So Over You

by Kate Meader

  Vadim had no intention of being the same. He would be better.

  The waitress returned with two beers and a soda.

  Remy took a slug of his beer. “So how’s working with Isobel going?”

  Tread carefully. Just as there were eyes everywhere, the ears were also ubiquitous.

  “It is what it is.”

  Remy mouthed wow at Bren, who looked amused. “Quite the endorsement, Vad.”

  “No one likes the fate of their playing time decided by—”

  “A woman?” Bren offered.

  “Someone so young,” Vadim countered. That Isobel was an excellent skater was undeniable, but no man enjoyed losing control. He especially did not enjoy how both his mind and his body rioted in her presence. Perhaps the female-in-charge element bothered him more than he cared to admit.

  Or perhaps he wanted to fuck his hot coach until he lost all reason.

  “I will feel better when I play.”

  Remy nodded. “She must have done something right.”

  “That’s pretty magnanimous of you,” Bren said to Remy.

  Vadim’s hackles were immediately raised. He could criticize, but he refused to tolerate it in others. “You do not like Isobel?”

  Remy rubbed his chin. “She doesn’t like me. Well, that’s not exactly right. It’s more that she doesn’t approve of me and Harper.”

  “Thought she shoved Harper into fessin’ up about you being the one and all that,” Bren said.

  “Yeah, but more for Harper’s mental health. Something had to give and Isobel recognized that Harper’s go-it-alone thing was messing with her mind. I’d say Isobel would prefer Harper was with anyone but a player, but as that’s not happening, she has to live with her sister’s choice. Harper says it’s more because Isobel thinks hockey players are predisposed to cheat.”

  “Well, old man Chase wasn’t exactly the best role model,” Bren said. “Fucked his way through every hotel bar in North America. I’m only surprised there aren’t more little Chases popping out of the Clifford gene pool.”

  “I think there can be only one Violet.” Remy shot Vadim a sly glance before adding, “Yeah, you’re never going to see Isobel gettin’ involved with the players. As for Violet, I don’t think she has any such scruples.”

  For a moment, Vadim thought this mischievous look in his direction was because Remy suspected that Vadim and Isobel had crossed a line, but then he realized that this was aimed at their captain. Had he thought Bren St. James looked dark before? A new storm front descended over his grave features.

  “Burnett can’t handle her,” he said, and there was a finality about his statement that caught Vadim’s interest. Bren and Violet? Talk about complete opposites.

  On cue, a loud laugh trilled from the other side of the bar. If Vadim didn’t know this belonged to Violet, their captain’s white-knuckling of the edge of the table would have made this clear. Bren muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “Fuck.”

  “Why not ask her out?”

  Remy held up a hand. “Sorry, Petrov, but the world’s not ready for these kids to bang it out. We’re all gonna need to invest in Kevlar first.”

  Bren glared at Remy. “Remind me why I choose to spend time with you, DuPre.”

  “Who else is gonna put up with your moods, mon ami?”

  The Scot shook his head, a half smile on his lips. As fascinating as this was, Vadim was eager to get back to Isobel, particularly Isobel’s self-imposed embargo on fraternization with the players.

  “Apparently Isobel is interested in Kelly,” he said, testing the temperature of the table and the validity of the theory.

  Remy considered this. “I heard it’s the other way around, but she’s not opposed. Coach and trainer? Sounds like a match made in heaven.”

  Perhaps, on paper. Perhaps, one that would not offend whoever was offended by inappropriate hookups between team owners and players.

  It was also what Isobel had said she wanted—once.

  But there was a world of difference between saying and doing. And last week in the steamed-up confines of her ridiculous clown car, the doing told Vadim all he needed to know. Her mouth on his was the miracle he’d been missing for eight years.

  Fury coursed through him at how he’d screwed up. He had ruined her first sexual experience in his haste to get his rocks off. Nineteen-year-olds had a lot to learn about pleasing a woman, but surely he could have gone gentler with her. Listened to her body. Anticipated her needs. And now, that disaster lay between them like a peak that had to be scaled.

