So Over You

by Kate Meader

  A pang of envy bit into Isobel’s heart, but she breathed it away. She wasn’t looking for the love her sister had found with Remy, but she wouldn’t say no to the obvious fireworks that lit up their bed. Not that anything like that would be happening in this godawful club.

  Excusing herself, she headed over to the bar set off in an alcove, determined that this would be a one-drink-and-done kind of night. A plastic-encased menu listed the cocktail options: Vesna Driller, Vesna on the Beach, Vesna Slap ’n’ Tickle . . . you get the idea.

  The bartender, who was cute in a swipe-right kind of way, caught her eye.

  “Hey,” she said, pinning on her I’m-dateable-let’s-practice smile. “So what’s in the Vesna Bomber?”

  “Vodka, grenadine, and passion fruit,” she heard behind her in a tone that could freeze a Cossack’s ball sac.

  Here we go. She turned, the first thing that popped into her head skipping her filter and landing right on her tongue. “Sounds girly.”

  Okay, so no one would ever describe Vadim Petrov as “girly.” Before her stood the most masculine streak of cells to ever grill Isobel’s retinas, and she lived in a world teeming with machismo.

  “Thought you hated vodka,” she said.

  “I do.” A negligent wave of his hand said this was all beyond his control. Who was he, a mere multimillion-dollar spokesman, to counteract stereotypes about Russians?

  The gesture might have been casual, but his stare was anything but. “I was sorry to hear about your father.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” It still gnawed, less a sharp pain now, but a constant awareness of the void. Clifford Chase had been driven, difficult, and demanding. He’d expected great things from his favorite daughter, so her failure to make a career in the pros had strained their relationship.

  She missed him like crazy.

  Vadim had lost his own father about eighteen months ago. She opened her mouth to offer similar condolences, but they got stuck in her throat with all the other things she longed to say. He’d had a strained relationship with the elder Petrov, a billionaire businessman with rumored ties to the Russian mob, and a man who didn’t want Vadim to play hockey in the United States. Better he expend his athletic energies for the glory of Mother Russia. Sergei Petrov got his wish—after Vadim’s visit to Chicago all those years ago, his son enjoyed a star-making turn in the Kontinental Hockey League.

  Isobel might’ve had something to do with that.

  The silence sat up between them, the tension expanding. Vadim seemed to be expecting her to say something, so she happily obliged.

  “How’s your knee?”

  Not that. His eyebrow raised slightly. “Improving.”

  Tiptoe around his ego. “There are some special drills you could do to help with your speed. Get you back to how you were preinjury.”

  “I’m sure the team will do what is necessary.”

  “Yes, we will.”

  Gotcha! That eyebrow became one with his hairline.

  She cleared her throat. “Moretti has assigned me to give you personalized attention. We’ll meet for an hour before each regular practice and work on your skating.”

  Now that injury had forced her out of the game, coaching was all she had left. This morning Dante Moretti, the newly hired Rebels general manager, had appointed her as a skating consultant with one charge: get Vadim Petrov into good enough shape so they could qualify for the play-offs in two months. She’d planned to drop this knowledge on the man himself after tomorrow’s team practice, but hey, no time like the present.

  Now she waited for his predictable explosion.

  “There is nothing wrong with my skating,” he grated.

  “There’s always room for improvement,” she said with unreasonable cheer. Kill the boy with happy. “Right now, you’re placing too much weight on your uninjured leg and it’s thrown off your motion. We’ll focus on—”

  “Nothing. I can work with Roget.” The regular skating coach.

  “He doesn’t have time to give you the extra attention you need. It’s typical for teams to hire consultants, especially for players who are underperforming.”

  And there was that famous Russian scowl. Poor ol’ Vad was a touch sensitive about his diminished capacity since that knee injury had sidelined him for half the season. Having battled a career-killing injury herself, she understood what he was going through. The doubts, the questioning. The fear. But, unlike her, he was in a position to get back to full strength as a pro. What she wouldn’t give for a similar opportunity.

