by Kate Meader
He loved—he couldn’t, and even if he did, he shouldn’t. She ignored that dumb flapping heart. She had to.
“I’m sure your behavior in tonight’s game won’t have any impact on your trade. Maybe a two-game suspension, but you’ve been playing well and you’re positioned perfectly for the next part of the season. For a run at the Cup.”
She knew she sounded hard-hearted, but it was necessary. Inside, she was a hot mess, but outside she was Clifford Chase’s daughter, team owner, and acting GM of the Rebels. Her heart would take no part in this decision.
“Did you hear what I said?”
Heard it, enshrined it, am already making Remy ♥ Harper T-shirts and picking out china patterns.
She spoke to the door. “I’m not what you want, Remy. I’m not this nurturing-mom type who can change diapers while she makes million-dollar deals. You have a plan: the Cup. A family. A happily ever after. I can’t give that to you.”
I’m broken. No good. I can’t trust you’ll stay.
“Yes, you can, Harper. You can do anything you put your mind to, baby.”
“The championship,” she coughed out. “That’s what you want.”
“And I still intend to get it. But there are greater goals, Harper. There are greater prizes.”
That did it, turned her into a little girl again. She had never been a prize before, only the consolation. She heard him shuffle forward, and then his body covered hers from behind, this wall of strength and solace. His lips brushed her temple. Never had she wanted to sink into someone so badly.
“You’re sure not what I expected, Harper. You’re so much more. You’re the woman who keeps me on my toes, who excites me in every moment. You’re the person I want to turn to with a dumb joke, when my day’s sucked, to get my ass whupped at video games. We can take care of the cookie-bakin’ and baby-makin’ later. For now, let’s just take care of us.”
Us. How long had she craved to be a part of something bigger instead of that lonely girl abandoned in the tower? But those were a child’s dreams. She’d worked her ass off to become strong, self-sufficient Harper Fucking Chase, and letting her go would undo everything.
She turned in his arms and eased him away before thrusting out her hand. “Thanks for all you’ve done for the Rebels.”
He stared at it for so long she felt foolish and dropped it. “This isn’t Would You Rather, Harper. It doesn’t have to be an either-or choice, a fulfilling career or a happy personal life.” He cupped her face with both hands, searching for Lord knew what. Whatever it was, he wouldn’t find it. “I’m asking you to be a little bit brave here. Lean on me. Let me love you. We both get what we want.”
“You think that’s what I want? Someone to take care of me? I know you’re upset about Stroger, but I’m okay. I’ve had years to become okay. I don’t need you to protect me.”
“Jesus, Harper, this isn’t about Stroger. This is about you and me. This is about wanting more out of life than late nights at the office, poring over game tapes and spreadsheets. It’s about wanting more than just okay.”
She bristled and withdrew. “You think the team, my career, and this job aren’t enough for me because, what? I’m a woman and I’m supposed to want a husband and a family?”
“I think it doesn’t have to be one or the other. You’re strong enough to do it all because you’re the strongest woman I know. Your father tried to break you, and you survived, but you’re holding on by your fingernails to this half life, pretending it’s the best possible scenario. I’m here to tell you that you can lean on someone. I want to be that someone, Harper. I want to be your person and I want you to be my person.”
Oh fuck. That was . . . so perfect. And perfectly impossible.
“We can’t—”
He cut her words off with a kiss. A take-no-prisoners, you-are-mine kiss that she’d hold inside her heart as long as she lived. He’d already burrowed his way into each bleeding fissure. Now every kiss was salt, every word a piece of grit.
“We can,” he murmured against her mouth, his breath a hot puff of longing. “We can do anything we want. I’ve never met anyone who needs to be held and loved as much as you do, Harper. Well, it so happens that you’ve got a man here with strong arms made to keep you safe. With so much love inside him that it’s just busting to get out. It’s all for you, minou. No one else I’d rather give it to.”
In an ideal world where she wasn’t afraid, she would say to hell with it and let him love her. But this wasn’t an ideal world. It was one where women were held to a higher standard. Where a female team owner and general manager had to be devoid of emotion, sexuality, and weakness.
“Everyone would know I had a fling with one of my players.”
His eyebrows slammed together. “It could have started after I left.”
She gave that the derisive look it deserved. His cockeyed optimism was starting to piss her off. “No one would buy that. You tell me how outing this—whatever this is—is good for me.”
Hurt flashed over his face. “We get to be together.”
But at what price? At the cost of everything she’d worked to achieve.
“It’s not worth it.”
She backtracked, realizing that sounded harsher on her lips than in her head. “I’d look like a lust-crazed idiot who makes decisions with my vagina. I’ve traded out a lover because either I want to date him or because he persuaded me to go against my better judgment and give him up to a better team even though we need him here.”
He stared, and she knew he wasn’t hearing those cobbled-together excuses. He’d already stopped listening at her first snapped reply.
It’s not worth it.
They weren’t worth the humiliation she would feel after news of their fling got out. Every day the media cracked wise about the Chase daughters and how women didn’t have the temperament for high-powered sports franchise management. Too emotional, too sentimental, too weak.
