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it,” Angela said. “They’re going to keep calling until you tell them they have the wrong number.”
    “You’re right,” Paige said. She answered the phone. “Hello.”
    There was a slight pause, then, “Is this Olivia Paige Turner?”
    Paige’s stomach pitched and rolled. She instantly recognized that deep voice.
    “Who is it?” Angela asked before taking a huge bite of her sandwich.
    Paige shushed her, then spoke into the phone. “Yes, Mr. Smallwood, it is. And I go by Paige, not Olivia.”
    Angela’s eyes bugged. She started choking.
    Paige rolled her eyes.
    “I guess you know why I’m calling,” Torrian said.
    “I have an idea,” Paige answered. “What I don’t know is how you managed to get hold of my personal cell number.”
    “I called in a favor,” he answered. Paige was inclined to believe him. She knew how things worked with these professional athletes. They were treated like royalty. Torrian Smallwood probably had people indebted to him all over this city.
    “And why would you waste one of your precious favors on obtaining my phone number when you have no problem contacting me through my blog?”
    “I think enough has been said on your blog,” he replied.
    Angela was waving at her like a maniac on crack. Paige waved her off.
    “I don’t know,” Paige answered. “You haven’t called my mother names yet. That’s usually the next step in the little junior high game you’re playing.”
    “I don’t want to play any games with you, Paige.” The sound of his deep voice saying her name traveled down her spine like warm honey. “I just want you to delete that stuff on your Web site, so this can all go away. It’s gone too far.”
    “I don’t recant my reviews,” she said “And, to be fair, you’re the one who started this little war.”
    “Just what did you expect after tearing my book apart the way you did?” His voice had lost a bit of its hostility. He sounded genuinely disappointed.
    “I’m sorry you did not agree with my review, but I have to be honest,” Paige said. “The book was weakly written. In my opinion, it lacked depth.”
    “Fine,” came his exasperated sigh. “You’re entitled to your opinion, and maybe I shouldn’t have said some of the things I said on your blog. But can we please just end this? In fact, why don’t you let me take you to dinner to make up for the way I’ve acted?”
    His dinner invitation took her by surprise. If she went to dinner with him, all of New York would think the cutthroat Paige Turner had fallen under Torrian Smallwood’s spell. Though God knows she was close to falling.
    ‘I can’t,” Paige answer, her good sense warring with her heart. There was nothing she wanted to do more than accept his invitation to dinner.
    “Come on, Paige. It’s just dinner.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said, ending the call.
    With a deadpan look on her face, Angela said, “Well, that went well.”

Chapter 5
     
    “T hat went well,” Torrian snorted.
    He’d promised four tickets to this weekend’s game against Denver in return for Paige’s cell phone number, and had blown the call, big time.
    This entire situation was driving him crazy. But what had him even more frustrated than Paige’s insistence that their little online squabble remain public was his undeniable attraction to her. After the shots she’d taken at him on her blog, Paige was the last woman he should be attracted to, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
    After a mental journey through his past relationships, Torrian had zeroed in on the one thing that made Paige so different from all those other women.
    Honesty.
    So many of the women he’d dated had tried to make themselves into what they thought he wanted them to be, or what society thought the girlfriend of an NFL player should be. Torrian had never gotten to know who they truly were. Paige Turner was different. His celebrity didn’t stop her from telling him exactly what was on her mind. It was definitely a