"s.h.i.t. The press," Jasmine muttered to him, setting aside her fury in favor of protecting an unarmed man. She shoved Simon behind her, steadying herself against his chest.

The woman Jasmine had initially caught sight of jammed a microphone in her face. "Aren't you Jasmine Archway?"

From the corner of her eye, she saw Win fight his way through the crowd with limited success. Who cared who she was? Ashton was a tire mogul-more boring than watching your nails dry. He was rarely, if ever, in the tabloids unless he was banging a rich socialite, and even then, the razzi lost interest pretty fast if the socialite wasn't Paris Hilton.

Jasmine fought to keep her answer from coming off as hostile, yet the vibe she was picking up was anything but friendly. The woman's face, lovely and unlined, even in the harsh midday sun, swam in her line of vision. "Yes. I'm Jasmine Archway." She was . . .

"What's your take on the intimate relationship you're having with your ex-husband's biological son?"

Simon's groan swished through her eardrums.

The world tilted, the parking lot's pavement rushed upward in a wave of crushed black stone to stare her in the face, then sink back to the ground again, the pack of faces before her blurred into millions of prying eyes.

Summoning all of her former life's limited paparazzi etiquette, she responded, "I have no comment."

Oh, but that wasn't entirely true.

Jasmine did have one last comment before she planned to shove her way through the throng of gossip-mongering wh.o.r.es, get in her car, and go back to her small apartment where it was safe. Uncomplicated. So she could nurse her repeat performance of naive idiot in private.

Jasmine yanked Win forward through the crowd, pulling him as close to Simon as possible. He'd need help getting through this mob of foaming-at-the-mouth reporters.

Just before she pivoted on her heel, she turned around to take one last look at the man she'd been this close to falling in love with. Her face was impa.s.sive, her tone dead. "I guess you're right, Simon. Any excuse'll do."

Before the bitter tears of her foolishness could fall, she ran toward her battered car and away from Simonides Rhadamanthus Jones.

Her ex-husband's son.

G.o.d bless us, everyone.

"I'm going to go to that diner and drag Nikos out by his ear. Then I'm going to show him my senior citizen's right hook," Gail snarled, pacing across the small s.p.a.ce of threadbare carpet in Frankie's living room. Maxine snorted at her words.

Frankie's eyes followed Gail back and forth. She sighed from her place on the lone folding chair, almost but not quite amazed at how worked up everyone was. To be properly amazed, she'd have to be involved. To be involved, she'd have to actually care about taking any further action.

"And I'll help ya. Then you know what I say, Gail Lumley?" her Aunt Gail's best friend and Maxine's mother, Mona, asked.

"What do you say, Mona Marie Henderson?"

She raised a fist, wrinkled but agile, toward the ceiling. "I say we go dig that talleywhacker Mitch out of his plastic kitchen and show him what senior Tae Bo is all about!"

Frankie slumped in her chair, running a hand over her greasy hair. "I say we just let me go back to my air mattress. It's actually rather nice. Kik loves it."

Maxine whirled around to face her from her stance in the kitchen doorway. "Oh, no, Frankie Bennett. You've been moping for too long now. You are absolutely not going to crawl back into your cave. You'll get up off your a.s.s and do something about this!"

Disinterest returned full force. Each time Frankie thought she might be able to conjure up the will to fight the unfair situation she'd been presented with, her AeroBed called like a siren's song. In her defense, it was a really good song. Irresistible, in fact. There was nothing like just lying around feeling sorry for yourself.

Tugging the blanket she'd dragged around with her since she'd been unfairly accused of cheating up under her chin, she pondered with slow words. "I'm not sure what you want me to do. Beg Nikos to listen to me? Beg him to believe I'm not some lying, whoring thief?"

"Yes!" Jasmine shouted, the jingle of her bangle bracelets jarring Frankie's peace in the quiet place. "Yes, that's exactly what we want you to do, Frankie."

Frankie shot Jasmine a bored look. "Look who's giving out advice."

Jasmine wagged her finger in warning. "Don't you dare, Francis. Nikos is not your ex-husband's son. You were not some p.a.w.n in a sick game of payback."

