Game On (10 page)

The time away from him hadn’t dimmed her visceral reaction. Memories of his strength, his kisses, his maleness, caught her with full force. She tried to shake it off, but her skin tingled, her nipples puckered, her lips twitched for need of his kisses. She yearned to drop her bags and wrap her arms around him, absorb his warmth, and lose herself in him, like last time.

He cleared his throat. She turned to him, eyebrows raised, waiting for whatever blessed words escaped his mouth. He only pursed his lips and readjusted the hold on his garment bag.

The doors opened and they stepped into the hall together, both silent.

The parallels between this and that
other
night made her squirm.

“I got your email the other day,” he said as they slowed to look at the numbers on the doors.

“Oh, good,” she said.

“Sorry I didn’t get a chance to respond. I went up north to see my folks for couple of days and my mother sucked up every ounce of free time.”

“That’s fine. I just wanted to make sure we were okay.”

“Of course we’re okay.” Luc stopped in front of his door and slid the key card into place. “We’re more than okay.” He pressed the levered handle and the door clicked open.

“That’s…good,” she said.

“You’re across the hall.”

Clara turned and sure enough, her door was facing his. “Oh, right. Here I am.”

“So we’re checking out Daniel’s Grille tonight?”

Clara slid the card into the slot. “Mmm-hmm. See you in the lobby at ten to seven.” She slid the card out but the little indicator light remained red.

“No. I changed the reservation to five.”

“Five? That’s rather early.” She slid the card in again, quicker this time.

“It’s Friday. We’ll want to beat the after-work crowds.”

Bugger!
Still red. “Alright then, I’ll see you at ten minutes to five in the lobby.”

“Or maybe you’d like for me to wait here, in the hall? I’m really very good at pacing hallways.”

Clara ignored him, slammed the key card into the slot and hammered at the stupid lever. Why wouldn’t the little green light go on? She blew an exasperated breath and tried again.

“Need a hand?” he asked.

Green!

“No, thank you.” She pushed her way in, waited for it to slam closed, then threw herself on the bed and screamed into the pillow.

Breathe, Clara, breathe, she told herself. It wasn’t that bad. Stop being a silly cow. You are a grown adult, well-travelled, worldly even. So why did she feel like a bumbling sixteen-year-old in love with the captain of the rugby team? She wished she never found out about his career, about his gold medal, about the knee replacement he’d had after being shot in the leg on his way to the Stanley Cup Finals by some unstable fan who thought the other team should win.

She wasn’t embarrassed that she’d used her week at home to hibernate in her cubby at EuroNow and draw on the archives of every newswire service at her disposal to find any and all mentions of Luc “The Biscuit” Bisquet. She read about his NHL recruitment when he was barely seventeen, his quick rise to the top as he scored and assisted goal after goal. Her heart soared when twenty-year-old Luc was picked for the Olympic hockey team and twisted in despair at the account of a brutal attack that ended his career almost eight years later at the peak of his career. To have his dream, everything he’d worked so hard for, ripped away in a meaningless act of violence was unconscionable.

Clara repeatedly watched news footage of the event until it was burned on her retinas: Luc being wheeled away on a stretcher, the crowd in a hysteric frenzy around him as arena security and police tried to hold them back. Witness accounts, voiceovers on a highlight reel, she watched them all. Her heart broke for him. At some point during the third or fourth hour of viewing, she stopped being mad at him.

Charlie found Clara asleep in her cubby the morning after, a mound of damp tissues covering her keyboard, and assumed she was mourning Biscuit.

In a way, she was.

Yet the Luc she met didn’t seem affected by his past. She watched for a limp, tried to recall one from the last time they were together, but there were no outward signs of his physical trauma. She didn’t even sense an air of bitterness or regret. To recover from something so horrific showed incredible strength of body and character.

No wonder her nerves were jittered. She spent too much time obsessing about him, knew too much about his career and had begun to look for things that weren’t there. He was clearly over it, had moved on to a new stage in his life, that of hockey analyst.

But still…

Eyes closed, Clara replayed every word of their exchange, looking for some sign he felt as drippy around her as she was around him.

