The Masked Singer

[Chapter Sixty]

Once he's finished, he pushes the plate in front of me and hands me a pair of matching plastic knife and fork.

"It might not be that hot, but I tried to get here as quick as I could," he explains.

"Don't worry. This all looks so good," I compliment.

"I think you're supposed to compliment the chief after you've tasted the food." He winks.

"You cooked these?" I ask, eyes wide open.

"Yeah, I kind of want to be a chef." He starts to get shy.

"How did I not know this? That's even more amazing Nathan." I clap my hands for him.

"Come on, let's just eat now." I roll my eyes playfully, and then nod my head. Picking up my knife and folk, I then quickly start cutting into the food. I shovel in a large piece soaked in syrup. It sloshes in my mouth as I chew into its fluffiness. Nathan should defiantly become a chef, I would support his dreams - at least my stomach would. I've yet to taste main courses by Nathan, but I bet he would be amazing with desert foods.

"So good," I mumble, going for a second piece. By the time I get to the last bite, there is a puddle of syrup left on the plate. My stomach starts to gurgle, and then out of nowhere, I burp.

My cheeks instantly begin to pool a deep shade of red. Did I seriously just burp in front of Nathan? As I continue to spiral down with my moment of shame - I curiously look into the depths of his blue eyes, waiting for some kind of reaction. Is he seriously going to leave a girl hanging here?

Nathan bursts out laughing. "I think that means; compliments to the chef." He grins widely.

"Well, it was a very enjoyable meal," I agree.

We both continue to giggle about my burp, and midway through his chuckle, Nathan rips out a belch that starts us off on a longer string of laughter.

However, the room drops to a deathly silence the second the door springs open and a flustered Ava runs inside clutching an arm full of magazines.

"It's everywhere," she says in a breathless voice. Ava struts towards us and dumps the magazines on the table. The top magazine is the first one to catch my eye - it's got an enlarged image of a blonde head girl walking down a hallway.

Leaning in closer, I begin to recognise the clothing and the similar face features. And that's when the lightbulb goes off - that's me, that's really me there.

My heart rate increases as my eyes continue to scan over covers after covers. More blurred out images of me walking around town, the hotel and even the airport emerge. As more images begin to pop up, the dreaded betrayed feeling floods into my stomach. Who could have done this? I tried to careful to be inconspicuous about my identity.

"This is terrible," I whisper, still not believing what's in front of my eyes.

"That's not even the worst of it." Turning to face Ava, she's biting down on her lip nervously.

"What is?"

Ava is hesitant, but I grab the iPad from her hand so that I can view what she's stressing about. There's an enlarged image of two people standing in a pool. From the camera angle, it looks like this could be taken directly from the security cameras. As I look through the list, I notice that the images used are the ones where I've gone off to see Nathan.

"How could they?" I hate the fact that there are these images floating around, but to have them taken from a place so personal - a place where I thought my secret would be safe. I'm completely gutted. How could they do this to me?