She shrugged her shoulders, unaffected. "According to Simon, neither were you."

"And he's sooooooo honest and forthright. Please, Frankie. He'd say whatever he had to to the press so he ends up looking like the upstanding, cancer-society-donating hero everyone thinks he is. I'm not buying. Regardless, this isn't about me. I'm not stinking up the joint with my pity."

No. That was true. Jasmine was as beautiful as always. Perfectly coiffed, perfectly made up. Perfectly together. Frankie would cringe in embarra.s.sment at her own greasy, rumpled appearance-if she cared, that is. Alas, for the moment anyway, she didn't. She'd forgotten how grand the quiet place was, and she just wanted to pay it a little visit. Just for another hour or so. Then she'd see about clearing her name.

Besides, no one in the quiet place called her a purveyor of falsehoods.

Mona was quick to stick a finger under Frankie's chin, giving it a nudge. "You will not lie down and die, missy. I won't have it. You will get up off your skinny keister and go prove that p.e.n.i.s pimp was the one who stole that recipe and leaked that video of you two to the press because he wants you to come back and be his slave again. He knew if Nikos saw that video, it would finish you two off!"

Frankie sighed with an apathetic yawn attached. "Mitch is a sick man, Mona. What would you have me do, beat up a man with cancer?"

Mona stomped her foot. "Yes! He's about as sick as I am a twenty-five-year-old blonde with perky taters and a size-two dress! Now let's prove he's not above that kind of trickery!"

"So I can what, Mona? Make Nikos believe me? Nikos didn't trust me enough to even consider I was telling the truth to begin with. He didn't even bother to hear me out. That's all there is to it."

Jasmine swiped at a strand of Frankie's hair covering her eyes. "I hate to defend the hothead, but he's had a bad experience in the past-not to mention, that footage on Hollywood Scoop was pretty misleading."

"Yet here you all are, trusting that I'd never do something like that to anyone, but the man I . . ." Her voice cracked. Oh, no. There'd be no more sobbing. She caught herself, gripping the arms of the chair.

"I'm going to make a horrible admission here, Frankie," Jasmine said with a wince. "I doubted for a minute, too. It was only a minute. Okay, maybe three, but I did doubt. Then I forgot about my doubt because I was so furious with Simon."

"The point is you gave me a chance to explain. Nikos didn't. To think I was was so close to falling in love with him, I was almost ready to let him see me naked in broad daylight."

Both Gail and Mona, heads c.o.c.ked in thoughtful pause, hummed in sympathetic understanding, acknowledging the serious commitment she'd considered making. Maxine nodded her recognition of Frankie's sentiment.

But Jasmine came to Nikos's defense. "Our emotional investment in you is very different, honey. I don't know about the rest of you ladies, but I've never had one of my friends, you know, of the girl variety, cheat on me in the physical sense. You can't hurt us in quite the same way. Nikos is another story. He was dumped by a woman he thought was truthfully over her ex-husband," she pointed out.

Gail, Mona, and Maxine hummed more unified agreement.

Which served only to make Frankie angry. "You know, I was cheated on, too. h.e.l.lo. Or have we forgotten how my marriage ended? Nikos admitted there was no proof Anita cheated on him. If anyone should have been suspicious and jealous, it should have been me. In fact, I should have been a raving lunatic every time Chloe stuck her big, perfect hooters in his face or whenever any number of women who ate at the diner flirted with him. But I wasn't, because I don't want to be that person. I listened to Maxine's advice about letting go of past hurt, for all the good it did me. I want to trust a man again. I wanted to have faith that all men weren't barely evolved apes. That's where Nikos and I are very different. I went into this thing with Nikos with my eyes wide open, and with the idea I'd at least get the benefit of the doubt if a problem arose."

She had said that the first time he'd become sullen and moody over Mitch, hadn't she?

Yes. Yes she had.

Frankie settled back in her chair. Phew-that diatribe had been exhausting. If she raised her hand to her brow, odds were, there'd be beads of sweat on it.

How was it, when you did everything in your power to change all of your bad relationship habits, when you tried to be as open and honest as a person could be, you still ended up back in the same stupid spot you began in?

