by Elise Faber
He turned into a statue.
His arms clamping around her tightly, his shoulders going taut, his lungs seeming to stop working.
Then he shuddered out a breath. “What did you say?”
“I said—”
He weaved his fingers into her hair, tugged her back enough so he could see her face. “What did you say?”
“I love you,” she murmured.
Emerald eyes flaring, his fingers trembling as they slid from her hair and traced across her cheek. “I—how?”
Her heart squeezed. “Because how could I not?” she whispered. “How could I not love someone as wonderful as you? How could I not be so fucking happy to wake up beside you, to feel your touch, to see your smile?” She covered his hand with her own. “You’re my home, my heart. I think I knew it from the first time in that bar two years ago. I certainly had never wanted a friendship with another guy, let alone to allow our lives to become so intertwined.” Her lips turned up as she tapped her chest, right above her heart. “You stitched yourself right into here, and even though I should be terrified of being hurt again, all I know is that I trust you to keep me safe.”
His eyes glimmered with tears. “Lexi,” he rasped.
“So, I know you might not feel the same—”
“I do.”
Said so quickly that she blinked.
Her skin was silk on his hand. “Even when I had no hope in my heart that I’d be here with you, like this, I still loved you.”
Happiness bloomed within her. “Really?”
He nodded, fingers flexing on her cheek.
And then his mouth lowered to hers, and they were kissing. At what was definitely the wrong time for declarations and bone-melting caresses. At what was also certainly the perfect time, because life was messy and things could change on a dime, and if Lexi didn’t grab onto her chances, then she might miss out on her slice of happy.
So, she ignored the fact that one of the players could come around the corner of the shed, that her dad was still just a few feet away and hadn’t yet gone, though he’d stopped talking, and she fell into the kiss.
She loved Luc.
Luc loved her.
That was enough.
Eventually, though, they had to fall out of the kiss, and when she pulled her mouth from his, chest heaving, the sensations she’d been lost in dissipated, she blearily remembered where she was. Remembered the joy in her heart from loving this man, remembered the hurt and the devastation whose talons had gripped so tightly, the same claws that Luc had so deftly removed, and looked up, preparing herself to deal with her father in front of her, once and for all. She’d set the terms. She would rebuild their relationship, and its wall, its mortar and supports would be crafted by her. She would be the one deciding to let him in, or maybe she would move on with her life this time, without wondering for once why it had been so easy for him to leave her.
“I love you,” Luc whispered, holding onto that moment for just a few seconds longer. “Until the day my heart stops beating.”
Her eyes burned, but it was with happiness, and she found herself kissing him again, just a brief slide of her lips against his. And when she finally managed to tear her gaze off Luc, off his glistening green eyes, his kiss-swollen lips, and returned it back in front of her . . .
Her father was gone.
Right.
That wasn’t a surprise.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Luc
There were plants on the plane, glittering name tags hot glued to the ceramic pots, a line of them carefully buckled in with seat belts.
Luc bit back a smile then a laugh when he saw that the coaching staff had brought theirs along as well.
“You don’t even know what the prize is,” he said, pausing in the aisle.
“It’s about pride, now,” Tommy said. “None of us bastards are willing to back down.”
Luc smothered a smile, quickly snapped a few pictures, and fired them off to Lexi then settled into his seat and pulled out his laptop. Always emails. Always so many emails.
And they never seemed to stop.
But at least one of them sitting in his inbox made him happy.
And hard.
Thankfully, it had been sent to his personal email, and not his work one. Thankfully, she’d included a NSFW warning so he was able to open it carefully, no nosy eyes allowed to creep in.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t do anything about the racy picture she’d sent him, in that gag lingerie. This one wasn’t a nurse’s outfit but the maid’s uniform, complete with a feather duster and a little white cap.
And black lace.
See-through black lace.
Thank God, they were flying back after the game tomorrow.
Because he needed to have a conversation with this woman about the timing of her sexy lingerie exploits.
With him.
She needed to be playing dress-up with him.
He told her that. Both in the email and in the text he sent afterward. After which, he made a mental note to order some lingerie—lingerie he’d only give her when he was actually with her.
Then the plane doors closed.
He shut down his phone and laptop, knew that the emails would continue to pile up and that they wouldn’t be nearly as fun as what he’d seen in Lexi’s.
But, for once, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
He shut his eyes, dreamed about Lexi bending over, way over, to dust the baseboards.
The ice was shit, but the team was playing well despite the bounces that had been keeping the game close enough that neither the Breakers nor the Rangers could eke out a definite lead.
It was just back and forth all night.
And though he could feel the guys getting frustrated, could feel their discouragement when they’d pulled ahead and then had been scored on just thirty seconds later, tying the game again, they were holding it together.
The wheels stayed on.
Their determination renewed, and they went out there and skated hard for the next shift.
