She told herself it wasn’t just her looks. It was her career, too. Her beauty had been her stock-in-trade. So getting in front of a camera to show the world what Tia Beckett looked like now wasn’t going to be easy. But she was going to do all she could to get Seth off the hook for trying to protect her. He didn’t deserve the blowback he was getting.

Besides, if she had to show her face at some point—and she did if she ever wanted to live a normal life—she figured she might as well do it now and get it over with. She could only imagine how much it must’ve stung for Seth to hear that Shiloh’s parents were involved with Kouretas’s false claim. Just the thought of him being arrested and taken to jail, for an assault that never occurred, enraged her.

She kept asking herself how the Iveys could do such a thing. Even if they were desperate, it wasn’t Seth’s responsibility to pay their gambling debts.

But they wouldn’t get away with what they were trying to do. Not if she could help it.

The woman who came to greet her as she waited in the lobby was a complete stranger. She introduced herself as Nina Miles, said she was the art director and smiled warmly as she invited Tia into an inner room that was already set up with props—a stand of leafless birch trees with fake snow on the branches, the corner of a stone building that looked sort of like a cottage and a wind machine.

“Looks...wintry,” Tia muttered.

“We’re going to give the shoot some wow factor—make it as glamorous as possible, and I think the white bark on the trees and the white of the snow will be gorgeous.”

Glamorous. Gorgeous. Such words stuck out, given the situation, and hung heavy in the air. “Something that gorgeous might be difficult to accomplish,” Tia told her. “You haven’t seen my face.”

“Then, why don’t we have a look?” she said without any apparent concern.

Tears sprang to Tia’s eyes, making her grateful she was still wearing sunglasses and could hide it, but she was able to blink them back when the woman’s gentle yet professional manner didn’t falter.

“Do you mind?” she asked, and Tia let her unwrap the scarf from around her neck, which she set aside as Tia removed her sunglasses and pulled off her beanie.

Nina Miles’s expression grew somber as she used Tia’s chin to tilt her face one way and then the other. “Give me a moment,” she said and left the room.