Free Hot Shot (A Hostile Operations Team Novel)(#5) by Lynn Raye Harris Page A

able to lose herself in the music, but now that it was over, reality lay on her shoulders hard, the dread threatening to crush her like an old car in a scrapyard.  
    She gave Pete an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid this has to be the end of our interview.”
    He stood at the same time she did, his skin flushing as she took his hand and gave him another smile.  
    “It was so nice to meet you, Pete. If you need anything else, just get in touch with Barry.”
    “Yes, thank you, I will.”
    She let Jack usher her out of the building, his fingers light against the small of her back. She climbed into the waiting limo and Jack joined her. It was just the two of them inside the big space, but the others would soon join them. The chauffeur shut the door and a few moments later the car began to move away from the curb.
    “Where is everyone?”
    Jack glanced at her, his expression unreadable. His jaw was stiff. “They went ahead just a few minutes ago. We put sunglasses and a hood on Olivia and raced her to the limo like she was you.”
    Gina blinked as she realized there hadn’t been any photographers lined up and snapping photos when she’d exited the building. Olivia was blonder than she was, but with a hood and glasses, would it matter? The media would see what they wanted to see. “That was a good idea.”
    “Yeah.”
    She sighed and turned to look at the lights sliding by the car. She was tired, but the adrenaline moving through her veins also made her jumpy. It was always this way after a concert, but it felt doubly so now.
    “How did you pull it off?”
    Her head swiveled around to find Jack looking at her with those fathomless blue eyes of his. She could drown in those eyes. “I, uh…” She looked away for a moment to gather her thoughts. “Pull what off?”
    “Everywhere you go, the attention is insane. And yet you managed to pull off a pregnancy that no one ever got wind of. How? Or is that a lie and you’ve said all this to get me and my team to help you?”
    Anger flared inside her. And hurt. “You really are a bastard sometimes, you know that?”
    He shrugged. “It’s a legitimate question, Gina. You’re a superstar. You can’t take a shower without a news bulletin, so I don’t know how you managed to be pregnant and no one found out. You didn’t disappear off the face of the planet, after all.”
    She sighed and rubbed her hands over her knees. If he were anyone else, she’d tell him it was none of his business. But of course it was his business. “I never intended to lie about it, but when I found out I was pregnant, I knew I couldn’t face the media firestorm that would follow. I also didn’t think it was a good idea based on my last public romance and what happened to him. Everyone would assume Athenasios was the father. I didn’t want to deal with the Metaxas family—worse, would you have wanted me to have a public DNA test that proved Eli wasn’t Athenasios’s?”
    “You didn’t know that at the time.”
    She shook her head. “No, I didn’t. But I didn’t want anything to do with the Metaxases. Athenasios didn’t run his business alone. His brother Stavros took over the shipping company. For all I know, he also dealt in the same side business.”
    “So you disappeared.”
    “I spent time in Italy. Well, an island off the coast of Italy. And I was never big. At nine months, I didn’t have a large belly. It was noticeable, of course. But not huge. So I wore a lot of big clothes and I stayed away from people, other than the few I trusted. The doctor was paid well not to leak the news. I ‘adopted’ Eli later so there would never be any question of who his father was.”
    “What’s on the birth certificate?”
    He sounded angry. She didn’t blame him, but how could she possibly tell him everything she’d been going through then? She’d been scared and alone and confused. And she’d done what she thought was best for Eli’s safety.  
    She bowed her head and swallowed.