Nope.

He was all smooth confidence. Lanky, sexy, untouchable maleness. And she was squirming, alone, on a bed, thinking about him.

“Hey, Luc Bisquet, right?” Luc’s head snapped around, the familiar panic rising in his chest. His body went taut as two men approached, smiling, empty handed, harmless. Nothing unusual; fans approached him all the time. He just didn’t want to do this, right here, right now, not in the lobby of the hotel. And not when Clara was about to make an appearance.

Full of pent-up anxiety, like he used to get before a big game, Luc took a deep breath, willed his heart to restart, and forced his tight lips into a smile.

“Hey, can we get your autograph, man?”

“Yeah, sure.” Luc paused to swipe his arm across his forehead. He didn’t want Clara to see him dripping with anxiety.

“Sign this to ‘my buddy Joe,’ ” he said, handing Luc what appeared to be his hotel bill.

“And this one,” the other guy said, rummaging in his pockets and withdrawing a five dollar bill, “to ‘my buddy Keith.’ ”

Luc obliged.

“So are you here for the Blackhawks game?”

“I… uh…” Luc could feel the blood drain from his face. How to answer? No. Yes. No! He didn’t want anyone to know he was here. What if word got out?

He shook his head. “Nah, other business.”

“Oh. Cool. Well, we miss you on the ice, man. And we read your stuff. I like how you came down on the Leafs for being a totally shit team even with all the money and fan support. Eh, Keith? Remember that one? Laughed my goddamned ass off.”

Keith nodded but kept his eyes on the autographed bill, probably wondering how to flip it on e-Bay.

“Yeah, thanks,” Luc said. “It never ceases to amaze me—”

His mind blanked. Clara walked out of the elevator, swivelled her head a few times until she found him, and broke out into a resplendent smile. Luc wondered if anyone else heard the choir of angels sing
“Aaaaah!”
when she stepped into the lobby.

Chapter 12

“W
ell, I gotta go. It
was nice meeting you, Joe, Keith,” he said with a nod to each before walking toward Clara. She wore a slim-fitting black mini-skirt, ankle boots with heels that gave her a three or four-inch boost, a form-fitting silvery top that accentuated her cleavage, and a silky black scarf around her neck. And he was supposed to concentrate on food?

“Wow.”

“If that’s a compliment, I’ll take it,” she said, coming to a halt before him. “Who were those guys?”

“Oh, them?” Luc turned and sure enough, the fan boys were still standing there, as enraptured by Clara as he was. “Joe and Keith. Buddies of mine.”

“Would they like to join us for dinner? It’s always better to go in a crowd.”

“No way,” he said, a little too quickly, and turned her toward the exit. “I mean, they’re not
that
good of buddies.”

Luc insisted on a taxi to the nearby restaurant, using her footwear as an excuse rather than reveal the deep throbbing ache in his leg—damn Chicago wind.

Clara approached the hostess stand while Luc nervously scanned the handful of diners. Just as he’d hoped, at this early hour, there were less than a dozen people, none of whom paid them any attention.

“Reservation for Holmes,” Clara said.

“Holmes? Someone joining us?” he whispered to her while the hostess picked up menus from the tray behind her.

“No,” she whispered back. “I never dine under my own name.”

Right. He knew that. She had to remain anonymous so restaurants wouldn’t treat her any different than a regular customer. Once they were seated, she continued, “But it is always better to come with a group of three or four. Looks less conspicuous and makes it easier to taste lots of different dishes.”

“I still can’t believe you get paid to eat out.”

“I can’t believe you get paid to watch games.”

“
Analyse sports
. And I qualified the hard way.”

“Touché,” she said with a smile. “But I have to practically starve myself between these dinners out and exercise like a fiend so I don’t balloon up and float into the next hemisphere.”

“So that’s how you keep your lovely figure,” Luc said, struggling to keep his eyes on her face and not roam her body. “What kind of stuff do you do? Aerobics? Yoga?”

“I run five kilometers per day, three on weekends and holidays.”

Impressive. That was quite a regimen and he did recall, vividly, how toned her thighs and ass felt under her dress.

