by Kate Meader
Selena spluttered and arced a frantic gaze over the spectators, all frozen like ice sculptures. Apparently no one was stepping in because they were probably shocked that Cal Foreman was losing his shit so spectacularly.
It felt good to finally let it out. The rage about Bethany and Tommy Gordon. The rage that Mia would have to suffer—that she would think it was okay to suffer—in silence. The rage that he wasn’t brave enough to tell her he loved her so much he would tear down the Rebels arena if she asked him to.
Finally, Selena found her voice. “This is how you run things, Harper?”
“No, it is not.” The Rebels CEO closed the gap with Cal. “You.” She pointed, right in his face, but really under his chin because he had more than foot on her. “Go home, sober up, and be in my office at 9 a.m. tomorrow.”
It was stupid but the first thing that entered his head was, “On a Sunday?” As if dressing-downs and serious chats about his future with the franchise should only occur on weekdays.
“Yes, on a Sunday!”
“Disgraceful.” Selena’s voice raised in volume. “This is not a good look for you or your franchise, Harper.” She walked away.
“Selena, could you wait a second?” Harper gaped, first at her husband Remy, then at Isobel. “I have no idea what happened here.”
Vadim’s eyes had never left Cal’s face. “I assume you had a good reason for verbally abusing the Commissioner of the NWHL and threatening her son and heir.”
“Yes, brother, I do.”
“Care to share with the class?” Isobel asked, her voice not sounding nearly as calm as her husband’s. “Because we were about to announce a new franchise and its future is in jeopardy right now. What the hell possessed you?”
“It’s between me and her.” He didn’t dare look at Mia for fear of dropping her in it, though every cell in his body raged to assess her response.
Isobel was obviously incredulous. Throwing up both hands, she turned to Harper. “You want to have a go?”
“So you have some beef with Selena Fabien or her son.” She regarded him with an incisive look. “I don’t think you’ve been drinking.”
“Sober as a judge, Ms. Chase.”
That seemed to decide something for Harper. “What happened? We have your back.”
Isobel screeched. “We do not have his back! We don’t know what the hell is going on here so stop making promises about defending the guy who just threatened to send Selena Fabien’s kid to the morgue.”
“Bella,” Vadim said, soothing his wife. “Perhaps you and Harper can go talk to Selena and I could have a moment with Cal?”
“No.”
All eyes turned to Mia who hadn’t spoken since she yelled his name a couple of minutes ago.
“I need to talk to Cal. Alone.”
“Mia,” Vadim started, only to be cut short with Mia doing some hand chop gesture through the air. Vadim looked shocked, but Isobel threaded her fingers through his and after a quick, speaking glance at Mia, said, “Come on, Vad. Let them talk.”
Mia had been on her way back to find Cal, thinking that maybe she’d been too harsh on him after the auction. So he’d been a jerk about Tommy, but was there a chance that it was because he was jealous? Her satisfaction at bidding for him and watching his reaction to finding out she’d nabbed him for Tara felt strangely empty, probably because it was a victory where she didn’t feel like a winner.
That was when she spotted him at the bar with Tara and … Selena. Her brother was there as well with Harper and Isobel. She had no idea what Cal had said, arriving just in time to hear him threaten Drew.
Which meant he’d done exactly what she told him not to do.
She caught Tara’s eye and tried to interpret her expression. Had they made up? Had another one of Mia’s glorious plans come to fruition? Looking sympathetic, Tara grabbed her champagne glass and headed out into the crowd.
Mia pulled Cal to the side of the bar, away from any potential eavesdroppers. “What the hell were you thinking confronting Selena like that? And in public?”
“I needed to put her on notice.”
She threw up a hand. “About what?”
“That if she wants to screw you over again, she has to go through me.”
She tried to breathe but had a hard time catching it. She turned away because breathing might come easier that way, without looking him in the eye.
She has to go through me.
As much of a lift as that gave her heart, this was not acceptable. He had blabbed and placed all her plans in danger. She faced him again because, despite feeling like it sometimes, she wasn’t actually living in a soap opera.
“You’ve probably ruined everything,” she whispered fiercely. “She’ll never award the franchise to Chicago now. Why would you do that? I told you I didn’t need anyone to slay my dragons.”
He moved closer, his head inclined so their foreheads almost touched. When he spoke, it was low and strained. “Yeah, you did tell me. But I saw fucking red. I saw this person who put wrong before right, her own interests before those of the best person I know, the happiness of someone I care about before the happiness of some little fuck who’s not worthy to tie your skates. I know you don’t want to tell your family and that you have your reasons. I get why hiding that pain might seem like the easier route. I’ve been there.” He hauled in a breath and met her gaze head on, all compassion. “But this woman wounded you deeply. Her kid did first, but I suspect that what she did hurt you more. She was supposed to look out for you.”
Her eyes welled with tears.
“I can’t go back in time because the DeLorean’s in the shop but I can warn her that you’re not alone, Mia. You have people. Your brother, your sisters, the team. And you have me. You will always have me.”
Friends again. But no. Friends didn’t behave like this. He knew how much it meant to her to solve this problem her way.
