by Elise Faber
“Ugh.”
Despite that, she didn’t put the box down. Because she wasn’t going to lose to anything, not even gravity, dammit. No fucking way. She got that freaking knob turned and the door opened and made her way down the hall on aching feet.
But the heels stayed on, and the slippers stayed in that damn box . . . at least until she saw the trash can.
Then both the box and the slippers went kerplunk.
The thunk as they hit the bottom of the plastic was beyond satisfying.
Char smiled, feeling better already. Then she hiked her bag higher and turned the corner to head out to her car, her mind on a long, hot bath, on comfy pajamas, and a large glass of rum punch. Though . . . if she knew then what happened to those slippers after she’d gone, she wouldn’t have been nearly as sanguine.
It wasn’t until later that she understood her downfall had been born the moment she’d allowed Logan Walker into her office that night.
Logan Fucking Walker.
His specialty was devastating her life.
Three
Logan Fucking Walker
He sighed as Char turned the corner after dumping his gift in the trash.
It wasn’t unexpected.
But he hated the idea of her walking around in those torture contraptions, hated with a fucking passion the thought of anything hurting her.
Of course, that overlooked the fact that he’d hurt her.
“Fuck,” he muttered, walking over to the trash can and retrieving the slightly battered box. Thankfully, it had been the sole thing in this receptacle, the Gold staff being scarily efficient at their jobs.
And that included the newest addition of Char.
GM.
Fuck, he’d been so excited to hear the news over the previous summer. So damned proud of her. They’d met during their lowly rookie/new intern years, and to see her climb high, to fulfill the dream she’d once talked about had filled Logan with a pride he knew he had no right to feel.
Because he’d broken any connection between them.
Not just broke but utterly decimated it. Threw it down the fucking garbage disposal and flipped the switch.
Shredded the tie connecting them in order to set her free.
But he was done letting her fly.
They weren’t what they once were—untried, in an insecure position. They had long-term contracts, money in the bank, credibility in the league.
And they were part of the Gold.
Relationships ran rampant through the ranks.
Coach and player. Trainer and player. Player and player—though in fairness, Stefan Barie, the former captain of the team, had retired a full year before.
So, what difference did one more relationship mean?
And GM and player didn’t sound so unusual amongst the mix.
It would probably be unexpected at this one. Which member of the Gold would manage to tame the seemingly untouchable Charlotte Harris? Or just as likely, when would the impervious Charlotte Harris drink the water and steal the heart of one of her players?
Hell, there was probably an ongoing bet on both of those scenarios right at this moment.
The only difference was that Logan had already touched her, had already wriggled his way into her heart.
He’d just had to break it in the process of letting her go.
What was the saying? If you love someone, let them go?
Well, he’d done that, and it fucking sucked. Worse was when his life had lived out the second part of the saying. The if they don’t come back, you never had them part. Because he’d made sure Char would never come back, made sure she was firmly pointed on the trail to fulfill her own dreams.
Fun times.
Sighing, he tucked the box under his arm, forced himself to focus on the present. He wished he’d handled Char a different way, wished he’d been gentler, had coaxed her down the path she needed to be on.
But he hadn’t.
And yes, he was fully aware that he sounded like an overbearing ass.
But the Char he’d fallen for eight years before wasn’t the Char of today. She’d been soft, with stars in her eyes that were covered by rose-colored glasses, and . . . she would have done anything for him.
Logan had seen what happened when a woman gave up everything for the man she loved.
He’d lived it.
Going on almost thirty-five years of resentment (of course, he’d only been alive to bear witness to twenty-nine of them; his older sister was lucky enough to have been involved in thirty-four of them, his older brother just thirty-one). But as an adult, Logan understood a little better. His mom had left a promising career to move across the country, to marry a man she loved, to pop out several kids, and all that time, she’d gotten little to no appreciation.
His father certainly hadn’t provided it, nor bred it into his kids.
He’d been of the dinner-on-the-table, wife’s-job-is-the-housework sect, and for his mom, who’d been the regional manager of a national chain of banks, that hadn’t gone over well.
Of course, it wasn’t like his parents had talked about their problems.
That would have been too easy.
Instead, they’d set about making each other and everyone around them miserable.
Fun.
His childhood had been a blast.
At least he’d had hockey. As far as escapes went, that was one of the best.
He slipped out of the rink, moved across the parking lot in a quick clip, then got in and set the box in the passenger’s seat as he considered his next move. Breaking up with Char had been a necessity as had been pushing her away so forcefully that she wouldn’t try to get back together with him.
But years had gone by.
The present was different than the past.
And it had taken him all of one glance of eight-years-older Charlotte to know that his feelings for her were the same.
He loved her.
He didn’t want to hurt her.
He didn’t want to compromise her dreams.
