by Elise Faber
For the first time in his life, the thought of holding a woman’s heart in his hands didn’t frighten him. Stefan wanted to protect the delicate organ. To shelter it.
So he would.
The first step of that was taking care of Brit right back.
His stomach growled, reminding him of his hunger and calling an end to the sappiness that seemed to afflict him of late. He wondered what her reaction to the hole-in-the-wall restaurant would be. It wasn’t fancy, but it had the best thin-crust pizza around.
He stepped off onto the floor, and a whiff of roses and apples had his body coming to full attention. Brit was just down the hall, he knew, having managed to wrestle the information from the front desk clerk earlier, and that scent—
It was hers alone.
Stefan was just about to knock on Brit’s door when he heard voices. One he knew almost better than his own.
He turned from the room and started toward the sound, anticipation in every cell.
Even as he closed the distance between them, he tried not to listen, not sure if the conversation was private.
But who would have a private conversation in the hallway of a hotel?
Still, he tried not to listen. He really did.
Then he heard his name from Brit’s lips.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“I cannot allow you to do this,” a female voice said in response. The cadence and tone was familiar, but Stefan couldn’t place the sound with a face.
“I’m done,” Brit said. “It’s wrong. I need to tell him.”
The woman’s scoffed disbelief was loud.
“It’s true,” Brit said, and it sounded like she was chewing on glass. “I care about him. I can’t keep doing this to him—”
“As if I give a shit about your feelings. We had a deal. Bernard—”
“I told you before, I cannot do this anymore. Bernard is willing to take the chance.”
The other woman made a noise of disgust. “Then Bernard suffers. His wife suffers.”
“Bernard will be fine,” Brit replied. “God knows, he didn’t want me to do this in the first place.”
Stefan took another few steps, inched toward the voices.
“Bernard will gamble this salary like he’s done with the previous six,” the woman snapped. “His wife won’t receive proper care, and that will be on you.”
Brit went quiet, but Stefan could sense her tension, even from the hall. “You’re a monster, you know that?” she said, soft enough that he had to strain to hear.
“I may be a monster, but I’m creating a dynasty,” the woman said. Her voice was clear as a bell and confident to a fault. “When people think about hockey, the first team they will think of will be the Gold.”
“And if this gets out . . .” Brit said. “ . . .if this thing between Stefan and me goes bad, it’ll be in infamy.”
His gut clenched. If what went bad?
“Who cares?” the woman said. “Plenty of other sports teams are infamous. We’ll never become a powerhouse without blurring a few lines.”
“I won’t. Not anymore.”
Stefan stopped outside the alcove that held a few vending machines and one icemaker. The rumble of the motor was barely enough to disguise his presence and definitely not their words.
Both women were frustrated and getting louder by the second.
“You can’t—” the woman said.
“I can, and I will,” Brit all but spat. “Fire me if you want. But I can’t do this to Stefan.” Her words were laced with so much pain that he felt the slice in his own heart. “The Gold has gotten their press. It’s enough. He’s dealt with enough.”
“I’ll be the one to say when it’s enough,” the other woman began.
“No.” He stepped into the alcove.
Stefan couldn’t focus on how this conversation would impact what he and Brit had been building, not at that moment. This was deeper than that, more than the betrayal freezing his insides.
Brit was hurting, and, no matter the truth of what was between them, he cared about her too much to allow that to happen.
He leaned back against a vending machine. “No,” he said again. “I’ll be the one to say when it’s enough.”
The other woman was Susan Depratt, he realized, once he saw the perfectly coiffed grey hair and hideous pantsuit. Her eyes were furious, her lips pressed into an unflattering line.
Susan was one of the oldest board members, but also the ex-wife of Donald Depratt, the man who’d funded the Gold’s journey to San Francisco.
Which meant she was powerful, connected, and not someone he would normally want to fuck with.
A disagreement with Susan usually led to a few games down in the minors or a multiple-game benching. Sometimes even a trade.
“This isn’t any of your business, Barie,” she said.
Despite the inherit threat in the words, Stefan bristled. It sure as fuck was.
It involved him. It involved Brit.
“Does Devon know?” He asked the question of Brit, completely ignoring Susan for the moment.
Her eyes were wide, and perhaps there was the slightest glimmer of tears. But Stefan couldn’t focus on that.
Not right now.
He stepped toward her. “Does Devon know?”
A nod.
Dear God. How far up did this go? The GM was involved. A high-ranking board member was involved.
And Brit.
Who’d been new to the team.
Probably threatened. Or at least cajoled into . . . what?
He realized he didn’t know yet.
“What exactly did they have you do?”
“It”—she shook her head—“it doesn’t matter. It was wrong. I knew that from the beginning. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Done what?” he asked.
His gut was sinking fast now, a heavy anchor pulling it down, filling the cavity with dread.