“This was my issue to fix. I had a plan and it was working until you inserted your damn ego into it. Isobel and Harper worked their asses off for this and here you are, screwing it all up.”
“Right, your plan. All your fucking plans, Mia.”
“What does that mean?”
There was that scorn again, looking so strange on him. “Of all the people, Mia.”
Back to Tommy. “Right, you said. The sports agent slimeball.”
Curious about his antipathy toward her brother’s agent—and more than a little hopeful there was something more than garden variety jealousy behind it, she moved closer.
“What is your problem with Tommy Gordon? Are you really that jealous?”
He opened his mouth but nothing came out. For once, Cal Foreman had nothing to say.
She placed a hand against his chest. It heaved at her touch.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t be with Tommy, Cal.” If he could give her a reason, something that would give her hope that the limb wouldn’t break under her weight when she crawled out along it …
Tell me there’s more here. Tell me what I’m feeling is real.
“Cal,” she whispered, peering up at him with imploring eyes. “Tell me why I shouldn’t.”
Which is when he kissed her.
And because she was stupidly, ridiculously in love, she kissed him right back.
This was utter madness. But Mia was starting to realize that all things Cal were madness. He drove her crazy and inspired her to do crazy things in return. She couldn’t think straight around him and so she wondered if thinking was overrated. If sanity was overrated.
Madness was the only way forward.
This kiss was the only thing she wanted.
She moaned, as did he. The kiss deepened until she wasn’t sure “kiss” could adequately describe it. This was kiss-plus, a conflagration, a storm battering her senses, a distilled point of need to this precise moment in time. The only moment that mattered.
That pulled her up short and she inched back to grasp onto some semblance of balance. Kisses wer
e wonderful but you had to back them up with real words and honesty.
It was time for straight talk.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because it was the only thing I could do.”
She stared at him, willing him to make sense, to tell her the why and not just the what. When he remained as perplexing as ever, she put a finger to her kiss-swollen lips, hoping that might reveal something about his intentions. Because the man himself appeared to have clammed up.
“That’s not good enough.”
She was still annoyed with him over his high-handed interference in this Selena Fabien business. How dare he try to solve that when she had explicitly told him what she needed from him? His friendship and support, without judgment.
His objection to Tommy probably stemmed from some caveman biological imperative, a feeling of ownership over the female you last slept with. But beyond that transitory notion of possession, she saw no evidence that Cal actually wanted her. He didn’t get mad about that online post. About how Bethany cheated on him. She was finally seeing the Cal Foreman philosophy in action, the one that kept his heart intact and his life hassle-free. Easy come, easy go.
Something shifted in his expression. “Where is he now? Is he waiting for you?”
She assumed he meant Tommy. She could tell him there was nothing between her and her brother’s agent, that she’d searched her heart for some connection between them but it had failed to materialize—not like the threads she thought were growing stronger with every minute in Cal’s presence.
“Probably.”
His eyes flashed, a brief millisecond when she thought he’d tell her she had it all wrong. He wanted her, only her. He would fight for her. He loved her.
But then those same eyes went hard and flat. Lifeless. “Then don’t let me stop you from fulfilling the master plan.”
Her heart cracked at that lazy tone, the message clear.
Class dismissed.
Cal Foreman stepped around her and walked away.
27
Cal was having a bad dream.
Someone was chasing him on the ice, but not in a hockey arena. More like a lake. He was dressed in his old Royals uniform and he was racing across a frozen Tundra while someone—something—nipped at his skates.
He couldn’t see his pursuer. That had to mean something.
Inner demons, perhaps, typical dream symbolism. He became aware of it, the fact of dreaming, while he skated. That awareness should have eased his fear, but it didn’t.
A figure appeared up ahead, getting larger and sharper as he skated closer. Another skater.
Mia.
His adrenaline spiked, his heart on fire. He skated toward her, waiting for her to come into focus as he got closer, but no. She stayed the same. He knew he had to reach her before whatever was behind him did. And then she was gone, and all that was left was an empty, icy wasteland. All that was left was the fear.
He woke up with a start, feeling unmoored and alone. The word that came to mind was bereft.
Two hours later, Cal entered the locker room at the Rebels practice facility, hungover for the first time since he was in college. He rarely drank to excess, but last night seemed as good a night as any to put a few away and then some.
His early morning meeting with Harper—which she shifted to 8 a.m. in some fiendish twist to make him suffer even further—had not gone well. Harper had tried to force an explanation but he kept with the name, rank, and serial number defense. This pissed her off further, but all she could do was express disappointment in him. Like that was a new feeling.
As far as he knew, they were scrambling to ensure negotiations for the women’s franchise were put back on track, and while giving Harper ammunition to use as a bargaining chip with Selena might have helped his case, Cal couldn’t betray Mia’s trust any more than he already had.
He’d screwed up, lashing out at Selena and dropping Mia in it. He got that. But, hell, she wasn’t exactly helping her case by lying down and playing dead. Sure he understood the no-conflict approach—he lived it—but this was not the time to be rolling over.