He tore his attention away and tried to focus on the specials of the day. Her breasts, visible over the top of the menu, were the most delectable things he’d ever seen, rising up, dipping down with every breath she took. His fingers itched to touch. He raised the leather-bound booklet a notch higher, blocking out everything but her face.

Immersed in her own menu, she murmured in an offhanded tone, “You’re welcome to run with me tomorrow. Work off this dinner.”

He’d like to do a lot of things with her tomorrow, but running wasn’t one of them.

“Can’t,” he replied, stretching his leg under the table. “The parts aren’t up to it.”

She looked puzzled for a moment, then the dawning, then the embarrassment, then the sympathy. He’d gotten a lot of that over the years, but coming from her, it was different. He wasn’t sure how different, except it was. He didn’t want sympathy. Not hers.

“Your knee,” she said quickly, covering up the myriad emotions with a pitying smile. “Of course. I’m sorry. How insensitive of me.”

He hated that part, hated that people looked at him like a victim, an invalid, hated that
she
saw his weakness. He wouldn’t let his voice betray him. “No, don’t apologize. I
can
run, but it’s not recommended, so I stick to swimming and cycling.”

Luc felt a ridiculous need to show a bit of testosterone. He wanted her to bestow that
other
smile—the one that made his head buzz—and since he didn’t have the luxury of showing off his manhood by slamming a puck into a net, he needed another means.

“I try and do thirty or forty miles a day on my bike.”
Liar.
“And I swim. I live close to the beach so if the weather’s nice, I do a couple of miles in the ocean. That’s in addition to pumping weights. Daily.”

Clara regarded him with an unreadable expression.
Tabernac!
He’d just made a colossal ass of himself. What the hell was wrong with him? He drove his fingers through his hair and looked around.

“So, what do you think of this place?” he said, hoping the chic decor of Daniel’s Grille was subject change enough.

Before Clara could answer, a perky, black-clad server appeared to take their drink order and tell them the specials.

“I would have preferred to come mid-week,” she said in a hushed tone once the waitress left. “Places like this that cater to young urban professionals have a totally different vibe during a regular workday.”

“So why do we have to come back tomorrow for lunch?”

“Different chefs, different wait staff, sometimes they even offer a different menu.” Clara scanned around them to see that nobody was within earshot. “There are a few things about ordering you need to know. Always ask for a recommendation. It’s a good indicator of how well the communication flows between the kitchen and the front of the house. Second, don’t order the same thing as me. That way we can experience six dishes instead of three.”

“Whoa. What do you mean six?”

“Appetizer, entrée, and dessert. Why? Do you think we should have a forth? A soup or salad to begin?”

“No, but wow. You eat all that?”

“Of course. It’s my job.”

“I’m guessing you haven’t been introduced to American portions yet.”

“Why? Are they large?”

As if on cue, a server placed a brimming basket of plump bread rolls between them—enough to make an entire meal of. Luc nodded. “Understatement.”

“Do they seriously expect us to eat all of that?”

“I think they’re just showing off what they’re capable of by giving us every conceivable choice.”

“They presumably discard anything we don’t eat?” she commented.

“No doubt.”

“We’ll just have to nibble a bit of everything then, won’t we? White or dark rye?” she asked.

Luc couldn’t help but grin. He appreciated a girl who would eat more than a breadstick and a diet soda in the company of a man. He had hated dining out with Valentina. Not once had he witnessed consumption of an entire meal. She didn’t eat; she nibbled. Sparingly. Everything was analyzed for saturated fat and calorie content.

He watched his companion choose a crusty white roll and slather it with herbed butter. Something deep in him stirred, pulled, made him want to grab her by the shoulders and pull her across the table. Clara’s luscious curves and toned legs trumped Valentina’s emaciated body any day.

“Right, where was I?” she asked. “Mix things up. If you’re getting a sushi appetizer, don’t get fish for your main entrée. And when you eat, make sure your palette is clean. Take a bit of water before each course and don’t…” Clara stopped to take a bite. She closed her eyes, clearly savoring the taste. “Mmmm… for heaven’s sake, don’t fill up on the bread.”