Lauren never expected to be double-teamed, especially when she wasn’t even sure what game they were playing.
Her aunt strutted in the door with a smirk on her face, obviously pleased with herself, while her father slinked along behind, as if ashamed. Aunt Jo must have kicked some major Schneider ass, not that Lauren had a clue why, but Aunt Jo rarely needed a reason to put her brother in his place.
Her aunt’s smirk dropped away as she eyed Lauren’s face. “What happened to you?”
“I have a cold, and I fell asleep on the couch.”
Her aunt tilted her head and gave her the eye, the one usually reserved for Lauren’s brothers when they’d been bad, or Aunt Jo had caught them in a lie. Much to Lauren’s surprise, her aunt didn’t push the issue. Whatever Aunt Jo’s mission was for being there, she didn’t lose focus.
Lauren brewed a pot of coffee and poured three cups, while her father and aunt sat down on the couch. After serving the coffee, Lauren stood across from them, suspicious of their intentions.
“So Dad, what brings you to Seattle?” As furious as he’d been over the move, she never expected him to set foot in the city and assumed he would quit the team.
He mumbled something, not meeting her eyes.
“What?”
“Free agent and scouting stuff.”
“So you’re still working for the Gi—Sockeyes?”
He didn’t answer but Aunt Jo nudged him with a sharp elbow and he grunted. “I’m keeping the job. Parker made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
Lauren knew that story all too well, but her father was staying after all he said about Ethan? She rubbed her eyes and took a long gulp of coffee.
“We think you should stay, too, honey, this is a great opportunity. Don’t we, Lon?”
He nodded and finally met Lauren’s gaze. “I was wrong, Lauren. Wrong to be mad at you for just doing your job. Pro sports teams are shook up all the time. The Giants’ upper management had become complacent. They weren’t interested in trying different things to see what worked, and they’d surrounded themselves with coaching that wanted to do the same. Yeah, I don’t like the move, but—and I never thought I’d admit this—Seattle is a great place for hockey.”
“And that’s why you’re staying on?” Lauren had to agree. Sure, it still hurt when she recalled the charities the Giants had served and the great people she’d met, but the team had moved on, and so would she.
“I’m staying on because it’s the right thing to do, and I want to be part of this great legacy we’re building here. Don’t you?”
She stared at him and blinked several times, not believing her ears. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I can’t have it.” Lauren sniffled and rubbed her eyes.
Her aunt snorted. “Don’t be so short-sighted. Of course, you can have it.”
“I can’t. Not after how Ethan lied to me. I trusted a man once and he took my trust and exploited it all the way to divorce and bankruptcy court. I don’t know Ethan half as well as I knew Max and look how wrong I was about Max.”
“Ethan’s not Max,” her father said.
Lauren had to sit down because she was certain the end of the world was on the horizon. “You’re defending Ethan?”
“Crazy, huh?” Her dad smiled, and Lauren had to smile, too.
Aunt Jo jabbed him in the ribs again and his smile flipped upside down with annoyance. “Tell her. Tell her what you heard. Now.”
Her father swallowed. “I should’ve told you this sooner, but I was still angry and bitter that my group didn’t get the team.”
“Tell me what?”
“Ethan didn’t really have a choice but to lie to you.”
“Everyone has a choice.” She’d been sucked into some weird vortex where her father and Ethan weren’t at odds but on the same page.
“No. Not Ethan. Not if he wanted the team. I have it from a good source that the league placed a gag order on him until the season ended. If the truth got out, the deal was off.”
Lauren put her hand up to her mouth. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. Yes, he deceived us, but I can tell you for a fact deception wasn’t his first choice or the way he would’ve handled the situation if it were in his power.”
Lauren sat up straighter and stiffened. “It doesn’t change anything.” Deep down she wasn’t as certain.
Her father sighed. “I guess that’s your prerogative to make that determination. It changed things for me. That and opening my eyes to the good things he’s doing here.”
Lauren hugged her stomach. She felt sick, like she might pass out or need to run for the bathroom.
Ethan had said he loved her.
She tried to harden her heart and resist all the conflicting emotions slamming against each other and making her dizzy and confused. Ethan wasn’t the first man who’d told her that, and she’d been dumb enough to believe the first guy.
But Ethan wasn’t Max. He was Ethan.
God, her head hurt. Big time. Like someone had rolled over it with a semi.
He loved her. He wanted to marry her.
“He proposed to me as a way to keep me here,” she murmured more to herself than her family. “He said he loved me.”
A hushed silence filled the room until it was deafening. Even Horace, lounging on her father’s lap, stopped purring.
“Do you love him?” Aunt Jo recovered first, while Lon merely stared out the window.
Lauren mulled over the words in her mind, tested them, tried them on for size. She’d told Max she loved him, and she had in her own way, but it had been a desperate, almost needy love, instead of a love bound by mutual respect, trust, and shared goals. She had two out of three with Ethan; did she have the third—trust? Could she trust him?
“Do you love him?” her aunt prodded.
“I think so,” she admitted.
“You think so?” Her father turned to her. “That’s a bit indecisive.”
