The Winter Games Box Set

by Rebecca Sharp

  Original? My eyebrow raised as he flipped a few pages into his notebook and my eye caught some of the chicken scratch on the paper. Now that was some Sherlock shit.

  “She’s staying in one of the townhomes in the Open Pines gated community,” he continued methodically.

  “How the fuck is she living there?” I blurted out.

  I knew the place. Channing and Wyatt lived there—and they could afford to because Wyatt had been king of the whole fucking snowboarding world. But Eliza Blackman? Unless she was better at selling drugs than she was at selling herself, there was no way she could afford to live there.

  Mismatched eyes pinned mine. Christ this guy was fucking intense. It was a good thing though. I needed intense because it was the only thing capable of unraveling the shitshow that was my life.

  He looked up at me from underneath his eyelids, absorbing my vitriolic comments before admitting, “I don’t think she’s the one renting it, Mr. Frost. Although, she’s the only one I’ve seen enter or leave the house, mostly to go shopping. I haven’t seen her meet with anyone. I haven’t seen as much as a pizza delivery man approach the house either.”

  Someone else had to be paying for it. Eliza had always bounced around from one sugar daddy to the next. But who the hell was paying for her to try to take back her kid?

  “She went to child services three weeks ago and spoke with a Ms. Vane,” he paused, “but I believe you already know the outcome of that.”

  I nodded, my jaw twitching. I knew that was because of her.

  He pulled out a stack of papers from the inside pocket of his black leather motorcycle jacket. “She did go to the Open Hearts daycare last week, however she stayed in her car until all the kids had left, presumably realizing that your daughter wasn’t there.”

  Unfolding the papers, he slid them across the table in front of me, explaining as I perused them, “Phone records from the house. The highlighted numbers are the only ones of interest. She’s called the Hotel Monaco in Denver several times. Unfortunately, this doesn’t tell me which room she was put through to, but I’m working on that as well. Interesting to note, three of the times, less than a minute after she hung up with the hotel, she immediately called your house.”

  “My house?” I picked up the paper.

  Sure enough. The landline for the main house was right there in black and white.

  “I assume she wasn’t speaking with you?” he asked to clarify.

  “Your mom,” Chance spoke before I could. My anger fumed that my mother was still doing this to me—to Lila—knowing what my daughter had come to me like.

  “No, she wasn’t speaking to me,” I bit out before demanding a little too harshly, “What is she doing? Why is she trying to take Lila after all this time?”

  “I’m still working on those answers,” he replied calmly with a hard edge to his voice and steel glint in his charcoal eyes that said I needed to chill the fuck out and let him do his job.

  I just wished it could be done faster.

  Apparently, my anger was palpable because he continued, “Here’s what I will tell you, Mr. Frost. And this comes from my years of experience dealing with criminals from all corners of the globe. Eliza Blackman isn’t here for your daughter.”

  His hands folded on the table again. “She’s living in a house she cannot afford, shopping, purchasing, and living a life that she cannot sustain. When she went to child services? Accounting for travel time, she would have left ten minutes after a call to the hotel. When she showed up at your house? Again, after calling the hotel. When she went to the daycare? Again, after calling the hotel.”

  “Jackson.” I laughed coldly. “The bi—Eliza showed up at my house the other day demanding to see her and be a part of her life. She’s called child services to try to find me unfit.”

  Even as I spoke, my mind was already linking together the dots.

  “Mr. Frost. She’s here at someone else’s bidding. She’s here for someone, but it’s not her daughter. From what I can tell, she generally seems annoyed that she even has to remember that she has one.” His hands slid off the table and I could see he was about done with everything that he had to say. “I don’t make it a point to investigate the lives of those who hire me which is why I’m telling you to think very carefully what else you have that is worth something… anything… because that is what Ms. Blackman and whomever she is working for or with are after.”

  A chill went down my spine. Chance’s bright blue eyes were staring a hole through me because he was thinking the same thing I was.

  My investments.

  All I could focus on the last few weeks was Lila and the thought of someone trying to take her from me. It made more sense that she’d be after the money—after more than just child support. And it made the most sense that threatening to take my daughter from me was the surest way to get it.

  At this point, the Bitcoin alone was worth multi-millions of dollars if I pulled everything out and didn’t continue to let them grow.

  The problem was that no one else should fucking know about them.

  And now it looked like at least two more people did: Mr. Hotel… and Jackson Pyle.

  Those weird as fuck mismatched eyes said that he could get access to every one of my goddamn accounts if he needed to and have them emptied before I knew what happened. Instead, he politely hinted that unless I wanted him digging through my shit, I better figure out who else had discovered my money-making habits.

  “Thank you,” I said as he stood.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Jackson replied and then he was gone, quickly and silently for a man so large.

  I took a sip of my cold coffee. I always liked the taste of hot coffee after it had gone cold. It was strange. Then again, it was nice to know that even something that wasn’t what it should be could still be good.

  “Shit. He was pretty intense. Sherlock on steroids—and don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it, too,” Chance broke the silence. “Now I totally believe that King sent you to him. He has a good fucking point.”

