So, I don’t think I’m giving up. I’m making a necessary but uncomfortable choice to walk away. To not add fuel to the fire.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be so close to something you want so badly, and to have it taken away from you,” I answer, heaving a sigh.
“Jesus, you don’t think I understand that?” Dan stands abruptly, towering over me like a father scolding a child, and I feel about two inches tall. “You are a selfish prick. I’ve been managing you, coaching you for how many years? And you don’t think this means something to me? Not watching you go to World’s is hard for me, too. I’ve spent years trying to get you there, because once you do? You’ll win the whole damn thing.”
I peer up at Dan, pulling my hands away from my face to look at him, standing there, hand on his hips, his expression a mix of anger, frustration, and concern.
“I wasn’t talking about the World Cup.”
I watch the realization as it crosses his face but leaving only unanswered questions behind.
“What the fuck are we talking about then?” He throws his head back, hands on his hips in a move I know all too well. It’s hisI’ve had enough of this shitstance.
“Poppy,” I say plainly.
Now it’s a look of shock that washes over him, a feeling I’ve been grappling with myself. I’ve trained my entire life for this moment, to go to World’s. I lost it once, and it was devastating. But this time… this time the blow barely registers.
Because I’m preoccupied by something else, something infinitely more important to me now than winning a trophy.
Dan lets out a low whistle.
“Let me get this straight. You just had the rug pulled out from under you, very publicly and humiliatingly dropped by the biggest sponsor in the sport, and you’re more worried about losing your fake wife?”
I nod in confirmation.
“I never thought I’d see the day that you would put a woman before your sport.” Dan reaches out, and places a comforting hand on my shoulder, heavy and solid, as if he understands the depth of my pain.
If Poppy is more important to me than skiing… then the loss of her means something else to me entirely.
A moment of silence stretches between us before Dan speaks again.
“Well, I’m not going to let you sit here and let both of your dreams go,” he says.
At first, I wonder if he’s talking about getting Poppy back, but I know she agrees with me that this is best. She needs to figure out whether she’s keeping the café, and she needs to cut all ties with me and this scandal. But when Dan opens his mouth again, the words that come out throw me for a loop.
“We have less than twelve hours before you need to be on a flight to Zermatt. We’re going to figure out how to get you the cup, without Nuclear.” He pulls a rolled-up, thick looking document out of the back pocket of his jeans, and smacks it down next to me on the couch. It’s the World Cup rule book. “And then we’re going to get your girl.”
CHAPTER 43
POPPY
The steamer hissesas I pull it back in the milk, letting the tip rest on the surface of the liquid to create a nice smooth foam. Normally, it’s meditative, pouring my focus into crafting a drink that will warm someone on this frigid winter day.
Now, though, my focus has been all over the place, scattered, as if when Jett left my place the other morning, a part of my mind went with him, desperate to be near him for just a little while longer.
I cried until my eyes were nearly swollen shut, until they were wrung dry. Cordelia laid next to me, a silent supporter, as always.
Maybe it was naïve of me to think that whatever budding relationship we had could withstand a storm like this. Wren’s voice echoes in the back of my mind, telling me to be careful, to not let myself go down that path.
But I did, anyway. I let myself develop feelings for Jett, allowed myself to fall in love. I played a dangerous game. Still,there’s a part of me that thinks the only person Jett is a danger to is himself.
He’s lived in the public eye for long enough, that he’s started believing the things they say about him. Has isolated himself and shut out the possibility of connection because of it.
But he’s not the womanizing player they make him out to be. At least, not anymore. Not when he was with me.
Jett made me feel like I was the only woman in the world who mattered to him. He took care of me the way someone who loves me would. He let me in, just for a moment, and I saw him—the soft, caring man under the playboy façade.
Milk sputters and splatters onto my apron and startles me out of my trance, and I realize that I’ve burnt it.
