When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars #9) - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,116

Olivia he had little interest in football unless his son was in the game. “I’d rather read. Dawn’s the athletic one.”

“I played division three varsity basketball all through college,” Dawn said.

Despite Thad’s directive, his parents had not kicked her out first thing this morning, but since it was already ten o’clock and she had another performance the following night, she needed to get on the road. As she packed up the toiletries she’d tossed in her overnight bag before she’d left Chicago, Dawn spoke up from her perch on the side of the guest bed. “I wish you could stay longer.”

“Me, too. You really didn’t need to put me up, you know. I could have found a hotel.”

“But then I’d have missed the opportunity to entertain a world-famous opera singer.”

Olivia smiled. “At least now you know I’m not a stalker.”

Dawn laughed, not at all embarrassed. “Or a big drinker, despite what Thad said. That boy . . .”

“Is a menace.” Last night, Olivia had told Dawn far more than she’d intended about her relationship with Thad, including an account of her drunken tussle with him on the terrace that first night in Phoenix. Thad’s mother had proven to be the perfect listener—nonjudgmental, sympathetic, and unshockable.

Olivia had to ask. “Do you have any advice for me?”

“I’d love nothing more than for things to work out between the two of you.”

Olivia heard the hesitation in her voice. “But?”

“But . . . I’m not saying this to hurt you.” She busied herself rubbing her hands along the thighs of her khaki slacks. “I’ve never known Thad not to go after something he really wants.”

The truth of those words cut right through her. If Thad wanted her, he would have talked to her by now.

* * *

On Friday, the day of the next performance, she took a late-morning yoga class, picked at her lunch, and nursed her pain. She wanted to cry, but she stomped around her apartment instead—livid with herself for falling for such an insensitive, arrogant jerk.

Her anger took her through another spectacular performance.

Only as she lay on Radamès’s tomb, mourning the part she’d played in his death, did the fog clear from her brain. She’d learned a lot about herself recently, things she wanted to share with him. Things he did not want her to share.

As Aida and Radamès died behind the tomb walls, she saw herself years from now, padding to her apartment door just like Batista Neri, her hair lusterless from the black dye she’d use to conceal her gray. Maybe wearing a similar pair of run-down bedroom slippers. She’d let her students in one by one, doing her best to train them, even as she couldn’t quite suppress the bitterness that she no longer possessed the voice or the stamina to sing Amneris or Azucena. That she didn’t have the agility to play Cherubino. That she’d be laughed off the stage if she attempted the sultry Carmen.

That was her future. Unless . . .

* * *

“What’s behind your sudden desire to cook for me?” Clint asked from his perch on one of the counter stools in his over-the-top kitchen.

“Guilt for dumping my problems with Thad on you.” She made killer salads and decent omelets, so how hard could it be to whip up a tasty pasta sauce? She gazed at the mess she’d made chopping a giant yellow onion. It didn’t look like the ones on cooking shows.

“You’re not too good with a knife,” Clint said.

“I’m very good with a knife. It’s just that I mainly use it to stab people. Or, depending on the role, myself.”

“You do know how to make pasta, right? You said your special sauce was a recipe handed down from your Italian great-grandmother.”

Her great-grandmother was actually German. “Something like that.”

He eyed the package of ground turkey she’d bought, along with the rest of the ingredients. “I didn’t know Italians use turkey in their meat sauce.”

“I’m eastern Italian. And instead of standing there making cracks about my cooking, would you check my car windows? I think I left them down, and it’s supposed to rain.”

“Who knew you’d be such a bad date?”

“A reminder not to pursue older women.”

“Hey! You called me!”

“Windows, please.”

He threw up his hands and headed out the back. The second the door closed behind him, she dashed for the end of the counter where he’d unwisely left his phone.

* * *

The pasta was underdone, the sauce too sweet from all the sugar she’d dumped in to counteract an overabundance of thyme