  But he couldn’t. He had to stay on his side of the mountain. He had to stay away from her so she would not lose respect from the world for her coaching skills.

  An hour later, the small groups were dispersing, and while it was at least three hours to the team’s midnight curfew, it was clear that the night was ending. Vadim didn’t mind, as Mia had texted to say she was in an Uber and on her way.

  He stood, so did Remy and Bren. “Do zavtra, gentlemen.” Until tomorrow.

  As he turned, someone bumped against his shoulder, though bumped was generous. If Vadim wasn’t 229 pounds of rock-solid muscle, he might have taken a step back.

  Leon Shay stood before him with Kazinsky, one of the defensemen. They must have just come in, because their cheeks were ruddy and a dusting of snow covered their jackets. Shay’s eyes were cloudy. Unfocused. The man was drunk or close to it.

  “Petrov, I hear you’re starting tomorrow.”

  “It is what I am paid to do. It will be good to be back.” Even if it was at the expense of Shay in the starting lineup. At half strength, Vadim was ten times the player Shay would ever be. Coach had made the right decision.

  “So who’d you blow to get back on the roster?”

  “Come on, man, don’t start this.” Kazinsky, evidently the wiser or more sober of the two, put a hand on his tipsy friend’s arm.

  Don’t start what? Vadim looked from Shay to Kaz. The defender dropped his gaze in embarrassment.

  Had Vadim not told Shay what would happen if he spread gossip about Isobel? He glanced down at Shay’s running shoes, the laces now grubby from the snow-slushed Manhattan streets. Not idly, Vadim wondered if those laces would break when he wrapped them around Shay’s thick, stupid neck.

  Meeting Shay’s unfocused gaze, Vadim spoke in a quiet, reasonable voice, though every cell in his body itched to do battle. “Perhaps we should speak outside.”

  Shay leaned in unsteadily, his breath stinking of whiskey. “So you can hit me and finish the hatchet job you started when you were traded in? And here I was thinking that Isobel Chase was going to spread her legs to get her dream job. Looks like you’re the one who needs to whore yourself out, you Russian prick.”

  “Poshol ti, you fucking kozyol—”

  “Okay, that’s enough.” Bren stepped in and wedged his body between Shay and Vadim. “Both of you, off to your rooms. It’s too late for this shite.”

  A crowd had gathered, a mix of hotel patrons, the few remaining Rebels players, and Kelly. Bren stepped back, hands raised, seeking calm, and Kazinsky followed suit. Shay remained, his brain clearly in some sort of hamster wheel of confusion. Vadim would not hit a man who’d had too much to drink.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t get the last word in. Not sporting, perhaps, but Leon Shay wasn’t the type of man who understood these subtleties.

  Vadim’s agent often urged him to protect his face with the same zeal he used to cultivate his skill on the ice. A famous photographer had once called Vadim’s bone structure flawless, and while he was usually opposed to inflicting damage on such perfection, sometimes one had to choose the lesser of two evils.

  “I am sure if you work hard, Shay, you will have your place back on the first line.”

  Shay may have been drunk, but he was lucid enough to understand a veiled insult when he heard it. True, Vadim would never strike a drunk, but he would accept the first blow—and ensure this durák saw n
o ice time for the rest of the season.

  So when that sloppy fist met Vadim’s jaw, he accepted it in the way a Russian accepts the sharp bite of wind coming off the Ural mountain range. With fortitude and the knowledge that he may not win this battle, but the war had turned in his favor.

  TWELVE

  Isobel ran into Harper as her older sister was leaving Dante’s room.

  “What happened?” she demanded. Harper’s text message had merely said: Shay and Petrov are off the roster. Fight in hotel bar.

  Harper sighed. “Dante and I walked into the bar on the tail end of an argument. Bren and Remy were pulling the two of them apart, and then it was full-scale omertà.” Mob code of silence. “As far as we can tell, no one filmed it, though there were a few civilians in the vicinity.”

  Isobel knotted her hands into fists. “We know Shay’s a loudmouthed blowhard. He probably started this. Whatever this is.” She looked over Harper’s shoulder at Dante’s closed door. “I need to talk to Dante. He can’t suspend Petrov, not after all the work he put in. We need him on the ice.”

