When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars #9)(38)

The strength of her defense took him by surprise, and the pressure on her arm eased for a few seconds, but still, he didn’t let her go. Her shoulders hit the shelves as she torqued her body and kicked out, only to have her tight skirt imprison her. He released her arms to grab her around the chest, which gave her the seconds she needed to yank up her skirt and lash out again with her leg.

The blow from her knee landed with lucky precision. He yowled and buckled. She kicked again, aiming for his groin. This time she didn’t connect, but she got close enough that he began backing away. She targeted his knees. Connected with one of them.

The struggle must finally have penetrated Arman’s impaired eardrums because he called upstairs. “Madame Shore? Did you find the Scarlatti?”

Whether it was from the old man’s interruption or the struggle she’d put up, her assailant backed off. She went after him, following the thud of his footsteps until a shard of light from the stairs illuminated his shadowy silhouette.

Only then did she realize the old bookseller might still be standing at the bottom. “Arman!” she cried. “Get out of the way!”

“What did you say?” the old man shouted.

She got to the top of the stairs just in time to see the dark figure of the intruder hit the bottom steps and shove the old man aside. As Arman crumpled to the floor, the intruder ran for the bookstore door.

“Arman!” She flew down the stairs and knelt beside him. “Arman, are you all right?” If anything had happened to him because of her . . .

He sat up slowly. “Madame . . . ?”

Her cell was in the purse she’d dropped upstairs, along with the Scarlatti manuscript. She made a dash for the landline phone on the wooden counter and called the police.

*

Miraculously, Arman seemed to have been unhurt, but an ambulance took him to the hospital to be checked. Thad was waiting for her at the police station after she’d made her report. As soon as they were outside, he lit into her as if she were a wayward teenager who’d violated curfew. “We had an agreement! You weren’t supposed to go anywhere without either Henri or me. How could you do something so idiotic?”

Her hand hurt from the punch she’d delivered. She’d ripped her dress, bruised her shoulder. She was drained and too shaken by what had happened to remind him they had no such agreement, and he should shut the hell up. He finally seemed to realize she was in no shape for a lecture because he draped his arm around her and said no more.

Henri canceled the evening events, and Olivia slipped away to her room. After she’d reassured herself that Arman wasn’t harmed, she took a long soak in the tub and slipped into her yoga pants and a loose top.

When she emerged from her bedroom, she found Thad sitting on the couch talking on the phone with a baseball game muted on the television. However annoying his lecturing might be, she knew his concern was genuine.

He quickly ended the call. “This is a hell of a way to avoid another of those client dinners.”

“No more lectures, okay?” She sat on the couch, leaving one seat cushion between them.

“No more lectures. As long as you promise not to take off again until this is settled.”

“I’m not irresponsible.” She held up her hand before he could argue the point. “That store is a treasure trove.” She told him about the autographed Josephine Baker photograph she’d bought and the Scarlatti manuscript. “I’ve been thinking . . . What if there was something in the store the thief wanted? Maybe even the Scarlatti? Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You’re suggesting this was coincidence? A thief decided to burglarize the store at the exact moment you were there instead of walking in like a normal customer, finding what he wanted, and bargaining for it? Are the old man’s prices that high?”

She knew her explanation was far-fetched, but she tried to defend it with a shrug.

Thad bore down. “How much was he charging for that Scarlatti manuscript?”

“I don’t know . . . A couple of hundred,” she muttered.

“Well, there you go. A big prize in the rare manuscript black market.” He plowed his hand through his hair, barely disturbing a single strand. “I know you don’t want to believe you’re a target, Liv, but look at the evidence. Threatening letters, an eerie phone call, the T-shirt, and now this.”

“The only people who hold a grudge against me are Adam’s sisters, and they live in New Jersey. Besides, that wasn’t a woman who attacked me.”

“They could have hired someone, and even you can’t deny that you’re somebody’s target.”

He was right, but she slouched deeper into the couch cushions. “Don’t you have some football buddies in town to go drinking with?”

“I’m not going anywhere tonight.”

She started to tell him she had no need of a bodyguard, but that didn’t exactly seem to be true, so she told him to turn up the volume on the baseball game instead.

“You know anything about baseball?” he asked.

“I’ve watched A League of Their Own at least a dozen times.”

“An authority, then.”

“I’ll explain anything you don’t understand.”

*

As he came out of his room the next morning, The Diva was doing her daily vocalizing. The night before, she’d escaped to her bedroom after the sixth inning, leaving him alone with the remote control, a baseball game he didn’t care about, and his thoughts. When this tour had started two weeks ago, he’d anticipated doing nothing more than what he’d signed up for. Now, here he was, enmeshed in a situation he couldn’t control.