Hotter on Ice

by Rebecca Hunter

  “What the hell does that look mean?” she snapped.

  At first she thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he whispered, “I’m just looking at you. So I remember.”

  Alya closed her eyes, pushing away the urge to cry. Because it wouldn’t do a thing. So instead, she turned away and tried to get up. Unfortunately, her feet were stuck under her, and she tumbled back into the snow with an undignified plop. Why was she having this conversation with these damn skis on? She rolled around, her skis in the air, until they were pointing in the right direction. Then, using her poles, she managed to get herself upright and standing. Henning was watching the whole time, of course.

  “I’ll still be there to protect you. That will never change.” His voice was soft. “If you change your mind. If you need a bodyguard at that event next weekend. I can...” He paused. “I can come home with you, too, if you want me there.”

  God, this was torture. He was offering to go back to the way they’d begun this trip. This was his compromise?

  “I don’t want you as a bodyguard or as a fuck buddy, Henning,” she said, looking up at the gray sky. “What makes me angry is that at some point, I know I’ll actually be tempted. But I’m making myself hold out for something better. For someone who thinks it’s worth the risk to fall in love with me for real.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  YOU DESERVE TO be free.

  Alya had found the note lying on top of her clothes when she unzipped her suitcase back in her Sydney apartment. Just these five words, written in Henning’s blocky script. She had spent an embarrassing amount of time staring down at them for the second day in a row. The painful twist of her gut each time she looked had dulled, leaving room for other emotions churning in her stomach. Warmth. Longing. Desire. But frustration and anger overshadowed all of those.

  Why the hell did he write these words to her? Henning Fischer wasn’t an impulsive man, so he would have carefully planned these five words, planned the method of delivery, so she wouldn’t discover them until after they had parted. She could picture that intense look on his face as he deliberated how to convey what he felt while minimizing his risk. He must have slipped the paper into her baggage when he took it out to the rental car, back at the Icehotel. She could see him, taking off his gloves, exposing them to the cold air he hated so much, just to avoid saying the words to her face.

  She had opened the Pandora’s box of her heart, and his response was to try to help her shove it all back in. Try to go back to the way she used to be. To the way they used to be. Hell, no. She had had enough of backtracking.

  A knock at her bedroom door startled her out of her thoughts.

  “It’s me,” said her sister from the hallway. “Can I come in?”

  “Of course.” Alya smoothed her hair and checked to see if her cheeks were flushed.

  Her sister opened the door, and her eyes went instantly to the paper in Alya’s hand. Too late to hide it. “Sulking again?”

  Alya sighed. “Maybe.”

  “I suspected as much. So I brought you the solution to all problems,” said Natasha, nodding toward the hall, her eyes sparkling. “Ice cream. Join me?”

  Alya’s mouth twitched up. “You’re making it hard to maintain my sulky frown.”

  She followed her sister into the kitchen and took a seat at the countertop bar. Natasha took two bowls from the cabinet and headed for the freezer.

  “Are you sure you want to go to the fund-raiser alone tonight?” Natasha asked, setting the chocolate ice cream on the countertop between them. “I wish we could all go together, but Max and I have to be there early. One of the many adventures of dating a famous Jensen family member.”

  Alya narrowed her eyes at her sister. “Did Max get you to ask me about going alone?”

  “What?” Natasha frowned. “No. It’s just that the event is so public. And after those Behind the Runway clips got so much attention...well, you’ll be in the spotlight, I’m sure. I know that’s not your favorite thing.” She pulled out spoons from the drawer and started scooping.

  “A week ago, I would have cared.” Alya leaned her elbows on the counter and sighed. “Now I’m tired of making my decisions that way, based on my past. I thought it was just about Nick, but it’s more than that.”

  Natasha took a bite off her spoon and nodded. “Explain.”

  “When we came to Australia, I put my life on hold for three years, shaped it around avoiding Nick.” She paused for a mouthful of ice cream. “Staying out of the media, even when it would have benefitted my career, setting up a security camera in our apartment—which, by the way, I took down this morning.”