  Harper grimaced. “Our GM wants to set an example. Zero tolerance. And neither of us holds out much hope of this not getting out and back to the commissioner.”

  The NHL loved the fights on the ice—the big ratings proved it—but anything that might tarnish the rep of the league outside of the officially approved violence was a big no-no.

  “This is total bullshit, Harper. Vadim has to play.”

  Blood boiling, Isobel moved forward, their GM her goal, only to have her sister grip her elbow and steer her away toward the elevator. That petite stature hid the strength of an Amazon.

  “Let’s see how it looks tomorrow,” Harper said. “If no footage goes up overnight on TMZ, then we’ll have a better case for getting him reinstated.”

  Isobel had to concede that Harper might have a point. She’d always been savvy about tricky situations like these. “What did Remy say happened?”

  “That it was just a spat over who was playing on the first line tomorrow.”

  “And you believe that?”

  Harper shrugged.

  “For God’s sake, Harper, what’s the point of having a hockey player boyfriend if he can’t give you the inside track?”

  “You know how they are, the bro code and all that. And to be honest, I’d rather Remy kept those relationships intact. The team has to know that everything team related goes in the man vault and that Remy won’t be spilling the beans during nightly pillow talk. Of course, I have my suspicions. Knowing how Shay feels about women running the team, I’m guessing he probably made some crack about you, and Vadim came to your defense.”

  Isobel could feel her face flushing. Sure she wanted to know the origins of their fight, but not if it meant finding out she was the reason. “That’s ridiculous. Vadim would never risk his place on the team over a dumb insult to me. It means everything to him to be back in play.”

  Harper pressed the elevator button. “Sometimes men don’t always think about what’s best for them.” A not-unsubtle reference to Remy’s uncharacteristic pounding of an opposing team’s player during a game less than two months ago. All in defense of his woman when the bighearted Cajun found out this piece-of-shit player had once hit Harper.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you and Petrov?”

  Isobel crossed her arms. Uncrossed them because that looked defensive. Then recrossed them because she should have stuck with her first instinct.

  “There’s nothing going on.”

  “How well did you know him before?”

  Blessedly, the elevator arrived and opened, but alas, no occupants appeared to postpone this awkward conversation.

  “Not that well.” Which was true. “Dad wanted me to practice with the team before I headed to college, and he was there that summer for a few weeks.”

  “And?” They stepped inside, and Isobel pressed the button for the next floor, where they were both staying.

  “And nothing. I went to Harvard. He signed a contract with the KHL.” After he popped my cherry and dear old Dad made sure he couldn’t work in the USA. “And now he’s here. On the team. And should be playing.”

  They got off at their floor and walked toward their rooms. Harper’s door came first.

  “Isobel, a man defending you is very seductive. Believe me, I understand.”

  “You don’t even know that’s what it is.”

  Harper looked pitying. “Remy didn’t say it, but he didn’t not say it, either. And your defense of Vadim seems to be more than just the defense of a coach.”

  Isobel’s heart knocked around her chest, checking in for visits with all the other organs. Harper’s holier-than-thou attitude was really too much. “It’s okay for you to get involved with a player, but the rest of us have to act like saints?”

  Agh, shut it! She didn’t want to get involved with Vadim. She didn’t—hell, she had no idea what she wanted.

  Wrong. Right this second, she wanted him to explain why he had put everything he—they—had worked for in jeopardy. It wasn’t the first time, either. There was that near fight with Shay in the Empty Net two weeks ago, which Harper and Dante obviously didn’t know about. Omertà, indeed.

  “It’s different for you, Isobel,” Harper said with compassion, which made Isobel fidget. “Your position is more precarious because the coaches have such a big say in who gets to play. If you want to be taken seriously in this business, as a coach in this business, don’t get involved with Petrov.”

  She shoved her key card into the door lock. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Let’s pray that your player’s fists aren’t all over the news.”

  With that, she closed the door behind her, leaving a fuming Isobel on the other side. Only she wasn’t entirely sure whom she was mad at.

