It took supreme effort to bring his attention back to the effusive, overly cologned male owner of a chain of Illinois jewelry stores sitting next to him and chomping on filet mignon.
Thad had several prepared answers to this question, but since this was Chicago, only one would do. “Gotta be Walter Payton.” Depending on where he was, he sometimes went with Jerry Rice or Reggie White. Maybe Dick Butkus. He tended to stay away from quarterbacks. How would he compare the great Stars QBs—Bonner, Tucker, Robillard, and Coop—against guys like Montana, Brady, Young, and Manning? Maybe—one day—Clint Garrett. Those kinds of comparisons messed with his head.
His dinner companion nodded approvingly. “Walter ‘Sweetness’ Payton. Greatest running back of all time.”
Jim Brown might have argued with that, but Thad nodded.
At the other end of the table, Liv was enduring her own interrogation from the bearded husband of a department-store buyer. “So how’s come you never went on American Idol?”
He could sense her trying hard not to grit her teeth. “American Idol isn’t really an opera competition.”
His own dinner companion had launched into a monologue about Peyton Manning, and Thad nodded without paying attention. His conscience was giving him trouble.
“You and I can never have a serious, long-term relationship.” That’s what he’d told Liv, and he remembered how happy it had made her. But he and Liv had different ideas about what “long-term” meant. In his mind, they’d sail on the lake this summer and maybe even head to the Caribbean after the football season was over when she had a break between her gigs.
In her mind, she was dumping him in two days.
After what had transpired between them, that was unacceptable.
Unthinkable.
*
There they were . . . plastered all over the Internet. An enlarged photo of Liv and him.
The Diva and the Quarterback Lock Lips on Chicago’s Mag Mile
Only the Chicago Tribune, his hometown newspaper, put his name first.
Popular Stars backup quarterback Thad Owens is in a surprise relationship with opera megastar Olivia Shore, who’ll soon be performing in Aida at the Chicago Municipal Opera. . . .
He set his laptop aside in the rumpled bedsheets. It was the morning of their third day. In her mind, their last day. Olivia jammed her hands in the pockets of the hotel’s white terry-cloth robe, her hair pulled on top of her head with a scrunchie, looking not at all like the sex kitten he’d been enjoying less than a half hour ago. “How can they keep doing this?”
He crooked his elbow behind his head. “We’re an item right now, Liv.” He knew how skittish she was, and he was careful to emphasize “right now.”
She planted one hand on her hip and renewed her protest. “Everybody doesn’t need to know about it.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “You have to admit that a hookup between the Queen of High Culture and a lowbrow jock like myself is something people might find interesting.”
She leveled him with her regal glare. “You are not, in any way, a lowbrow jock. And I hate the term ‘hookup.’ It makes me feel like a salmon.” She reached for a towel. “I’m taking a shower. Alone this time because we have to meet Henri soon, and if you get in with me, you know what’ll happen.”
He gave her a lazy smile. “Tell me.”
She momentarily forgot how pissed she was about the photo and gave him her own sexy smile in return, a smile that made him hard all over again. “You’re incorrigible.” She disappeared into the bathroom.
He sank back into the pillows. He, Thaddeus Walker Bowman Owens, had one of the greatest voices in opera singing just for him. Naked. All he had to do was ask. True, she couldn’t completely unleash that powerful voice in their hotel suite without security showing up. Also true, she wasn’t happy with the sound she was producing. But at least she was singing—Whitney Houston when they were in the shower together, Nina Simone after breakfast, and this morning in bed, rising up on her knees gloriously naked, she consecrated him with Mozart.
He begrudged every minute they had to spend on this, their last official day of the tour, doing interviews and meet-and-greets. He wanted it to be just the two of them.
He’d never been with a woman who was so generous, so free, so unexpected. They tangled, they experimented, they laughed. They played the best kind of mind games with each other, and neither of them could possibly be ready to throw that away for some ridiculous deadline that only one of them felt was necessary. Liv was stubborn, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew as well as he they had something special. Now all he had to do was get her to admit it. That photo couldn’t have come at a worse time.
*
For all her professional outrage, Olivia wasn’t entirely unhappy with that photograph. Her ego had taken a battering these last few months, and being publicly linked with a man like Thad Owens made her feel better, which was depressing because it signaled that she might be measuring her self-worth in terms of a man, which was absolutely not true, but it was still satisfying to know that people might now see her in a different light—not as an elitist opera singer, but as a woman who could attract a man like Thad Owens, which—
She slapped her hands over her ears. Everything about Thad had sent her into a tailspin even before they’d had sex. And now that they’d had sex, it was a thousand times worse. Maybe this wasn’t love. Maybe it was simply a crush. Could a woman her age have a crush? Maybe she could convince herself that’s exactly what it was because she couldn’t have found a worse man to have fallen in love with. Thad Owens, the anti-Dennis.
She reminded herself to stay focused on the present—today—not on the future, because wiping him out of her life would be horrible, and if she thought too hard about it, she’d ruin the little time they had left together.
*
Henri and Paisley met them in the suite for their last day before the tour ended. Instead of being upset by the photo, Henri was pleased. “Very romantic, yes? Windy City Live has already called. They want you both on tomorrow morning’s program. I hope you don’t mind adding it to your schedule.” His cell rang, and his smile became a frown. “Excuse me.” He stepped outside into the hallway.
Olivia and Thad were still at the table finishing their coffee. She scrunched her nose at him. “What do you bet that’s Mariel calling to ream Henri out for the way we’re dragging the Marchand name through the mud.”
Paisley, who’d been working on her eye makeup in the hotel suite’s mirror, shoved her mascara wand back in her bag. “Mariel doesn’t understand anything about publicity. She’s, like, all caught up in the 1950s or something. She’s not even on LinkedIn. At least Henri is starting to get it.” She reached back into her bag—maybe for a lipstick, maybe for her phone—but her hand stalled. “I was thinking . . .” She withdrew her hand. “Maybe you guys could, like, recommend me as a PA to some of your celebrity friends? Or as a publicist. Not you, Olivia, no offense—unless you know some pop stars or, like, even B-listers who want a personal assistant?”
“Gosh, I can’t think of anyone,” Olivia said innocently. “But I bet Thad has contacts.”
He stared into his coffee cup, taking the coward’s way out. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
Paisley twisted the strap of her bag between her fingers and stared at them both. “Neither of you wants to help me, do you? You don’t respect me.”
“It’s not about respect,” Thad said tactfully.
“You don’t think I do a good job,” Paisley muttered.
Olivia regarded her with some sympathy. Paisley had been raised in privilege, and it was as much her parents’ fault she was so clueless as her own. “Paisley,” she said as kindly as she could, “you haven’t gone out of your way to be helpful on this tour.”
Paisley abandoned her purse. “That’s only because of how can I get excited about passing out sandwiches to reporters and, like, making sure your suitcases get to the right room?”