“I honestly didn’t realize it was the same Shane,” I said with my own practiced, nonchalant laugh. I was aware of how ditzy my husband believed I was, so I played my part. And even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I leaned into Nathan, placing a hand over his chest as I smiled up at him. “You know how crazy our life has been lately. And that was ages ago, another lifetime it feels. It was just one class together, after all.”
I knew the lie was thinly veiled, but fortunately my husband was a man of discretion. So, he kissed my hair and turned his smile back to Shane. “Well, I look forward to hearing stories of the good ol’ days in Boston.”
Shane’s smile was tight as he slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks, and when a member of the public relations team came over to steal Nathan away and prepare him for the press conference, I was ready to slither back into the shadows and watch him from a distance like I always had. I waited for Shane to excuse himself, knowing he’d be a part of this press ordeal, too.
But he just stood there, rooted like a tree, his eyes fixed on mine.
When he looked at me that way, I couldn’t help but soften. It didn’t matter how my heart was still broken from his actions, the cracks splitting fresh in my chest at the sight of him as if to remind me not to get too close.Danger, my common sense whispered.Stay away.
And yet I couldn’t move, either.
Shane finally shook his head, the motion subtle, his eyes trailing down my modest navy-blue dress to my nude kitten heels and back up. “I’m sorry for staring, I just… I believe I may be in shock.”
I didn’t want to smile, but damn it if I could fight against the tilt of my lips. “Like seeing a ghost, huh?”
“After all this time, life has brought us back together.”
With that, my stomach soured, and finally, the cold resolve I’d been wishing for found me.
How dare he?
How dare this man look at me this way, all reverent and wonder-struck, and say those words like this was some happy reunion?
“Yep,” I snipped, standing taller and smoothing my hands over my dress. “And you can’t get away from me this time, unless you quit your job. And we all know nothing is more important to you than hockey.”
I held the emphasis onnothingso that he understood what I meant.
And by the way his face fell, I knew he had.
“Ari,” he started, but before he could plead whatever sorry excuse for a case he had, Nathan was back at my side.
He reached for my face to pull me in for a quick kiss, but instinctively, I flinched.
It was only a micro-second of a moment, a reaction that no one should have noticed. Nathan surely didn’t. He smiled post-kiss and told me to wish him luck before he was following the staff to the room where the press was waiting for him.
But when I turned back to Shane, his face was ashen, his jaw slack.
He’d seen it.
And I shouldn’t have been surprised.
This man had always seen right through me, since the very moment we’d met.
You Don’t Know Me
Ariana
2006
I’d like to say I didn’t pay one single ounce of attention to Shane McCabe after that first day of class, but it would be a lie big enough to grow my nose four times in size.
Curiosity raked through me like claws as I walked back to my campus dorm, and it was all I could do to pause long enough to pee before I was at my laptop and googling him.
The top of the search revealed instantly that he played for the university’s hockey team — that must have been why the roomooh’dandaww’dwhen he said his name.
A few more scrolls and I discovered he was drafted to play in the NHL at eighteen, and he’d be on his way to Jacksonville as soon as he graduated.
Then, in a gut-wrenching surprise, I stumbled upon an article about the death of his parents in an ice storm when he was just seven years old.
