Emory actually smiles fondly and nods. “We share the same dad. We’re half-sisters.”
“Okay.” I sit back for dramatic effect and pick up my drink—a club soda with lime, since this is business. “Give me the low down on your family, especially why you have an English accent, and hers is more American.”
I get a solid nod of understanding, as if I’m not the only one who’s noted the differences in the siblings. “It’s pretty simple. My dad is English and I was born in London. My mom died in childbirth, but he met Jenna’s mother and married her when I was two. Jenna came along a year later. I look just like our father, and she looks just like her mother.”
“And the accents?” I inquire.
“We lived in London until I was fifteen and Jenna was twelve, before moving back to my stepmother’s home city of Los Angeles. Jenna had developed a bit of an accent while we lived in London, but for whatever reason, hers became very Americanized when we moved here. I retained mine though.”
“Genetics maybe?” I ponder. It’s truly fascinating, but I also know accents are a product of environment. My own Swedish accent had lightened considerably since living in North America the last six years.
Emory shrugs and continues to talk about her family. It doesn’t take long to figure out she comes from money, although she never comes out and says it. Her father is a hotelier and franchised his company to the States, which is why they moved back here. Her mother is the chief marketing officer of his company, which is how they met originally when she’d moved to London to take a job he was offering.
“And what about you?” Emory asks, sipping intermittently on her Diet Coke.
“Born in Stockholm, had a bit of hockey talent. Played for Färjestad Bollklubb in Karlstad.”
“And what is that?” she interrupts.
“It’s a team in the Swedish Hockey League,” I explain, and continue on. “I was actually drafted by Toronto and immediately loaned back to Färjestad Bollklubb where I played until I was twenty. Then I moved to Toronto and played there for four years and then to the Vengeance in the expansion draft.”
This precipitates a bunch of questions from Emory, some from natural curiosity but some from a business perspective. I can see she’s trying to figure out how to leverage my international background into the team’s social media strategy.
Because, as she said, “We’re not only interested in American fans.”
I tell her that Färjestad Bollklubb is the most successful team in Sweden and that I was recruited to play for our national team because of my success there. I explain the differences in the styles of play, including the fact the size of the international rink compared to the North American rinks lends to more emphasis on puck handling and defense.
It was then that I learned Emory was just learning about the sport of hockey, which was one of her downfalls when deciding to apply for the job with the Vengeance. She was more of a football person—meaning soccer. I was impressed to learn she studied the league and all the teams extensively before her interview, including an exhaustive comparative review of the social media platforms, with a game plan on how to make the Vengeance’s even better. I’m guessing that landed her Dominik’s respect and the job.
How she got the job lent to more discussion about her vision for the team and how she’d like me to conform to that. Admittedly, it was something I could easily do.
It’s not until we finish our meals that I finally ask the question, “So you’re a single mom, huh?”
Emory smiles, her eyes sparkling with pride. “Felicity is seven and the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
That statement right there should be an accurate representation of why I stay away from women with kids. They are a priority, as they should be.
But my life has priorities too, mainly my career, and I’ve found the two just don’t mesh well.
And yet… there’s something in her tone that touches a soft spot inside me for the role a single mom takes on. The bravery of it.
“Her father out of the picture?” I ask, trying to poke gently without being overtly nosy.
She nods but doesn’t elaborate. I can tell by the pinched expression he’s a sore subject, so I leave it alone. She does say though, “Jenna coming to live with us has been a lifesaver. She works from home so she’s there when Felicity gets home from school. Saves me on having to pay for daycare after.”
“What does Jenna do?”
“Freelance copy editing for newspapers,” she replies, circling her finger around the rim of her glass. “Although she just landed a job with the Phoenix Tribune and will be starting there soon. Still, I wonder how long this career will be since print media seems to be a dying breed.”
I nod. I can’t remember the last time I even saw someone reading their news in print. It’s all right on our smartphones now. “It’s good to have family to lean on.”
I know this from personal experience. My mother has a muscular dystrophy disease, and my older sister lives very close so she can help care for her back in Stockholm. If I didn’t have her, I’m not sure what choices I’d have to make to ensure my mom had everything she needed.
Emory picks up her phone from the table, looks at it briefly before bringing her eyes to mine. “It’s getting late. Want to go over a few more things about your IG account while we get the check handled?”
“Sure,” I say easily. While this wasn’t a date, I actually had a nice time. Emory’s a fascinating woman and I enjoyed learning more about her, even if the things I learned all spoke to why I’m not interested in a second date.
She waves at someone behind me—presumably the waiter—who seems to appear out of nowhere with the check. Emory tries to take it, but I manage to snag it out of the man’s hands. “I’ve got this.”
“I was going to expense it out,” she says with a pointed look. “You agreed.”
“I’m the one who invited you to dinner,” I reply, with my own pointed look. “Besides… you know I’m kind of rich, right? I don’t need you to buy me dinner.”
Emory tips her head back and laughs, and I have a crushing sense of disappointment at how beautiful she looks in this moment.
Because there can’t be anything between us.