Marcel had been moved to the top line, and he, Oliver, and Flynn had good chemistry, but their line was the only one that hadn’t scored that night.
They were due, and Luc could feel in his hockey bone—
Also . . . that was not a term he should be using on the regular.
Anyway, there were twelve minutes left in the third. Oliver, Flynn, and Marcel’s line had been on the schneid all night, and they were going to get one before the end of this game.
Luc knew that.
Not just in his hockey bone.
Biting back a grin, he studied the arrangement of players on the ice and then settled back onto his seat and braced himself for whatever result this game would bring.
He was betting on his guys.
They’d won eight in a row.
They were on a hot streak, and a win tonight would mean they were at five hundred (the team would have equal wins and losses) for the first time that season.
Not exactly the auspicious start he’d been hoping for going into this year.
But it was something positive, and the team was coming together, and there was still half a season yet. The Breakers could make a run for it.
They just needed to keep battling, continue moving forward—
In a flash, Marcel was carrying the puck up the ice, Oliver streaking next to him. They crossed the blue line, Marcel faked a shot, passed the puck to Oliver, who danced around a defenseman and passed it back to Marcel. A quick flick of his stick and the biscuit went to Flynn, who’d trailed behind and high in the slot. A gentle tap of his stick sent that puck to the backdoor, to Oliver, and . . .
Goal.
The crowd groaned.
Luc grinned.
Yeah, they just needed to keep battling.
He didn’t understand exactly how he knew something was wrong, but the moment he entered the house, there was a stillness in the quiet.
Yes, it was late.
But, no. This wasn’t anything to do with that.
Luc’s stomach knotted as he moved through the house then checked the back yard, half looking for Lexi and half double-checking that all the doors and gates were closed and locked. They were, and he armed the alarm before he moved up the stairs.
The light in their bedroom was off, along with the bathroom light, though the space was steamy, as though she’d taken a bath not too long before.
He was just starting to worry that he might have missed her in the yard—perhaps she’d been dozing and he’d accidentally locked her out—and had turned to move back downstairs, to look again, when he spotted the line of light under the closed closet door.
It was a little late for reorganizing, though he knew she still had a few boxes left to clear out, so maybe she couldn’t sleep and thought to get ahead.
“Lexi?” he called.
No answer.
His heart gave a little pulse, and worry crept in. Maybe she’d dropped a box on herself or fallen while trying to put something up on one of the high shelves.
Frowning, he quickly crossed to the closet, opening the door carefully, in case she was behind it.
But he needn’t have worried about that.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, wrapped in her fluffy bathrobe, her hair piled on top of her head, and an open box on the floor in front of her.
“Hey, baby,” he murmured, relaxing . . . until he realized exactly which box lay open in front of her.
Her tear-streaked face lifted, devastated eyes drifting up to meet his.
Oh. Shit.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Lexi
She hadn’t meant to knock down the box.
She’d been trying to shove a bin of her summer clothes onto the top shelf of Luc’s—well, their closet—and the box had fallen.
Snooping—aside from her stumbling onto the gift bag overflowing with lingerie on the shelf where she’d been stashing her jeans and having some fun—wasn’t her usual forté. She’d done her level best to leave Luc’s things where they were, well aware that she was the one coming into his space.
But he’d taken one look at her clothes crammed into the few empty spaces, and had ordered another dresser, then had purged a bunch of his stuff, making more room for her clothing.
She hadn’t asked him to.
He’d done it anyway.
Because he’d seen that she was overflowing, that she needed something—even as simple as closet space—and he’d given it to her.
It was no surprise why she loved the man.
And had made a vow to make sure she gave him just as much attention and insight and caring back.
Then . . . the box.
And she had begun to wonder about everything.
At first, the contents had made her smile. Old pictures of him as a little kid, wearing superhero costumes, in hockey gear that made him look like a giant marshmallow. Him with his parents—both gone now, they’d passed when he was in his early thirties. Photos of him with his friends, with a prom date.
And other photos.
Of a beautiful blond woman, wearing a sparkling ring. A wedding dress. A bikini while on a white sand beach. Luc, younger and tan, posing with her, carefree and loose, happiness in every line on his face.
He hadn’t told her.
Ever.
And . . . he had secrets.
Like Caleb.
Heart pounding, she carefully laid the pictures out in front of her, studying his face in them, trying to find a sign of that same person in the man she loved.
But she couldn’t find it.
Luc wasn’t unhappy now, far from it, actually. But he also wasn’t blithe and untroubled, blitzing through life with hardly a care like in the photographs. He had responsibility, a weight and heaviness that had come from his injury, his change in career, and . . . quite certainly, from whatever had happened with this woman and her shining blond hair.
She placed the photographs carefully in a half-moon, studying them closely, knowing that she was intruding on something he probably hadn’t wanted to share, and yet not able to stop herself from digging deeper into that box, pulling out picture after picture, until her fingers eventually grazed the bottom of the container, and there was nothing left.