She might feel those things some of the time, but she refused to project that image in her professional life. They’d only just stopped calling her Incompetent Spice; with this news, she’d be relabeled as Hormonal Spice. Last time, she’d made the wrong decision. History would not be repeated.
“Remy, I’m—I’m sorry. In time you’ll recognize you had a lucky escape.” She backed up, feeling blindly for the doorknob behind her.
“A lucky escape.” He stepped into her orbit, overwhelming with pure maleness and, amazingly still, his love. She could feel his hurt, because it was hers, as well. “I’m jinxed, remember?”
“You don’t need luck when you work as hard as you do. This is your year.” She placed a hand on his chest. Needing to feel the vital thump of his big, giving heart one last time before her own stopped beating.
“Thought it was,” he said. “Thought I was the luckiest guy on the planet for a while.”
THIRTY
Harper placed Remy’s trade paperwork in the center of the kitchen island. She really shouldn’t have brought it home, but she’d been sitting on it for two days, waiting for a sign.
Some might say that the Rebels’ loss tonight was a sign that she should keep the player who knitted the team together. His two-game suspension had already adversely affected the dynamic, and while his trade wasn’t public yet, the other players knew something was up.
Isobel leafed through the list of possible pickups, her fingers pausing when she came to Vadim Petrov’s name. There had been something curious about her attitude when they discussed him with Coach Calhoun in the trade meeting—as if she was waging some internal battle over whether they should trade him in. Please let it not be a problem. Harper was taking a chance on Petrov, who hadn’t played well this year, but she knew he had skills that could be cultivated with the right team.
“We’re still agreed on Petrov?” Harper asked again, because she was trying to
involve her sisters more instead of steamrolling them through every decision.
“He’s fast, nimble, a killer in the face-off,” Isobel said. “The knee injury is worrisome, but we have his medical records. He has authority issues, though.”
“You know him?”
Isobel hesitated before she spoke. “A little. He’s got an ego as big as all outdoors.”
Violet walked in. “What’d I miss?”
“Just discussing Petrov,” Harper said.
“Did you see that naked spread he did in the ESPN Magazine Body Issue? Wonder if I can get him in the dicktabase.” She fanned herself. “Scots, Russians, Swedes, oh my. We’ve got ourselves a veritable United Nations of Badass here.”
“Except we’re losing the Cajun.” Isobel held up the contract. “I don’t care about the promise you made. We need him.”
Harper grabbed the papers and signed on the dotted line. There.
So much for letting her sisters in on the decision making. But she needed to do something—anything—to assert control. Helplessness was not a good look on her. Her sisters stared at her like she was mad, and maybe she was a little, slowly spiraling into insanity.
“This is a business decision. He’s done his duty and now I’m giving him what he wants. We’re in a better position now than we were three months ago, within shouting distance of a playoff spot. I owe him this.”
Violet poured a generous glass of wine. “What I want to know is why Remy went ballistic on Stroger. I’d put it down to jealousy, but Remy seems too secure in his manhood to be going off on some guy because you used to fuck him.”
“They were nowhere near each other,” Isobel mused. “Remy beelined right for Stroger the minute Coach called for the line change. He never gets into fights. He’d rather do a stand-up routine than punch another player.”
Violet picked up the contract. “What’s going on, Harper? The only reason Remy would go nuts like that is if Stroger insulted you or Remy’s momma . . .” She paused, considering, and drew a shallow breath. “Or something.”
Isobel said, “Why are you shaking your head?”
Harper hadn’t realized she was doing that. She stopped the incriminating behavior immediately, but her lungs had shut down and every breath took immense effort. “I told you before that sex and hockey don’t mix. Something always screws it up. Something always goes wrong.”
She and Remy were finished.
He said he loved her, and she threw it in his face. We’re not worth it. She raised a hand to her breastbone and rubbed at the ache. Maybe if she rubbed hard enough she’d get a wish, a do-over, a chance to tell Remy she was sorry she’d hurt him. He wanted to take a chance on them, to be her person, and Harper Chase had her all-important rules.
“I think she’s having a panic attack,” someone said.
“I’m not.” She was. Heart in chaos, she stood, needing to get away. No one could see her like this. She doubled over against the sink, the pain making her dizzy.
“I’m—oh, God.” Act normal until the panic gets bored. Normal sink. Normal counter. Normal—okay, not-so-normal mug tree.
She looked down at her curled-up fists, the knuckles popping chalk-white against her pale skin. Her armor had taken a hit these last few weeks, and in its absence, her skin was shedding. But this wasn’t some beautiful rebirth. It was her viscera, exposed and bleeding.
“He hit me.”
Gasps all around. “Remy?”
“No. Stroger. Years ago. That’s why Remy went off on him. He found out.” She met the concerned gazes of her sisters. “It was once, and I learned my lesson.”
“Harper.” Isobel jumped from her chair and put an arm around her. Something broke apart inside her. A rusty sound emerged, and she slapped a hand across her mouth to keep it in. To keep it all in.
