* * *
On the way to the bathroom, Gia worked on her boy impression. It was sort of fun. She’d always thought playing the opposite sex would be a great challenge. Her character slouched a little and possessed that stiff-hipped, hands-in-pocket, slightly awkward gait she’d observed in teenage boys. Her character, she decided, was a late bloomer.
She headed immediately to the bathroom. She extended her hand to open the door, turning in surprise when someone grabbed her wrist from behind. Seth looked down at her.
“Wrong bathroom,” he said.
She gaped at the W on the bathroom door and then back at Seth. Despite the shadows in the hallway and her sunglasses, she saw the slight tilt of his mouth.
“Men’s bathrooms? Really?” she hissed incredulously. “Did you and Charles even consider that little detail when you came up with this crazy plan?”
“I’ll pick clean spots.”
“Men’s bathrooms are never clean.”
“How would you know? Now who’s being prejudiced?” he asked quietly. He cast a wary glance down the dim, deserted hallway and exhaled. “There’s practically no one in here. Go on into the women’s. I’ll keep watch and say the men’s was out of order if someone comes. But you’ll have to dare the men’s room at some point on the trip. The last thing we need is for you to get arrested.”
She threw him a dark look—which he stoically ignored—and plunged into the bathroom.
He was waiting for her at the entrance to the bathroom hallway near the hostess station, a newspaper in his hand, when she exited. Seth asked the waitress to seat them at a specific booth. Gia wondered if he had chosen it because it gave him a good view of the road and the diner entrance. She studied him surreptitiously over the top of their menu after they were seated, trying to picture him in espionage work. She had no problem doing it. Seth Hightower looked like he could hold a bunker full of secrets inside him.
Another slap of reality hit her when she went to order her food. She hadn’t practiced a boy voice. But she was an actress, wasn’t she? She was delighted to see the waitress mostly ignored her as she jotted down Gia’s order, although she did keep casting speculative glances at Seth.
Her attempt had worked.
She noticed Seth examining her closely when the waitress moved out of hearing distance.
“What? Wasn’t I convincing?” she whispered.
“No. It’s not that,” he replied, his expression stony.
“Well? What?” she prodded.
“If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn I was sitting across this table from an eighteen-year-old boy.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said, muffling her pleasure at his compliment. She noticed his continued sober look and wilted a little. It was a compliment, wasn’t it? “Isn’t it, Seth?”
“Yeah,” he said, opening up his paper.
She mentally rolled her eyes at his laconism. Determined to be as calm about the situation as Seth, she looked around with veiled interest. He had been right about one thing. The gazes of the few people inside the sleepy diner slid right off her as if she were about as interesting as the paint on the wall. Anonymity was familiar to her from her younger years, of course, but an extremely rare experience recently. It was nice.
She found herself breathing easy for the first time in months, despite all these new realities and the cursed binder she wore. The binder, she discovered, might restrict deep breathing, but it was no dieting device. She ate more than she had in months, willfully ignoring Seth’s small grin as he watched her wolf down a double cheeseburger and fries.
“You don’t have to be so patronizing-looking. I was hungry,” she told him stiffly as she ate her last fry with relish.
His dark brows arched. “Is that how I looked? I’m just glad to see you eating. You’ve lost weight since . . .” He abruptly wrapped his hand around his coffee cup and took a sip. “Is that because of all the crap going on in your life, or Hollywood having its effect on you?”
“Do you mean is it making me anorexic?” she asked scathingly.
“Yeah. Because that’s something I’ve never seen: an actress with an eating disorder.”
She blinked at his quiet, dripping sarcasm.
“I’m not eating disordered,” she hissed under her breath. “I’ve just been . . .”
“Run ragged?” he asked levelly, taking another slow sip of his coffee.
“You should try keeping all the balls in the air that I have lately.”