“I’m interested in hearing your plans for increasing revenue for the festival when the timeline is abbreviated.”

“You mean you’re dying to poke holes in my plans with your ‘no’ stick,” she corrected him.

He saw it in her eyes. The same exhaustion he’d seen in the mirror. Just a flash of it before she straightened her shoulders and glared at him.

“I have legitimate questions,” he insisted.

She glanced down at her watch. “I’ve gotta go, but I can carve out fifteen tomorrow around eleven. I’ll go over the plan with you, and then you can poke all the holes in it you want.”

“Fifteen minutes?” He found it hard to believe that a TV star’s schedule was as packed as his own before shooting even began.

“Take it or leave it.”

“Eleven here,” he agreed.

“Don’t bring your attitude,” she said snidely.

“I’ll try not to interrupt your time with your manicurist,” he shot back.

“Your insults need work,” Cat said.

The corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m tired. Off my game. I’ll insult you properly tomorrow.”

“Looking forward to it.” Her voice was thick with sarcasm. But there was just a hint of sparkle in her eyes. Were they hazel? There was something vaguely familiar about those eyes. Something that tugged at him.

“If you’re done staring at me, I have work to do,” she said.

“You have something in your teeth,” Noah announced and walked away grinning while she swore and dug a mirror out of her bag.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Cat’s trailer was full-to-bursting with bodies, and it smelled like garlic and bubbly marinara. She was in heaven.

“I can’t believe you guys are all here,” she sighed. Cat swooped in pretending to steal Gabby’s baby bite of breadstick. The little girl crowed her pleasure at the joke and shook her dark curls at Aunt Cat.

“No! Mine!”

“I see she’s a King through and through,” Cat and Gannon’s mother, Angela, said wryly. She slapped her husband of thirty-four years as he tried to snitch a fourth lemon ricotta cookie.

“She gets her bossiness from her mother,” Gannon insisted, leaning in to kiss the frown off Paige’s mouth.

Figure be damned. There was no way Cat could say no to her mother’s cooking. It had been a blessing to her waistline when her parents had made the part-time move to Florida a few years back. Then she only had to contend with Nonni’s bi-monthly carb-filled dinners. A few truly torturous personal training sessions took care of that. Though she still fantasized about the day when her time in front of the camera was over and an extra five pounds wouldn’t spark pregnancy rumors on Twitter.