  He snorted. “You are not just any consultant, though, are you, Isobel? You are a part owner of the team. You are Clifford Chase’s legacy. And even after his death, you are getting your way.”

  She understood she’d have to get used to slings and arrows, accusations of using her father’s name and her position as owner to get a coaching gig. But that last dig about getting her way? Said as if she had done that before.

  “I know what I’m doing, Vadim.”

  “Do you?” He leaned in, using his height to intimidate. It sort of worked. “You can no longer play at the pro level, yet you insist on playing games. With me. And not for the first time. Once your selfishness screwed with my career.”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “Isn’t it? Three years—” He cut off, his anger a cloud that practically stung her eyes. “All because you put me in your crosshairs, Isobel. Well, forgive me if I would rather not trust my professional future to you.”

  Her cheeks heated furiously. Of course he would see it that way. She had been young, immature, more sheltered than the average eighteen-year-old. All she knew was hockey. It was her life, and then Vadim had skated into it, and she’d seen something else. Her eyes had opened to beauty and passion and—hell, she’d been a teenage nightmare.

  He stood close enough for her to view rings of blue fire around his irises and a smudge of pink lipstick tinting his jaw. It was hard being Vadim Petrov.

  Regularly bombarded by photos of him in magazines and on billboards over the years, she wanted to think it was easier to look at him objectively now. As a perfectly formed machine of mass and muscle. As a chiseled Renaissance sculpture that was cool to the touch. She wanted to think it, but she remembered too much about the last time she had been this close to him.

  Apologizing for how it all went down would make things easier.

  Well, not exactly easier.

  They had to work together, put aside their differences for the sake of the team. But she didn’t like his assumptions about how she’d landed this job. Or maybe she didn’t like that she half agreed with him.

  Doubts that she had right completely on her side put her on the defensive. “These late nights at the club will have to stop.” She curved her gaze around his broad shoulder to the ever-increasing line of women waiting to sit on his lap. “You’re going to need your sleep for the extra practice you have to put in.”

  He didn’t respond to that, but if he had, it was easy to guess what he’d say. What every athlete would say.

  I know my limits. I know what my body can take.

  Athletes were consummate liars.

  He leaned in again, smelling of fame, privilege, and raw sex appeal. Discomfort at his proximity edged out the hormonal sparks dancing through her body.

  “Does Moretti know that we have history? That you are the last person I wish to work with?”

  Before she could respond, someone squealed, “Vadim!” A blond, skinny, buxom someone, who now wrapped herself around Vadim in a very possessive manner. “You said you’d be back with a dwinkie!”

  A dwinkie?

  Drawing back, Vadim circled the squealer’s waist and pulled her into his hard body. “Kotyonok, I did not mean to be so long.” He dropped a kiss on her lips, needing to bend considerably because she was just so darn petite! Not like big-boned Isobel, who could have eaten this chick and her five supermodel Playmates for a midmorning snack. A group of them stood off to the side, clearl
y waiting for the signal to start the orgy. And Vadim clearly wanted to give it, except he had to deal with the annoying six-foot fly in the sex ointment.

  Why did the lumberjack hotties always go for twigs instead of branches? Did it make them feel more virile to screw a pocket-sized Barbie?

  Yep, feeling like a schlub.

  But he didn’t need to know that. All he needed to know was that she had the power to return him to competitive ice. This was her best shot at making a difference and getting the Rebels to a coveted play-off spot. Vadim Petrov and his butt-hurt feelings would not stand in her way.

  “Do you need to talk about it, Russian?”

  She infused as much derision into the question as possible, so that the idea of “talking about it” made him sound a touch less than manly. Big, bad, brick-house Russians didn’t need to talk about the women who’d done them wrong.

  “There is nothing to talk about,” he uttered in that voice that used to send Siberian shivers down her back. Now? Nothing more than a Muscovian flurry.

  “Excellent!” Superscary cheerful face. “Regular practice is tomorrow at ten, so I’ll see you on the ice at 9 a.m. Don’t be late.”

  Pretty happy with her exit line, she walked away.

  Far too easy.

