been cooking him breakfast at the time and hoping for...what? That they might have a shot at understanding each other even though their romantic history had proved them incompatible before they were twenty years old? Stubborn pride and embarrassment at her foolishness had kept her mouth shut for months. But tonight, she needed to set aside her old hurts and face him once and for all.
The sooner she got this over with, the better, since she needed to head home. Standing on the narrow threshold of a closed door in a deserted corridor of offices, Tatiana debated where to find her quarry. Surely he wouldn’t have lingered around the Coaches Club. Maybe she could ask the security guard outside the players’ lounge where Jean-Pierre was. Or would she be better off staking out his car in the parking garage? That way she could be sure she wouldn’t miss him.
Darting back the way she came, she turned a corner and nearly plowed right into none other than Jean-Pierre himself.
“Oh!” With a yelp of surprise, she gripped his forearm to stay upright.
“Shh,” Jean-Pierre warned her, tucking her under his arm and pressing a finger to her lips. “There’s a camera crew just down that hallway.” He nodded to the ramp just ahead on his right.
Tatiana tensed at his touch. His scent. His maleness. She’d spent so long avoiding him, but in spite of all logic, he affected her. At six-three, and at this close range, he had to peer down at her, his brown eyes flecked with hints of gold and green. She’d fallen for him hard back in prep school, a young love that had only felt more poignant after they’d been torn apart by their families’ sudden rift. They’d both moved on, of course, two thousand miles of separation proving as effective a deterrent as the well-publicized feud. But when he’d joined the Gladiators and she’d seen him at the occasional party, she’d been as drawn to him as ever. It had been an attraction that hadn’t been reciprocated, judging by his cold words about her court case last winter. She still didn’t understand how that terse confrontation in the courtroom had turned so heated.
Now, heart hammering, she simply nodded, knowing they needed to avoid the press. Heaven forbid the media were to overhear what she had to tell Jean-Pierre.
He frowned down at her, not moving.
“What?” she whispered, shaky and off balance as she peered up into his shadowed face.
“We could let them find us,” he suggested, his gaze roving over her as he seemed to weigh the idea. “They could photograph us kissing.”
The mention of kissing should not have sent a bolt of lightning through her. Especially when Jean-Pierre seemed to be mulling over the idea with the same attention he might give a playbook. Dispassionate. Assessing.
“Are you insane?” Her whisper notched up an octave as she grabbed his sleeve and tugged him in the other direction.
Not that he moved.
“It would end the speculation that we’re enemies,” he said. They stood facing each other in silence for a moment until she could hear the echo of footsteps in the northern corridor.
“We are enemies,” she reminded him, tugging his arm with more urgency. “Just because you and my father patched things up enough for you to play in New York doesn’t mean the Reynauds and Doucets suddenly became friends. When your grandfather fired my father from his old director-of-personnel position with the Mustangs, it might as well have been an act of war.”
Her father had moved the whole family across the country, pulling her out of school and demanding an end to her relationship with Jean-Pierre. And if her father hadn’t been adamant enough, her mother had been downright immovable on the subject. Seventeen at the time, Tatiana had fallen in line and put Jean-Pierre in her past...right up until that day he’d approached her after court and her old feelings had spun out of control for one passionate night.
“You think I don’t remember?” He fell into step beside her now, guiding her deeper into the private areas of the stadium. “But I’d call us casualties of that battle, not enemies. And either way, I would have preferred to lock down any mentions of bad blood to the media.”
He nodded to one of the guards outside the locker rooms as they passed a secured area.
“I realize that.” Her heart hummed along at high speed even as she warned herself to be coolheaded. To ignore the feel of his hand on her waist when he ushered her through the heavy steel door that led to the parking garage. “I’m out of practice dealing with the media or I never would have been so flippant with a stranger. Obviously, I know better. I apologize.”
His terse nod gave away nothing.
“I’m parked over here.” He hit the fob on his key chain and the lights on a nearby gray Aston Martin coupe flashed twice. “I can give you a ride home and we’ll...talk.”
She wondered at that meaningful pause. Was he still stewing about her comment to the reporter? Regardless, she needed to do some talking of her own.
“Thank you.” The clamminess that she’d felt on her skin earlier returned. Her time to tell him was running out. “I took a car service to the game so I appreciate the ride.”
She’d timed her arrival so that she wouldn’t set foot in the stadium until a few minutes before the game ended, hoping to avoid her father and spend as little time away from home as possible.
The tail end of the silk scarf she’d tied around her head caught on one of the sequins of her dress and she struggled to untangle it as she walked to his car. She was hot, tired and out of sorts, so it was no surprise that she popped a whole row of sequins off. They bounced around the floor of the parking garage while Jean-Pierre held open the door of his sports car.
It wasn’t fair that he looked impeccable in a custom Hugo Boss suit while her life frayed at the seams. With an impatient swipe, she slid the scarf off her hair and lowered herself into the leather seat.
When he came around to the driver’s side, he wasted no time putting the car into Reverse and heading out the exit. Game traffic had thinned out by now, putting them on the highway in no time. At this rate, in ten more minutes they’d be at her front door. Her stomach tightened at how fast her time was running out to make her cool, calm announcement. If she could even remember that speech she’d practiced in her mind a thousand times. She toyed with the fringe on the edges of her silk scarf, watching the play of pink, green and blue threads over her fingers.
“You didn’t hear my answers in that interview, did you?” Jean-Pierre said suddenly, diverting her thoughts.
“No, I’m afraid not.” She seized on the reprieve with both hands. “I ditched the Coaches Club the second I recognized that reporter’s face on the big screen over the bar. I knew he was about to corner you with what I’d just told him, so I left before my father could blow a gasket and blast me in front of five thousand fans.”
She studied Jean-Pierre’s expression in the dashboard lights, his chiseled profile deep in five-o’clock shadow and a fresh scrape visible on his right cheekbone. He’d been lucky today. She’d spent enough time in her father’s world to see the toll that football could take on the strongest men.
“I told the media you were joking.” He glanced at her as they neared signs for the Lincoln Tunnel.
“Of course I was. I thought I was talking to a Gladiators fan and I was just messing around.” She knew from experience she didn’t need to stroke this man’s ego, but