“It wasn’t all about them,” Brit said, her words coming rapid and jumbled. “I-I liked you. I didn’t— I wanted to spend time—”
“Might as well tell him, girl,” Susan said and there was something gleeful about her tone. “Ms. Plantain was to seduce you into a relationship so the team could get more press. But now that you know, you can help with that . . .”
His eyes slid closed on one long, slow blink.
Susan kept talking.
He ignored her, opened, and turned to Brit. “Is it true?”
Her eyes met his, fell away, clear brown pools of despair, and any hope he’d held onto until that moment disappeared like so much smoke.
But he had to hear the truth from her lips.
“It wasn’t like that—” she began.
“Is. It. True?”
She crumpled. Her shoulders folded in. Her chin dropped to her chest.
But her voice was clear, firm even.
“Yes.”
Three letters that were a knife to his heart. But the pain, the absolute eviscerating quality of that word wasn’t something he could deal with. Not right then.
Sucking in a breath and burying the hurt and anger deep down, burying it deeper than he’d ever hidden his emotions before, he merely said, “Okay.”
Brit’s head shot up, probably surprised by the even tone of his voice.
But he was barely holding it together, barely able to hold onto the calm front he was projecting for Susan.
It hurt. God, it hurt. He’d opened up to Brit and—
Stefan rotated to lock glares with Susan. “This”—he gestured between himself and Brit—“is done.”
She opened her mouth, probably ready to protest or threaten him.
Stefan didn’t give a shit. An icy numbness was soaking into him, sweeping away the anger, partitioning it away, and, blessedly, taking the pain alongside it.
“It’s over,” he said, “or I’m gone from the Gold.”
Brit gasped.
>
That was the thing. The single bargaining chip that gave him the power in this situation.
Stefan had a clause in his contract, one that would allow him to demand a trade. Before this, he never would have enacted it, because of his mother. He wanted to be close to her, wanted her with the doctors she was comfortable.
He’d also been wholly committed to the team.
But now? With this?
He sure as hell wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.
Susan stammered for a moment, shaking her head, pressing her lips together, then finally sighing. “Fine.”
“Go.”
If Susan said anything further before she left, Stefan didn’t hear it.
It was just he and Brit. In the entire universe, it was only the two of them. His battered heart gave a hard squeeze at the sight of her before he shoved the traitorous emotion back down where it belonged.
Normally, she was so bright, strong, and invulnerable. But in this moment, she was diminished. Small.
Or maybe that was just his opinion of her.
The betrayal from management was one thing. The betrayal from Brit was another issue entirely.
Stefan stared at her, felt his gut twist at the agony on her face, and the emotions he’d shoved down battered at the iron door in his mind, threatened to break through and surface. He wanted—
No.
He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t be in her presence. Not after this. Not after—
It took everything in him to keep his tone light.
“Well, that was fun,” he told her. “See you at practice tomorrow.”
“Stefan—”
He whirled away from the entreaty in her eyes, from the small part of his soul that refused to be caged, that wanted him to talk to her, to figure it out together.
To fight for them.
No.
Hurrying, he strode past the elevator, pushed into the corridor for the stairs, and walked.
He walked the streets of New York until the city got quiet. He walked until the shredded organ that had been his heart iced over.
It was only then that he went to the arena.
And he ran the stairs.
Up. Down. Up. Down.
Up.
Down.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Brit
It was hell having Stefan in front of her. He wouldn’t look at her, or at least not more than playing hockey together required.
But she needed to tuck her emotions away, shove them deep down and lock them the fuck up.
The puck didn’t stay out of the net just because she was heartsick.
Using the flat of her stick, she pushed the extra buildup of snow into her goal, took a sip of water, then turned to ready for the faceoff.
The ref gave a sharp trill of his whistle, dropped the puck, and the game was on.
Brit watched them play through narrowed focus, shifting from side to side in her net as the players moved across the ice.
It was a tough game, with lots of shots, and she saw the breakaway forming even before her team did.
Stefan pinched—cutting hard to the net to intercept the Islanders’ attempt at clearing their end of the ice. But in a rare moment of miscommunication, Max didn’t slide back to cover for him.
Thunk. Stefan’s shot was blocked, and it deflected out of the zone, one of the Islanders’ forwards racing toward it, with her team chasing hard behind.
They wouldn’t catch up.
Barely a second later, the Islanders’ player was bearing down on her.
He deked—shifted the puck on his stick to try and fake her out . . . so much so that Brit had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. The extra and unnecessary movements of that vulcanized disc of rubber as he carried it to the net were both showy and stupid.
No way would he get off a good shot now.
The player cut hard to the left, but she knew his game by then.
With a sharp thrust of her stick, she poked the puck away. It bounced into the corner where Max corralled it then passed it up to Blue. And just that quickly, play was tearing the other direction.
During intermission, Stefan glanced at her and said, “Good save.” There was no warmth, no fluff or affection.