So, he’d watched and waited. Planned and puzzled it out. Then he drank the Gold Kool-Aid, realized they had the skeleton of other successful relationships in the organization to model theirs after, and he’d decided that he was going to win the girl.
Well, win the woman.
For the second time.
Though really, who was counting?
Four
Char
Her bath was drawn.
The candles were lit.
It was after two in the morning, and she hadn’t gone to bed yet.
But such was the nature of hockey, of being a GM. Games started in the evening, they went late, and there were always things to be done afterward.
When she’d originally come to the Gold, she’d made it a point to be the last one in the arena, the last one at the practice facility, but that wasn’t always a realistic life strategy for her, especially on game days.
Most other days, she did end up locking down the place.
But on game days, the arena belonged to the players.
She stayed until the final buzzer rang, ran down her post-game checklist, and then got out of the way.
Micromanaging was not her style.
Char liked to have systems in place that could run efficiently without her, capable people at the helm. She’d learned this from her mentor, Luc, the GM for the Baltimore Breakers. The man was a former player and a great manager, who’d double-dared her into an internship with that team after they’d had a debate over management styles in a coffee shop of all places.
She didn’t even remember how it started.
Just that they’d both been standing in an obscenely long line, at an obscenely early hour, and he’d mouthed off about the incompetent staff.
She’d whipped around, terse rebuke on her tongue about it being a management issue, as they clearly hadn’t enough baristas on that shift.
And they’d had an argument in the middle of the shop, th
e people in line behind them bypassing them, the line eventually disappearing altogether.
Until he’d sighed and raised his hands palm out, saying, “I know when I’ve been bested.”
“Damn right,” she’d said smugly, turning for the counter.
“But I’m right about this,” he’d said, coming up after she’d told the barista the drink she wanted, giving his own order, and paying for both drinks before she could protest. “Come and work with me. I need someone like you to pick fights with me.”
Char hadn’t agreed then and there.
But she had eventually accepted the job offer.
And learned so freaking much.
She hadn’t even been a sports fan before then, let alone knew the difference between a blue line and a red line or what constituted boarding. But she loved learning new things, loved handling all the moving pieces, loved jumping into dealing with a crisis. It hadn’t taken long to fall for the game, to give her heart over to the passion and speed, the amazing skills of the huge players so graceful on a quarter-inch-thick piece of steel.
The game and community had been a Cupid’s arrow.
Then she’d seen Logan.
And fallen in love all over again.
Stupid, stupid girl.
Well, at least she hadn’t quit her internship. That had been her first instinct after Logan had been traded.
He’d ended things before jumping a plane to L.A., and the next week, minutes after she’d walked out of Luc’s office, offering her resignation letter—one he’d refused to accept—she’d seen the tabloid pictures.
Logan cuddled up to an actress.
Logan hauling said actress into his lap as he’d kissed her in the middle of a club, one big hand on her waist, the other in her hair.
Char had torn up the letter then and there.
But she hadn’t been able to shore up her heart.
That had been torn out of her chest, thrown onto a crowded L.A. freeway during rush hour, run over again and again and again. Because she’d known the feel of Logan’s mouth, of his hand gripping her waist, of his fingers tangling in her hair.
She’d been acutely aware of what she had lost.
Also, she’d been acutely aware of what she had almost lost. Her career, her livelihood, her pride in her work.
All almost thrown away for a man.
And as the years went by, as she saw him appear in the tabloids over and over again, each time with a different woman on his arm, Char had let go of the kernel of hope in her heart.
The one that she’d been holding on to that said Logan had broken things off because, while she loved her job, she’d loved him more. That he’d known she would have followed him to the ends of the earth and back and didn’t want her to sacrifice her life’s dream for his.
She’d held on to that kernel, that hope, that desperation for him to come waltzing back to Baltimore for longer than she cared to admit, even to herself.
Then she’d finally let it go.
And she’d soared.
Three years as an intern—the final two because she’d gone back to school to get her master’s in sports management. After she’d spent a year as Luc’s executive assistant, she’d taken on the official role as an assistant GM. And that was what she’d done for three years, where she’d been happy and content, knowing that Luc was grooming her to take over his role.
In fact, when Pierre Barie had initially offered her the GM position at the Gold, she’d turned him down.
Her team was a known quantity, and she’d worked her ass off for seven years, getting to know every facet and system, building a family, working under Luc and loving every minute of the challenge.
She’d gone to her mentor and told him about the offer, thinking they’d share a laugh about Barie trying to poach her.
But Luc had encouraged her to go.
To take the job.
God, she’d been so freaking hurt at first. Thankfully, she’d gotten good at containing her emotions, listening to the facts, carefully crafting her side of the argument . . . so she’d let him say his spiel and had just waited to take a turn to convince him that he was the wrong one.
Except, he hadn’t been.
So, off she’d gone.