  A flush rushed to her cheeks as she thought about the other reason she had taken it down. Knowing that Henning could be watching her—watching but still staying away—was torture.

  “Yeah, Max called me about it,” said Natasha, scooping out another bite. “I figured that’s what happened.”

  “And then I let my relationship with Stewart drag out for months, just so I wasn’t alone,” she said.

  Her ex-boyfriend was a male model, not the thin, androgynous type, but bigger, bulkier, with tattoos and scruff. Yes, he was hot, but long before their breakup, Alya had tired of Stewart’s endless chatter about protein shakes and bench press maxes. But the lack of connection, the lack of drama had actually been a relief after Nick.

  “Well, Henning definitely isn’t Stewart.”

  Alya rolled her eyes. “That’s for sure. But I want a different life. One that’s not carefully constructed so I can avoid my fears. One where I’m actually living my life.”

  Natasha smiled. “I approve.”

  “Aww, thanks,” Alya said dryly.

  “For the record, I’m in favor of the idea of going alone, as long as you really want that,” said Natasha, her spoon clattering in her bowl.

  “Me, too,” she said. “But the truth is, I miss Henning. A lot. Enough to consider some bad ideas.”

  “Like what?”

  The heat pulsed to Alya’s cheeks again. “Last night, I missed him so much that I was actually entertaining the idea of calling him, late at night, for a little pick-me-up. Grabbing at the scraps he offered.”

  Natasha laughed. “That idea has some pros, you know.”

  “Yeah, I’m well aware of the benefits.” She shook her head. “But I’d be letting him into my life under his conditions. That’s been my problem all along. I’ve been willing to compromise far too much. No. I deserve more than he wants to give. I’m not compromising, just for amazing sex.”

  Natasha raised her eyebrows, and Alya sighed.

  “It was really, really, really good.”

  * * *

  Henning stood in front of his sister’s door and swiped a hand over his face. Uncles don’t miss their nieces’ birthdays. If it had been anything else, he would have said no, but he couldn’t say no to Molly. Still, Henning stood at the front door of Suzanne and Kenny’s quaint suburban home in the sweltering morning heat, unable to get himself together for a five-year-old’s birthday party.

  Tonight was the fund-raiser, and he wasn’t going. He hadn’t spoken to Alya since he left her at her doorstep, hadn’t even seen her through the security feed. Max was the one who confirmed she had taken down the camera.

  The last few days had been hell, alone in his office, sitting at his computer. At Alya’s request, he had dismantled other parts of the system he had set in place for her safety over the last three years. He knew it was coming, but he just hadn’t expected the camera from her apartment to go away so soon. It was supposed to be the way he could still check in on her, make sure she was okay even if she was keeping her distance.

  He thought he would be relieved to get out of the cold, back to the summer heat of Sydney, but he was wrong. Nothing about this week felt like relief.

  But nieces still had birthdays, eve
n when the last remnants of his twisted heart were bleeding out. Fuck, he was turning into a sappy bastard. It was time to put himself aside and eat cake and paint his fingernails, or whatever Molly had planned for him.

  Henning straightened up and knocked on the front door. Molly opened it immediately.

  “Uncle Henning!” The pint-size ball of energy made a running jump into his arms, and he picked her up and swung her around in a circle.

  “It’s the birthday girl,” he said, but his voice came out like it was full of gravel. Christ, how long had it been since he had spoken aloud?

  “I saw you standing there in the window,” she said. “Mummy said not to disturb you. What were you doing?”

  Henning winced. “I was just thinking about...the place I got your birthday present.”

  It was as close as he could come to the truth.

  She was hanging on around his neck, and she pulled back in his arms, her eyes wide. “Can I open it?”

  “Of course. It’s your day,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. He set her down and handed over the present.

