When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars #9)(27)

Afterward, they headed north to the Seattle Opera. On a bare stage, they experimented with scenes that referenced Carmen. The stylist put Olivia in an elaborate scarlet gown that pushed up her breasts and arranged her hair so it fell over her bare shoulders. The stylist put him in a white shirt that opened to the middle of his chest, tight black pants, and calf-high black leather boots. In their best shot, he lay on his side on the stage floor, head propped on a bent elbow, his other hand showcasing his watch as he balanced a football on end. Olivia loomed over him, her head thrown back, hair flying from a fan just out of camera range, her arm with the Cavatina3 extended. In the background, Henri played a recording of her famous “Habanera” to set the mood.

As the music played and Olivia experimented with various positions, he kept waiting for her to start accompanying herself, but to his disappointment, she didn’t. The vocal exercises he heard every morning had become a striptease in his head, and he was increasingly obsessed with the idea of her singing. Just for him.

Henri was rhapsodic about the photos. They were so different from any of Marchand’s past campaigns, which were nothing more than well-photographed close-ups of the watch from various angles. “These are going to be extraordinaire! Everyone will be talking about them. This will be our most successful campaign ever.”

Thad doubted Mariel Marchand would agree.

*

It was nearly midnight when they reached the hotel. In his suite, he found a pink satin box on the living room coffee table. He flipped the lid, stared at the contents, and walked over to their connecting door. “Open up.”

“Go away,” she said from the other side. “I’m too tired to spar with you tonight.”

“I sympathize, but open up anyway.”

She did, but with a frown. “What?” Her lipstick had worn off, and her hair stuck out from all the day’s sprays, gels, and pomades. He liked seeing her messy. It made her less formidable. More . . . manageable.

He showed her the satin box. “Just a guess, but I think this was intended for you instead of me.”

Inside were four very expensive perfumes: Hermès’s 24 Faubourg, Dior’s Balade Sauvage, a limited edition of Chanel’s N°5, and Tom Ford’s Lost Cherry. She picked up the card. “Rupert,” she said with a sigh. “And most perfume gives me a headache.”

“Exactly the same thing your Rupert does to me. Don’t you think this is getting out of hand?”

“Opera aficionados are different from other kinds of fans.” She took the box and carried it to her room. “There are going to be some very happy hotel housekeepers tomorrow.”

He shook his head and went into his bedroom, but as he began to kick off his shoes, he noticed that the shoulder bag he used as a carry-on was unzipped. The bag held his usual crap: a couple of books, headset, a spare pair of sunglasses, and his laptop. But now, the laptop, which he always kept in a separate compartment, was shoved in between a copy of a Jonathan Franzen novel he’d promised himself he’d read one day, and an account of the D-Day landings he was actually reading. He checked his suitcase and shaving kit. Neither seemed to have been disturbed.

He called the desk. As he suspected from the errant perfume delivery, the hotel had mixed up his and Olivia’s suites. Whoever had dug around in his case had assumed it belonged to her.

*

On their flight to Denver the next day, he mulled over the conversation he’d had with the hotel manager before they’d left. The bellman who’d delivered the perfume box was a longtime employee. The same for the housekeeper who’d serviced their floor. The manager declared them both above suspicion, and Thad didn’t argue. Housekeepers and employees with sticky fingers didn’t last long. Someone else had been in his room.

The video surveillance footage had proved useless thanks to a party that had been going on in another suite on the floor. Between the grainy video and the number of people coming and going, it was impossible to see anything useful. The manager tactfully suggested Thad might have inadvertently moved the things in his case without remembering he’d done it.

“Possible, I guess,” Thad had said. But it wasn’t possible. He liked keeping his travel case organized.

Not long before the plane was ready to land, he moved next to The Diva. “Since we don’t have to report for duty until Monday, do you have plans for Denver?”

“Sleep in, work out, eat salad.”

“Admirable, but I have a better idea. One of my teammates is lending me his house outside Breckenridge. It’s beautiful country, and if you want to come along, you can hike instead of being stuck on a hotel treadmill.”

“Who’s going to be there?”

“Just me.”

“And baby boy’s afraid to be alone?”

“Now you’re making me feel bad.” The truth was, he didn’t want to be alone with himself right now, and he also didn’t want her where he couldn’t watch her.

She smiled and then sobered. “What’s this really about?”

“Don’t make me confess my insecurities all over again.”

“You have no insecurities. You’re the closest thing there is to a Greek god.”

“I’d be flattered if you sounded more impressed.”

“You know what they say. Pretty is as pretty does.”