"I've got this!" he called to the fans. "Just here to see this beautiful lady."
Female fans swooned. She could honestly hear the collective sigh.
"Jean-Pierre?" She wondered if this was a publicity stunt, but that would be so out of character for him. "What's going on?"
"I love you." His muscles flexed as he held himself there like a gymnast on the high bar. "I needed to tell you in person, not in a text. But I couldn't wait another minute."
She'd fallen off the swings once as a girl and it had felt just like this. Like the wind was knocked out of her. Like she couldn't figure out quite what had happened.
"I don't understand."
"Your father will be losing his mind in the locker room any minute." Jean-Pierre glanced down the sidelines at the runway that led into the visiting team's locker room. "I have to go. But don't leave afterward, okay? I want to tell you better than this. I just..." He shook his head. "Damn, Tatiana. I don't expect anything from you. I just want you to listen."
Before she could reply, he kissed her hard on the cheek and then dropped out of sight. As he hit the ground with a thud, the crowd went wild.
The whole, entire stadium.
Because the jumbo screen was trained on Jean-Pierre even now, following the sideline antics with an up close view for everyone to see.
As he jogged toward the runway, helmet in hand, she wondered if he knew he'd just declared his love for her in front of the whole world. Then, remembering this was Jean-Pierre, the most methodical, analytical, cautious QB in the game of football, she realized of course he knew what he'd done. He'd given her a moment that was unexpected, unscripted and from the heart.
She couldn't have asked for more proof that he'd handed her his whole heart.
The total stranger in the Hurricanes gear next to her opened her arms to her, sharing a phenomenal game moment in the way fans do. It was crazy. And yet, she allowed herself to be hugged, congratulated and feted by all of section A-101, who were beside themselves with being part of a famous love story.
When they'd finally freed her shortly before the second half started, she allowed the usher to escort her out of the box and up the stairs. She definitely needed to talk to Jean-Pierre for real. Without an audience.
But now, she had every reason in the world to hope this really was the start of a famous love story. The emphasis, at last, on love.
* * *
Waiting in the wives' lounge on the same corridor as the visiting team's locker room, Tatiana could watch game highlights from the brother-versus-brother showdown. The Gladiators had lost even though Jean-Pierre had set a new career high for pass yardage. He'd played an incredible game, but the Gladiators came up short after Henri marched his team down the field with forty-five seconds left to put them in field-goal range, beating his brother by three points.
The game had been epic, to steal an overblown adjective from the excited sportscasters whose coverage she now watched. Almost epic enough to overshadow Jean-Pierre's halftime declaration of love, but not quite. She'd seen footage of his leap up to the stands at least five times while she waited for him to emerge. Only a handful of other women waited with her since the press interviews were still going on. Contractually, the players had to stay for a certain amount of time afterward to field questions.
Unless they were injured.
And in one of the kindest things her father had ever done for her, he texted her after the game to let her know that Jean-Pierre was being seen by a team doctor for a possible concussion. She'd been around the game-and her wily dad-long enough to interpret the text as his shorthand for saying that he'd officially excused his quarterback from press interviews. In other words, the coach had sprung his star early for her sake by supplying the media with the only legitimate excuse for not attending.
When the door opened and Jean-Pierre's large frame filled it, his dark hair still damp from his shower and his attire a standard issue team T-shirt, he didn't look like the bayou billionaire who'd escorted her to his brother's wedding last week or introduced her to foreign royalty. He looked like her high school boyfriend after a rough practice, a bit banged up and bruised with a scrape over one eye. But his eyes definitely lit up at the sight of her.
"You're here. I hoped you would be, but I wasn't sure." Shouldering a duffel bag, he gestured toward the exit on the other side of the lounge. "Do you mind if we find someplace else to talk?"
"Sure." She hugged her arms around herself, feeling as nervous as a girl waiting to be asked to the prom-even though she was pretty sure the boy she liked now liked her back. "How long before you have to be ready for the team flight back to New York?"
"It leaves at seven." He held the door for her that led out into a quiet hallway. "But the coach knows I might need further evaluation from a local doctor, so I'm able to fly back tomorrow if necessary."
She couldn't quite smother a laugh. "My father must really want us to have time to talk."
"He made that very clear." He strode toward a side exit and nodded at the door. "My brothers sent a limo for me. It's in the home team lot. If you want we could sit in there."
"Okay. My mother has César, so I don't need to worry about him." As she followed Jean-Pierre through the maze of corridors beneath the Zephyr Dome, she was glad to be with someone who knew the lay of the land. She was just glad to be near Jean-Pierre, period. She couldn't wait to sit beside him and look in his eyes. Find out what on earth was going through that mind of his. "I hope Dad didn't pressure you to-"
"Absolutely not." He steered her toward a limo nearby. "He floored me, actually, by giving me the best advice of my life."
"My father?" She hurried to keep pace with his long strides.
A driver exited the limo and took Jean-Pierre's bag before tipping his cap at Tatiana. While the chauffer stored the item, Jean Pierre opened the back door to the vehicle. They got in and he locked it from inside. Then he used a remote to lock the privacy window.
White roses filled a vase beside a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. The black leather bench seats let them sit close to one another while, up front, the driver fired the engine to life. She had no idea where they were going and she didn't care. All her attention was focused on the man beside her.
"Your dad surprised me. He didn't say anything when I first got back to New York, but by Friday, he stormed over and demanded to know what was going on between us since I'd been screwing up every way possible in practice."
"I didn't tell my parents anything when I got back. I was too upset to talk about it and they respected that." Her eyes scanned his face and it was all she could do not to lift her fingers to the scrape above his eyebrow. But she wanted to hear more, to find out what had gone on with him since she left the Tides Ranch.
"I was very blunt when I told him how I'd messed up with you. How I hadn't recognized what I was feeling because I was so busy thinking it all through."
"You do like to analyze things." She remembered his mathematically drawn wine labels, his lettering perfectly spaced.
"Right. And he said you don't find love in your head. You find it in your heart."
That did not compute for Tatiana. "I can't imagine my father saying anything like that."
"Picture the words infused with more cursing while he yells them at me."
She fell against Jean-Pierre as the limo took a hard turn exiting the parking garage. The feel of his muscular body against hers made her want to curl up and stay there. With an effort, she straightened and met his gaze evenly.
"That I can envision." She refused to ask him again about love. She'd been mortified enough for one lifetime on that score.
"But by then I already knew the truth. That I love you like crazy. I could tell because when you left the ranch it was like you'd ripped my heart out and took it with you."
She'd felt that way, too. As if she'd left her heart on the island with him. Still, she waited.
He took her shoulders in his hands and squared her to face him on the seat.
"I am in pain without you. I love you and I'm sure of it. This love will never go away." He stroked the outside of her arms, sliding his fingers along the silky sleeves of the Gladiators jersey she'd worn to the game. "I understand if you don't trust me enough to take another chance with me. But your father was right when he told me that you deserved to know how I feel."