CHAPTER 5
Emory
“He has an Olympic medal, you know?” Jenna says as she drives me to the arena. It’s actually my car, but she’s driving since I’m going to hop out when we get there.
The thought of Jett makes my skin prickle in irritation, as does Jenna’s casual drop of information about him.
I don’t let her know that’s an interesting tidbit, and instead, jerk my head toward the back seat where Felicity is sitting behind me. “Shh… delicate child ears back there.”
Jenna snorts and looks in the rearview mirror at her niece, face soft with fondness and love. “I don’t see how an Olympic medal is scandalous, but she can’t hear anything. She’s too absorbed in Elena of Avalor.”
I glance back. It’s true. Felicity has my iPad on her lap, headphones on, and her eyes riveted to the screen as her favorite princess rides flying Jaquins and battles an evil sorceress. She’s oblivious to us.
But I don’t want to talk to my sister about Jett. She had fallen asleep on Felicity’s bed before I got home last night. They were clearly in mid-bedtime story as evidenced by a Captain Underpants book laying on her chest and Felicity’s legs sprawled across Jenna’s. I decided to let them be, knowing Jenna would wake up at some point and go to her own room.
I had a hard time getting to sleep last night. Our date—which wasn’t a date but a business meeting—ended up being… well… a good time for me. Jett was easy to be around. I thought he’d bring a high-pressure pitch to jump into bed with him, and I fully expected him to press for a second date—or business meeting as I’d prefer to call it.
But he didn’t.
He merely walked me up my sidewalk and stopped at the foot of the porch steps. I turned around to see him there in
the shadows but I could see the easy smile on his face.
“Thanks for the social media lesson, Emory,” he’d said in his faint Swedish accent that I could hear on the “r” in my name as it rose slightly in pitch.
“Anytime,” I’d replied, and I’m not so sure that was a business offering on my part.
I’d simply enjoyed my time with him, found him to be genial, funny, and surprisingly humble. All traits I’d never considered he’d have, but also didn’t really care about as I had no intention of getting involved with someone.
Have.
Have no intention of getting involved with someone.
As in present tense.
“Don’t you think that’s incredible?” Jenna asks, and I blink out of my reverie.
“What?” I ask befuddled.
“That Jett has an Olympic medal.” The smirk on her face says she’s baiting me. “He’s played in the winter Olympics for Sweden and they got a silver.”
Jett had mentioned playing in the Olympics but didn’t brag or linger on it. I think that just goes to his humble nature.
Add onto that genuine charm he has without even trying, the fact that he’s probably the hottest guy I’ve ever known—sorry, but the buzzed cut dark blond hair, crystal blue eyes, and facial scruff do me in—and I think about him far too much. I expected to wake up this morning and be focused on anything other than Jett Olsson.
“Will you go on another date with him?” Jenna asks.
My head whips her way and I glare. “It wasn’t a date.”
“Hmmm,” she replies, a sound deep in her throat that says she doesn’t believe a word of my claim. Probably because I’m fighting so hard about calling it a date.
I’m stunned though when she pivots. “Did he ask about me?”
I frown at her. “Just what you did for a living.”
“Not about my scars?” Her voice is soft, barely discernible. It guts me that she even has to worry about such a thing.
“No, Jenna. He didn’t ask about your scars, and why should he?”
“Because they’re hideous and I’m an oddity,” she replies, her voice much stronger but only because she’s feeling the need to defend her insecurities.
“You’re an oddity,” I reply irritably. “But not for your scars. Which are not hideous, by the way.”
“Says the woman with perfect skin,” she retorts bitterly.
I gasp at the assault, because it’s so un-Jenna-like. Before I can even say a word, she’s apologizing. “I’m so sorry,” she blurts, her head swinging my way only briefly to lock eyes before she turns back to the road. “I don’t know why I just said that.”
“It’s okay,” I reply gently, my hand reaching out to her shoulder for a squeeze. I look into the back seat and see that Felicity is still ignoring both of us.
“I think I’m just really nervous about this new job,” she mumbles. “Even if it is remote, I’m going to have to go in for meetings sometimes.”
Jenna is going to make a stab at reentering the workforce for the career she had originally chosen in journalism. Her dream out of college was to be the chief editor of a major newspaper one day, even though print is struggling. She was well on her way to establishing a career when the fire happened, and her lengthy medical recovery set her back right to the start again.
Except once she healed and was strong enough to return to work, she didn’t have the desire to pursue such a career. Really, she had no desire to be in public because of her scars.
It’s easy for me to say they’re not bad. To the ordinary eye, you can really only see the ones on the lower part of her face and traveling down her neck. No one really knows the back of her legs all the way up to her lower back are riddled with the same knobby pattern of melted flesh. It’s why you never see her in shorts or dresses. Jenna doesn’t want anyone seeing the damage left behind.
“You know,” I start hesitantly. “You’re going to have to open up a bit. Especially if you stay here with me in Phoenix. I think taking this job is a courageous step. I’m glad you’ll have to go in sometimes for meetings, even if it’s scary to you.”
