Game On (19 page)

“I’m not dead, am I?” he whispered against her lips.

“If you are, what does that make me?”

“An angel?” he said.

“Not bloody likely. So if you were dead, it’d be a hell of a lot hotter in here.”

She felt the low rumble in his chest under her hand as he chuckled. “That wasn’t hot enough for you?”

“It was plenty hot,” she said, sliding her hand around his ribcage for a playful rake of nails on his back. “Scorching even, but do you see flames? Can you smell brimstone?”

“No,
ma belle
, just your intoxicating scent.” He buried his face in her neck. “And you definitely smell like an angel.”

“Funny,” she said, pinching his butt, “’cause I’m feeling rather devilish.”

“Good,” he said, rolling her onto her back. He rained kisses along her jaw and down her neck. “Because I’m going to do things to you that are not allowed in heaven.”

Tell him! You owe him the truth before this goes any further.

“Luc?”

“Mmm?”

“Before we proceed, I need to talk to you about something.”

“Does it have anything to do with us being naked?” he asked and captured her pert nipple between his teeth.

“No, not real-eee!” The small squeal escaped as he gave it a gentle nip before swiping it with his tongue.

“Does it involve a sex-change operation, a husband, or a communicable disease?” he asked before blazing a smoking-hot trail down her torso with his tongue.

Clara felt a giggle rise, but it came out more of a gasp. “No, no, and no, nothing like that.” As his mouth travelled dangerously close to her lady business, tingling heat spread through her like a raging wildfire, driving every sane thought from her head.

“Then it’s going to have to wait,” he said, settling between her thighs. “Because I’m going for a hat trick tonight and talking would really throw me off my game.”

She must have fallen asleep sometime after the second athletic round because she awoke with a start to the sound of the telephone. Clara reached out to silence the shrill before it woke Luc.

“Clara Bean,” she said automatically.

“There’s a plane ticket waiting for you at the American Airlines counter. Your flight leaves at seven. Don’t miss it.”

“Charlie?” She pushed the hair from her eyes and struggled to sit up in the dark room. “Charlie, what’s happened?”

“Make sure you’re on that plane, Miss Bean. Ring me when you land.”

“But Charlie, what’s—?” She realized he’d already hung up.

Clara, blinking herself awake, looked at Luc, who’d reached over her to click on the lamp. “That was Charlie. He wants me back in England.”

“What? Why?”

“He didn’t say but he sounded…curt.” Clara glanced toward the digital clock. “God, it’s already four-thirty. I’ve got to go.”

“But you can’t leave now. We’re leaving for New Jersey after lunch.”

Dread furled in her belly. This could only mean that Bartel had pulled the plug, or…she really couldn’t even think about the other possibility. No, he simply couldn’t know her secret.

“I guess you’re going without me,” she said as she gathered her clothes and took a shortcut to her own bedroom through his bathroom.

Luc, stopping only to pull on a pair of pants, followed. “Go jump in the shower. I’ll pack up your laptop and the rest of your things.”

Clara felt as though the rug was pulled from under her as she hurriedly showered and dressed. She didn’t know what to think, what to say, how to act.

They rode the elevator in silence, Riley’s warning that BMG would cancel the blog tour if things didn’t pick up thickening the air around them. Did his advice come too late?

“There are seven voice mails and a text from Charlie, beginning at two a.m., which is pretty darn early in the morning in the U.K.,” she said, staring at her phone as the bellman waved a taxi forward. “And you’ve nothing from Bartel?”

“No, not a word.” Luc was just as bewildered as she. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” he asked.

“No, no. But thanks.” She found it hard to look him in the face so instead focused on the taxi driver as he loaded her bags. Her legs felt shaky and she wasn’t entirely sure she could keep herself from tearing up.

“You’ll call me?” he asked.

“Or text,” she said, anticipating a cowardly lack of emotional strength.

“He didn’t say how long you’d be gone?”

“No.” It hurt to talk through her dry, tight throat. What if she never saw him again? The thought was unbearable. She wanted to kiss him, but couldn’t. It would feel too much like a goodbye. She wrapped her arms around his neck before he saw the tears pool. “But you’ll probably have to cover New Jersey by yourself.”

“You’re going to miss the Devils,” he whispered against her hair.

“I already do.”

Chapter 21

“H
i Sue, it’s Clara. Can
I speak to Charlie, please?” she said into the receiver. She held onto her kitchen counter, swaying from tiredness. She hadn’t slept a wink on the plane. Every time she began to drift off, dark and melancholic thoughts of Luc made her insides hurt. The only effective method of turning her brain off was to lose herself in every magazine stocked in the airline’s undersized inventory. When that resource ran out, she subjected herself to a string of mind-numbing situation comedies on her personal entertainment system.

“Sorry dearie,” said Charlie’s wife. “He’s fast asleep on the sofa and I have no intention of waking him.”

It was just gone ten p.m. local time, which wasn’t unreasonable. “But he said for me to ring as soon as I landed, so I think it’s important.”

“It is,” she said in a clipped tone. “He’s had a long couple of days thanks to you, Miss Bean. He wants to see you at the office first thing.” Without a goodbye, Sue disconnected.

