Chapter1
Cormac
Islammed my opponent into the boards, grinning behind my mouth guard as his helmet connected with the Plexiglas barrier with a resoundingthunk. The whistle blared, and my shoulders tensed. Coach was already screaming, and for the first time in my career, the local fans booed me.
“Never talk about my wife again,” I snarled.
Dukovsky gasped as he fell, his left pupil tiny, the right blown.Good. The fucker had a concussion.
“Ex-wife. She doesn’t want you no more,” he said in his thick, accented Russian.
I pulled off my gloves, intent on pummeling the rookie’s face in—not just for these words, but for claiming he’d fucked Shannon. That she’d let him touch her.
Didn’t matter that she’d served me papers, told me she couldn’t be the wife I deserved or the mother to my children.
This twenty-year-old claimed my wife had taken him to her bed last week—toourbed, in the loft I owned. I swallowed bile as his next whispered words swirled through my head.
“Your ex-wife’s pert ass has the cutest hockey tattoo. Good thing I play number twenty-two, too.”
The only way he could know that was if he’d seen Shannon’s naked body. That small double-digit was so high on her left butt cheek that it wasn’t visible even when she wore a swimsuit.
He’d been inside of her. As I stared down into his smug face, I knew it. And I also knew she’d done it to force me to sign the papers.
I barely heard the refs toss me from the game. I never caught my coach’s angry words.
None of it mattered. Not now.
Shannon had told me she didn’t want kids—never wanted them. I hadn’t believed her, hadn’t wanted to consider she’d keep something so essential from me. But she’d told me again when I suggested we try. She’d freaked out when she went off the pill, struggling to let me be intimate with her. When she started taking the birth control again, she cried tears of joy. She’d told me her position on children for the last time when she handed me the divorce papers.
I planned to sign the damn papers and give her what she wanted, because I’d always given Shannon what she wanted. She was the love of my life, and though it pained me to move out of our home, to un-link my life from hers, I’d assumed, naively, that she just needed some time.
But that wasn’t it at all. Instead, she was telling me she’d left me behind. I should have realized that when she accepted the high-powered position at a Montreal law firm where she now worked ninety-hour weeks. Rarely did she return my calls, and she never showed interest in getting together when I was in town.
But she’d kept our—my—loft, and I’d stupidly thought that meant something.
Until Dukovsky opened his mouth and spewed shit all over my future.
Now I wondered if I’d ever known Shannon.
I sat in the locker room for the rest of the game, head bowed, not answering the staff’s questions. I didn’t even bother to raise my head when the rest of the team trailed in, quiet enough for me to know we’d lost. And I didn’t hear Coach Gauthier bark my name.
My best friend, Pete, nudged my shoulder. Anger sat below the pity in his eyes. “Coach called you in.”
I stood, my muscles groaning because I hadn’t stretched. I met each teammate’s gaze on my way toward Gauthier’s office, giving them ample time to question me. Each one dropped his eyes. Felix, my other good friend and our goalie, clamped his jaw tight, just as angry as Pete was. The rest of the guys… They might hate me, too. I’d cost us a playoff game. They had every right to be angry.
I opened the door, my heart in my throat. Without Shannon, hockey was all I had left. But I’d fucked it up out there. Badly.
“You’ll get a suspension,” Gauthier said, his voice growly as he struggled to remain calm.
I hung my head.
“Which means we’re without our best defensive lineman. For the rest of the fuckingfinals.”
Inhaling through my nose, I remained silent. My hands fisted. Had I let Shannon take my career, too? Hockey paid for her to attend that fancy law school. My salary paid for the loft, her sweet little Mercedes. Oh, she’d liked the trappings of my life—just not enough to have my kids and tie herself to me forever. That’s what I thought we’d agreed to when we exchanged vows seven years ago.
I ignored the throb in my right fist. Dukovsky had deserved each punch.
“Nothing to say?” Gauthier made a disgusted sound. “I expected more out of you, Cormac.”