  “Yeah.” My head jerked with a nod while my thoughts continued to spin inside it.

  Chance’s voice dropped as he echoed the question in my mind, “Who else could know about your investments?”

  And how could they have found out? Besides Lila and my nest egg, I really was just a semi-decent graphic designer brat who lived at home and was on probation because I’d partied too hard.

  “I wasn’t hacked. I know that. Security on the sites that I use is fucking insane.” I rubbed my temples between my fingers. “I need to think.”

  Newsletters. Subscriptions.

  Had one of those sites been hacked?

  “At least we know she’s not here for Lila.” He sighed and drained the rest of his coffee.

  “I almost wish she were…” I admitted honestly.

  “What do you mean? This whole time you’ve said it was more than that. Why the fuck would you want it now?”

  “At least if she were here for Lila, I could pretend like she actually has some sort of shriveled up heart somewhere inside of her. Knowing that she’s not… that means she doesn’t care what she has to do or how she has to hurt our daughter in order to get whatever it is that she wants from me.”

  Chance’s expression shuddered into the pure hatred I felt inside.

  “Nothing is going to happen to Lila,” he assured me hoarsely. “None of us will fucking let it.”

  I let out a long breath that I must have been holding. “I know.” And prayed that it was true.

  We stood and dropped our empty mugs off at the counter. Checking my watch, I wondered if Miss Priss would have found her way out of the house yet or if she was going to be stuck in its labyrinth until I got back.

  “You busy this weekend? I’m setting up the snowboarding lessons if you want to give some input… if you need a distraction.”

  “Thanks,” I sighed. “But we’re actually going to the aquarium in Denver.”

  �
�You and Lila?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He gave me a sideways glance. “And Tammy?”

  I didn’t look at him even though I could practically hear his taunting smile. Payback was a bitch.

  “Be careful with her, Frost.”

  “I told you, I’m not fucking her.”

  “Right,” he retorted with a wave of surrender. “But I’m sure that in some way, you’re still fucking with her. I don’t know the details because Jessa says it’s not my business, but something is going on with your little nanny. And if you hurt her, Jessa will first kill you for doing it and then kill me for not doing everything in my power to stop it. And I’d rather not have that happen… to either of us.”

  “She has nothing to worry about,” I said tightly as we approached my truck. “I hired her to do a job. The last thing I need right now is to give whoever the fucker is that is after my life more ammunition to destroy it.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded gravely. “Call me if you need me.”

  As soon as the door to my truck closed, my fist pounded into the dash like it was a goddamn Whack-A-Mole machine. Except there wasn’t a prize at the end of this whole fucked-up game.

  I could tattoo the words on my skin. I could swear to them on my father’s grave. I could write them over and over again on a chalkboard until I knew nothing else. But it wouldn’t change anything.

  I wasn’t going to fuck Tamsin Lucas.

  And it was the biggest lie I’d ever told.

  I watched as Nick crouched down next to Lila who insisted on pointing out to him the ‘Nemo’ that was swimming in the giant tank because ‘you can’t see him from all the way up there.’ If I thought that she’d come far during her time at Open Hearts, it was nothing compared to what I saw now. She reached for him comfortably now, and each time Nick looked like he’d been handed everything that he could ever want.

  It was moments like this that made me realize for as much as I thought I knew about Nick, until the other night, I hadn’t really known him at all.

  Nick Frost, the man who could have slept with me and taken my virginity in my moment of completely desolate weakness.

  Nick Frost, loving father.

  Nick Frost, abused child.

  He wasn’t all good. But he wasn’t nearly all bad.

  He glanced over at me, a genuine smile lighting up every chiseled line of his face, and I felt my cheeks flush. After the movie last week, we’d returned to the intensely tense relationship between us with a dash of calculated avoidance—both of us wanting more than we knew we should have. Now, I was either welcomed inside by Nick or Sofia, and much to my surprise, after two weeks, I had figured out the way to Lila’s playroom with practiced ease. Today was different though. Out of the house and on this ‘field trip,’ I found myself forgetting that these two souls weren’t part of my family.

  Lila had insisted on holding my hand as soon as we got here, a request that quickly turned into her request for both of our hands. For a moment, she was mine and it was a thought that wasn’t completely foreign to me. But for that moment, he was also mine and that thought made me wish there was a tank or pool somewhere in the building that I could dunk myself in to cool off.

  Dark jeans, tight heather-gray tee, and holding his little girl’s hand. I would swear on my life that I’d never find a sexier sight.

  How did I know?

  Catching a glance at my reflection in the glass tank, I saw the same expression on my face that Ally and Jessa wore every time they looked at Emmett and Chance. And like a stone in water, my gaze and my hopes fell because I could never have what they did; we could never have what they did.

  Lila’s ramblings and “ooos” and “ahhs” only slightly distracted me from Nick’s overwhelming presence. I pretended not to notice the way he brushed against me as we walked, or the way he stood next to me at each exhibit, his arm hot and flush against mine. He, on the other hand, pretended like he wasn’t doing it on purpose.

