Love in the Morning (16 page)

He didn't miss the moment when the first guest threw up on the floor, though. The camera seemed to linger much longer than it should have on the woman clutching her stomach. Other guests ran from the room, heading toward what he assumed were the bathrooms or maybe the kitchen. Screechy outdid herself as she ordered the waiters to clean things up while more of her guests fell ill.

When someone finally started screaming about food poisoning, the camera zoomed in on Lizzy's horrified face. She shook her head, eyes wide. But Screechy wasn't having it, apparently. She started yelling at Lizzy, backing her against the wall. For a moment, Clark's hands bunched into fists, waiting for the harpy to slap Lizzy, but the husband finally intervened and pulled her away.

The last shot showed Lizzy running down the hall, away from the living room and the retching guests who'd apparently been poisoned by her food.

Clark clicked the stop button. He wasn't interested in seeing anything else—his brain was whirling through the possibilities. How much of a hit was Praeger House likely to take? How bad was the possible damage? How many people knew? Had Lauren told anybody else? Had Lizzy? And why hadn't Lizzy told him the details before he had this video dropped in his lap?

You don't know everything. She might have good reasons.
She might. But even if she did, she should have told him. His gut ached. So did his heart.
She should have told him.

He pushed himself to his feet. He might not have been interested in the
Lovely Ladies of LA,
but he was interested in having a conversation with Lizzy. Or Annalisa. Or whoever she was. Very, very interested.

*****

Lizzy was only slightly disappointed that Clark hadn't asked her to his apartment that night. They'd been spending a lot of time together. And she needed to get some sleep for once. Still, she would have liked another night with him. Maybe tomorrow.

She was dressed in her yoga pants and T-shirt, headed for a little late-night reading after brushing her teeth, when someone knocked on her door. Her heart sped up slightly. Clark. Had to be. Nobody else would come to her door at this time of night. Heck, nobody else even knew where she lived.

She padded to the door in her bare feet. No point in putting on slippers if she was going to be in bed soon. With any luck.

Clark leaned against the doorframe when she opened the door. Not smiling. Not even close.

Lizzy knew instantly that he'd found out. She felt the chill all the way to her toes.
Oh Lord, here it comes. Just when everything had been going so well.
“Hi.”

“Hi.” He stared at her for a moment, as if he was trying to figure out what to say next.
Not a good sign, Lizzy, not a good sign at all.
“You told me you had some problems with a reality show back in California,” he said finally.

Crap. Shit. Goddamn.
She'd really hoped she wasn't right this time. “That's right.”

“I think I know what they were now.” He blew out a breath. “You need to come back to my place. I've got something to show you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“A video. It's on my computer.” He still hadn't cracked a smile. His expression was grim as he studied her.

Lizzy stiffened her spine.
Might as well cut this short.
“How about if I just quit now? Wouldn't that save us both a lot of time and trouble?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Do you want to quit?”

Nod, Lizzy. Tell him yes.
At least she'd go with some dignity. Unfortunately, she couldn't even bring herself to do that. “Not really.”

“Then don't.” He folded his arms. “Look, it would be easier to talk about this in my apartment. I don't like standing around in the hall discussing it.”

She sighed. In fact, she should just resign and get it over with. The longer she put it off, the more it would hurt when she finally had to do it. But the problem was, she'd told him the truth. She really didn't want to quit. Not until she'd put up as much of a fight as she could.

Take a stand, Lizzy. Finally take a goddamn stand.
“Okay,” she murmured. “Let me put on a pair of shoes.”

It didn't look like she'd be going to bed any time soon—for any reason.

Chapter Sixteen

Clark really wished he'd given Lizzy time to change clothes before they'd come to his place. Huddled on his couch with her feet tucked under her, she looked way too small and vulnerable in her sleeping clothes.

She should have worn the chef's outfit she'd had on in the photo session. Then she'd looked like a conquering heroine. Now she looked like a small child waiting to be spanked.

He was still trying to ignore the way his heart had sped up for just a second when she'd offered to quit
.
He didn't want her to, but he couldn't overlook the fact that having her leave would solve a lot of problems.

He turned back to his computer, cueing up the episode from
Lovely Ladies of LA.

“You don't need to do that,” Lizzy said softly.

He turned back again. “Maybe not. You must know that show pretty well by now.”

She shook her head. “I've never seen it. I didn't have to. I was there.”

Her expression was somewhere between misery and righteous anger. Maybe she had a right to feel that way. On the other hand, it didn't seem like an attitude that would help much. Right now he didn't know what would.

“What happened, Lizzy? How did you end up on that show in the first place?” He wasn't sure how the story would help, but he was looking for something to ease the tightness in his gut.

She shrugged. “My cousin Teresa is one of the original ladies on the show. She wanted me to cater a party for her—said it would give me great exposure. It did give me a lot of exposure, but it didn't turn out to be all that great.”

Clark sighed. “Did some of the food go bad? Was it some weird kind of reaction?”
Was it something we can say was an accident, not likely to happen again?

