Secret Baby Scandal(2)

"C'mon, Reynaud," he growled, a sour expression on his face while he  took notes in longhand. "Her words don't sound playful to me. When even  the coach's daughter doesn't believe in you-"

"Hey. You can stop right there." Jean-Pierre cut the guy off, unwilling  to let him stir the pot with that line of questioning. "Tatiana and I  went to school together and I know her well. I guarantee she was  joking." He sensed the unrest in the room despite his reassurances. This  remark was the kind of thing that overshadowed games. Teams. Whole  freaking seasons. And he was not going to allow one superficial remark  to steal the spotlight from the Gladiators' hard work.

So he lied through his teeth.

"In fact," he continued, never allowing that fake smile to falter,  "Tatiana will be going with me to New Orleans as a special guest of the  Reynaud family during the bye week. She can't wait to visit Bayou  country again."

He glanced outside the glass to where she'd been standing earlier, but  she had disappeared. No doubt she hadn't wanted to field follow-up  questions. Or answer to her father.

Or see him? Yes, that bothered him more than it should. But he couldn't deny he missed her.

When they were teenagers, Tatiana had spent two years at a prep school  half an hour away from the Reynaud family compound. Consequently, she'd  visited his house on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain plenty of times  when they were younger.

The beat of silence following Jean-Pierre's announcement might have  been laughable if he hadn't needed the time to brace himself for round  two of the questions that didn't have a damn thing to do with the game  he'd just played. But he'd set them all back on their heels for a  second.

"A guest of the family or of yours?"

One reporter barely finished speaking before the next question.

"Does it bother you that she prosecuted your old teammate in a sexual harassment suit last winter?"

"Is she invited to your brother's wedding?"

Reporters were talking over each other again, firing off questions left  and right, but this time Jean-Pierre could pick out a few of them. He  had no intention of discussing the weeks he and Tatiana had sat on  opposite sides of a tense courtroom while she used all her talents as an  attorney to win a civil suit against one of his old friends. As for the  wedding, Gervais planned to marry a foreign princess in New Orleans  during the team's bye week-the week neither the Gladiators nor the  Hurricanes played. But since Gervais and his fiancée had done all they  could to keep the details private, that question would go unanswered,  too. Still, Jean-Pierre didn't mind letting the press assume Tatiana was  his guest for that event.

For that matter, he would have to make sure she was his real date for  his brother's nuptials. No way would the media interest in them die  without serious effort from both of them. Their fiery past would have to  take a backseat because he couldn't let her derail his career.

She knew the politics of this world well enough to understand a comment  like hers simply couldn't stand. She would have to help put out the  fire she'd started. God only knew why she'd done it since she was  normally as cautious in her personal life as she was in the courtroom.

"Any questions you would like to ask me about the game?" Jean-Pierre  asked, figuring he'd given them enough to refute Tatiana's earlier  remark.

His gaze slid to the Coaches Club and he noticed that both Jack and his  daughter had disappeared. No doubt Tatiana's father was giving her hell  somewhere privately. But then, her old man had always put football  before family. He was an okay guy to play for once they'd gotten past  the old Reynaud-Doucet rift, but that sure didn't make him a good  father.

Jean-Pierre fielded a few more interview questions, quickly outlining  his decision-making for a couple of passes that he'd thrown and  discussing a controversial pass-interference call. Then he was on his  feet and unclipping the mic for the next player, the Gladiators'  Pro-Bowl star safety, Tevon Alvarez.                       
       
           



       

"That was some serious grace under pressure, dude," Tevon muttered in  Jean-Pierre's ear as he clapped him on the shoulder. "You're my idol  with the hacks."

"I'm used to facing the meanest defensive ends in the NFL every week," he told him. "The hacks aren't nearly as scary."

Jean-Pierre stepped into the private tunnel leading toward the players'  lounge, but midway through, he doubled back toward the Coaches Club.  He'd approach it from the private entrance, close to where the  Gladiators administration kept a couple of offices.

Because there wasn't a chance in hell he was leaving this stadium  without talking to Tatiana first. She might have successfully ducked him  since last winter, but with her remark to the media tonight, she'd put  herself right back in his world. Now he planned to keep her there for  however long it took for this new scandal to die down.

* * *

In her professional life, Tatiana Doucet had often been praised for her  cool head and ability to organize her thoughts into a reasoned,  intelligent argument. So it seemed unfair that on the day when she  needed to make the most important and private announcement of her life,  she'd wound up nervously babbling to a reporter, of all people. In  public.

Standing outside the New York Gladiators postgame press event, Tatiana  folded a cocktail napkin into her palm and mopped it across her  forehead. What had she been thinking to spout such an offhand comment to  a stranger across from her at the ice-cream-sundae bar? She hadn't seen  the reporter's press pass-he must have taken it off. Although clearly  he hadn't turned off his recorder. Looking back, it seemed obvious the  guy had been baiting her to make a comment about the upcoming Hurricanes  game.

And she'd played right into his hands because she'd been nervous about  seeing Jean-Pierre. She'd accidentally given a sound bite that would be  all the New York sports media talked about for weeks. Her father would  strangle her when he found her. But so far, she'd eluded him. The  subterranean hallways of the Coliseum were narrow and echoed, making it  easy to stay one step ahead of a coach charging around like an angry  bull.

But while she'd put off a confrontation with her dad, she couldn't  afford to delay the conversation she needed to have with another man who  would have every reason to be angry with her.

Gladiators starting quarterback, Jean-Pierre Reynaud.

She hadn't stayed in the Coaches Club long enough to hear how  Jean-Pierre responded to the reporter who'd blindsided him with her  remark. She'd turned on her heels and booked out of there. But somehow,  she needed to find Jean-Pierre before she left tonight. Her private  announcement was for his ears only.

She'd justified staying away from him after their one night together  last winter, since their parting had been as passionate as the sex,  although not nearly as fulfilling. They had a tumultuous history,  considering their prep-school romance that had failed thanks to their  families' well-documented enmity. Then, after meeting up years later,  they'd been on opposite sides of a prominent sexual harassment case  she'd prosecuted a year ago against Jean-Pierre's former teammate.  Jean-Pierre had been in the courtroom almost every day after practice  until she'd won a verdict against the retired football player. She'd  been flush with the professional victory until a coldly furious  Jean-Pierre confronted her to inform her she'd ruined an innocent man's  reputation.

Even now, she didn't understand how their argument had turned into the  most passionate encounter she'd ever experienced, but she sure  understood his icy parting words the next morning.

That mistake will never be repeated.

She'd been cooking him breakfast at the time and hoping for...what?  That they might have a shot at understanding each other even though  their romantic history had proved them incompatible before they were  twenty years old? Stubborn pride and embarrassment at her foolishness  had kept her mouth shut for months. But tonight, she needed to set aside  her old hurts and face him once and for all.

The sooner she got this over with, the better, since she needed to head  home. Standing on the narrow threshold of a closed door in a deserted  corridor of offices, Tatiana debated where to find her quarry. Surely he  wouldn't have lingered around the Coaches Club. Maybe she could ask the  security guard outside the players' lounge where Jean-Pierre was. Or  would she be better off staking out his car in the parking garage? That  way she could be sure she wouldn't miss him.                       
       
           



       

Darting back the way she came, she turned a corner and nearly plowed right into none other than Jean-Pierre himself.