  A brute hand curled around hers and pulled her to the other side of the bar, out of the sight line of most of the VIP room. She found her back against a wall—literally and figuratively—as 230 pounds of Slavic muscle loomed over her.

  He still held her hand.

  If she weren’t so annoyed, she’d think it was kind of nice.

  She yanked it away. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Who am I?” he boomed, and she prayed it was rhetorical. Unfortunately, no. “I am Vadim Petrov. Leading goal scorer for my first two years in the NHL. Winner of both the Kontinental and the Gagarin Cups. A man not to be trifled with. And you are, who, exactly? The daughter of a hockey great who was not so great when it came to running a team. The woman who can no longer play yet thinks she can offer ‘tips’ to me. To me! You may have pedigree, Isobel, but there is nothing I can learn from you.”

  This arrogant, douchewaffle piece of shit!

  She straightened, pulling herself millimeters from the wall, which had the effect of putting her eye-to-eye with him. Or eye-to-chin. Close enough.

  Too close.

  He was breathing hard, and so was she, the lift of her breasts teasing, tantalizing brushes against his chest.

  “One conversation and you’re out of breath, Vaddy? We’re going to need to work on your conditioning.”

  More of the dark and broody. More of the nipple pops against her sweater.

  Stop being so Russian, Russian!

  “My conditioning regimen is fine.”

  A glance over to the bar found “Dwinkie” biting her lip in concern, throwing nervous blinks at her gal pals, and possibly planning an extraction with SEAL Team: Boobs Are Our Weapons.

  “Getting your exercise with puck bunnies and Vesna groupies doesn’t count.” Isobel slid her hand between their bodies and brushed his abs. Good God, hard as ice and hot as sin. “As I suspected, a bit flabby with all your time off. We’ll take care of that with your recovery program.”

  He stepped back, as though burned by her touch, and she willed away the ping of hurt in her chest. At least she knew where they stood on that score.

  “I will discuss this with Coach Calhoun and Moretti tomorrow.”

  “You do that, but do it early, because I’m still expecting you in full gear at 9 a.m. And, Vadim? I’d suggest you quit with the trail of women looking to sit on your . . . knee. We don’t want to weaken it or any other parts of your anatomy. Keep that up and you won’t even have a shot at Dancing with the Stars.”

  Then with the reflexes that had once accorded her MVP status on the ice, she escaped his orbit and headed back into the crowd.

  TWO

  Isobel charged into Rebels HQ in Riverbrook, thirty miles north of downtown Chicago, on track for her father’s office.

  No. The office of Dante Moretti, the Rebels’ new GM.

  She was late, so she gave a quick wave of yes yes I’m here to his assistant and crashed through the door with her typical aplomb. Harper was already there, seated in one of the leather armchairs, which Isobel knew from personal experience were not as comfortable as they looked. In her hand was a coffee cup—not a mug, but a white porcelain cup on a saucer—which accessorized perfectly with her whole put-togetherness. Corn-silk-blond hair in a chignon, a houndstooth check sleeveless dress, black patent heels. Harper looked like she owned a pro hockey team.

  They had never gelled, not for want of trying on Isobel’s part. From her earliest memories, Isobel adored her older-by-six-years sister. So pretty, so blond, so petite. Popular with everyone. But the admiration wasn’t reciprocated.

  After Clifford Chase married Isobel’s mother, Gerry, he had abandoned his daughter from his first marriage. Harper had taken that hurt and used it as a shield whenever Isobel tried to get close. She hadn’t understood then why Harper pushed her away. Their father was a tough man to like, and while Isobel adored him, it had taken her a long time to acknowledge his faults. She now recognized the pain their father had caused. Six-year-old Harper, abandoned by Cliff, forced to live with her depressed, eternally blotto mother while Isobel enjoyed all his attention.

  All of it.

  Named after Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy, the daughter of Frederick Stanley, Sixteenth Earl of Derby and donor of the Stanley Cup, Isobel had lived her entire childhood burdened by her father’s expectations. Skate faster, Isobel. Shoot harder. You’re my winningest girl.