She shook her head so hard that some of her hair came loose from the elastic. “Nothing went bad. At least nothing from my kitchen. The Board of Health went over everything. I'd just been inspected before the party and I got inspected again afterward. All the leftover food in my kitchen was tested. Nothing was spoiled or contaminated.”

“What about the food at the house?”

She pulled the elastic out of her hair, then ran her fingers through, loosening it on her shoulders. He ignored the slight flare of heat he felt. “Teresa threw it all down the garbage disposal before the Board of Health got there. And she ran all the dishes through her dishwasher several times. She was afraid of germs.”

“Germs?” He frowned. “She thought food poisoning was contagious? That doesn't make any sense.”

“It does if you know Teresa.” Lizzy sighed again. “She's not the brightest bulb on the tree. And she was frightened and angry. Mainly at me.”

He sat across from her, careful not to get too close. “But they cleared you—your kitchen passed, right? So why did you lose your business? I mean, I'm assuming this was why you lost it, not because of anything else.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. Then gave him a smile that wasn't really a smile. “Oh yeah, that was why I lost my business. People ate my food and then vomited on live television. They got sick because of something I did—that was the conclusion everybody came to. It didn't matter what the Board of Health said. And the Board of Health wasn't all that enthusiastic about clearing me either. After all, they didn't get a chance to look at the actual food people ate. I didn't have a whole lot of supporters after that. Everybody needed somebody to blame, and that somebody was me.”

He sank back in his chair. He'd been ready to blame her himself if it came to that. He still wasn't sure how he felt about the situation. “So nobody could prove anything either way with the food gone and the dishes washed. What do you think happened?”

She shook her head. “I don't know. I run a clean kitchen. I always have. They teach you about that in culinary school—all about food safety, avoiding contamination, avoiding the danger zones with food temperatures. It's not rocket science. You keep cold food cold and hot food hot, and you store food the way it's supposed to be stored for the safe length of time. People who screw up are usually assholes trying to save money. I wasn't trying to save anything. I was just trying to make a big splash on television.”

He shook his head. “Could you have gotten bad food from a supplier, somebody slipping you something spoiled without your realizing it?”
Something that wouldn't be your fault?

She turned toward him, her lips moving into a mocking half-smile, as if she knew just what he was thinking. “It wasn't a menu where that could happen. I mean, there was no seafood because one of the women on the show had a shellfish allergy. And there wasn't anything with raw eggs like homemade mayonnaise. Anyway, I always used pasteurized eggs when I made stuff like that.” Her mouth twisted. “I was trying to be conscientious.”

He nodded. “Okay. And I assume you worked through all the possibilities at the time, right?”

“Sort of.” She sighed, closing her eyes. “I was pretty frantic then. I was hemorrhaging clients and my suppliers were demanding payment early. They all figured I was going out of business, and they wanted to make sure they got their money before I did. I really didn't have time to think about much besides trying not to go into bankruptcy.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Could the bartender have served up anything that would make people sick?”

She shook her head. “Not the way you mean. I guess it's conceivable that you could pick up a bug from a drink with raw egg whites or something, but alcohol and microbes don't usually mix.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to run through the possibilities again. “Okay, so you didn't poison the guests and neither did the bartender. So we're back to the basic question again—what do you think happened, Lizzy? Because a bunch of people got sick. If it wasn't your fault then whose fault was it?” His voice had gone hard at the end of the sentence, even though he'd tried to keep it lighter. He wanted it not to be her fault. He wanted her to make it not her fault. Hell, he wanted none of this to have happened in the first place. Of course, so did she.

She glanced up at him, hurt flickering in her eyes before they went flat. She was probably used to it by now, people accusing her of screwing up. Of course, he was also the man who'd been having sex with her for a week. Accusing her wasn't exactly part of the deal.
Yeah, you're a real prize, Denham.
He took a breath, forcing himself to calm down again. “What happened, Lizzy?”

She chewed on her lip for a moment, then shrugged. “My guess is sabotage.”

*****

Clark gave her a blank look. Clearly the man hadn't watched many episodes of
Lovely Ladies of LA.
“Sabotage by whom?”

She shook her head. “I don't know for sure. I mean the whole deal with the
Lovely Ladies
is that they really hate each other. Sometimes they pretend to be friends, but it's all an act. The truth is they can't stand each other.”

She could still remember the faint smirks when the women walked around Teresa's lavish living room. They'd probably made some more pointed remarks on the soundtrack of the show when Teresa couldn't fight back.

“Do you think one of them would put…something in your cousin's food?” He was trying not to sound incredulous, but he didn't entirely succeed.

Her cheeks warmed slightly, and she gave him a defiant shrug.
Believe me or not. I don't care.
Except, of course, that she did, a lot more than she should. “I didn't say it made sense, or even sounded particularly sane. But if you've ever seen any of the
Lovely Ladies
shows,
you know those women aren't all that sensible or sane themselves. They'll do anything to make the other women on the show look bad. And boy did that food poisoning ever make Teresa look bad!”