  “Wait for everyone to see it, Molly.” His sister’s voice came from somewhere in the house. “Let Uncle Henning come in.”

  Molly grabbed his hand and tugged him inside. “We’re having hotdogs and chips and carrot sticks and marshmallows and apple juice,” she said, leading him into the kitchen.

  Suzanne was standing at the stove, pulling the hotdogs out of the boiling water. Henning walked over and kissed her on the cheek. “Hotdogs and hot chips. My favorite brunch menu.”

  “Me, too,” said Suzanne, rolling her eyes.

  “Me, too,” Molly echoed with a little squeal of joy. “I’m going to go tell Daddy and Liam to come downstairs. And then I can open my present, right, Mummy?”

  She ran out before the answer came. Suzanne turned around, giving him the older sister assessment. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” he grumbled, knowing she could see he was so obviously not fine.

  Henning sat down at the kitchen table, but Suzanne was still watching him like a hawk. Finally she sighed. “I watched the show.”

  Henning gritted his teeth. The YouTube snippets from the Icehotel. The footage he had resisted watching all week, knowing there would be glimpses of Alya. Those few days together were captured on film, suspended in time for him to relive, over and over, if he let himself.

  “It’s Alya Petrova, isn’t it?” his sister said softly. “The reason why you went. She’s the only one from Sydney, the only one it could be.”

  Henning pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “If that woman did anything to hurt you...”

  Henning gave a short bark of laughter. “You’ll what? Meet her in the middle of Main Street at high noon?”

  Apparently, the role of older sister didn’t expire, even into adulthood, because she didn’t smile. “She hurt you. I can see it.” Suzanne crossed the kitchen and sat in the chair next to him. “I can’t believe she did that, not when—”

  “Enough,” he grumbled. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was the one who messed it all up. Not Alya.”

  “What?” Suzanne pulled back and stared at him like he was crazy. “What the hell, Henning? You barely leave your apartment for five years, and then you travel across the world just for a woman—and not just any woman but Alya Petrova—and you mess it up?”

  So much for the protective sister thing. “Thanks, Suzanne. Great summary of my life.”

  She shook her head, slowly, her forehead wrinkled. “But why? If you simply weren’t into her, then fine, I’d accept that, but I can see that’s not the problem.”

  “You’d accept that? Thanks again,” he said dryly. “Can we not talk about this, please?”

  Thank God Molly ran back in, cutting off their conversation. Kenny followed on her heels, with Liam asleep in his arms. Molly climbed up on Henning’s lap and kissed him on the cheek, on his scars. It didn’t usually bother him, not from her at least, but the last person to touch him there was Alya.

  “Now can I open my presents?”

  “You better ask your mum, sweetheart.”

  The moment Suzanne nodded, Molly grabbed the present, her chubby little fingers tearing at the wrapping paper. She opened the little box and pulled out the tiara. “A princess crown,” she whispered, her eyes wide in amazement. “A real one. Mummy, he got me a real princess crown.”

  Molly put it on her head and scrambled onto her feet, wandering around the kitchen. She turned around and curtsied for her audience. “Did you get it from a castle?”

  Henning smiled at her. “No, sweetheart. It’s actually from a friend.”

  “The friend you were with? Mummy showed me on YouTube.”

  Even his niece knew about Alya? Henning swallowed back a fist-size lump in his throat. “How do you know about YouTube?” he asked, his voice wavering.

  “I can do it myself,” she said, her eyes shining. “I’ll show you.”

  I can do it myself. Molly’s favorite line. He started to protest, but she had already run off. Henning rubbed his temples. Shit. He really did not want to see this video, but how did he explain that to Molly without disappointing her on her birthday? He looked up at Suzanne in a silent plea, but she was giving him a strange look. No, his sister was definitely not going to help him out with this.

  Molly returned a moment later with a little tablet, which she laid on the table. She climbed onto his knee and bent over the device, scrolling until she pulled up the video. Damn, the girl could barely read, but she knew how to find videos on YouTube.