“Right. Thanks then,” Clara said to the dial tone. Her body felt hollow. The entire night stretched ahead of her like a scary chasm of black thoughts.

Luc checked his phone again. Still nothing. It had been almost twelve hours since they said goodbye, and still no word from Clara. At least he knew the blog tour wasn’t cancelled. He’d had a very enlightening chat with Kingsley Bartel hours ago and couldn’t wait to tell Clara the news. He’d left her a message while she was in the air and was dying to call her again but didn’t want to risk looking like a desperate love-stricken puppy, though that’s exactly how he felt.

The new hotel room, a single with a king-sized bed, had a generic coldness to it he hadn’t felt in the others. Or maybe it was the lack of her presence.

Sacré bleu
, he needed to shake off the hangdoggery. He needed a jumbo burger, a beer, and a game to reset his manhood. Or maybe he’d stop by the designated restaurant, get a takeout meal, and anticipate Clara’s tantrum.

He checked his phone. Still nothing. But the hotel room phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Bisquet? This is the front desk. There’s a woman here, says she’s from BMG, and is asking for your room num—”

“Yes, yes, send her up!”

Clara! That’s why she hadn’t called. She wanted to surprise him. Her summons back to London was obviously a mistake.

He ran his hands through his hair, blew into his palm for a breath check, tucked in his shirt, then chucked it off in favor of a clean one. He was just buttoning it when she knocked. His gut knotted like he was about to go on the ice for a playoff game.
Relax, dude,
he thought as he twisted the door handle,
and try not maul her when she walks in the room.

“Hello, baby.”

Luc’s smile vanished.

“Valentina?” He looked over her into the corridor beyond. This couldn’t be right. She was alone. No Clara. Disappointment escaped by way of a sigh. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Can’t I pop in on a friend just because?”

“You don’t do anything
just because
.”

“Don’t be sardonic, Luc. It doesn’t suit you,” she said, pushing past him with her luggage in tow.

“Seriously,” he said, shutting the door and following her into the room. “What are you doing here?”

“You look fabulous,” she said and tossed her virginal-white coat onto his bed. She turned and patted his cheek. “Except for those miserable little anger lines on your forehead.”

Luc stood motionless as Valentina adjusted his collar. Her short, platinum hair was coiffed in Monroe-style curls that suited her Slavic features and ice-blue eyes. She looked up at him under her lashes. “As for why I’m here…I heard you were in need of a dinner date.”

“How did you…”

“Kingsley is having kittens about Clara leaving,” she said, running her hands down his shoulders. Her fingers, long and manicured, squeezed his upper arms as if testing for gym attendance. “He’s stressing about losing the momentum of this press tour, especially since the blog went viral. The marketing department already sent press releases, blah, blah, blah, so when he found out I was flying through New York from Italy, he sent me to replace her.”

Valentina slid her arms around his neck. “I think this will work out quite well, don’t you? And who knows if your restaurant gal will be back. It’s not the first time the British were driven from our shores.”

Luc’s phone gave a three note trill, signalling an incoming text. He extracted himself from Valentina’s embrace.
Dieu!
Clara’s timing was uncanny.

Her text:
Home. Dead tired. Meeting Charlie in the morning.

His reply:
Hey you. Did you get my voicemail?

Clara:
Yes. What’s the big deal about the link you emailed?

It’s a podcast. Listen and you’ll see.

While Luc waited for her reply, he glanced up, alarmed to find Val peeling off her clothes. “Val, what are you—Can’t you change in your own room?”

“I’m staying here, baby.” She unabashedly rummaged through her suitcase, wearing nothing but a black bra that barely covered her surgically enhanced assets and matching panties. “I blew my entire month’s expense budget on the hotel in Milan. Accounting will freak if I charge another penny.”

His phone trilled again.

Clara:
In the morning. Promise. Too shattered to unpack my laptop.

You are coming back, right?

Clara:
Hope so. Have you checked out the restaurant?

Not yet. Just getting ready.

Clara:
Poor you, dining by your lonesome 

He made the mistake of looking up again. Valentina, still undressed, was standing in the bathroom, generously applying gloss to her full lips. Luc felt the blood drain from his face. He had to get out of here. “Meet you in the lobby, Val. Take your time.”

He was in the elevator when he texted back,
Yes, poor me.

Luc’s butt had gone numb from the uncomfortable bucket chair in his hotel room. He looked over at Valentina, curled up on the end of the bed, fast asleep before the end of the game. She hated hockey, but he gave her credit for putting on an enthusiastic face.

From a critic’s point of view, dinner had been an unmitigated disaster. He couldn’t wait to tell Clara how, despite his instructions, Valentina had gone and ordered a salad with fat-free dressing on the side—and then called it tasteless—then insisted on having her halibut cooked in olive oil instead of the lemon butter sauce, and skipped dessert.

“But isn’t it a good to test a restaurant on their ability to please their customers?” she’d argued when he explained why she shouldn’t alter the menu options.

As for trading courses, she wouldn’t touch his osso bucco, and since his saffron risotto came under the classification of carbohydrate, it was deemed loathsome and something to avoid at all costs.