  Isobel marched down the hallway of the Hyatt’s sixteenth floor until she reached the door at the end. Fist up, she pulled her punch at the last moment, letting her knuckles fall with a light rap instead of a hard knock. Discretion was required. Come to think of it, why the hell was Vadim on this floor anyway? The rest of the team and staff were on eleven and twelve.

  She didn’t have time to dwell on that because a chorus of yapping barks greeted her knock before the door was opened by a dark-haired beauty dressed as a schoolgirl.

  Or what a horny businessman might imagine as his schoolgirl fantasy. The pleated skirt of her Catholic school uniform showed way more skin than the nuns could possibly allow, and she may as well have abandoned her striped tie for all the actual tying it was doing.

  Isobel flicked a glance at the door number again.

  “I think I have the wrong—”

  The woman squealed really, really loudly. She lunged for Isobel and with a surprisingly strong grip, dragged her into the room.

  “You’re Isobel Chase!”

  “Uh, yep. That’s me.”

  She slammed the door shut. “I’m a huge fan!”

  “Of what?”

  “Of you!” She shook her head in disbelief. Right there with ya.

  The woman opened her mouth again and Isobel braced for more exclamation points, but whatever she was about to say was replaced by ferocious barking. A toast-colored Pomeranian stepped between them, protecting his owner. Pretty funny, really. Poms always thought they were much larger than their actual size, and this one obviously considered himself to be a Great Dane.

  “Gordie Howe! Isobel’s not a threat.” The woman bent and picked up the dog, named after one of the most successful hockey players to ever grace the ice. Calling a cute, yappy pom after Gordie was its own sort of genius.

  Before Isobel could comment, the greeter was back to talking Isobel’s ear off.

  “Oh my God, that goal you scored to knock out Mother Russia in the semifinals in Sochi—wow!” She leaned in, secrets in a pair of mischievous blue eyes. “Yeah. Traitor. That’s me.”

  Isobel pinned on a smile. After all, isn’t that what you do when a c
razy person likes you? Confused because Loco Chick was (a) dressed like a schoolgirl, (b) speaking in an American accent, yet (c) referring to Mother Russia, Isobel was at a loss as to how to proceed.

  Oh right. “Is Vadim around?”

  A voice boomed from far away—super far away, actually, because Isobel now noticed they were in a very luxurious suite. Vadim Petrov might be a vodka-fronting, underwear-hawking, hockey-playing superstar, but the Rebels org was sure as shit not paying for this upgrade.

  “Mia!” Followed by a stream of Russian that sounded angry, but then streams of Russian invariably sounded angry. Except when they included hot, sexy panting against a woman’s very receptive ear.

  He emerged, wearing low-slung black sweatpants, a hot glower, and nothing else. As if she wasn’t already pissed enough at him.

  He held a phone away from his ear. “Why are you still here, Mia? Alexei is expecting you down in the lobby.” On seeing Isobel, his frown deepened. “Ah, I am in trouble.”

  “Damn straight, Russian.”

  He said something to the young woman in his native tongue.

  She rolled her eyes. “English, bro. You know I don’t understand that BS.”

  Bro? He’d never mentioned a sister, and there was nothing in his files, but Isobel saw the resemblance now. Aristocratic cheekbones, startling blue eyes, and a runway model–tall frame. God help the men of New York.

  His sister—Mia—divided a look between them, revealing one more way they were alike: a stubborn set to her chin. “I’d like to stay and talk to Isobel.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock at night, and you have school tomorrow. Now say good-bye.” With another unintelligible mutter into his phone, he hung up.

  “I’m Mia, by the way,” his sister, who Isobel was now realizing was an actual schoolgirl, said to Isobel. “Mia Wa—” With a nervous lip bite, she shot a glance at Vadim. On seeing his mouth hitch in a half smile and the decline of his head in a regal nod, she turned back to Isobel, her chin raised in—pride? “Mia Wallace. It’s so great to meet you. Honestly.”

  Isobel’s body prickled with awareness. That name—why did she know it?