There were good days. There were bad days. And then there was this day.
Lillian Mahoney gritted her teeth as the TV camera moved in closer to the food-prep table. She’d known they’d be filming this segment of Good Day Manhattan outside, but she’d been assured it would be a closed set.
The set was totally not closed.
Since Lillian had created the Living Sharpe brand almost five years ago, she’d forbidden its namesake, lifestyle guru Niles Sharpe, to participate in interviews or make public appearances, and yet here he was, in front of a live audience, with the potential to ruin everything she’d worked so hard to create.
Behind Niles and the show’s host, Sylvia Baynard, a crowd of onlookers had gathered and were all but shoving each other out of the way to get their faces and hand-drawn posters in the shot.
Niles, of course, was loving all of the attention. All the face-to-face fawning from the crowd pushing up against the metal barriers around the tiny stage was like food for a starving man—a starving man who was supposed to be making fondue, not making eyes at every woman in the audience.
She shot a glance at her sister and co-producer, Erin, who looked as horrified as Lillian felt. There was little hope this would end well. She crossed her arms over her ribs protectively. For years she’d protected the Sharpe image as if it were a fragile egg. Now, like Humpty Dumpty, it could come crashing down never to be put together again.
“Salted caramel fondue is one of my favorites during apple-picking season,” Niles said, giving a pretty woman in a tight I heart NY T-shirt leaning over the barricade a wink before grinning at the camera.
Lillian groaned in her head. He hadn’t even known what fondue was until yesterday when they’d practiced this recipe in her kitchen—the kitchen they passed off as his in all their episodes of Living Sharpe.
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