Perched on the mattress, he looked around the space.Not big, but everything seemed clean and orderly.Industrial carpet in shades of blue and tan covered the floor, and the walls were painted a light beige color.They absorbed some of the white-blue harshness from the overhead lights.He crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his right leg.Tried to rotate his ankle and nearly spewed out a curse.
“Not a good idea,” a female voice said.
Yeah, no shit,danced on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back when his gaze landed on the source.
A woman with blond hair pulled tight into a ponytail had just entered from a side door and angled straight for him.She stuttered to a stop.His heart did the same thing.Her mouth formed a perfect circle, and her bright blue eyes mimicked its shape.
He’d pulled the short straw and “the blond one” along with it … but this was so much worse than he could have imagined.
I.Am.So.Fucked.
Chapter 2
Icy Blast from the Past
SamFreakingDurbin.
Angelina Rossi shook her head, desperately hoping she could change the channel and the image of Sam Durbin right along with it.
She blinked—multiple times—but there he sat in all his chiseled glory, his marine-blue eyes flickering with intensity, his square jaw covered with enough stubble to leave a delicious scrape on sensitive skin, and his dark blond hair perfectly tousled—as though those curly strands had been arranged by a stylist to look messy.One crew-sock-encased foot was propped on the table, and he stared at her with a shocked expression that probably mirrored her own.
Damn it!Why hadn’t Celia warned her that Sam was her new patient?
Because he’s not supposed to be my new patient.
One of the other therapists had up and walked out, without notice or any inkling of warning, leaving a handful of patients dangling in his wake.
Celia had done an admirable juggling job, managing to reassign most of them, but had called Angie in a panic, begging her to come in despite this being her off day.The mercenary in Angie had jumped at the chance to take on any new assignments.Call that thedesperatemercenary in her.This job with the physical therapy operation that tended to the Blizzard hockey team was a new gig for Angie, one she was well-trained for, and a sweet spot that could carry her swiftly up the rungs of her ambition.The fact that one of her new patients was a Blizzard player had been the frosting on the cupcake.The reality sitting before her had licked off all that frosting and left a soggy mess behind.
She hadn’t learned his name before rushing in.She hadn’t known a thing about him except he had a syndesmosis injury.She’d been flying blind, having only now arrived, leaving her no time to review his profile.If she’d had his paperwork ahead of time, she would have at least seen his name, but those documents were currently on the desktop of her shared workstation, where Celia had just dropped them off.
Cripes, why hadn’t she asked which Blizzard player before she’d committed to this particular assignment?She needed to build her business as badly as she needed the money, and she was good with ankles, which made her the perfect PT match.Had she known his identity ahead of time, though, would she have taken him on anyway?
No effing way.
Of all the PT joints in all the towns in all the world, he limps into mine.
She unstuck her feet from where they’d rooted themselves to the floor and willed them to walk with a casual gait toward the guy she swore she’d never speak to again in this lifetime.Not that she had ever imagined getting another chance to walk that dark path.
A wicked thought caused her to mentally rub her hands together.Angie thought of herself as a glass-half-full kind of girl, and right now she was telling herself there was a bright side to this irony.How badly could she torture him under the pretext of physical therapy?Grab that ankle and yank it this way, twist it that way … Oh, how she’d love to get the upper hand on the cocky douche canoe.Bring him to his knees.Make him cry for mercy.Make him sob out a long-overdue apology.Make him snivel as he confessed to her how cruelly he’d behaved.
And now he was here.In the flesh.On her table.Injured.
Yeah, she could make this work.
“Rossi?”he croaked.“Is that you?”Those dark blue eyes summed her up in one thorough sweep, and a corner of his mouth twitched tentatively.
One tiny movement, and her revenge fantasy went poof.She should have been cackling with glee in the bottom of her cold, dead heart.Technically, only one corner of said heart was dead, thanks to the frostbite inflicted on it by Sam Freaking Durbin.But she was at a loss to muster delight over this turn of fortune.The promise of paybacks splatted at her feet.This man was to her willpower what kryptonite was to Superman.She needed to slide into a lead suit if she hoped to survive him this time.
She cleared the surge of emotions from her throat “Hi, Sam.Long time no see.”Ooh, nicely played, Ange.Casual indifference is always a good fallback.
She reached for her rolling laptop stand to give her hands something to do and her eyes somewhere to point besides his infuriatingly handsome face.Even as she broke eye contact, though, she felt the weight of his gaze on her.What thoughts were buzzing through his head?What a mistake he’d made that night six years ago?Or how smoking hot she looked in her baggy pants?Yeah, right.Maybe he was realizing how drunk he’d truly been and that his liquored-up eyesight had been so thoroughly compromised he’d imagined her as … someone else.Someone with a pink puffy-lipped mouth.Someone pretty.Someone with a supermodel build whose name was Brianna.
Unfortunately, there was nothing wrong with Angie’s eyesight, and he looked finer now than he had then.He was taller, for one thing.More squared off.More … manly.He wore his testosterone well.
Damn him.
“High ankle sprain?”she said dully, waking up the workstation.