To the opposite coast, to beautiful California, land of the ocean fog and unpredictable earthquakes. And the Gold.
Who had a fucking incredible system in place.
A family. A great support staff. A roster that was on point—albeit lacking a strong, established defensive leader after Stefan Barie’s retirement.
Great bones but lacking a bit of hands-on managing.
Pierre Barie was Stefan’s dad and had stepped in after the previous board and GM had been involved in a few too many scandals. He’d taken a distanced approach to the team, in part because Stefan was the captain and his son, and the conflict of interest was acute. But also because Pierre wasn’t a hockey lifer. He had other more lucrative businesses that took up his time, and the Gold were clearly doing fine.
But Stefan’s retirement meant that Pierre was reevaluating his investment.
And his time spent on something that was no longer benefitting his son.
Not that there had been favoritism, but Pierre had flat-out told her he wouldn’t have bought the team if his son hadn’t been playing, wouldn’t have spent so much time digging the organization out of the fucking mess it had landed in if Stefan wasn’t playing.
Now, he wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize Brit, Stefan’s wife and the current Gold goalie, or her career—especially not when doing so would fuck up his relationship with his son.
How did Char know this?
Because he’d told her. And because she was good at her job and had investigated the shit out of the Gold before accepting Pierre’s offer.
No longer dumb.
No longer letting a man make her decisions for her.
When Luc had made the argument for her to go, she’d researched and spoken to her contacts in the league. She’d looked into Pierre’s other businesses, even into the tabloids that seemed to love the Gold and their plethora of happily ever afters that evolved from within the organization.
Something that was typically a no-no at best, or at least a conflict of interest, or, at its worst, a symptom of an unhealthy power dynamic between the women in the organization and the players.
Except . . . it had taken her exactly one evening of researching to realize that those men would crawl over broken glass for their women.
And that Pierre had been very careful in the writing of contracts, as well as encouraging those in relationships to document everything through HR.
Kosher.
Smart.
She’d wrinkled her nose at that, wanting the ammunition to tell Luc he’d been wrong, that the Gold job wasn’t a good bet.
Instead, she’d ended up with a bigger salary offer and a house south of San Francisco.
“An empty house,” she whispered, closing her laptop with a sigh.
Enough with the emails, enough with the reminiscing.
She needed to plan for next year.
She grabbed her glass, the open bottle of rum punch. So, it was nearly empty. This was a no-judgment zone. If she wanted to drink her two thousand calories, then she would damn well drink those calories. And if she wanted to have more than those calories, then she’d have more than those calories—
Char blinked, cutting off the rambling in her mind. That was a lot of calorie talk. A lot of rambling calorie talk that gave her a clue into the other reason she was blinking.
The booze.
Too much after too long of a day. Too much on a mostly empty stomach. She’d been so nervous, it had been impossible to eat.
And now she was doing her best to pickle her liver.
“Probably enough, Char,” she whispered, heading for the kitchen and stowing the bottle away—after refilling her glass just once more because . . . they’d been eliminated from the playoffs, because Log
an had brought her slippers, because she remembered all too much.
She pushed the fridge closed, took her glass and her tired self in the direction of the bathroom.
Her phone rang.
Two in the morning.
And her phone was buzzing on the counter.
Which meant it was either an emergency or her mother.
Char knew which without even thinking about it. She reached for her cell and answered the call. “Hi, Mom,” she said.
“Hi, baby,” her mom replied. “I’m sorry about the game.”
She grunted. “It’s fine.”
Her mom laughed, way too chipper for five in the morning Baltimore time. “Definitely not fine, but you’ll get them next season. Oh, your dad wants to talk to you. Let me put you on speakerphone.”
There was some fumbling then her dad came on the line. “You did a fabulous job, honey. Sometimes things just don’t fall into place.”
They were trying to make her feel better, but she was slightly buzzed.
And had just lost the biggest game of her life.
And Logan had given her slippers.
Slippers!
“Yeah,” she managed.
“You sure you’re all right?” her mom asked.
“I’m fine.”
Silence.
“Do you think you’ll make it home to visit soon?”
“Umm . . .” she waffled. She wanted to visit, missed the time spent with her family, but part of her had felt a bit left out over the last few years. Her brother and sister were always together or hanging with her parents, and she was on the opposite coast, no longer fully party to all of the inside jokes and funny anecdotes. “I—”
“Will and Amelia want to see you. We thought we could all have a family dinner, maybe do a day trip or go somewhere for a weekend.”
“I’ll look at my calendar,” she said. “See how soon I can free up some time.”
“But the season’s over,” her mom protested.
“Isla,” her dad warned.
And guilt. That punctuated the buzz. “I’ll come home soon,” she promised. “I just don’t know exactly when. I have to wrap up some things here.”
A beat. “Okay,” her mom said. “We love you, honey, and are so proud of you.”
