Chapter Twelve
NATALIA
I'm still on the bunny hill after Luka saved my life and then skied off after a snow bunny, like it was nothing. All in a day’s work for a brooding hockey winger with a hot Russian scowl. I’m trying not to think about the fact that fifteen minutes ago, I nearly became a tree ornament.
The bunny hill is supposed to bring some level of comfort in comparison to the scary slopes all around me. All named something unsavory that should scare any normal, reasonable human being. Like, "The Devil’s Thong," or "Hell’s Pleasure Chute," or something like that.
This hill is supposed to be designed for beginners wobbling down like baby deer learning their legs. A safe little training wheels situation for adults who have no business strapping planks to their feet and trusting gravity not to kill them.
Except gravity did try to kill me. And Luka launched himself off a moving chairlift to stop it from happening. Then he disappeared down the mountain with Annabella before I could even catch my breath.
Now my thighs are screaming, my shoulders ache from tensing every muscle in my body, and Zack is making me practice stopping. Again.
"Weight on your downhill ski," Zack calls out a few feet away, angled toward me with the kind of relaxed posture that makes me want to throw a snowball at his face.
How is he so calm? How is anyone this calm when I'm one wrong edge away from round two with the forest?
I grit my teeth and force myself through the motions of pizza wedges, odd movement that feels wrong, and trying to get down a full stop. My skis shudder beneath me, but they hold.
"You're doing great," Zack says, like he isn't a liar.
"I almost died," I remind him.
Zack grins. "But you didn’t. That's progress."
I huff out a laugh through the ache in my thighs. My calves feel as though they’ve been bruised from the inside. And I can still feel Luka’s arm around my waist, the way he yanked me sideways like I weighed nothing, the spray of snow, the stop so sharp my teeth clicked.
I hate that my body remembers him more clearly than it remembers the instructions Zack has been patiently repeating for the last twenty minutes.
I hate that it keeps replaying on a loop, and why the hell was Luka on the bunny hill in the first place?
He had Annabella. A willing, gorgeous woman who’s practically begging to follow him into a private room and "pay up" with a massage that was clearly not going to end at his shoulders.
Of course he had to witness my epic failure and was forced to step in at the exact wrong—right—moment to make me feel more like I can’t do anything right while I’m here. Then he questioned Zack as if he didn’t believe him when he said I was safe.
As if Luka Popovich, who wants me on a flight back to Seattle and out of his life, was suddenly worried about my bodily integrity. It makes no sense.
I’m here to do a job. A very real, very high-stakes job that I cannot afford to screw up. I’m not here to think about whether there was more to Luka showing up on the bunny hill than he let on.
So far, all I’ve managed to do is make myself look incompetent doing the bare minimum… like walking down a cement path without trying to slip and eat it in front of him. Or ski straight for the forest while flailing around like a lunatic.
A small group of five kids with another instructor glides past us with smooth and intentional movements. They stare over at me as if I’m the one who’s lost.
I roll my eyes toward the sky.
God. I must look so stupid.
And that’s the thing… I don’t care that I look stupid in front of Zack. I don’t care if Annabella thinks I’m pathetic. But in front of Luka?
My cheeks heat, and I want to fling myself into the snow just to punish my own body for reacting like this matters. Instead, I straighten my shoulders and force my mind back to the only thing that does. Getting this right and proving I’m not as hopeless as I look.
I wish he could just see me in my element. I swear I usually have my shit together. He’d be impressed, I think. Though does anything impress Luka?
"Okay," Zack says, pushing off lightly. "Let’s do one more run. This time, you’re going to stop without panicking."
"I didn’t panic," I say automatically.
Zack’s brows lift. His smile turns knowing. "Uh-huh."
Twenty minutes later, I’m sweaty, sore, and finally—finally—able to do a controlled stop without feeling like I’m about to leave my soul behind on the slope.
Zack claps his gloves together once. "See? Told you. You’ve got it."
"I’ve got it," I echo, almost surprised. Because I do.
It’s not great, or graceful, but I can stop, I can turn and I can keep myself from plowing into a tree. No more heroics from Luka will be necessary. I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.
Zack escorts me back toward the lodge, chatting easily about tomorrow’s snow conditions. I nod and pretend I’m listening. Pretend my job isn’t hanging by a thread, and my client isn’t an attractive, impossible menace who keeps saving me even though he wants me gone.
