Page 20 of When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars 9)

“Fucking oui,” Thad muttered.

Instead of greeting Thad, Garrett concentrated on The Diva. “You clean up pretty good, Livia.”

She smiled. “What are you doing here?”

“Henri’s a football fan. He invited me to come along today to keep T-Bo entertained.” The dumbass finally risked a glance at Thad. “She’s got shoes on. So much for keepin’ ’em barefoot and pregnant, right?”

Thad lunged forward, only to have The Diva step in his way. “Temper, temper,” she cooed.

Clint grinned. Thad had a reputation for keeping his cool, and he could see Clint was proud of having goaded him into losing it. His grin once again reminded Thad that the dumbass wasn’t nearly as dumb as he pretended to be. Nobody got to be the starting quarterback for an NFL team by being stupid.

Paisley, in the meantime, stood motionless in the aisle, lips parting, her stunned gaze fixed on Garrett. As Thad settled into his customary seat at the back of the plane, he realized he’d once again settled into second place, but this time, he couldn’t be happier.

To Paisley’s displeasure, The Diva buckled in next to Clint on the couch, forcing Paisley to take the seat across from him. Thad could almost hear Paisley’s mental wheels turning as she tried to figure out how to make her move. She waited until they were in the air. “Okay for me to take a couple of pictures to send my friends?”

“Sure,” The Diva said.

Thad smiled to himself. It wouldn’t take her long to figure out she was an unwelcome intruder in the lens of Paisley’s iPhone.

Sure enough, Paisley talked Garrett into a selfie, but The Diva looked more amused than offended. Garrett got up from the couch. Poor Paisley wasn’t used to male rejection, and she couldn’t hide her disappointment as he headed back toward Thad. Paisley didn’t understand that no woman on the planet could hold the numbskull’s attention when his mind was on football.

As Clint sidled in across from him, Thad didn’t bother to hide his irritation. Training camp wouldn’t start until July, and Garrett knew damn well Thad would give him one hundred percent then, so why did he have to hassle him now? It wasn’t like they could run drills on the plane.

A weird moaning sound penetrated the plane. Thad’s head came up in time to see Olivia’s hand pressed to her mouth. She was staring at the newspaper she must have picked up from the fresh stack in the cabin. She snapped open her seat belt and rushed back to him, the newspaper in her fist. “Look at this!”

He looked.

The photos were on the second page of the Phoenix Examiner’s Lifestyle section—one of the formal photos he and The Diva had posed for, along with a paparazzi shot of him carrying The Diva out of the bar last night.

Opera Singer and NFL Star

Make Sweet Music

Noted mezzo-soprano Olivia Shore and the Chicago Stars’ backup quarterback Thad Owens enjoyed a little PDA last night. The football star and the opera singer have been doing more than promoting a new line of watches for noted French watchmaker Marchand Timepieces. In an earlier interview at their hotel, the cagey couple

showed no sign that their relationship was anything other than business, but it looks as if they’ve crossed into more personal territory.

“This is mortifying!” she exclaimed.

“Mortifying?” He took in the photo. “That’s a little overdramatic, don’t you think? Wait. I forgot. You’re a soprano, so you’re allowed to be—”

“We’re not a couple!” she cried. “How could they say something like that?”

“I am carrying you.” He examined the paparazzi photo more closely. As usual, he’d photographed well, but The Diva had been caught at an odd angle so that her very tidy butt looked larger than it was in reality.

She tugged at the silk scarf around her throat as if it were strangling her. “How could this have happened?”

“Bad angle, that’s all. Forget about it.”

She looked at him without comprehension, and he made a quick U-turn. “I’ll admit the whole thing is strange.” He thought back to the previous night. No one, including him, had known he and The Diva were going to end up at that bar, so it had to have been a random bystander. And yet . . .

“Is there a problem?” Henri had come back and joined them. Paisley popped up over his shoulder.

Olivia thrust the paper at him. “Look at this!”

“Putain!” Henri choked the ends of his neck scarf. “Pardon my profanity, Olivia, Paisley.”

Dude was old school for a forty-year-old.

---