It was useless. A sob escaped the prison of tears she’d kept locked up forever.
Violet clasped her hand. “What lesson did you learn?”
“That love and business are gasoline and fire,” she choked out around what she suspected was some spectacularly ugly crying. “That a woman has to work ten times as hard for a tenth of the respect.”
Violet looked disappointed with that conclusion. “I know the team means everything to you. To you both. So much more than to me. And I know you’re afraid of looking weak in the eyes of the world. You say we have to represent women. But what about representing yourself, chica?”
“It’s the same thing,” Harper sputtered. “I want to get it right. I refuse to let my feelings for Remy DuPre detract from what we’re trying to build here.”
Isobel squeezed Harper’s shoulders harder. “So you love him?”
“Of course I love him! He makes me fucking sandwiches. He gives me dumb, perfect gifts. Behind closed doors, he makes me feel strong, but in the open, I feel weak. I look weak, and perception is reality here. You don’t know what it was like when Dad found out what Stroger did. He blamed me for forcing him to give up a key player. And he was right. It was my fault—not getting hit, I know that, but my foolish decision to get involved with Stoger forced his hand.”
Isobel was shaking her head in disgust. “I thought I was the one who was completely brainwashed by Clifford Chase. Jesus, being his daughter was like having Stockholm syndrome! We both wanted to please that bastard so much that we were willing to accept this shit? He should have called the police and prosecuted that weapons-grade asshole, Harper, not traded him out. You think he protected you when he did that? He protected himself and the team. And then he made you feel like shit because you fell for a guy!”
Caught off guard by Isobel’s fury, Harper could only stare at the sister she had underestimated for so long.
“It doesn’t change anything. I can’t have a public relationship with a player on my team. Or even a player who used to be on my team. There’s too much on the line.”
Isobel sighed heavily. “This control thing is all well and good, Harper, but one day you’re going to have to recognize that you can’t make every call yourself. People want to help you. People want to love you.”
Harper’s heart shriveled at her sister’s words. She knew she’d played fast and loose with some of the decisions about the team, keeping her sisters out of the loop. She’d cultivated a rock-solid independent streak for her own protection, and letting her guard fall was tougher than she’d ever thought possible. Even with these girls. Damn Clifford Chase and his fun-house travesty of a will.
Isobel picked up Remy’s paperwork and scribbled her signature across the dotted line. “This wasn’t my promise. However, I’ll honor the bargain made by a representative of the organization. But no more stunts, Harper, ’kay?”
Harper nodded, but seeing those signatures didn’t lift the weight as she’d expected. She would just need some time, that’s all. The sooner he left, the sooner she could move on with her life and get back to the business of ensuring that this team made it to the playoffs.
Without Remy DuPre.
“Poppa, you in here?”
Remy stuck his head around the door and let the memory scents of sawdust, wood, and tung oil overtake him. His father’s studio might look like a disorganized clutter of parts with bodies, necks, and strings strewn haphazardly, but Remy knew Alexandre had a distinctly organized mind that he only let wander on the stage.
“Ah, mon fils.”
His father looked up from his worktable, where he was applying a stain to a Meridian semihollow guitar. Gently, he laid the piece down upright to dry, stepped away, and only then removed the protective mask and gloves he’d been wearing. The potassium dichromate solution was nasty stuff and could burn or blind if not handled correctly.
Remy hugged his father, the man who introduced a Cajun kid to hockey though he knew zilch about it. Of course he had no idea his son would go so far, but he was proud.
Remy wanted him to be even prouder.
They talked about guitars and music and his suspension. His father didn’t delve too deeply into Remy’s uncharacteristic loss of temper.
“I’m to be traded to another team soon. One that has a real shot of going for the Cup.”
Slow nod from Alexandre. “This bargain you made with Harper?”
“Oui. I give them a few wins, light a fire under them, and then I’m out of there.”
“Sounds like a good deal.”
It did. It was. But now it felt off. Like he was bailing when his boys needed him.
When Harper needed him.
Except she didn’t, did she? He was crazy about her, and she had decided he wasn’t worth it.
“What about you and Harper?” His father gave him that look, the one that said he’d known before Remy knew himself.
“There is no me and Harper. All she needs is the team.”
“Have you told her how you feel? Other than in song?”
Remy felt a smile tugging at his lips for the first time in days. “She knows. Told her I loved her, but she’s so afraid. She’s carrying the weight of the world, of all women, of fucking feminism on her shoulders.” He shook his head in mute apology for swearing. They made a conscious effort not to do that because of the kids always buzzing around. “She’s decided that the best way to manage her loneliness is to pretend she doesn’t need anyone. I can’t break through.”
“That doesn’t sound like a DuPre.”
Remy studied his father, the wisest man he knew. He owed his career to this man who took him to every practice, who cheered him at every game. He wanted his father there when he raised the Cup above his head.
“I thought I knew what women wanted, but Harper’s not like other women. She’s not looking for the picket fence and two point four kids. She needs to prove herself first, and she’ll travel that road alone while she does it. I can’t make her see another path.”
“You need to speak her language, Remy.”