It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars #1)(65)

He picked up a copy of Beau Monde magazine, a glossy, upscale publication with a circulation nearly as large as Vanity Fair. Phoebe groaned inwardly. She’d had so much on her mind lately that she’d forgotten all about Beau Monde.

“Our new NFL Commissioner Boyd Randolph would be well-advised to take a look at the latest issue of popular Beau Monde magazine, which will be showing up tomorrow on area newsstands and features our own Miss Somerville in the buff. Perhaps these photographs, which FCC regulations prohibit me from showing on camera, will spur the commissioner to have a serious discussion with Miss Somerville about her responsibilities to the NFL.”

His brows drew together in the studied outrage of a reporter trying to pump up his Nielsen’s. “Professional football has worked hard at cleaning up its image after the drug and gambling scandals of the past. But now a young woman with no interest in the game wants to drag it right through the dirt again. Let’s hope that Commissioner Randolph won’t let that happen.”

Dan pointed his finger toward the announcer. “Isn’t that weasel one of Reed’s buddies?”

“I believe so.” The broadcast had come to an end, and Ron hit the switch on the remote control.

“Chandler’s a real prince,” Dan muttered in disgust. He snatched up the manila envelope that lay on the table, and Phoebe’s outrage gave way to a sinking sense of dread.

“My secretary just gave it to me,” Ron said. “I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.”

Dan whipped out the magazine. Phoebe wanted to take it away from him, but she knew that would only postpone the inevitable. A page ripped as he began thumbing through it, searching for the offending photographs.

“Why bother?” she sighed. “You’ve already seen everything I’ve got.”

Ron winced. “It’s true then? You really were together in his hotel room.”

Dan turned on her. “Why don’t you just hire the Goodyear blimp so you can announce it to the whole world?”

Her fingers trembled as she cupped her now cold coffee mug. “It’s not going to happen again, Ron, but you need to know the truth.”

He looked at her like a worried father confronting a well-loved, but ill-behaved child. “I blame myself. It never occurred to me to talk to you about the impropriety of fraternizing with Dan. I should have realized— This, coupled with the photographs, is going to be a public relations nightmare. Didn’t you realize that posing nude for a magazine, even a respectable one like Beau Monde, would embarrass the team?”

“I posed for those photographs in June, a month before I inherited the Stars. With everything that’s happened, I’d forgotten about them.”

Dan still hadn’t found the photographs. He gritted his teeth. “I’m telling you this, Ronald. If we get any calls from Playboy, you’d better tie her down and gag her, because she’ll be buck naked and airbrushed before you know it.”

Abruptly, he stopped flipping and stared. Then he began to curse.

Phoebe hated the need she felt to defend herself. “Those photographs were done by Asha Belchoir, one of the most respected photographers in the world. She also happens to be a friend of mine.”

Dan whapped the page with the back of his hand. “You’re painted!”

Ron reached out. “May I?”

Dan tossed the magazine on the table as if it were a piece of garbage. It landed open, revealing a double page spread of Phoebe reclining in front of Flores’s “Nude #28,” a surrealistic portrait he had done of her not long before his death. Superimposed on Phoebe’s naked body was an exact reproduction of the section of the painting that her reclining form covered. The effect was beautiful, eerie, and erotic.

Ron turned the page to reveal an enlarged photograph of Phoebe’s breast, its nipple puckered beneath a coating of chalk white paint. Her skin had become a surrealistic canvas for miniature blue silhouettes of other breasts executed in Flores’s characteristic style.

The final photograph was a full-length vertical nude taken from the rear. She was lifting her hair, knee bent, one hip slightly outthrust. Her unpainted skin formed a canvas for black and crimson handprints on her shoulder, the dip of her waist, the curve of her buttock, the back of her thigh.

Dan jabbed at the magazine photo with his index finger. “Some man must have had a good time doing that to you!”

Phoebe didn’t take time to consider that his anger seemed out of proportion for someone who was trying so hard to distance himself from her. “Men, darling. One for each color.” It was a lie. The body artist had been a pudgy, middle-aged woman, but he didn’t have to know that.

Ron picked up his pen and tapped it on the tabletop. “Phoebe, I’ve scheduled a press conference for both of us at one o’clock. Wally Hampton in PR will brief you. Dan, I want you to stay out of sight until tomorrow. When the press finally catches up with you, don’t comment on anything except the game. You know how to handle it. And unless you want the story to end up on the front page, keep your fists in your pockets if any reporter has the nerve to bring up the hotel room incident to your face.”

She rose from her chair. “No press conference, Ron. I told you from the beginning that I won’t do interviews.”

Dan’s lips twisted. “If you give her permission to strip first, I bet she’ll do it.”