Except, a ring.
There, glittering in the bottom corner.
She picked it up, examining the perfect princess cut diamond, the shrine to a life she knew nothing about, and felt her stomach roil and twist.
She was going to puke.
She was going to—
The closet door pushed open.
Luc took one look at her face and dropped to his knees in front of her. “It’s not what it looks like,” he said, the words tumbling from his lips. Which was pretty much the one thing he could say to make her feel worse than she already did.
Because it always was what it looked like.
Always.
Eyes burning, she dropped her gaze to the pictures and brushed a finger over his smiling face.
So young and so handsome.
“Baby,” he said, settling on his knees in front of her, scattering the photographs. “This is old stuff I never look at. Shit that was shoved into a box and forgotten. My ex-wife has been out of my life for fifteen years. None of this means anything.” He began snagging the pictures of him and the woman, crumpling them together before she could tell him it wasn’t the fact that he had been married, but rather that she hadn’t known something that big about him. She didn’t give a fuck about the marriage, but he’d promised to never lie and then hadn’t told her that, and she was fucking terrified because if she didn’t know something as big as that, then what else might she not know?
“You’re the most important thing,” he said, shoving the photos into an empty trash bag he or she had left in the corner of the space. “You’re the one whose photos I want on my wall. You’re the one whose finger I want my ring on”—his eyes dropped to the circle of metal and diamond that rested in her palm—“You’re the one I want in my life.”
She inhaled, released it slowly.
“Luc,” she whispered, feeling the edge of that stone dig into her skin. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it didn’t matter.” He peeled open her fingers, snagged the ring, and shoved it into the bag along with the pictures. She started to protest—he couldn’t just throw that away—but he kept talking. “Caterina and I have been done for years. Nothing of her still exists in my life. I promise you.”
That made her heart squeeze.
She opened her mouth.
But he continued talking.
“I’m not the kind of man to cheat. I promise you that. I would never ever do that.”
She knew that.
His fidelity wasn’t what was making pain blaze across her nerve endings.
It was the secrets. It was the pain hidden beneath a wall of “Everything’s fine.” It was that he knew all of her hidden hurts—Caleb, her mom, her dad—and she didn’t know this.
Because he’d never mentioned an ex-wife. A divorce.
Because she’d had to tear any information about his injury out of him.
She understood not wanting to rehash everything, not wanting to go back to the miserable, unhappy days.
But . . . he’d seen so many of hers.
And, while he didn’t owe her an explanation of every moment of his past, of the things that still stung his soul, it continued to play into his life today. She could see the hurt in his eyes, the panic that made his hands shake, the fear that made his voice tremble when he said, “Please, don’t leave me.”
Eyes burning, she swallowed. Hard. Her own voice shaking when she whispered, “Luc.”
A mistake that.
She should have made the promise first, because while she knew that she loved him, that she wasn’t going to walk out just because he had secrets—no, she wa
s going to be a battering ram and get through his walls even though the bricks reinforced with extra mortar—Luc didn’t know that.
He cursed, pushed to his feet.
And then he was gone.
The shock of his sudden departure froze her in place, mouth open, words stoppered up in her throat, her hand extended.
Then the rattling of a garage door rolling up shuddered through the house.
And Lexi unfroze, feet moving beneath her, pushing her up to standing, knees shaking as she stumbled out of the closet.
Through the bedroom.
Down the stairs.
To the kitchen. The garage.
Empty.
The door just settling down against the concrete, the fumes from his car’s engine still in the air, heat lingering from the gasoline that had burned.
Luc was gone.
Chapter Forty
Luc
He drove for a long time, the dark of night morphing into the barely gleaming morning sky, until tendrils of pale orange and blue drifted up and grasped onto the bleak black, tugging it away into nothingness.
Sort of what was coursing through his insides.
Blissful nothingness.
And then the occasional punctuation mark of pain.
Pathetic. He’d begged Lexi to not leave him, and . . . she hadn’t made that promise. Bitterness, long forgotten, after he’d spent years pretending it had disappeared like the darkness of night, reared its ugly head, gripping him in its talons and shaking fiercely, until he’d had to pull over on the side of the road just to breathe.
She’d left.
Not Lexi. But Caterina.
He’d loved her so much, had needed her with an intensity that blazed through him like the sun on a blistering summer afternoon.
And it paled in comparison to what he felt for Lexi.
And Lexi hadn’t promised.
He loved her until it felt like his insides were going to be shredded . . . and she wouldn’t promise to stay.
Pain lanced through him, knowing that it wasn’t a fair thing to ask of her, understanding that with the way her asshole of an ex, the piece of shit who called himself her father had treated her, it was probably a promise she wouldn’t ever be able to make.