“Yes, yes, I do.” Lauren let her heart do the speaking for her.
Her aunt, the gay romantic, grinned at her. “Go to him. Tell him you changed your mind.”
She looked to her father, who nodded. “You two are a good pair. On and off the ice. A person doesn’t get too many chances in life for a relationship like that. You’ll be the most powerful hockey couple in the league.”
She didn’t give a damn about power. She gave a damn about Ethan, his hopes, his dreams, his smile, his lean, ripped body, his clever comebacks. All of it. Even his drive and ambition and infuriatingly single-minded focus.
“I need to find him. Now.”
But first she needed a shower.
* * * *
Ethan rubbed his eyes and sat back in his chair. The salary cap numbers swam on the monitor in front of him. He stood and stretched his cramped muscles. He’d been sitting too long, and it was late.
The last month had been nuts for the management of a new hockey team. Ethan should’ve been prepared, yet he wasn’t. Not really. It started with the player buyout period, free agent talks, the draft, and then free agency. It hit with speed of the Indy 500, and at times Ethan felt he and his staff were driving round in circles as they plotted and planned for next season and beyond.
He dived in with the enthusiasm he was famous for—not a hands-off owner in any way, shape, or form. He showed up early and left late, spending time at his other office during the middle of the day doing his normal job for Parker Corp., while doing the job he was passionate about before and after.
He’d always been a businessman first with a single-minded purpose toward his goal to the exclusion of all else. Not this time. You’d think a man with so much on his plate wouldn’t be pining for a woman he’d never been in a committed relationship with.
It’d been damn hard to get her out of his head when he’d seen her every second of every day. It was even harder when he didn’t see her at all.
Today marked the third day since Lauren had left the team. He ached to touch her
, to sweep her up in his arms like some Disney hero, and carry her away to a place where only they mattered. He’d cracked open the armor around his heart and told her he loved her. In return she’d walked away and never looked back, not so much as one word from her in the past three fucking days.
“Ethan?”
He turned at the sound of Kaley’s voice. “Yes?”
“Here are the drafts of the promotional materials the marketing team put together. You said you wanted to see them.”
“Great, just put them on the desk.” He turned his back to her, looking across the parking lot to the partially finished hockey arena, his and Brad’s pride and joy. He felt Kaley’s eyes drilling into his back. Why didn’t she leave?
He turned with a long-suffering sigh. “Is there something else?” He forced patience into his voice.
“You’re just going to let her walk away?” Kaley’s eyes narrowed, and she shot him a glare that would’ve withered a lesser man.
“It’s her choice, not mine. I’d love to keep her on staff.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Ethan gingerly stepped into that mine field known as discussing his personal life at work—something he rarely, if ever, did. “Then what are you talking about?” Sometimes playing the dense male definitely helped.
“Lauren and you. Your personal relationship.”
“Oh.” No use denying it. She was Lauren’s best friend and most likely knew every detail. “Not a good idea since I’m her boss.”
“Because you’ve been burned before?”
That fucking Brad. Was nothing sacred with that big-mouthed bastard?
“Something like that. We both stand to lose too much by having an affair. Besides she’s not one to forgive easily.”
“Do you have any idea why that is, Ethan?”
“Not completely. I know she’s divorced from a former player turned minor-league coach.”
“Then you don’t know why what you did hurt as much as his lying, cheating, and gambling hurt her. She married him on a whim, a totally out of character whim, because he was the first guy she’d ever truly fallen in love with. As a result, she lost her job with the Giants. A few months later they traded him. She moved with him. He took her blind trust and inexperience in relationships and used it against her to his advantage. When the team went on the road, he had a puck bunny or two or three every night. He spent money on women, booze, and gambling at an alarming rate, especially on a fourth-line salary. Lauren didn’t know. He’d insisted on handling all the finances. When he quit coming home or answering her calls, she still made excuses until checks started bouncing, credit cards were denied, their cars were repossessed, and the house foreclosed on. He left her with a mountain of debt she’s been digging out of ever since. Her father convinced the Giants to hire her back in a clerical role, and she scrabbled her way up the ladder. But trust a man in a committed relationship? Fuck, no, she hasn’t done that in years.”
“I had no idea about the details.” Ethan understood all too much about trust. He didn’t trust much himself. When people fell short of his expectations, he quit taking them at face value, except for his family and a few lifelong friends.
“Well, now you do.”
“I don’t see what it changes. Two people with serious trust issues don’t make for a good combination.”
“You don’t trust Lauren?”
“I—I do now.”
“I think she trusts you, too, even though she won’t admit to it.”
“I told her I loved her. That I wanted to marry her.” He blurted out the truth, hearing the stark pain in his voice.
Kaley didn’t blink, not even slightly surprised by his admission. “Max never fought for her. Why don’t you fight for her?”
“It’s too late.”
“When you were told time and time again that you couldn’t get a team, couldn’t get the zoning for the arena, and Seattle wasn’t a hockey town, did you accept what they said, or fight to prove them wrong?”
“I fought to prove them wrong.” Ethan knew where this was going.
“Why don’t you fight to prove Lauren wrong?”
