“What’s this?” He skimmed it first without really reading it. “One of those little columns about who is seen with whom and what they wear while they’re seen?”

“More or less.”

“Ah.” As he began to read from the top, he nodded. “And you were seen with me.”

Closing her notebook, she slipped it neatly into her briefcase. Twice she reminded herself that losing her temper would accomplish nothing. “As your publicist, that could hardly be avoided.”

Because he’d come to expect logic from her, he only nodded again. “But you feel this intimates something else.”

“It says something else,” she tossed back. “Something that isn’t true.”

“It calls you my traveling companion.” He glanced up, knowing that wouldn’t sit well with her. “It’s perhaps not the full story, but not untrue. Does it upset you to be known as my companion?”

She didn’t want him to be reasonable. She had no intention of emulating him. “When companion takes on this shade of meaning, it isn’t professional or innocent. I’m not here to have my name linked with you this way, Carlo.”

“In what way, Juliet?”

“It gives my name and goes on to say that I’m never out of arm’s length, that I guard you as though you were my own personal property. And that you—”

“That I kiss your hand in public restaurants as though I couldn’t wait for privacy,” Carlo read at a glance. “So? What difference does it make what it says here?”

She dragged both hands through her hair. “Carlo, I’m here, with you, to do a job. This clipping came through my office, through my supervisor. Don’t you know something like this could ruin my credibility?”

“No,” he said simply enough. “This is no more than gossip. Your supervisor, he’s upset by this?”

She laughed, but it had little to do with humor. “No, actually, it seems he’s decided it’s just fine. Good for your image.”

“Well, then?”

“I don’t want to be good for your image,” she threw back with such passion, it shocked both of them. “I won’t be one of the dozens of names and faces linked with you.”

“So,” he murmured. “Now, we push away to the truth. You’re angry with me, for this.” He set the clipping down. “You’re angry because there’s more truth in it now than there was when it was written.”

“I don’t want to be on anyone’s list, Carlo.” Her voice had lowered, calmed. She dug balled fists into the pockets of her skirt. “Not yours, not anyone’s. I haven’t come this far in my life to let that happen now.”