Page 48 of Hard to Handle

She stares at me, her jaw clenching and eyes firing with anger.

I’m reminded immediately of three years ago when she stood in that hotel room, her chin quivering but held high as she fought the emotion in her eyes. As she told me our fling had run its course and that it was best we didn’t meet again. As she saved me from having to break her heart that was starting to grow a bit too attached to mine.

Because mine was already fucking there too.

The memory is the last thing I need. To be reminded of what it felt like to be cared for by her. To remember how I had spent too much time convincing myself I didn’t deserve someone like her—the feelings, the comfort, the simplicity of it all—only for her to save me by doing it for me.

Only to prove to me just how much of an asshole I am. I never chased her, told her she was wrong . . . because I let her walk away.

She struggles momentarily with her emotions before the businesswoman façade slides back into place and she takes a step back.

“It makes sense now.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“You don’t want to hear what I said the other night, but you want to play the victim. News flash,” she says, mocking what I said to her. “You—”

“Christ, Hunter.” I look up to see Sanderson over Dekker’s left shoulder, disbelief and disgust etched in the lines of his face. “You told me you were leaving to get your head in the game. Yet here you are, trying to score a cheap fuck like a desperate john.”

Before I can respond with the fury that streaks through me, Dekker spins to face him.

“A cheap fuck?” she asks, and Sanderson’s face pales when he sees who I’m speaking with. “I’m sure your clients get great publicity when their agent talks to their fans like that.” She takes a few steps toward him, a tsk on her tongue. “For the record, Finn, I’m nowhere close to being a cheap fuck, but you’d never know because I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.”

With that, Dekker Kincade saunters down the hotel hallway without looking back. I chuckle quietly. And then I wonder why she’s the only person who can put a smile on my face these days.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

DEKKER

SKATES CARVE UP THE FRESHLY resurfaced ice. The sound is like a symphony of skills and maneuvers you can hear just as easily as you can see.

I watch the LumberJacks go through their warm-ups as the diehard fans arrive early to make sure they catch every second of hockey they can.

A few times I catch Hunter glancing up to where I’m standing in the visiting team’s suite. While a small part of me hopes it’s because he feels bad for being an ass to me earlier, the rest of me knows he doesn’t care.

Hell, the only time Hunter Maddox cared about how I felt was when it came to sensations to get me off.

But I think about his press conference today. About the disconnect I saw him have in his answers and the way he acted when I ran into him afterward.

Guess nothing much has changed about him in that aspect either . . . Even now, I can’t figure him out.

“Such a surprise to see you in Boston.”

I glance in my periphery to see Finn Sanderson step up beside me, arms folded, the suit he’s wearing ridiculously expensive.

“We all have jobs to do,” I murmur, not exactly wanting to engage with him, and not just because of his cheap fuck comment. I simply don’t like the man.

“And some of us are better at those jobs than others, right, Dekker?” His voice is smooth as silk but I know it’s laced with arsenic.

He’s pushing buttons.

I don’t give him the satisfaction of responding.

“What client are you here to babysit?” he asks.

Every word he utters is a reminder of the clients he’s taken from us. How he’s slowly chipped away at our foundation and it strengthens my resolve that much more. The Kincades will win this fight.

Now, if I could just approach Hunter to see where I stand.