“Why? Afraid someone might hear that their precious goalie coach isn’t as professional as he pretends to be?”
I stand up and walk around the table, closing the distance between us. “You need to stop this.”
“Stop what? Telling the truth? Stop admitting that I can’t do my job because I can’t stop thinking about someone who acts like I don’t exist half the time?” He rakes his hands through his hair. “How the fuck did I let this shit happen again? Why the hell did it have to be you?”
The raw honesty in his voice, the way he’s looking at me like I’m the source of all his problems, makes my chest tight.
“You need to compartmentalize,” I say but it’s weak. So fucking weak.
“Compartmentalize? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You’re confused. You’re mixing up physical attraction with something else... ”
“Vegas.” He cuts me off with a bitter laugh. “You want to talk about Vegas? Fine. Let’s talk about how you made me feel things I’d never felt before and then disappeared like I was nothing.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Then whatdidhappen? Because I’ve been trying to figure it out for two fucking years. I’d never opened myself up like that and you walked away without so much as a fucking note. It took me so long to take that step toward accepting who I really am, and you cut my legs right out from under me. You made me feel like there was something wrong with me.”
I should walk away. Should maintain professional distance and let him think whatever he wants. But the hurt in his voice, the way he’s looking at me right now, makes me want to give him something real.
“Look, I got involved with some bad people,” I say. “People who don’t like it when you try to walk away from them.”
“What kind of people?”
“The kind that ends careers. That hurts people you care about.”
I should stop talking now. I should walk right out of the conference room, maintain my professional distance and let himthink whatever he wants to think. I’ve already said too much. I need to keep things impersonal or else we’re both screwed.
But instead of leaving the conference room, I back him against the wall.
“You want to know how I feel?” I say, our faces inches apart. “Fine. It’s fucking torture. Torture to want something so fucking bad it’s killing me knowing I can’t have it.”
A hiss of breath slips through his lips. “And why can’t you have it?”
“Because I’m not the kind of person you think I am.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means there are things about my past you wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
I stare at him, and for a second my mind trips back in that Detroit hotel room three years ago, Volkov’s thick accent cutting through the smoke-filled air:
“Your father needs expensive care, yes? Memory problems cost much money. We help each other, problem solved.”
The desperation I felt then hits me now. Watching my father forget my name while medical bills piled up. The syndicate’s offer seemed like salvation until I figured out what they really wanted from me.
Until I understood that once you’re in, you never get out clean.
Until they destroyed my knee to teach me what happens when you try.
“No,” I say.
He shakes his head and starts to move away from the wall, but I put my hands on either side of his head, trapping him.
“What are you doing?” he rasps.