  The past five months since his death had been turbulent, to say the least. Old wounds were ripped open and hastily sewn up, all so the Chase sisters could get through the next few months and make the play-offs. As for what would happen then, Isobel had no idea.

  Whereas Harper looked like the model of an NHL franchise owner, Isobel most certainly did not. She’d awoken late and thrown on a tracksuit and sneakers, shoved her hair into a ponytail (with a rubber band from the junk drawer, because she couldn’t find anything else), and raced to the Rebels’ practice facility a few blocks over to meet with Vadim. That was an hour ago.

  He hadn’t shown.

  She’d texted, called, and received nothing in response. But then she saw his man, Alexei, in the parking lot forty-five minutes later, which meant Vadim had turned up for the team’s regular practice.

  Needless to say, she was pissed. And now she was late.

  Dante looked up, a tall white porcelain pot in his hand—it matched the cups, naturally—and acknowledged her entrance with, “Coffee, Isobel?”

  “Yeah, sure, thanks.”

  Dante Moretti was an unlikely GM, all dark broodiness and Italian hotness, who Isobel assumed had exited the womb wearing a Michael Corleone scowl and a three-piece Armani suit. After handing off the coffee cup on a saucer (biscotti, too—nice), he sat one butt cheek on the desk, facing them. Strong thighs were lovingly hugged by pin-striped pants. Such a waste, and further proof that God was a man.

  A former player, Dante was the first openly gay general manager of an American professional sports team. In the macho world of the NHL, his appointment as an assistant in Boston had made waves, and now his ascension to the top echelons as GM in Chicago had brought a tsunami of attention to the Rebels organization. They were already fielding a barrage of vitriol as a woman-owned team; adding a gay chief executive to the mix encouraged all manner of trolls to come out of the woodwork.

  Bring it, haters.

  “Am I to be fired?” he asked lightly.

  “No,” Harper said, all treacle. “We’ll give you longer than two weeks, Dante.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. You called this meeting, so perhaps it’s time to tell me what’s up.”

  The sisters shared a glance. They’d agreed that as the most experienced when it came to managing the team, Har
per should lead this conversation. But now she looked as though her emotions were clogging her ability to speak. In the past few months, Harper had changed. She wasn’t the ice queen of yore. The terms of their father’s will had unveiled vulnerabilities she’d been hiding for years. Falling in love had softened her.

  Seeing her sister’s hesitation, Isobel stepped into the breach. “We weren’t completely honest when we hired you, Dante.”

  He took a sip of his coffee and set it down on his desk. Then he moved the cup and saucer a foot away, perhaps in anticipation of his reaction to whatever they were about to say.

  “Continue.”

  “You know about our father’s will, about how the team was left to the three of us to jointly manage.” If Dante thought it odd that the third in their sisterly triumvirate wasn’t present, he didn’t let on. Violet refused to attend any meeting or game unless she was contractually obliged to.

  “It was all the media could talk about for three months,” he said with unmistakable impatience.

  “Well, there’s more. A stipulation in the will says that if we don’t make the play-offs this season”—here goes nothing—“the team will be sold off.”

  She had to give it to him. Not even a blink.

  “Sold off to whom?”

  “A consortium waiting in the wings. We’d get a semidecent inheritance-slash-payoff, and the rest would go to Clifford’s alma mater to set up a hockey scholarship.” Isobel looked to Harper to verify that about covered it.

  Harper smiled her thanks and said, “That’s it in a nutshell. We thought about telling you before you came on board but didn’t want to let the pressure sway your decision.”

  Dante’s throaty growl was his first emotional reaction. “Oh, you didn’t, did you?”

  “Either you think the team has a shot or you don’t,” Isobel said, already on the defensive. “The team’s ownership shouldn’t make a difference.”

  Dante looked unconvinced, and rightly so. “Then why tell me now?”

  “Because this isn’t merely any old year,” Harper said. “It’s make or break for the family. Violet will probably sell off her portion to us at the end of the season, assuming we can afford it, but Isobel and I want to continue in ownership. This means everything to the two of us.”