  But magnets don’t have a choice—when they are close to each other, they attract.

  Even without Lila, we fell into easy conversation; it started with the mountain—a part of our lives but not as much as our friends. It ended with us taking bets on who was going to get engaged first, Ally and Emmett or Chance and Jessa. Nick voted for Emmett, claiming the man was “whipped.” I insisted that it was Chance—he wasn’t going to risk losing Jessa again.

  Lila decided that the winner would get one of her prized grape popsicles.

  “You alright, Tamsin?” Nick’s voice cut through my thoughts. I nodded vigorously with a small smile before turning and walking over to the tank behind me that contained more tropical fish. I watched their beautiful colors swim in front of me trying to calm my heart.

  Thankfully, today was a good day. After Thursday, I’d been petrified I was going to have to cancel the way the drugs and endometriosis cramps were killing me. The pain in my abdomen was the worst that it had ever been. Thank God, Jessa still insisted on driving me to my appointment every week. This time though, I couldn’t even hide it from her, curled up in the passenger seat with tears streaming down my face. When I’d checked in to my appointment, she came right back to the room with me—grinning at the success of her ‘resting bitch face.’ Dr. Rohatgi immediately gave me something for pain before we started with the chemo.

  It lasted me through the afternoon. And when I got home, it was a miracle that I even made it to my bed before collapsing onto it and passing out.

  It had also been a miracle that Nick had been completely absent from the house that day—Sofia mumbled something about a meeting; I had a feeling that it was about Lila.

  My worst fear: Waking up Friday too tired or in too much pain to be able to make it to work and then to Nick’s. But there had been neither.

  Well, some tiredness, but nothing like before. Dr. Rohatgi said that my body might shift to accommodate the cocktail of drugs and that the weighty drowsiness might dissipate some. I chose to believe it was a fluke that I would pay for later since my body never seemed to respond the way that it should.

  My hand reached up to press the pads of my fingers onto the cool glass of the tank where one of its fishy residents swam.

  “It says not to touch the glass,” a deep voice rumbled next to me.

  My hand jerked back to my side. I looked frantically for the sign that I had missed before turning to face Nick. The giant grin on his face told me that there was no sign, that he was pulling my leg.

  “Always have to follow all the rules, Miss Priss,” he teased. “You should have seen your face.”

  I felt the heat turning my face as bright red as a clown fish; they might as well have put me on display. His smile deepened and I clenched my thighs together to try to stop the flood of moisture that let loose between them.

  It was one of those rare moments where there were no worry lines on his face. No concerns. No stress. He was so gorgeous like this… Happy… and I wanted more of it for him. Just Nick. And Lila. And me.

  This isn’t our family, Heart; don’t be foolish.

  “So, why do you always have to have so many rules?” he asked as we followed Lila to the next room of tanks; she was already a mile ahead in the almost-empty space.

  The hallway was only dimly lit by the spotlights that shined on the wall plaques that described the various types of eels that were to be found in the next room.

  “When I was young, I was responsible for so many of my siblings. Rules were the only thing that kept them… the house… the farm… in order,” I explained slowly. Rules were also the only way I could cope as my body began to not follow them.

  “How many siblings?”

  He didn’t need to say it; I knew that he’d had no idea that I had any siblings. Come to think of it, I could probably count on one hand the number of people who did. Not that I didn’t talk about my family, but my group of close friends was small.

  “Seven,” I replied.

  His eyebrows shot
up. “Sev—wow.” The surprise in his eyes shifted to something deeper as it trailed over my face like I’d given him lenses to see a new side of me. “And you were the one always in control.”

  I nodded. “I’m good at it.”

  “Too good at it…” he muttered.

  Hugging my arms to my chest, I shrugged. “When there is order, everything makes sense. There’s a plan that can be followed that will—for the most part—guarantee an outcome. I need that…”

  There was safety and security. Or at least there was. Now, my body and my heart seemed to have a mind of their own and no desire to be reigned by any order or plan.

  “Did you go to the doctor? Are you feeling better?” he drawled. “You don’t look like you’re dead on your feet anymore.”

  “Thank you… I think?” I replied quietly, unwilling to lie to him if at all possible, so instead I just ignored his previous questions.

  “You do think,” he said. His hand came up behind me, trailing a finger down the back of my arm. Leaning into me slightly, he murmured, “Otherwise, I would think that you might need me to bring you back to life.”

  I shivered at the light and tempting contact.

  “Nope—alive and breathing,” I squeaked.

  “I think I’d prefer you alive and screaming,” he growled into my ear, “or at least moaning.”

  “Nick!” I gasped. My attempt to chastise him was significantly diminished by the way his name came out breathlessly and begging.

  Was this normal? Was it normal to completely lose myself in the presence of the man that I wanted to be lost in?

  Swallowing hard, I stepped away from him, needing to put some space between us. A few posters down, I slowed my pace to read the information about electric eels, needing facts to overwhelm my feelings (like how electric eels aren’t, in fact, eels but rather a member of the Knifefish order.) My heart continued to pound right along with the footsteps that followed me—he wasn’t done with me yet.