If he’d really wanted me gone, he could’ve just let gravity handle it. A tree, a stretcher, a medical evacuation, a full body cast—Bingo, problem solved… but he didn’t do that.
"Hey," Zack says when we reach the entrance. "I’ve got an opening tomorrow at noon. If you want it?"
I blink back at him. "Another lesson?"
He shrugs as if it’s no big deal. "You’ve got good instincts. You just need reps. Plus…" His eyes flick to my tense posture. "You’re stubborn enough to actually learn."
I scoff. "That’s the nicest insult I’ve ever received."
Zack laughs. "So… yes?"
"Yes," I say, because the truth is, I need this. If Luka is going to avoid me on the slopes, I’m not going to sit in the lodge like a stranded city girl waiting for him to grant me an audience.
He doesn’t get to control the terrain.
"Great," Zack says. "I’ll see you tomorrow."
"Thanks," I tell him, and I mean it.
Then I peel out of my ski gear, change into something warmer and more civilized, and decide I’ve earned exactly one thing:
A burger and I want it now.
A text comes through from Carey as I walk into the restaurant:
How’s it coming with Luka?
I shot off a text in response:
I’m working on him. I just need more time.
She responded immediately:
Don’t forget what’s at stake here. You only have three more weeks.
As if I could forget. It’s my career on the line.
I walk into the bar with the confidence of a woman who did not die today and intends to celebrate that fact with grease and sugar.
Then I see Luka sitting at the bar. He’s alone, which might be the most confusing thing of all. There’s no Annabella in sight. Only an empty plate where his lunch once sat and a half-drunk glass of ice water.
My body reacts before my brain can catch up—one step back, instinct already choosing escape. I can go to the little café that the guest services woman told me about yesterday. Some soup, a sandwich, and peace and quiet. Somewhere he isn’t.
I take another half-step back… and then he looks up. Those stormy gray-blue eyes lock onto mine like a hook catching skin. Like he can feel me trying to disappear.
"Hey," he says, voice carrying just enough to make it feel like a dare. "How did it go, Bunny Hill?"
So I guess the nickname stays. That’s just perfect.
I let out an annoyed groan, then make the decision I always make when I don’t have the luxury of pride. I commit.
If he’s here, if he’s alone, if he’s sitting still long enough to have ordered food, I can’t afford not to take the opening.
I approach the bar, careful not to limp like my legs aren’t secretly plotting revenge.
"I’m surprised to see you here," I say, sliding onto the stool one seat away. "Didn’t you have a massage you were headed to the last time I saw you? Annabella must be worried sick."
Luka shrugs like that entire situation means nothing. "I wasn’t interested."
"In a free massage?" I arch a brow. "That’s almost un-American of you."
His gaze flicks to mine. "That’s because I’m Russian. Either way, I’m not interested in anything she’s offering."
I don’t reply to that. He told me in the shower earlier today that he didn’t go back to her hotel last night, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Though none of this makes sense.
What am I supposed to say? Sorry, the beautiful woman chasing you isn’t enough to distract you from harassing me on the bunny hill?
Because that’s what it felt like. He was trying to lose her. He was more interested in me and Zack than in whatever happy-ending fantasy she was clearly advertising.
It doesn’t fit the "playboy" label everyone keeps slapping on him. And that… annoys me.
"I don’t care who you flirt with," I say, though I can’t ignore the fact that hearing Annabella offer him a massage had my stomach turn. "I care that you’re hiding out in Switzerland while your name is trending for all the wrong reasons. I wish you’d just…"
His mouth tilts slightly into a sly smirk. "You wish I’d just… what?"
"Get on a flight back to Seattle," I say. "And into a conference room with me to fix this."
He ignores me and turns towards the bartender on the other side of the bar, handing two glasses of wine to a couple. Luka lifts his arm, and the bartender sees him, nodding as if to tell him that he’ll head our way next.
"Are you hungry?" he asks.
"Starving." I set the menu down. "Almost duking it out to the death with a tree makes a girl realize how much she wants to live just one more day for a burger, garlic fries with ketchup, and a Shirley Temple with extra cherries."
Luka’s gaze shifts away, scanning for the bartender. "That’s very specific."
"I’m a very specific kind of girl," I say. "I know what I want."
Then I stop pretending this is casual. I have a job to do and I need to do it. I turn toward him fully, meeting his eyes.
"But the real question is… what do you want, Luka?"