It was the most neutral praise she’d ever received.
“Thanks. I—”
Except Stefan had already turned away, and then Bernard came in to the room to discuss things the team needed to improve. Ten minutes later they were back on the ice.
They won, but victory had never tasted so empty.
****
Six weeks later, Julian broke his ankle, shattering the bones and tearing ligaments. It was a huge injury, probably career-ending.
Brit stepped in and carried the shaken team to a hard-fought victory.
And then seven straight more.
The wins put the Gold at the top of their division and second in the conference. For a team that had been the bottom of the barrel only the season before, it was huge progress.
The stands were full. The team was happy.
Brit was not.
She’d gotten everything she’d ever wanted, and yet . . . it felt empty.
A bunch of the team was going out tonight, and while she’d dutifully carted her butt out to all of the team events, even though she felt like sitting at home in her cozy, little apartment, watching Pride and Prejudice on repeat and gorging on mint chocolate-chip ice cream, this one she couldn’t face.
Stefan was coming.
Things had been smooth between them. Polite. Cool and distant.
The night after he’d overheard her and Susan arguing, Brit had tried to apologize.
He’d replied, a charming smile on his lips, his eyes utterly aloof, “Totally understandable, Brit. We all get pulled into things sometimes. No hard feelings.”
Then he turned his back on her and engaged Max in conversation.
She’d let that go, not wanting to draw him into a confrontation just before the game, but every single time she tried to talk to him, he’d had the same reaction.
Casual dismissal.
It would have been so much easier if he’d gotten angry, if he’d yelled and screamed. This fucking polite conversation was going to be the death of her.
But she didn’t know what to say, didn’t think she had the right to be pissed off—not when she created the mess, not when she was the one in the wrong.
So she kept trying, attempting to glimpse any sign of the kind, caring man she’d known intimately for the best weeks of her life.
“Coming, Brit?” Blane called from across the locker room.
“Not tonight,” she called back as she slipped into her sweats and a t-shirt.
“No?” Stewart asked as he undressed next to her.
Stefan had moved lockers, taking the space adjacent to Max’s and bumping Stewart over near her. It would have been a logical move for Stefan—he and Max were D-partners, after all—except for the fact that he’d done it directly after New York.
The team wasn’t blind. They’d seen the tension between her and Stefan before the game against the Islanders, and switching spots was like waving a very juvenile red flag.
Brit had gotten several sideways, sympathetic looks, a few “Are you okays?” but, other than that, her teammates had done very much the same thing as they had when she’d first started dating Stefan.
They’d ignored it.
Which she could kiss them all for. Because, even though they had to be gossiping about her and Stefan’s obvious breakup, she hadn’t heard a whisper.
To do so would’ve have been salt in an already open wound.
Stewart cleared his throat, and Brit blinked. “Sorry,” she said. “No, I’m not going. Mandy wants to work on me, and then I need a little girl time.”
He frowned, and she could almost see the wheels turning as he processed her words. “Is that code for crying?”
She laughed, and it sounded a little rusty. When was the last time she’d genuinely laughed? “Normally, no.” She twisted her lips, shrugged. “Tonight? Maybe.”
“It pains me to ask this,” Mike said with a grimace, “but do you need to talk about it?”
“Hell no.” Brit didn’t need to hash out her mistakes for the thousandth time. She’d done that plenty on her own. “Sorry,” she hurried to say when she saw his face cloud slightly. Could she have hurt his feelings? Mike was usually so secular that she would have thought it impossible. But he’d turned over a new leaf too, was probably feeling as fragile as she was. “I just want to forget for a little while, you know? I’m tired of thinking about it every waking minute.”
“I get that.” He bent to tie his shoe.
“Mike,” she said.
His eyes found hers.
“Thanks.”
A grunt paired with a shrug was her only response before he packed up and left, but it was enough to quiet the pain inside her.
At least for a few minutes.
She shoved her stuff into her bag then left it in her locker and went down the hall to PT.
Mandy waved her in. “You look miserable.”
“Thanks.” Brit snorted and lay on the table. “You’re a good friend.”
“The best,” Mandy said, heavy on the sarcasm. “And if you were a good friend, you’d let me come over and binge on ice cream and bad reality TV.”
“My place is small, and going out to dinner is easier,” Brit said. “Plus, no clean up.”
“That part is true, at least. But it’s not the real reason you don’t want me to come over.”
She and Mandy had been out a few times. They’d laughed a lot and bonded over cooking shows and love for all things Doctor Who, but she hadn’t realized Mandy had seen how much she’d been hurting.
Firm hands began working over the muscles of her shoulder, hard enough to make Brit grit her teeth. “Good friends don’t let friends eat extra calories just for solidarity,” she said, trying a different tack.
“Bullshit,” Mandy said and hit a spot that made Brit hiss in pain. “That’s half the reason to be friends with someone. Guiltless extra calories.”