Yet it seemed like the GQ-worthy stud in front of her had no clue who she was despite her notoriety. Then again, she’d only been famous because of her mega-bucks family prior to her marriage, despite her best attempts to distance herself from being billed as an oil heiress. Who wanted to be known for the environment-destroying wealth buried under your granddaddy’s corn field? It was ludicrous. Her attempts at launching a career as a folk singer often got lost in favor of her family name.
And because of her occasional lapses in good behavior.
Now she’d fallen into a brand-new drama with someone else whose celebrity would drag her into the spotlight for the wrong reasons.
He frowned.
“I went in through the back—the same way we left. I usually try to avoid the morning rush.” He smoothed his tie and adjusted the newspaper under his arm, the same one he’d been reading in the restaurant. The journal had been folded to the sports section, with a photo from a baseball game peeking out from behind his elbow.
“Well, I made a commitment to work at the event today and I can’t back out just because some of the more irritating members of the media hoped I would stir up trouble.” Did they really think she’d get into a knockdown, drag-out fight at a fundraising event?
She retreated a step, ignoring the vibrating cell phone in her back pocket. No doubt someone had ratted her out to her agent who would be ticked off about her hasty exit from the charity gig.
“The media thought you would stir up trouble,” he parroted back at her, his expression morphing to thinly veiled disapproval instead of the normal curiosity or interest that usually came when people found out they were speaking to a celebrity. “Jamie M. That must stand for—”
“McRae.” She thrust out a hand and shook his before he offered it. “Jamie McRae. Nice to meet you, Mr. Enigmatic.”
His expression shifted again, this time moving from the earlier disapproval to something she’d categorize as vague horror.
“You’re that big music producer’s wife. The one who got in the catfight and lost her top.”
“I didn’t lose it. It was forcefully yanked from my body by a woman who hates my guts. And I’m the music producer’s ex-wife, by the way.” She thought the whole world knew about her well-publicized split. But maybe some people had missed the details in favor of the more exciting headline that she’d exposed a nipple in a ritzy Hollywood bar.
Before Lance could explain why he was staring at her as if she was his worst nightmare, she heard the oncoming rush of feet and voices, a sure sign their alone time was over.
Whipping the newspaper out from under his arm, he handed it to her.
“Then we’re screwed.”
The page featured a face shot of the man in front of her along with a picture of him sliding into home plate, his fist raised in the air victoriously. It was no game in a men’s Over-Thirty League. This was big time. The majors. The guy was wearing a New York Scrapers uniform with the trademark Empire State Building silhouette and Manhattan skyline.
She had been caught on film flirting with one of New York’s favorite sons, the legendary playmaker Lance Montero.
A name anyone else in the city would have known immediately, but as a recent L.A. transplant, Jamie had been slow on the uptake. There had been a time when she wouldn’t have minded a little harmless flirtation to encourage her husband to pay attention to her. But that was before she learned he’d lavished all his attention on other women instead of work, as he’d claimed.
He yanked the paper back. “You’re about to have your past splashed all over the headlines and I’m—” He scowled. “I’ll be written off yet again as the playboy ladies’ man who spends more time playing the field than—er—playing the field.”
He didn’t need to explain it. The consequences were crystal clear to her. She was about to have a media nightmare reprised and she had no doubt that he’d be raked over the coals for dating someone like her—someone with a reputation for speaking her mind in the press.
“Take cover,” she warned him, shoving his big, sexy body toward his building. “I’ll deal with the fallout since I’ve got to resurface over there anyhow.”
Tucking the newspaper into her purse, she searched her brain for how to spin the encounter for the media as the first camera appeared around a corner. She’d developed a bit of a knack for this crap over the last six months.
“If you’re sure—” His chocolate-brown eyes shuttered at the arrival of the invading lenses and she knew a moment’s regret that they’d met under such crappy circumstances.
Then she remembered that he was definitely the wrong type of guy for her. Wealthy beyond imagining. A media favorite. And if memory served—a confirmed heartbreaker.
“Positive.” With one last push to his shoulder, she finally succeeded in budging him. Or maybe he simply acquiesced.
Either way, she was alone by the time the press arrived in full force to barrage her with questions. And withdrawing her favorite leopard-print umbrella from her purse, she popped it open and took cover behind the nylon. Then, cruising through the streets like a ship at full sail, she navigated her way through the worst of it the way she’d plowed through so much other garbage ever since she’d become a notorious woman.
Although her methods were slick and savvy, her public veneer as tough as ever, Jamie couldn’t help but mourn the loss of a private life. Especially on a day when she’d crossed paths with the most intriguing man she’d met in a long, long time.
2
WHAT A WOMAN.
Lance couldn’t get Jamie out of his mind that night as he reached for a fresh bat before his turn in the on-deck circle. He hadn’t been able to resist a glance out the tinted windows of his building at her after he’d left her to fend for herself with the media hounds. He’d half regretted leaving her there all alone even though she’d seemed desperate for him to get lost. But any worries he’d had about her had vanished when he’d seen that umbrella snap open, cocooning her in leopard-print privacy.
No doubt about it, she was a pro at dealing with the press.
As the crowd at Scrapers Stadium cheered for a hit by the lead-off batter, Lance grinned all over again at the memory of the way Jamie had run full tilt through the paparazzi before they could pen her in with microphones and questions. Her moves were sweeter than an NFL running back as she’d dodged hits from every side, finding the holes in the defense to make it up field. He’d been cheering her progress all the way back to the coffee shop.
Of course, he’d been less pleased when he returned to his penthouse apartment to already find an e-mail from his publicist with a link to the online video of his morning flirtation with Jamie. He’d watched the video and instead of being embarrassed by the encounter he’d been taken in by her sexy grin all over again. But that link had been accompanied by a slew of other video snippets. Some were amusing enough, like the time the Texas oil heiress hitchhiked across the Lone Star State with a camcorder and a mission to uncover more “green” energy options, much to the irritation of her father.
But the video with the most links and the most hype appeared to be the wrestling match with her ex-husband’s girlfriend—a recording he didn’t watch out of respect for her. Beyond that, there seemed to be a whole list of film bites alluding to impulsive behavior, but he could read between the lines enough to see they were amateur bits probably filmed by people trying to aggravate her into losing her cool. At the bottom of all that, he found a few videos for music she’d written to benefit a variety of environmental causes. He’d had to dig to find those, however, since her personal life seemed to overshadow the rest. She actually had a great voice.