, gruff voice made her skin prickle. His words had sounded illicit. Or her hyperactive libido had made them sound that way. She hesitated. Closing the binder wasn’t really a one-person job. His friend, the owner of the salon—Karen Leader—had helped her get it on earlier, before she’d closed up her shop and left. Gia hadn’t thought about the fact that for the rest of the trip, Seth was the only person who could do it. He wore sunglasses. His face was impassive, but she had the strangest feeling he was as aware of the seething tension between them as she was.