“What do you mean open up?” she asks curiously, because there’s no need to fight over my statement that she actually needs to get out of the house. We’ve had many discussions about that, and to some extent, she’s doing quite well. She’ll take Felicity out wherever she wants to go, so she’s heading in the right direction.
“I mean,” I drawl, seeing the arena up ahead. “Dominik Carlson runs his team like a family. He has many events to bring everyone together, and I’ll want you to be there with me and Felicity because you’re part of my family, and thus part of the Vengeance family. I don’t want you hiding away from people.”
“I don’t hide from people,” she mutters in response, but I hear the guilt laced within.
I shoot her a smirk that she doesn’t see since she’s diligently watching the road and slowing to make her turn into the staff parking lot.
I don’t bother arguing with her because she has, in fact, started to courageously get out of the house more with Felicity. I expect she just needs the practice to reintegrate, as she’s spent much of the last two years recovering and then hiding because of her scars.
She swings into the lot, which is mostly empty given it’s a Sunday, and pulls parallel to the curb that borders the staff entrance. It’s right beside the player’s parking lot and entrance, which leads via staircase directly down to the locker room. The staff entrance opens up to a secure elevator which rises to the top level that houses the executive offices and a state-of-the-art gym. There is some basic equipment for the players in the locker room, such as bikes to warm up on and bands to stretch with, but if they want the full gamut of every imaginable piece of motorized or static equipment you could ever imagine, they have a direct elevator from the locker room up to the gym.
You’d think when they built the arena—which is partially owned by Dominik—they would have put the workout room in the basement near the locker room, but Dominik wanted it on the top level, which is encased in floor-to-ceiling glass with a gorgeous view of downtown Phoenix with the mountainscape behind the glass buildings. The gym is open and available to any member of the organization, as well as their families.
It’s why I’m here on a Sunday. To get in a workout but I’m also going to do a few hours of work at my desk. While I can just as easily work from home, I get a motivating vibe from this arena.
Plus, I have dual monitors on my desk that I don’t have at home and that’s a game-changer.
Before I get out of the car, I turn to Jenna. “I love you.”
She blinks at me in surprise, because while we are incredibly close and always have been, we don’t spontaneously affirm our feelings. “I love you too,” she says hesitantly.
Almost suspiciously.
I grin at her. “I just want you to love yourself the same way. Okay?”
She flushes but gets my message. Her eyes drop for a moment but she nods her agreement. “Yeah… I know.”
I hop out of the car, grabbing my workout bag from the floorboard. I shut the passenger door and immediately open the back door where Felicity is sitting. She ignores me completely, still engrossed in Elena. I lean in, kiss her on the head and manage to get a brief glance and a smile before she’s lost again.
God, I love my kid. She can be incredibly co-dependent and stuck to me like glue, then other times she’s fiercely independent and has no need for me.
I love that she is both.
I close the door and throw a wave to Jenna, who will be back to pick me up in three hours, then head into the arena.
The elevator ride up to the top floor takes no time, and rather than cut right to the executive offices, I go left toward the gym. When I enter, it seems quiet, although I see a few of the players and some family members working out. The place is cavernous, and I head over to a rowing machine to get warmed up. I’m already dressed in my workout clothes, the gear in my duff
le a clean change of garments that I’ll slip into after a shower.
There’s no one around the cardio equipment so I take the rower closest to me and do a nice steady pace for five hundred yards to get warmed up. It’s enough to get my heart rate up without killing me.
Grabbing a towel out of my bag, I give a quick wipe of my face and head over to the wall that houses all the free weights. I angle for a power rack, intent on doing some squats when my eyes land on Jett on the next one over.
He’s doing chest presses and a quick count of the plates and barbell tells me he’s handling three hundred and fifteen pounds with ease. He doesn’t know I’m standing there watching—ogling—as he completes a set of eight reps.
When he’s done and settles the barbell on the j-hooks, I say, “You know, you should have a spotter.”
His big body jerks as he curls up from the bench to look at me, one side of his mouth lifting up into a lop-sided grin. “For that puny weight? I could have done those one-handed.”
I snort and give him a chastising look.
Straddling the bench, he stares at me for a long moment before finally saying, “Want to join me? We can spot each other.”
And there’s no hesitation—in fact, a tiny thrill of excitement—when I say, “Sure.”
CHAPTER 6
Jett
I frown as I check my watch. I don’t have much time to get down to the team auditorium for our pre-game meeting. We play the San Diego Renegades tonight and they’ve been a surprise powerhouse in our division. It means Coach is going to want to spend some time on game film, which will extend our regular pre-game meeting by a bit.
But it might be worth being a few minutes late and incurring a scathing glare from Coach if I get a smile in return.
I enter the lobby of the executive suite at the arena, and with nothing but a few flirty words to the receptionist, I’m able to bypass any announcement of my arrival. I walk the maze of halls until I reach Emory’s office and find the door halfway closed. Rapping my knuckles on it a few times, I push it open to find her at her desk. Her head lifts and I’m instantly brought back to the first time I saw her and how fucking sexy her black-framed glasses made her look.
Jett Page 4