“Great.” She gave him a bright smile. A smile he had to spoil because he couldn’t stand the knots that had formed in her shoulders, the tension in her neck.
“Liv, you need to get your head together.”
“How do you suggest I do that?”
“Ease up on yourself about Adam. Accept your many imperfections—which I’ll be happy to keep pointing out, starting with your tendency to run off by yourself.” A thread of an idea formed in the back of his mind. “You also have to start singing for me.”
She jumped from the chaise, leaving the towel behind. “I told you. I can’t sing!”
The elderly couple in the hot tub looked over at them. He rose and blocked their view of Olivia. “I didn’t say you had to sing opera. Maybe some blues. Rock. ‘The Wheels on the Bus.’ I don’t care. I’m only a football player, remember? I won’t know if what I’m hearing is good or bad.”
“We’ve listened to jazz together, remember? You know music. And that’s the worst idea ever.”
“Is it? I have to deal with Clint Garrett, remember? A guy with all the talent in the world who still manages to choke under pressure. The two of you have strong similarities.”
“Such as?”
“You’re both a hell of a lot of work.”
What had only been the glimmer of an idea began to take shape.
*
When Thad pounded on her bedroom door an hour before they were scheduled to leave for Atlanta the next day, she politely suggested he go to hell. Unfortunately, that didn’t discourage him, and the next thing she knew he’d barged inside her room, grabbed her hairbrush from the dresser, and held it out. “Sing!”
“No.”
“Don’t mess with me on this, Olivia. We’re going to try a little of my kind of therapy.”
She pushed his arm away and tried withering him with her most condescending look. “Opera singers don’t use microphones.”
He was un-witherable. “Right now, you’re not an opera singer. You’re an ordinary singer. And they use mikes.” Once again, he extended the stupid hairbrush. “I was thinking I’d enjoy some Ella or Nina Simone.”
“Try Spotify.”
His lip curled, but not in a good way. “And you brag about your work ethic. What I see is a woman who’s given up. Instead of fighting the good fight and doing the work to fix what’s wrong, all you want to do is whine.” As if that weren’t scathing enough, he added, “I’m disappointed in you.”
Nobody was ever disappointed in Olivia Shore. She snatched the hairbrush from his hand and gave him Billie Holiday. A few stanzas of “God Bless the Child” sung so badly it was a good thing Billie was already dead, because if she’d heard Olivia’s choppy phrasing, she would have killed herself.
Thad smiled. “You could take that to Carnegie Hall right now.”
She threw the hairbrush at him. She targeted his chest instead of his head—unnecessary, as it turned out, because he plucked the hairbrush right out of the air before it could land.
“I’m that good,” he said at her expression of astonishment.
If only she were.
“And you’re not as bad as you think.” He patted her cheek. “I ordered us breakfast. Strawberry cheesecake French toast.”
She regarded him glumly. “Only for me, I’m sure. While you have an arugula-kale smoothie with a side order of garden grubs.”
“Now don’t you worry about it.”
As it turned out, she never got to enjoy that French toast because she made the mistake of checking her phone before she sat down to eat.
10
Her New Orleans attack had gone public. The mainstream newspapers restricted the item to a few factual sentences, but the Internet gossip sites were all over it.
Police are giving few details about a bizarre attack on opera star Olivia Shore. The assault occurred in a New Orleans alley. Shore was apparently unharmed, but what was she doing in a back alley? And what part did Thad Owens, the Chicago Stars’ backup quarterback, who is rumored to be involved with the opera diva, play in the incident? So many questions.
It couldn’t have looked sleazier.
Thad was still upset as they rode the elevator to the lobby where they’d meet the limo taking them to the airfield for their flight to Atlanta. “They’re insinuating that I beat you up!” he exclaimed.
They were doing exactly that, but she tried to minimalize it. “Not really,” she said weakly.
“Close enough.”
“I don’t understand why we’re getting all this attention.”
“Because I’m a dumb jock and you’re a high-class diva, and it’s too good a story to pass up.”
“The only thing dumb about you is your taste in T-shirts.” His, she happened to know, was a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar Valentino.
He gazed down at the navy-and-red graphic of astronauts floating in space. “Might have been a mistake.”
“You think?”
Only Henri and Paisley were waiting by the limo. Fortunately, Mariel had left the tour, but Olivia suspected she’d turn up again, like a head cold that wouldn’t go away. She’d probably run off to Uncle Lucien so she could complain about the rubes Henri had hired to represent the company.
“We’ll look on the bright side,” a less-than-cheerful Henri said as they arrived at the airfield, “two new radio outlets called to schedule an interview.”
“For all the wrong reasons,” Thad said.
Once they were on board, Thad received a phone call of his own. Since he’d taken a seat across from Olivia, she could hear his side of the conversation, which mainly consisted of unhappy grunts. When he pocketed his phone, she regarded him with concern. “Everything okay?”
“The Stars press office. Phoebe Calebow isn’t happy.”
Even Olivia knew about the legendary Phoebe Calebow, the owner of the Chicago Stars and the most powerful woman in the NFL.
He extended his legs as far as the space would allow. “Phoebe has a low tolerance for anything that even hints at one of her players abusing a woman.”
“I can talk to her, if you’d like.”
He curled his lip. “No thanks, Mom. I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m only trying to be helpful.”
“Nobody just ‘talks’ to Phoebe Calebow, not unless they’re royalty. Or a member of the Calebow family. She’s the most intimidating hot woman you’ve ever met.”
“I’ve seen the photos. She could have been a Playboy centerfold in the old days when she was younger. Or even now, if they still had centerfolds.”
“People used to underestimate her because of her looks, but only an idiot makes that mistake now. Trust me when I say nobody wants to get on her bad side.”
She could see he was worried, which meant she was worried for him.
*
As the next few days unfolded, Marchand Timepieces received more press coverage than they could have expected, but not entirely the right kind. Too many of the country’s X-rated morning radio show hosts suddenly wanted interviews, all of which Henri refused in favor of the more respectable media.
Olivia quickly perfected her responses to questions about New Orleans. Instead of disclosing that the attack had happened in a bookstore, which only made it seem more bizarre, she referred to a small shop in the French Quarter and a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “It was so random. Obviously, someone who’s mentally disturbed was behind it. I’m so thankful Thad rushed over to meet me at the police station. He’s a good friend.”
That ended the questions from all but the most persistent.
They moved from Atlanta to Nashville, and Thad kept trying to make her sing. She appreciated what he was attempting to do for her, but singing a few bars of Billie Holiday wouldn’t overcome the kind of block she was dealing with. Still, he was persistent and she was desperate. Whenever they were alone and had a break between interviews, he shoved his phone at her with song lyrics displayed. Today it was “Georgia on My Mind.”
“Let’s hear it,” he said.
“This isn’t going to fix me,” she retorted.