Mona was the first to respond. Her sharp eyes took in Frankie with a mixture of sympathy and purpose. "And do you remember how your marriage ended, Francis? With you screaming like you were on fire on live television. You reacted. Maybe not the way you would have if it wasn't such a sock in the kisser, or the way you would have preferred to, but you went berserkers, kiddo. I think I know what Jasmine means. Nikos reacted. Badly, yes, but it's because he's been knocked around a time or two. He saw what we saw, and it looked pretty d.a.m.n bad for you. I'm not saying what he did was all right by me. I wish he had listened to you. All I'm saying is he lost his marbles. You know what that's like. I'd also like to think if the situation was reversed, and you were the one who behaved like a big, fat baby, Nikos wouldn't give up so easily."

Jasmine saluted Mona with her coffee cup and a grin. "I couldn't have said it better myself."

"I reacted because Mitch really did cheat on me with Bamby. I didn't cheat on Nikos, and I didn't steal . . ." She fought back that lump in her throat-the one filled with her grief over losing the Antonakas family as a whole. "I didn't . . . I would never . . ." She choked on her words. "I would never steal that recipe."

"Different circ.u.mstance, same reasoning, sa.s.safras," Gail offered, running her fingers over the small pearl b.u.t.tons on her sky blue sweater.

Her resolve was beginning to soften. Her longing for Nikos was penetrating her safe coc.o.o.n of anger. She missed him so much; her heart was like a heavy lump of rocks in her chest. "I understand what you're saying. I hear your reasoning, but here's the problem. I did try to call Nikos on several occasions before I finally decided I was going to be dubbed not just mentally unstable but stalker worthy if I didn't give up. He refuses to talk to me. I'm not going back to that diner until we at least talk. Not after the way he looked at me like . . ." She fought the hitch in her voice. "Should I keep begging and pleading? Shouldn't I have some kind of self-worth?"

"You mean the kind that involves baths and a hair brush?" Maxine chirped with a c.o.c.ked eyebrow and a teasing smile.

It was all Frankie could do not to flip her the bird. Even if she was right. "I mean the kind that allows me to see this for what it is and to let it go in favor of moving forward." Again.

f.u.c.kall. She didn't want to have to start over again.

But a thought occurred to her-she'd have to simply because she was right back where Mitch had put her when she'd left him anyway. Wallowing. Swimming in the deep, soothing waters of self-pity.

A small ember from her recently stamped-out fire ignited.

She'd let another man, despite how lick-o-licious, drag her down.

No. Nikos hadn't done this to her. He'd crushed her with his mistrust and doubt, but she'd let herself go right back to square one. She'd let his reaction defeat her when she knew she was right. Okay, so maybe Nikos would never believe her. Maybe she'd never convince him she wasn't a cheat.

All that mattered in the end was that she knew she wasn't a cheat.

All that mattered was she was right with Frankie when she went to sleep at night.

How stupid of her not to hang on to that at all costs.

Maybe Mensa wasn't going to reserve a spot for her just yet.

"I let this happen," she muttered, reaching down to scoop up Kiki, considering.

Jasmine smiled, bright and beautiful. "In part, yes. You're doing what you did when you left Mitch. Instead of getting back up on your feet, you're sitting on your a.s.s in your own cloud of dust. No man, even one as fantastic, albeit stupid, and as ridiculously jealous as Nikos, is allowed to reduce you to this, Frankie. You can hurt. You can cry. You can feast on a high-caloric diet in your mourning, but you can't stop functioning. It would mean you've learned absolutely nothing since your divorce. So get the h.e.l.l up."

Maxine grinned at Jasmine. "Gra.s.shopper, I bow to your sage wisdom." She held out her hand to Frankie. "I'll help."

"And I'll make us some sandwiches," Mona added, rubbing her hands together with glee. "While we figure out what our next plan of attack is, girls."

Frankie took Maxine's hand, wobbling when she rose, clinging to poor Kiki, who missed their daily routine-and seeing Nikos. Each day since this had gone down, Kiki had waited patiently by the door at six sharp, eyes wide and expectant. She was waiting for Frankie to scoop her up, put her in the car, and take her to the diner so she could be with the people she'd come to love.