  “Do you really know how to do that by yourself?” he asked softly.

  She smiled brightly, bursting with pride.

  And then it was on, and he was back there at the Icehotel. The clip was from inside one of the cold rooms—the beds, the sculptures and even the damn reindeer pelts were all in view. He could see everything, feel everything. He could feel her.

  “Mummy and me looked for you, but we didn’t see you,” she said. “Why not?”

  Henning searched for an answer that a five-year-old could understand, but he was coming up with nothing.

  Molly had already turned back to the screen. “Here she is, here she is. Mummy said she thought this was your friend.”

  And then Alya was there. On the screen. It was the day of the photo shoot, and the Viking bed was in the background. The clip started with her laughing at something that was said off camera. God, she was lovely. After spending all those days with her, it shouldn’t have caught him off guard, but seeing her took his breath away.

  The sound of her laughter hit him hard. The weight of the last few days without her crashed down on him, and his body felt so heavy, too heavy to even move. He was in love with Alya, and he couldn’t have found a less suitable match if he had chosen deliberately. This amazing woman was everything he wasn’t. Everything he didn’t deserve, especially after that last day together.

  Molly was expertly skimming through the video until she found a little snippet from an interview. It was from the last day, and he had waited in the lobby instead of following her into where they had set up a makeshift studio. Alya was answering a question about Federov’s style, but Henning barely heard a word of what she said. All he saw were those big, blue eyes, those lips, her skin—so soft, he could still feel it under his fingers. He would never stop aching for this woman.

  “Is she really a princess?” asked Molly, interrupting this downhill train of thought. “Is she magical?”

  Henning felt the uninjured corner of his mouth tug up, despite everything. “Are princesses magical?”

  Molly nodded eagerly, her eyes wide.

  “Disney,” Suzanne muttered, rolling her eyes.

  “Is she?” Molly asked again.

  Henning nodded solemnly at his niece. “She’s not a pr
incess, but I guess you could say she’s magical.”

  “Can I meet her the next time you see her?”

  He swallowed another lump in his throat and gave Molly a kiss on the top of her head. “I don’t think there is a next time, sweetheart.” The words were so painful to say, and he braced himself as the heaviness came back. “But if there is, you can definitely meet her.”

  Suzanne was staring at him, her lips parted, her eyes wide in shock. Shit, he had to pull himself together. Alya’s interview was still playing, and Henning couldn’t bring himself to tell Molly to turn it off.

  “It must be difficult to have a private life in such a high-profile role,” said the interviewer.

  “Yes, though my ‘private’ life hasn’t been that private, right?” said Alya with a little chuckle. Damn, she was amazing. She looked so confident, even as the interviewer asked about one of the hardest times of her life. “It’s my experience that we don’t choose who we fall in love with.”

  “So how do you manage that balance, the personal and the public?”

  She shook her head, smiling. “I don’t have any good advice in this department. I tend to fall in love with the wrong person, and it’s never a secret for long. But each time, I still hope that we’ll get it right.”

  Suzanne’s voice broke into the interview. “Molly, put that tablet back upstairs, please. Uncle Henning has seen enough of that.”

  His niece frowned in confusion, and she looked like she was going to protest, but Suzanne added, “Now. Please.”

  As soon as Molly left the room, Suzanne put her hands on her hips. “That woman is in love, and now I’m almost sure it’s with you. I saw it. You’ve got that look on your face like you’re going to lose it soon. Explain to me what the hell is going on?”

  “It’s complicated,” he muttered. “It’s for the best. Really.”

  Except it didn’t feel that way at all. It didn’t even feel complicated anymore. It just felt like shit.

  It felt like shit as he ate his hotdog and his pink cupcake and as he played Molly’s favorite princess card game, and he felt even worse as he sat in his black Audi on the drive back to his empty apartment. Suzanne and her family were the most important people in his life, and he was spreading his brooding misery to them, too. At least Molly hadn’t seemed to notice.