The interviewer chuckled and picked up the perfect pass Rico threw him. “I don’t think we’re allowed to criticize that churro. I believe Ms. Raje said it was the best churro she’d ever tasted.”

For all her being flustered just now, fierceness shone through her smile. “You should have tasted it. It was.”

For all his smoothness just now, Rico couldn’t come up with a response to that.

Satisfied at canning another perfect on-camera moment, the interviewer moved on to rehash The Video, making Ashna shut down again. She really hated that video. Rico really hated that she did.

Thinking about his slide across the floor refreshed the pounding in his knee.

“So you ready for your next cooking challenge today?” the interviewer asked.

“Can’t wait to get in there and cook up a storm,” Rico said, overcompensating for her silence again.

When they were done, Ashna hurried out of the studio, racing right down the passage and out through one of the back exits into the open air. Rico had no idea why he followed her, dragging his damn leg with him.

She leaned her head back and sucked in a breath. The bun at her nape loosened and Rico’s insides did a godawful leap.

“Can they talk about anything other than that stupid video for one damn second?”

He let the door slam behind him. “Right, the stupid video of me tearing open my wound because you couldn’t keep a grip on a knife.”

She squeezed her temples, hands shaking. “You know what I meant.” Her fingers rubbed her skin so hard it reddened. “Did you really tear . . .” Her gaze dropped to his knee. The need to touch him, to comfort him, flared in her eyes.

He didn’t want her looking at him this way. It was this look, this look that drank his pain up into herself, that had screwed him in the first place.

“It’s nothing,” he snapped. “And it isn’t a secret that I tore open my stitches. If you had cared to ask you would have known.”

She tugged at her hair, trembling fingers seeking that one errant strand that pulled at her scalp. The realization that he would do anything to stop her from hurting like this was a soft tap inside him, right on the nerve that made him want to double over.

He was about to tell her it was okay, lie and soothe her, but she faced him, remorse dimming her eyes. “It’s not nothing. You saved me from getting hurt and I’m so sorry that you hurt yourself.” There was that look again. The one that said I can’t bear to see you in pain. The one that said his pain was her pain. He knew what a lie that was. He knew.