“Here I am,” I reply as people jostle us.

His hand slips to the small of my back, guiding me around two Oscar winners. “You should have sat with me.”

I try not to stare at one of my childhood crushes, who apparently is my height—you learn something new every day. I tear my eyes away before I’m caught gaping like a rube. “Macon, it was a twenty-thousand-dollars-a-plate function. Staff doesn’t sit with the stars.”

His firm lips go flat. “Next time, I’ll buy you dinner, and we’ll sit anywhere we damn well please.”

Don’t make me like you any more than I already do. But I can’t say that without revealing too much, so I give him a weak smile. “That’s sweet of you, but I don’t mind. You’re working.”

He makes a noise of dissent under his breath. “I kept forgetting you weren’t there, and I’d lean over, wanting to whisper something in your ear, only to find Chris looking back at me as if I’d lost my mind.”

My lips twitch. Chris being Chris Chadsworth, one of Hollywood’s hottest stars. “Maybe he thinks you’re sweet on him.”

“Oh, I’m sure my hand on his knee clinched that.” He winks when I laugh, but something in my tone must give me away because his expression quickly turns concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong.” Nothing I can fix, and nothing I wanted him to notice, at any rate. I’m not going to complain to him, and it irritates me that I let any cracks show. I try to make my voice lighter. “I’m a little tired; that’s all.”

It doesn’t fool Macon for a second. His eyes move over my face as if he can somehow read my mind if he looks hard enough. “No, something is bothering you. Tell me what it is. Please.”

It’s the gentle “please” that gets me. At this point, evading his questions will only make him latch on and try to weed them out, thinking the worst.

“I feel out of place here,” I confess in a low voice.

The tense line of his shoulders relaxes, and he ducks his head so his lips are closer to my ear. “I do too. Everybody here does.”

I cut him a disbelieving glance. “Don’t patronize me, Macon. It isn’t necessary. You fit here like hand to glove. And I sincerely doubt your colleagues feel out of place.”

“You’d be surprised,” he says dryly, but he lets out an expansive breath. “Let me clarify, because you’re both right and wrong. There are times when I am working, and I feel like I’ve finally found my place, my people. And that feeling? It’s fucking awesome, Tot. A relief. But right on the heels of that is this dread that it can all go away in an instant. Unless you’re absolute Hollywood royalty, most of us here never truly feel at ease.”

“That’s how it is to be a chef as well.”

Dark eyes sharpen as he peers down at me, and a cloud forms over his fine features. “You’re miserable doing this, aren’t you?”

I can’t deny it, so I look away. Between the folds of my skirt, his hand finds mine. He links our fingers together, giving me a slight tug so that I have to look up at him. I see the remorse in his eyes. “You are.”

“Macon . . .” I push away all my self-pity, ashamed that I let it show. “I’m fine.”

“No.” His grip becomes a little tighter. “You’re not. Let’s end this deal. Reopen your catering business, and do functions again. You can use the kitchen at the house until you get back on your feet.”

“No,” I say firmly. “We had a deal. I’m not running scared. I can take it.”

His brows lower. “I don’t want you to ‘take it.’ I was a dick to agree to any of this when I knew I was only doing it to give you a hard time.”

Warmth runs over me like a balm. “It was my idea, and we both know it. I’m not leaving you in a lurch, Macon. It wouldn’t sit right.”

With a huff of clear frustration, he runs his free hand over his hair. “I don’t want this anymore,” he rasps, so low I almost miss it over the din of the crowd. “Not if it comes at the expense of your happiness.”

I don’t know what to say. Our arrangement sits like a cloud over us, but so does Sam’s theft. In the dark corners of my mind, I wonder if my reluctance has anything to do with Sam. Or if it’s all Macon.

“My happiness was never part of the equation,” I whisper, more to myself than to him.

Macon opens his mouth to retort but catches sight of something behind me, and his body jolts as if hit. Blood drains from his face, turning his skin the color of sun-dried mud. I step toward him, my fingers touching his wide wrist, and find his pulse racing.