“I can’t leave town right now. Not with the team in the middle of free-agent negotiations.”
“What if I told you a secret?” Kaley glanced around as if the walls had ears.
“A secret?”
“Yes, Lauren’s still here. She didn’t have anywhere to go, and she’s developed an affinity for Seattle.”
“She’s still here?”
“She sure is.” Kaley’s smug smile should’ve pissed him off, but it didn’t.
He needed a plan, a way to woo her back, convince her he was a man she could depend on. Ethan considered his options for all of two seconds.
Fuck the plan.
He grabbed his phone and iPad and sprinted for the door, ignoring Mina’s annoyance or how people cleared out of his way as he ran past. The elevator took too long, so he crashed down the stairwell, three steps at a time and ran for his car. Tires squealed as he sped out of the parking lot and into the blinding sun of a Seattle summer day.
Chapter 19—The Top Shelf
Lauren wasn’t at home. Ethan tried her cell. Nothing. Called Kaley. She didn’t answer. He called Lon. Again nothing. Didn’t anyone ever answer his or her phone? He sat in his car for a few hours in front of her apartment complex and finally got out, wondering if she’d left the door unlocked, and he could wait inside, but it was locked.
He paced in front of her door until her neighbor, some scrawny, old guy came out of his apartment a few doors down, hands on hips, and glared at him. The guy finally walked closer and confronted Ethan.
“You have business with her?”
“Uh, yeah, I do.”
“Well, she ain’t home. That’s pretty obvious.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Why don’t you move along before I call the cops?”
“Do I look like a burglar?” He pointed at his expensive sports car sitting in the driveway.
“How in Sam hill do I know? You could’ve stolen the thing. Now move along.”
With a sigh, Ethan left reluctantly. He’d texted her and left messages on her phone. Maybe she’d call him back. Maybe.
If she didn’t, he’d find a way to reach her. He had to. He couldn’t wait one more night, and obviously he couldn’t wait in front of her house, not with her ancient neighbor standing guard. Feeling defeated, he drove home to his big empty house on Queen Anne Hill overlooking Puget Sound.
He tried to calm down. Take it easy. There was always tomorrow. But what if right this minute she was accepting a job with another team, looking for a place to live on the East Coast, and paying someone to move her things so she’d never have to come back?
She’d never wanted to live in Seattle anyway, yet Kaley said the city was growing on her.
Defeated he pulled into his driveway, winding through a clump of old cedars until his house appeared looming in the near darkness, black, empty, and looking as lonely as he felt.
Fight for her.
Kaley’s words haunted him. God, he would if he could find her. With all his money, he could put a team of PIs on it, and they’d track her down.
That wasn’t the point. That wasn’t fighting for her. That was paying someone else to do the fighting, and it wouldn’t mean as much to him or to her. He had to do this on his own. Do the research, do the legwork, do the detail stuff he hated because he was doing it for her.
Lauren.
The woman who’d stolen his heart so subtly he hadn’t realized it until a few days ago. He loved her more than he’d ever thought possible with every molecule bouncing around in his body, with every bit of oxygen left in his lungs, with every dream he’d ever dreamed. She melted the ice in his heart and made the sun shine on the rainiest Seattle day.
He loved her.
And dammit to hel
l, he wasn’t letting her go.
Ethan slowed his car and squinted into the darkness. Someone sat on his doorstep, hugging herself with her arms, and rocking back and forth as if cold.
Fucking hell.
At first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, was certain it was an illusion drawn by a desperate man so completely out of his league in his current situation. He stopped next to the front walkway and got out. When she stood and faced him, still hugging herself, her eyes full of uncertainty, and her lips quivering, he knew they both wanted the same thing.
He walked within six feet from her, drinking her in, loving her tentative yet determined smile.
“Lauren.”
“Ethan.” She stared into his eyes. Her uncertainty was slowly replaced by a glint of determination.
He took the steps two at a time and halted in front of her. “You’re here.”
“Damn right. Where the hell have you been?” She chastised him with a teasing smile. He grinned back, unable to stop himself.
“Looking to hell and back for you.”
“I’ve been here for hours.”
“I’ve been looking for you for hours. Why didn’t you call?”
“I left my cell in my apartment. It was dead anyway.”
“Ahhh, crap.”
She just shrugged and looked around. “You have a beautiful house. A mansion, really. You live here by yourself?”
The change of subject caught him off guard. He nodded, finding it hard to believe they were discussing houses when all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss the hell out of her and make her promise to never leave him again.
Unable to bear their polite conversation any longer, he wrapped her in his arms and crushed her to him. She hugged him back and pulled his head down for a scorching kiss which kicked time on its ass and froze the world around them.
Heaven only knew how long they stood there, kissing.
Finally he set her back at arm’s length. “Come inside. Let’s talk.”
And more than that, because now that he’d gotten her back, he wasn’t letting her go.
* * * *
Lauren followed Ethan inside a cavernous, historical mansion that should’ve been cold and foreboding but was decorated in country colors that gave it a warm, cozy feel despite its size.
Skating on Thin Ice: Seattle Sockeyes (Game On in Seattle Book 1) Page 19