The Diva, he’d noticed, had been restricting herself to a single glass of wine since their altercation on the terrace. Mariel dominated the conversation with facts and figures about the Marchand brand, and Henri’s customary affability seemed ruffled at the edges.
At eleven, when dinner finally ended, Thad headed for the fitness center instead of going to bed. But even after a long workout, he had trouble falling asleep. He kept thinking about the disturbing notes The Diva had been receiving.
He also had the disquieting feeling there was more she wasn’t telling him.
* * *
After his morning shower, he called her. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
“I’m never eating again.”
“Problematic.”
“Did you see the way I demolished that crème brûlée last night?”
“Not my favorite. Too sweet.”
“There is no such thing as too sweet. What’s wrong with you? And why are you calling me?”
“I was getting ready to order room service breakfast, and I don’t like to eat alone.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“It was, but you sound grouchy, so forget it.”
“Black coffee for me, and I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Wait. I said I was reconsid—”
She’d hung up. He smiled and put in a call to room service—coffee and a couple of poached eggs for him. Coffee and a Belgian waffle for her.
She and the food cart arrived at the same time. She was ready for the morning’s photo shoot—a dress that showcased her legs, stilettos, the pigeon’s egg ruby necklace. He’d gone for jeans and a multicolored shawl-collar pullover. “You look so comfortable,” she said wistfully.
“Another glaring example of gender inequality.” He admired the shining swing of her hair, then directed her to the table by the window and pulled the warming covers from their meals.
“You’re a sadist,” she said, as he set the strawberry-and-whipped-cream-topped waffle in front of her.
“I’ll eat whatever you don’t want.”
“Touch this and you die.”
He laughed. He liked Olivia. He liked her smarts and her quirky sense of humor. So what if she was a little high-strung? So was he. He just hid it better.
She picked up her fork. “Did you see the way Mariel kept raising her eyebrows at me last night? All because I was eating my dinner instead of licking it like she did.”
“Didn’t see that.” But he’d heard Mariel tell one of the guests how fortunate it was that Olivia had chosen a career where she didn’t have to worry about her weight. Since Olivia’s body was as spectacular as her voice, he suspected Mariel was jealous.
“Was your luggage okay?”
It took him a moment to adjust to her change of topic. “What do you mean? Are you missing one of your three hundred and forty-two suitcases?”
“Don’t exaggerate. No, nothing’s missing, but . . .” She shrugged. “I packed quickly, and things shift around when they’re being moved.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Forget it.”
“You think somebody went through your luggage?”
“I’m probably being paranoid.” With more than half her waffle still remaining, Olivia pushed aside her plate.
“Don’t let Mariel stop you from enjoying your breakfast,” he said.
“I’m full. Contrary to her opinion, I don’t make a habit of stuffing myself.”
He refilled their coffee cups. “Have you heard from Rupert?”
“No, why?”
“Just wondering if he’s come up with anything new to gain your attention.”
“What’s this thing you’ve got about Rupert?”
“I had a stalker once. A woman I’d never met who decided we were soul mates.”
“Rupert isn’t a stalker. He’s a fan.”
“So was she. She started showing up everywhere I went. Eventually, she got into my apartment. The police were involved. There was a restraining order. It got ugly.”
“So what happened?”
“She spent some time in jail and eventually moved out of state.”
“Rupert isn’t like that.”
His own experience, combined with that phone call, the threatening letters, and now the possibility that someone had gone through her luggage made him wary. There was also the mystery of who’d taken the photo of them outside that Phoenix bar four nights ago. Had it been random or something more deliberate?
He cornered Henri later that morning. “Make sure Olivia and I have adjoining suites from now on, will you? And if you could have the staff move me before tonight so I’m next to her, I’d appreciate it.”
“Adjoining suites?” Henri didn’t seem surprised, but then he was a Frenchman. “Of course.”
Thad didn’t see any reason to tell Henri this was about security, not sex, even though his own lizard brain kept slithering in exactly that direction.
* * *
“They moved me because they had to fumigate my suite,” he told Olivia that night as he let himself into the suite next to hers after their last client dinner in San Francisco.
“Fumigate? Against what?”
“Hey, you’re the bug expert. Not me.”
“There are bugs, and then there are bedbugs. You didn’t ask?”
“Naw.” The last thing he needed was Olivia talking to the hotel manager about bedbugs. “I think they said something about ants.”
“That’s odd.”
“I don’t make the rules. I just follow them.”
“When it suits you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’ve got ‘rule breaker’ written all over that exquisite face of yours. You just hide it behind fake charm.” With an operatic sweep, she disappeared into her suite.
He gazed at the door she’d closed between them. He had an instinct for spotting trouble—a free safety shifting his body to the left, a lineman switching the hand he had on the ground. It was part of his job to be alert, and he wanted The Diva nearby. Now all he had to do was come up with a logical reason to keep their connecting door open.
He undressed, brushed his teeth, and pulled on a pair of sweatpants before he rapped on the door between their rooms.
“What do you want?” she said from the other side.