If Kik only knew her beloved Nikos was the person keeping her from doing just that. No fair. Even if Nikos refused to believe anything she said for the rest of his miserable, jumping-to-conclusions life, he had no right to take away everyone she'd come to love just because he was a bonehead.

Whether she loved his bonehead or not.

Then she had a lightbulb moment.

Wow, did it suck when all you did was alternately cry and drink copious amounts of caffeine in various forms.

And as it turned out, Oreo-cookies-and-cream pie was not part of the four essential food groups some would claim was so critical for energy and a well-balanced diet. Her innards said so when she attempted to move out of her own way.

Frankie's stomach rolled, but Jasmine pressed an arm around her waist to right her. "You know what p.i.s.ses me off about you, Francis?"

"What's that, Jasmine?"

"You did nothing but eat pie and guzzle coffee, and I think you're skinnier than when this whole thing began. Screw you, Bennett."

Frankie giggled, righting herself. "So what can we possibly do to fix this mess I'm in?"

Jasmine's eyebrow arched. "We need to get to Mitch. He's got that recipe. I feel it in my gut, and he played you like a Stradivarius. He's no more dying than I am a size four."

"But you said you were a size four . . ."

"And I lied, all right? All of those McDonald's french fries with that a.s.shole Simon and the pressure of your skinny a.s.s made me do it, okay? That's neither here nor there. Mitch isn't dying, and he got his hands on Voula's recipe while using you to help him."

Frankie nodded her agreement, almost sure what Jasmine said was true. It added up, and it p.i.s.sed her the h.e.l.l off. "But how did he get it? I mean, it wasn't like Voula kept it under lock and key, but who'd help him do something like that?"

"I'm thinking Chloe. She's the obvious suspect. She was pathetically jealous of you and Nikos together. Why wouldn't she do something that c.r.a.ppy to get rid of you?"

For the first time in a week, Frankie felt the blood in her veins begin a slow simmer. "I know it should have, but the thought never crossed my mind."

"That's because you're not a devious b.i.t.c.h. Chloe is."

"And what do I do about that, Jasmine? Take her out in the diner parking lot?"

"Chloe's the least of my concerns right now. Right now, we need to figure out how to get the recipe back from Mitch. Dealing with Chloe can come later." Jasmine's cell phone chirped. "s.h.i.t. I have to get that. If it's one more reporter, I'm going to have to change my number."

Frankie sympathized. Reporters had been calling Gail all week long. You'd think Mitch was Jim Morrison reincarnated. He made cookies and frou-frou delicacies. Yet he was all the rage as of late, and she was a part of that s.h.i.t storm.

Though, it was so much worse for Jasmine. They'd been hounding her since last week about Simon and his long-lost father. When Frankie's heart wasn't aching for Nikos, it was aching for Jasmine. Simon had proven her right. Give a man some bags full of money, and they discovered everything had a price tag. They became invincible and above common decency. Yet, in the process of walking all over you, they ended up breaking your heart.

While Jasmine gave good face, Frankie knew during the brief clearing of her caterwauling and whining that her friend had come to care for Simon. She'd never admit it now, but the hurt that flashed across her face at the mention of Simon was a very real pain.

Jasmine's lips thinned to an ugly line as she listened, with the phone pressed to her ear, to whoever was on the other end of the call. She shook her head in a distinct "no" motion. Then she bit the tip of her fingernail in thought, her features softening. With a confused, furrowed brow, Jasmine said good-bye and hung up her cell with a grimace.

"Is everything okay?" She put a hand on Jasmine's arm.

Jasmine's eyes narrowed, gleaming like she'd just eaten her prey alive. "It just might be, Francis. It just might be."

Frankie frowned, hiking up her sagging drawstring flannel pajama bottoms. "Who was that?"

"Simon."

Frankie's stomach lurched, making those pastrami and Swiss sandwiches Gail and Mona were making much less appealing. "And you haven't twitched once. Or spoken in tongues. I'm impressed, kemo sabe. What gives?"

"We, my friend, have a whole new ball game with Mitch and his kitchen. Get your mitt, Frankie. We have a recipe to catch."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.