He was frowning again. “Okay, but if you assume that this is what happened, this sabotage, how could they have done it? What could they have used that would have made people sick but not kill anybody?”

She shook her head. “I don't really know what they might have used, but there are a lot of household products that could work. I mean kids at my middle school used to lace food with laxatives to make each other sick. This could have been something similar.”

He nodded slowly. “Now that you mention it, a guy in my prep school put eye drops in a freshman's water bottle because he thought it would give him diarrhea.”

“Did it?”

He grimaced. “It put him in the hospital. It doesn't give you diarrhea, but it does make you violently sick.”

Lizzy shrugged. “So somebody could have emptied a bottle of eye drops or something similar over one plate of hors d'oeuvres. Then at least one of the people would probably have gotten violently sick.”

“And blamed you,” he finished.

She nodded. “And blamed me. Unfortunately, there's no way to prove anything now. So I still get the blame even if it was sabotage.”

She stared down at her hands, as the silence stretched between them. It was the first time she'd really talked about the whole debacle for months, if you didn't count her conversation with Nona. Speaking of Nona… “How did you find out about this, by the way?”

Clark grimaced again. “You were recognized. Lauren—the woman who ran the photo shoot—knew who you were when she saw you. She's the one who sent me the video link.”

Lizzy frowned. The gorgeous blonde. “Your ex-girlfriend?”

He sighed. “That's the one.”

Why exactly had a complete stranger decided to ruin her life all over again? Lizzy went on staring at her hands for a moment longer. Of course, Lauren had also ruined any chance she might have had with Clark, and that might have been enough for her. She gritted her teeth, ignoring the ache around her heart. “Any chance she won't tell anyone else about me?”

He shrugged. “She might not. There's really nothing in it for her, and it might make the town look bad. Her job is to make the town look good, or anyway the resort part of town. I think she was just trying to get a dig in at me, not hurt you.”

Of course the fact that he might have fired Lizzy as another result hadn't stopped Lauren from passing the news on. Ex-girlfriends weren't exactly paragons of fairness, after all. Neither were cousins. Or boyfriends.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then shrugged.
Might as well get it all out there.
“Nona recognized me too.”

“Nona?” He stared at her. “Nona Monteith?”

She nodded. “We talked about it. She agreed not to tell anybody after I explained what happened. She was just worried about your kitchen. That I might screw it up.”
That I might possibly poison more people.

He gave her another long look, maybe once again weighing whether her service in the kitchen was worth all the trouble she was causing. “If Nona said she wouldn't tell anybody, she won't. She's a straight shooter.”

“So if neither of them tell, there's a chance this could all blow over, right?”

Clark's jaw stayed tight, and her heart dropped. What else could he throw at her? Other than the fact that they weren't a couple anymore, which she'd already figured out.

“There's something else you need to know.” He paused, as if he were trying to figure out how to go on.

Lizzy narrowed her eyes. “What's up?”

“They're coming here. The
Lovely Ladies,
that is.”

All the blood seemed to have fled from her brain. For a moment she felt almost faint. “What? Why? When are they going to be here?”

“In a couple of weeks. It's some kind of promotional thing—they're going on location. The same production company filmed
Finding Mr. Right
here last year with Ronnie.” He gave her a sour smile. “Apparently, they like the place.”

Judging from his expression, she guessed the place didn't like them back. She pressed her hands to her face. Her lips trembled slightly. “Will they be staying here at the hotel?”

He shook his head. “They'll be at the resort area. But if it's like the last time Fairstein Productions came to town, they'll do some filming in town too. Plus the production crew will be hanging out around here—it's cheaper to put them up down here than to put them up at the resort area. Chances are, some of them could recognize you if they see you.”

Lizzy's hands balled into fists. Her heart thumped painfully.
Why the hell can't I get away from these bastards?
“I can stay in the kitchen. I'll teach Desi to make the omelets. I've been meaning to do that anyway.”

She took another breath, trying to get her shoulders to loosen. “I mean, that's the smart thing to do. Stay undercover until Fairstein leaves and hope I don't run into anybody from the show by accident.”

He stared at her for another long moment, then shook his head. “That's not fair. You didn't do anything wrong.”

She shrugged. “It doesn't matter whether I did or didn't. People think I did.”
Including you, if I'm reading you right.

There was a moment of silence as she waited for him to come to the inevitable conclusion—Praeger House would be a lot better off without Lizzy Apodaca and her baggage. She almost offered to resign again, but then she decided to let him make the final move.

He looked up at her, his changeable eyes shading into brown this time. “It does matter. They drove you out of your business. Out of your home. Out of your family. Why should they get to go on driving you underground? I repeat, you didn't do anything wrong.”

“But…” She paused. “Are you saying you think I should let everybody know who I am?”

He shook his head. “No. But I don't like the idea of you hiding in the kitchen either. That makes it seem like you're guilty when you're not. You should go on doing what you do normally. People from the show may or may not come in here. They may or may not recognize you. It's not your problem.”