It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars #1)(21)

The conversation she’d just had with her doorman took on a whole new light.

“Who’s L.T.?” she asked, while she tried to calm Pooh, who was struggling to get out of her arms.

Dan looked at her as if she’d just been beamed down from outer space. Sticking his fingers in the side pockets of his slacks, he said softly, “Ma’am, it’s questions like that are gonna get you in a heap of trouble at team owners’ meetings.”

“I’m not going to any team owners’ meetings,” she replied with enough saccharine to supply a Weight Watchers convention, “so it won’t be a problem.”

“Is that so?” His country boy grin was at odds with the chill in his eyes. “Well, then, ma’am, Lawrence Taylor used to be the team chaplain for the New York Giants. A real sweet-tempered gentleman who’d lead us all in prayer sessions, before the game.”

She knew she was missing something, but she wasn’t going to inquire further. His intrusion into her apartment had shaken her, and she wanted to get rid of him as quickly as possible. “Mr. Calebow, as much as I adore having uninvited company scare the wits out of me, I’m afraid I don’t have time to talk right now.”

“This won’t take long.”

She could see that she wasn’t going to budge him until he’d had his say, so she did her best to assume an air of studied boredom. “Five minutes then, but I’ll have to get rid of my critter first.” She made her way to the kitchen to deposit Pooh. The poodle looked pitiable as Phoebe shut the door on her.

When she returned to her unwelcome visitor, he was standing in the middle of the room taking in the owner’s trendy decorating scheme. Frail, twig-shaped metal chairs were juxtaposed with oversized couches upholstered in charcoal gray canvas. The lacquered walls and slate floor emphasized the room’s cool, stark lines. Her own more comfortable, and considerably less expensive, furniture was in storage—everything except the large painting that hung on the room’s single unbroken wall.

The languorous nude was the first painting Arturo had done of her, and even though it was quite valuable, she would never part with it. She lay on a simple wood-framed bed in Arturo’s cottage, her blond hair spilling over the pillow as she gazed out of the canvas. The sun dappled her bare skin from the light that shone through a single window set high in the white stucco wall.

She hadn’t hung the painting in the apartment’s most public room out of vanity, but because the natural light from the large windows displayed it best. This portrait had been more realistically executed than his later depictions of her, and looking at the figure’s soft curves and gentle shadings gave her a sense of peace. A spot of coral emphasized the slope of her breast, a brilliant patch of lemon illuminated the swell of her hip, and delicate lavender shadows were woven like silk threads through the paleness of her pubic hair. She seldom thought of the figure in the painting as herself, but as someone far better, a woman whose sexuality hadn’t been stolen from her.

Dan stood with his back to her, openly studying the painting in a way that reminded her exactly whose body was on display. As he turned to face her, she braced herself for a smarmy remark.

“Real pretty.” He walked over to one of the twig chairs. “Will this thing hold me?”

“If it breaks, I’ll send you a bill.”

As he sat, she saw that he had finally been distracted by the curves Simone’s clingy dress so blatantly displayed, and she gave a mental sigh of relief. This, at least, was familiar territory.

She smiled as she uncrossed her arms and let him look his fill. Years ago she had discovered that she could control her relationships with heterosexual men far better by playing the sexy siren than the blushing ingenue. Being the sexual aggressor put her subtly in charge. She was the one who defined the rules of the game instead of the man, and when she sent her suitor on his way, he assumed it was because he didn’t measure up to all the other men in her life. None of them ever figured out there was something wrong with her.

She added a dash of Kathleen Turner to her naturally husky voice. “What’s on your mind, Mr. Calebow? Other than the obvious.”

“The obvious?”

“Football, of course,” she replied innocently. “I can’t imagine that a man like you thinks about anything else. I know my father didn’t.”

“Now you might be surprised what a man like me thinks about.”

His hot-summer-night drawl licked her body, setting off all her internal alarm bells. She immediately hitched her hip onto the corner of a small brushed-nickel console, sending her tight skirt even higher on her thighs. Letting her sandal dangle from her toe, she uttered her lie in a silky voice. “Sorry, Mr. Calebow, but I already have more jockstraps hanging from my bedpost than I know what to do with.”

“Do you now?”

She dipped her head and gazed at him through the platinum lock of hair that brushed the corner of her eye, a pose she’d perfected years ago. “Athletes are s-o-o-o exhausting. I’ve moved on to the sort of men who wear boxer shorts.”

“Wall Street?”

“Congress.”

He laughed. “You’re making me sorry I put my wild and woolly days behind me.”

“Too bad. A religious conversion?”

“Nothing that interesting. Coaches are supposed to be role models.”