He rapped again.
She finally opened the door. He didn’t know exactly what he’d expected her to be wearing, but it was something along the lines of a filmy black negligee with maybe a frilly sleep mask pushed on top of her head. Instead, she wore a Chicago Jazz Festival T-shirt and pajama bottoms printed with dill pickles.
He groaned. “My eyes will never be the same.”
She let her own eyes roam over his bare chest, taking her time. “Mine, either.”
Her open appreciation of his hard-earned muscles nearly threw him off his game. She smiled, knowing she’d gotten the advantage. “You remind me of an art museum,” she said. “Look all you want, but don’t touch.”
“Some museums are designed for a more sensory experience.”
She was tough. She didn’t miss a beat. “Been there. Done that. Not doing it again. What’s wrong?”
He rubbed his chin. “This is embarrassing.”
“All the better.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d keep it to yourself, but . . . Once you’re ready to turn out the lights, would you mind leaving the door between us open?”
“Oh, dear . . . Afraid of the dark?”
He thought fast. “More like . . . claustrophobia.”
“Claustrophobia?”
“It hits now and then, okay? Forget I asked. I know how you women like to complain about men being afraid to show their vulnerability, but the minute one of us lets you see his sensitive side—”
“It’s fine. I’ll leave the door open.” She regarded him suspiciously. “Maybe you should talk to a therapist.”
“You think I haven’t?” He improvised. “Bottom line—closed-
door phobia is nothing to mess with.”
She wasn’t stupid, and one of those dark, arched eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead. “This is your first step in trying to seduce me, isn’t it?”
He propped his elbow against the doorjamb and gave her a lazy once-over. “Babe, if I wanted to seduce you, you’d be hot and naked by now.”
That rattled her. Unfortunately, he’d also gotten hard, so she wasn’t the only one rattled.
That night, as he lay in bed in the dark, he heard the jazz strains of Bill Evans’s “Peace Piece” drifting through the darkness. The lady knew good jazz.
* * *
He escorted The Diva to the hotel lobby the next morning, where Henri delivered the good news that Mariel had left for New York. “Our limo is waiting outside.” He glanced at his watch and frowned. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see what’s holding Paisley up.”
“Probably texting her BFFs,” Olivia muttered as they made their way outside.
“You’re jealous because she likes me a lot more than she likes you,” he retorted.
She grinned. “And she likes Clint more than she likes you, old man.”
“I’m gutted.”
“Speaking of BFFs . . .” Olivia pulled out her phone and called her friend Rachel. Unfortunately, part of their conversation centered around something called chest voice, which made him want to stare at exactly that part of Liv’s anatomy.
Just as they finished, Paisley slid into the limo. The only makeup she had on was left from the night before. She hadn’t combed her hair, and she didn’t look apologetic. “I overslept.”
Henri got in behind her, grim-faced. “So sorry for keeping you both waiting.”
“Pas de problème,” Olivia said.
Henri and Olivia engaged in a rapid-fire conversation en français, which Paisley interrupted. “Ohmygod! You’re on Ratchet Up!”
“What is this?” Henri asked.
She lowered her phone. “Ratchet Up. It’s this online gossip site everybody reads.” She showed them, and there they were. Thad and Olivia. Returning to the hotel yesterday morning from their hike. Olivia’s hair was falling out of her ponytail, and Thad had his hand on her shoulder. They looked like a couple.
“This is news?” Henri said. “This is nothing.”
Paisley regarded him condescendingly. “People like gossip. I told you that. And Thad and Olivia make a glam couple because they’re, like, so different. This is going to get us all kinds of eyeballs.”
“Eyeballs?”
“People looking at it,” Paisley said impatiently.
Henri remained unconvinced. “I doubt the people who follow that site are interested in buying Marchand watches.”
“Are you kidding? All the celebs read Ratchet Up, and this is the kind of stuff we need to post. Or at least feed to the gossip sites.”
“No feeding to gossip sites,” Olivia said. “I have a professional reputation to think about.”
That pissed him off. “What about my reputation? Do you think I want the guys in the locker room thinking I’m dating an opera singer?”
He’d made his point, and she had the grace to look embarrassed.
6
To Paisley’s delight and Thad’s displeasure, Clint Garrett was back on the plane the next day as they left San Francisco for Seattle. “Don’t get all worked up.” Clint grinned at him. “Livia invited me.”
Thad glared at The Diva. “Why?”
He didn’t like the evil gleam in her eyes. “Because I like him, but even more, I love seeing how much he irritates you.”
Clint shrugged. “That pretty much explains it.”
“How long are you going to keep stalking me?” Thad demanded.
“Not much longer. I have some stuff to do next week.” Ignoring Paisley’s attempt to get his attention, Clint whipped out his computer and pulled up film from the Steelers’ loss. “Since you’ve got some free time . . .”
Fortunately, once they reached Seattle, Clint took off, although Thad knew he’d be back.
