Starstruck Read Free

wish… Oh, never mind. I’ll call him and tell him myself.” The old man would never waste a phone call arguing. He valued the dollar far too much—even those of his son who had plenty.
    “I hoped you would,” Ellie said smugly.
    “Very clever,” Joe said. “And what were you going to do if I had said to tell him to go to hell and take his bank vice presidency and his homecoming queen and the 2.5 kids with him?”
    “Tell him that you wished him a happy birthday,” Ellie said promptly. “I’m quite at home with fiction. But in this case, I am glad I don’t have to. Are you mellowing, perhaps?”
    “Sure,” Joe said sarcastically. “By this time next year he’ll be welcoming me home as the prodigal son. Only instead of coming back a beggar, I’ll come with a wife and half a dozen kids! Think that’d make him happy?”
    “Would it make you happy, Joe?” Ellie asked softly. “That’s the question.”
    Joe laughed and stood up, sliding his feet into a pair of tattered running shoes, his eye catching the photo of “local reporter” Olivia James, tonight’s entertainment. And tomorrow, who knew? “Would that make me happy, Ellie?” he sounded incredulous. “What do you think?” Still chuckling, he hung up.
     
     
    J oe Harrington might be handsome, charming, seductive, intriguing and passionate, Liv thought irritably as she paced the length of the Sheraton’s lobby for the fiftieth time, but he was also late. It was twenty minutes to six, for heaven’s sake! She should have got Jennifer from the baby-sitter’s ten minutes ago. And Tom would be dropping Stephen off at home a little past six, and if she wasn’t there by then she would be treated to Tom’s lecture on her responsibility to the children. She ground her teeth and brushed an errant l ock of hair away from her ear, annoyed just thinking about that. Where was his responsibility to the children? She had had the very devil of a time getting him to agree to drop Stephen off at his cello lesson in the first place.
    “That's your responsibility, Olivia,” he had said when she finally got through his receptionist. “You have custody.”
    “Yes. But if you want them to eat this month, you had better take him to cello because I’ll lose my job if I don’t get this interview,” she snapped. “Or perhaps you’d like to pay a bit more child support?” He had fought long and hard against paying as much as he did, so she thought she was safe there.
    “Interview with whom?” he asked.
    “Joe Harrington.”
    “ You’re interviewing Joe Harrington?” H e sounded as if his saliva e jector had just sucked a l l the air right out of him. No doubt he thought that the plain, jean-clad, pony-tailed Olivia James whom he had known and left wasn’t fit to interview the sex symbol whom all American women lusted after.
    “Yes,” she said. “Little old me. But don’t worry. It’s not by choice.”
    “I didn’t suppose it would be,” he said more calmly. “You never were the passionate sort.”
    The temptation to slam the receiver in his ear was almost overwhelming. “Will you take Stephen or not?” she bit out.
    Evidently s ensing her contained fury, Tom b acked off a little. “All right. Tell him to meet me in front of your place. I'll run him home after, too. But he can’t dawdle around. I’m driving to Chicago tonight.” The last was a calculated barb to prove that this negotiation was not going to go all her way. Liv had loved going to Chicago, and when she and Tom were married, they got there twice a year at the most. From what she heard from the kids, he was now busy “finding himself,” with Trudy’s help, in the Windy City almost every weekend.
    “Thank you.” She had hung up thinking that Marv had had no idea what he had asked of her when he sent her to do this interview. It wasn’t just Joe Harrington who was involved, it was the kids, it was Tom, it was her whole life. But she had done it, arriving at the Sheraton