“Does that mean you’ll do it?” I shouted at her.
She turned around and gave me a wide grin. “That means I’ll think about it.”
I grinned back at her. I knew a yes when I heard one. It was only a matter of time. No matter what she thought.
Chapter Five
Sophia
I might’ve been at work making a cappuccino, but my head was still back on the beach with Roman Grier. Reliving the way he’d looked at me. How it’d felt to hold his hand. And then that moment when we’d locked eyes and just… I sighed.
Steam scorched my hand.
“Ow! Son of a gun,” I muttered, shaking my hand before running it under some cold water. I needed to get my head out of the clouds and back in reality. I wasn’t and would neveractuallybedating Roman Grier. If I agreed to this whole crazy scenario, it would be fake. Roman Grier was a very good actor, and I needed to remember that. Snapping the lid onto the cup, I took a deep breath and tried to focus on the here and now, and not the insanity of this morning. I’d think about that once I was at home and had a minute to myself.
I walked over to the counter and called out, “Grace?”
Leaving the cup on the counter, I turned to start the next order when I heard, “What can you tell me about Roman Grier?”
I froze.
A horrible, crawly feeling moved over the back of my neck. Was she talking to me? She couldn’t have been talking to me. I hadn’t been outed, and yesterday’s pictures had fallen off the front page ofThe Babbler’swebsite. I might’ve looked.
My eyes darted to where Grace stood at the counter, cappuccino in hand, staring atme.
“I’m sorry?” I don’t know why I was the one apologizing when she was the one being all intrusive.
“You’re Sophia Scott, right? Roman Grier’s new girlfriend?” She leaned against the counter in a conspiratorial way, like we were friends. I hadn’t seen this woman in my life. I was good with faces—remembering customers was good for tips—and I didn’t recognize her. Judging by her crisp business suit, she wasn’t one of our usual customers. Since we weren’t a name-brand cafe, we usually got more of a casual crowd in our coffee shop.
And yet this stranger knew my full name.
I gritted my teeth. “Is there anything else I can get you, Grace?”
She straightened and gave me another once over. After a beat, she took out a business card from who knows where and slid it across the counter. “If you ever feel like commenting, please give me a call.”
I palmed the card without looking at it, shoved it into my apron pocket, and hightailed it for the espresso machine and the next order.
That was a fluke. If I put my head down and worked, I could forget all the weirdness and get back to normal, boring me.
My fingers ached to pull out my cell and find out just how much of my life was out there for everyone to see. Although given Grace’s comments, my guess was everything. She knew my name and where I worked. It wasn’t a coincidence.
But I couldn’t think about that.
As long as I stayed behind the counter and made coffee, all that—whatever that was—wouldn’t be real.
My plan worked for a whole five minutes.
While I was busy frothing milk, with my back to the door and the screeching sound of the machine drowning everything around me out, apparently, we were invaded. I was concentrating so hard on not burning myself a second time that when the frother clicked off, I didn’t register the sounds at first.
I turned around with the cup in my hand when the cacophony of yelling and blaze of camera flashes blinded and deafened me.
I stood there stunned for what felt like a whole minute.
“Sophia, is it true you’re dating Roman Grier?”
“Sophia, what can you tell us about Kingston? Is he planning Ariel’s funeral?”
“Have you met Zoe?”