Secret Baby Scandal

Around him, the room quieted. The doors had been secured. Waiting for the first question to be fired his way, he peered past the reporters to the fans in the Coaches Club. All around the space, huge televisions that normally broadcast the game were now filled with the feed from the interview room. Jean-Pierre’s gaze roamed over to where the team owner sat, holding court at one end of the bar with a handful of minor celebrities and a few of the first-year players.

And just when he needed his focus most, that’s when he glimpsed her.

The head coach’s daughter, Tatiana Doucet.

Infuriating. Sexy. And completely off-limits.

Their impulsive one-night stand last year had wrecked any chance they might have had at recovering their friendship. But dammit all, just looking at her still set his body on fire in a way that tripled any heat lingering from his time on the field.

He tugged at his tie and took in the sight of her, unable to tear his eyes away.

Tall and lean, she wore one of those dresses that showed off mile-long legs. Even though the rest of the dress was modest—splashes of colors highlighted with sequins, neckline up to her throat, sleeves that hit her wrist—the acres of bare skin from the middle of her thigh that trailed south were enough to stop traffic. She wore a silk scarf around her hair like a headband, no doubt to hold back the riot of dark brown curls that brushed her shoulders. Curls he remembered plunging his hands into during the best sex of his life. She stood at the back of the room, hovering close to an exit as if she wanted to be ready to run at first sight of him.

He understood that feeling well.

The punch to his chest from just seeing her was so strong he missed the first question in the interview, the words a warble of background noise in his head. How long had it been since she’d shown up at any Gladiators event?

Not since last season. Jean-Pierre hadn’t laid eyes on her since that ill-advised night they’d spent tearing off each other’s clothes.

Ignoring the aggravating rush of air though his lungs at spotting the woman he’d once cared about—a woman who’d since traded her soul for the sake of her job as a trial attorney—Jean-Pierre focused on the man holding the microphone.

“Run that question by me again?” He hitched the heel of his shoe on the metal bar of the director’s chair and tried to get comfortable and relax into the interview the way he always did, even though his pulse hammered hard and his temperature spiked.

A low rumble of laughter from the journalists told Jean-Pierre he’d missed something. The throng crowded him, the handheld mics pushing closer while the boom mic overhead lowered a fraction. The sudden tension in the air was thick and palpable.

“No doubt it’s a question you can’t prepare for.” The reporter from Gladiators TV, a popular app for mobile users, grinned at him. “But I have to ask what you think of Tatiana Doucet’s remark to me just a minute ago, that she wouldn’t bet against the Bayou Bomber playing in his home state when you match up against your brother’s team in week twelve?”

The words sunk in. Hard. They damn near knocked him back in his chair.

Tatiana had said that? Implying she would bet against the Gladiators, the team her father coached? Or, more precisely, she would bet against Jean-Pierre.

Her father was going to have a conniption over that remark. Not just because of the suggestion that anyone in his family would bet on a game in any way, which was strictly forbidden. Jack Doucet would also spit nails over the fact that his own daughter was generating media hype in favor of an opponent.

Jean-Pierre didn’t spare a glance to see the head coach’s reaction in real time out in the Coaches Club, however. He’d been giving interviews too long to get caught flat-footed twice in a row. He wasn’t about to let the media play him over a thoughtless remark Tatiana must have uttered with no regard to who might overhear. Hell no. Instead, he spouted the first scrap of damage control his brain had to offer.

“My guess is that Miss Doucet would like to fire up the Gladiators and help us play our best, even if that means putting a little good-natured ribbing into the mix.” He flashed his most careless grin in a performance worthy of an Academy Award given the way she’d just kicked his teeth in.

Ten reporters asked questions at the same time, the cacophony making it hard to hear what anyone was saying. They ended up deferring to the New York Post reporter, a cantankerous older guy who scared off any journalist who hadn’t been around since the typewriter era.

“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.