They had a formal photo shoot that afternoon, which Henri intended to use as part of a nationwide advertising campaign. Accompanied by a photographer, his assistant, a stylist, and Paisley, they set off for the Seahawks’ stadium, where they spent a couple of hours shooting various scenarios. His favorite showed himself and Olivia posed between the goalposts, both of them in evening dress with their watches on display. He wore a tux and leaned leisurely against the goalposts. Olivia, her hair arranged in an elaborate updo and strips of eye black under her eyes, wore a black gown and held the football as if it were a microphone and she was singing into it.
Afterward, they headed north to the Seattle Opera. On a bare stage, they experimented with scenes that referenced Carmen. The stylist put Olivia in an elaborate scarlet gown that pushed up her breasts and arranged her hair so it fell over her bare shoulders. The stylist put him in a white shirt that opened to the middle of his chest, tight black pants, and calf-high black leather boots. In their best shot, he lay on his side on the stage floor, head propped on a bent elbow, his other hand showcasing his watch as he balanced a football on end. Olivia loomed over him, her head thrown back, hair flying from a fan just out of camera range, her arm with the Cavatina3 extended. In the background, Henri played a recording of her famous “Habanera” to set the mood.
As the music played and Olivia experimented with various positions, he kept waiting for her to start accompanying herself, but to his disappointment, she didn’t. The vocal exercises he heard every morning had become a striptease in his head, and he was increasingly obsessed with the idea of her singing. Just for him.
Henri was rhapsodic about the photos. They were so different from any of Marchand’s past campaigns, which were nothing more than well-photographed close-ups of the watch from various angles. “These are going to be extraordinaire! Everyone will be talking about them. This will be our most successful campaign ever.”
Thad doubted Mariel Marchand would agree.
* * *
It was nearly midnight when they reached the hotel. In his suite, he found a pink satin box on the living room coffee table. He flipped the lid, stared at the contents, and walked over to their connecting door. “Open up.”
“Go away,” she said from the other side. “I’m too tired to spar with you tonight.”
“I sympathize, but open up anyway.”
She did, but with a frown. “What?” Her lipstick had worn off, and her hair stuck out from all the day’s sprays, gels, and pomades. He liked seeing her messy. It made her less formidable. More . . . manageable.
He showed her the satin box. “Just a guess, but I think this was intended for you instead of me.”
Inside were four very expensive perfumes: Hermès’s 24 Faubourg, Dior’s Balade Sauvage, a limited edition of Chanel’s N°5, and Tom Ford’s Lost Cherry. She picked up the card. “Rupert,” she said with a sigh. “And most perfume gives me a headache.”
“Exactly the same thing your Rupert does to me. Don’t you think this is getting out of hand?”
“Opera aficionados are different from other kinds of fans.” She took the box and carried it to her room. “There are going to be some very happy hotel housekeepers tomorrow.”
He shook his head and went into his bedroom, but as he began to kick off his shoes, he noticed that the shoulder bag he used as a carry-on was unzipped. The bag held his usual crap: a couple of books, headset, a spare pair of sunglasses, and his laptop. But now, the laptop, which he always kept in a separate compartment, was shoved in between a copy of a Jonathan Franzen novel he’d promised himself he’d read one day, and an account of the D-Day landings he was actually reading. He checked his suitcase and shaving kit. Neither seemed to have been disturbed.
He called the desk. As he suspected from the errant perfume delivery, the hotel had mixed up his and Olivia’s suites. Whoever had dug around in his case had assumed it belonged to her.
* * *
On their
flight to Denver the next day, he mulled over the conversation he’d had with the hotel manager before they’d left. The bellman who’d delivered the perfume box was a longtime employee. The same for the housekeeper who’d serviced their floor. The manager declared them both above suspicion, and Thad didn’t argue. Housekeepers and employees with sticky fingers didn’t last long. Someone else had been in his room.
The video surveillance footage had proved useless thanks to a party that had been going on in another suite on the floor. Between the grainy video and the number of people coming and going, it was impossible to see anything useful. The manager tactfully suggested Thad might have inadvertently moved the things in his case without remembering he’d done it.
“Possible, I guess,” Thad had said. But it wasn’t possible. He liked keeping his travel case organized.
Not long before the plane was ready to land, he moved next to The Diva. “Since we don’t have to report for duty until Monday, do you have plans for Denver?”
“Sleep in, work out, eat salad.”
“Admirable, but I have a better idea. One of my teammates is lending me his house outside Breckenridge. It’s beautiful country, and if you want to come along, you can hike instead of being stuck on a hotel treadmill.”
“Who’s going to be there?”
“Just me.”
“And baby boy’s afraid to be alone?”
“Now you’re making me feel bad.” The truth was, he didn’t want to be alone with himself right now, and he also didn’t want her where he couldn’t watch her.
She smiled and then sobered. “What’s this really about?”
“Don’t make me confess my insecurities all over again.”
“You have no insecurities. You’re the closest thing there is to a Greek god.”
“I’d be flattered if you sounded more impressed.”
“You know what they say. Pretty is as pretty does.”
He stifled a laugh.
When Stars Collide Page 8
