Read Online Rumor Has It (Limelight) by Elisabeth Grace - Free Book Online Page A

table looking at Mason. She was practically vibrating with excitement.
    “Well, uh, thanks,” Mason said, eyeing me across the table, looking a little chagrined.
    What the hell was this girl talking about?
    “I was sitting over there with my family, and I kept telling my brother it was you, but he was like ‘no way he’d be here,’ but I knew it. I knew it was the Mason Nash sitting here in front of me. I can’t believe it!” She put an emphasis on the like the name Mason Nash meant something big. Something definitely wasn’t adding up here.
    “I guess you can ride your brother for the foreseeable future that you were right then.”
    She laughed. “I loved your last album. It was killer. I’m totally buying tickets to your tour when it comes through town.”
    Mason looked over to me with pleading look. It seemed to beg me not to spew out the obvious questions I had for him while this girl was standing at our table.
    “It’s great to have fans like you. I appreciate it.” He smiled a thousand-watt smile at her and I swear to God I thought the girl was going to turn into a puddle at his feet.
    “Will you sign something for me?”
    “Sure.”
    The girl looked around the table for something that Mason could sign. She leaned over to me and took the white table napkin from my lap and placed it in front of Mason. She turned back to look at me, “Sorry, you don’t mind do you? It’s not like I expected to see him here tonight or I would have come prepared.”
    “Now why would I mind?” I said in the sweetest, sing-song voice I could muster. I even threw in a head tilt for good measure.
    “Thanks.” She seemed oblivious to the fact that my eyes were throwing daggers. She grabbed a pen off the tray a waiter was carrying past our table. Mason signed the napkin and she finally left us alone after her parting shot to me. “You must feel so lucky to be out with him.”
    “It’s like a dream, I can’t even believe he’s real,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could put into my voice.
    Clearly Mason was more than just a songwriter.
    “Ellie, I can explain,” he said as soon as she was out of earshot.
    “Why weren’t you honest with me?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
    “I was. Sort of. I am a songwriter. Just not in the context you thought I was. I do write songs for other people, it’s just not what I’m best known for.” He rubbed his hand over the stubble at his jaw.
    “And what are you best known for, Mason? I can call you that right? It seems to be your real name.”
    He ignored my jab. “I’m a hip-hop artist.”
    My mouth hung open. A hip-hop artist? I wouldn’t have guessed it. Ever. He didn’t strike me as that kind of guy. I knew it was a stereotype but when I thought of hip-hop artists I had visions in my head of guys saying “yo” with big gold chains around their necks and the crotch of their pants hanging down to their knees. That most definitely was not Mason.
    “So, you’re famous?” I asked.
    He paused and blew out a breath. “Yes,” he said finally.
    “How famous?”
    “What’s the scale?”
    “Low end of the scale: you struggle to find gigs to pay your rent each month, high end of the scale: paparazzi camp outside your house to get pictures of you on your morning walk.”
    “Probably somewhere a little over the midpoint then.”
    My jaw slackened. Again. This was not good. It probably would have been good for a lot of girls, but not me. I was trying to fade from the spotlight, not be thrust into it.
    “So is this a regular occurrence? Girls coming up to you at restaurants to fawn all over you?”
    “It can be.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” I could hear the hurt in my voice.
    “It’s gonna sound lame.”
    “Try me.”
    He rubbed his hand overtop of his head and blew out a big breath of air. I was starting to recognize his tells when he was uncomfortable. “It was nice not to be recognized. You have to understand…for years I’ve been