After his rollicking from Harper, he turned up at practice twenty minutes late, which meant he didn’t get a chance to talk to Vadim. Not that he could explain anything to him that wouldn’t tell tales on Mia.
Mia, who now had everything she wanted, all her plans on track, even the one he’d almost derailed. He had no doubt the Chase sisters would figure it out. All of Mia’s dreams—professional and personal—would come true. She had the job, the guy, the life she’d been planning for the last two years. He had done his part, helping her get there, and all he wanted now was to go back to that time before he knew her. Before her gorgeous smile and smart mouth and big heart had sucked him into her vortex.
He had never been a huge risk taker, and he was good at calculating the odds of something breaking in his favor. The odds on anything with Mia going the distance had always been slim to none. If they could even get past the Vadim factor, then there was a racetrack of other hurdles to leap, not least of which was the fact that she was in love with someone else.
That was not the foundation for a win.
Now, he longed for numbness. Unfortunately emotions weren’t a spigot you could turn off and on with a flick of your thumb.
Well, he could. Usually. He could keep it bottled inside, could breathe it away. This was how he’d survived his parents’ mind games, Bethany’s betrayal, and this was how he would survive Mia.
He shook off his mood, or tried to by focusing on practice. He nodded at Vadim, who thankfully nodded back. For the next hour he went hard at it, pushing through the pain in his head and his heart.
On his way back to the bench to get water, he brushed shoulders with Durand, who of course mumbled something.
Cal stopped and pivoted. “What’s that?”
“De rien.”
“Not nothing. It’s never nothing with you.” Cal skated back. “If you have a problem with me, just fucking say it.”
Durand smirked. “What’s wrong, Foreman? Did someone say something mean about you on Twitter?” He skated up close, right in Cal’s face, and in a low voice said, “Have you had a fight with your woman? Still too chicken to claim her in public?”
That smirk still held.
Even when Durand fell to the ice.
Even when Cal pounded his jaw.
Even when someone—Vadim and Gunnar together, he learned later—pulled Cal off while the rest of team swarmed.
“Off the ice. Now!” Coach yelled.
Cal was fine with that. He didn’t feel like practicing or drills or playing his part. Vadim put a hand on his shoulder and Cal shook it off. There was an audible gasp, like no one could believe this display of ill temper, and with his best bud, the captain, too.
He’d had his heart crushed and needed a moment to indulge his negative emotions. But even in the midst of the pain, he knew he shouldn’t take it out on Durand. The guy couldn’t help being a dick. Cal could, and that was where they differed.
He turned, an apology on his lips, but Durand held up a hand and shook his head, something like pity on his stupid face. The fact he understood that lapse from Cal made it worse. Reid Durand actually empathized.
Cal was alone when Vadim walked into the locker room and took a seat beside him.
“It’s time we had this out.”
“Vad, about last night. I’m sorry.”
His friend assessed him. “Okay, but this isn’t like you. I’ve never seen you get mad at anyone, not even on the ice. Not even when Bethany called it off. But last night at the auction with Selena and now with Durand, you were a man possessed.”
Cal grasped the bench’s slats, and watched as his knuckles popped white.
“Maybe I’m not as nice as everyone thinks I am.” Jesus Christ, was Reid Durand right?
“I’ve never thought you were nice. I’ve always thought you were good. A good-hearted person. There is a difference.
”
Cal rubbed a hand over through his hair and met his friend’s direct and sympathetic gaze. “Bethany cheated on me. That’s why we didn’t get married. I found out on the day of the wedding and I didn’t tell anyone.” Except Mia.
Vadim didn’t look completely surprised.
“Wait, did you know?” Maybe his agent had said something.
“No, I figured it had to be something like that. I knew you wouldn’t hurt her so it was more likely the other way around.” He waited a beat. “Why did you not tell anyone?”
“She asked me not to. She was embarrassed and I—I thought it would be easier to say we’d come to a mutually agreed separation. No one to blame. No one to get angry at. People would wonder what really happened but screw ’em, let ’em wonder.”
That was not approval on Vadim Petrov’s face. He was an old Testament kind of guy, eye for an eye and all that. “What has this to do with Selena Fabien?”
“That was something else. Someone else. But I realized that I hadn’t been standing up for myself. I should have done that back then, and last night I lost it. Selena Fabien hurt someone I care about and I can’t go into details but trust me when I say she deserved it. I’m sorry if I’ve fucked up the franchise stuff.”
“Bella is pissed but we’ll figure it out. Harper asked Selena to stop by the office on her way to the airport.” Vadim looked at his watch. “In a little while. Selena won’t want to bow out, but she has more leverage now on the financials. It might help if we knew what it is she did to rile you up so. Is it something we can use?”
“I can’t go into that. Not yet.”
Vadim nodded. “But you will have to explain eventually. You can’t expect to have this slide by like your wedding day.”
“About that. There’s more.”
“More?”
“About who Bethany cheated on me with.” He dragged a deep breath into his lungs. “It was Tommy Gordon.”
Vadim’s eyes turned as cold as a Siberian winter. “You are sure?”
“I found them together.”
“Why would you not tell me this?”
