Hot as Sin by Bella Andre

of a celebrity, Dianna played her part as best she could. With her job, there was no downtime. She always had to be on. And even though she was in the hospital, she still felt that she had an image to uphold. People—including this nurse—expected to see the “perfect” Dianna Kelley. She didn’t want to disappoint them.
    Not when she’d worked so hard to create that illusion.
    As soon as the nurse closed the door behind her, Dianna pushed back the blanket and slowly swung her legs out over the edge of the bed.
    So far, so good.
    She slid her feet onto the floor and made sure to hold on to the side table as she stood up, just in case. Fortunately, she was only the slightest bit dizzy. Taking her large purse into the bathroom, she closed the door and stared at herself in the mirror.
    She looked a sight!
    For the past decade, she hadn’t let anyone see her looking less than her best. But as she stared into the mirror, she saw right through the successful twenty-eight-year-old woman to the confused eighteen-year-old girl whom she feared was never far below the surface.
    In the small shower, she scrubbed her skin with the industrial pump soap by the sink. After drying off with a tiny, thin towel that was a far cry from the ultrasoft, oversized ones hanging in her bathroom at home, she stood naked in front of the mirror.
    Looking at herself with a critical eye, she found herself wondering—not for the first time—how long it would be until she’d need to book an appointment with a plastic surgeon. Thus far, her breasts and stomach and thighs were still okay, but okay wasn’t even close to good enough for TV.
    She hated the thought of someone cutting her apart. Was there any other option? she wondered as she opened her makeup bag and brushed some color onto her pale skin. Could she grow old gracefully and not lose her viewership?
    Not likely , she thought with a sigh. Not with a hundred—more like a thousand or more, actually—women waiting in the wings to take her place if she ever started slipping.
    Giving silent thanks that the makeup artists she’d worked with over the years had taught her everything they knew about doing professional hair and makeup on her own, fifteen minutes later the face staring back at her looked like the woman everyone recognized from West Coast Update .
    The paramedics had retrieved her luggage from the trunk of her rental car and she changed into a pale yellow, long-sleeved cashmere shirt and her favorite form-fitting jeans. As a finishing touch, she spritzed herself with a tiny travel bottle of her signature scent, which she’d found in a tiny town in the south of France.
    Realizing her legs were beginning to quiver, she made her way back to the bed. Scooting onto the mattress, she was pulling the blankets back up when a line from a song suddenly ran through her brain: “Listen to me now ’cause I’m calling out. Don’t hold me down ’cause I’m breaking out.”
    In the rental car, she’d thought the lyrics had only applied to April’s life, to the emotional hurdles that her sister was leaping as she became a woman. But suddenly, Dianna could no longer hide from the chilling truth: That song could have been about her own long days on a set with the crew and her guests, her dates with men she didn’t care one fig about, even the girls’ nights out where she was afraid to reveal too much in case she seemed too high maintenance. For years, she’d gone out of her way to make sure people had no reason to abandon her.
    Her hands stilled on the blanket, halfway up her legs. For so long, she’d pushed forward with her career, with her façade of perfection, willing to do anything if it meant proving to the state that she would be a good guardian for April. Wasn’t it time to stop covering up her true feelings with false smiles, with perfect makeup and hair and the latest designer clothes?
    Feeling terribly shaken, this time from the inside, rather than from any surface injuries, she