Chapter 15
DRED
“I’ll try not to waste your entire day off,” Connor informs me as he drives. It’s not an apology, but it’s not not an apology.
“I really don’t mind.” Today is our venue walk-through and meal selection for the wedding. “Plus, we get to eat, so that’s a bonus, right?” I’m trying to keep things upbeat, but Connor looks stressed, which isn’t helping my own.
“Hopefully that will balance out the fact that you’ll have to deal with at least one of my parents at some point.”
Connor has been different since the photoshoot—since the second kiss—and the girls’ book club night.
He’s almost always remote and awkward, but since that photoshoot make-out session—which I have replayed incessantly over the past few days while soaking in the clawfoot tub—the pendulum swings between those states have shifted.
He’s something else now, too. And so am I.
I often find him staring at my mouth—maybe thinking about the kiss the same way I do.
It was surprisingly gentle, but also full of the kind of pent-up longing and need that curls a girl’s toes.
This girl’s toes. So it makes sense that I find myself wondering about the other things he could do with his talented tongue, and how I would not be opposed to finding out more about his off-ice skill sets, regardless of the parameters of the contract I signed.
But that’s a dangerous game to play. Keeping sex and feelings separate would be possible if this only lasted a couple of months, but a year—however insignificant in the span of a lifetime—is still a lot of days spent with one person.
Especially since the more time I spend with Connor, the more I like him.
He’s broody, closed off, emotional, and wildly, intensely devoted to his Meems. It’s that last part that’s hitting me in my soft places. And of course, the kisses.
“I can handle your parents,” I tell him.
They’re not difficult to read. His mother seems jealous of her son and his ability to give his family the middle finger so he can do what he loves.
Her disdain isn’t for me, but for what I represent, which is the flipside of her pampered, spoiled life.
His father is an elitist dick, based on our limited interaction.
I’m sure it angers Connor’s parents to no end that their only son has chosen to marry someone way below their social standing.
He should be marrying the daughter of one of their rich friends, not the local librarian.
“Why don’t they support your career?” I know, in the vaguest sense, the answer to this, but I want to hear it from him.
Connor glances at me, then refocuses on the road. His jaw tics. “It’s a waste of my Ivy League education, and I should be making them more money by taking my place in the family business, like I’m supposed to.”
“But hockey careers don’t last forever. Roman is the exception, not the rule, and even he retired at forty.”
“That’s correct.”
“So why can’t you do this now and shift gears later?” That they used his time at the Hockey Academy as punishment speaks to how out of touch they are with their son.
“It’s about family loyalty, and ticking the appropriate social boxes.
I wasn’t supposed to play a sport where I could lose teeth and break bones in my face.
To them, it’s like a prince becoming a gladiator.
It’s beneath our social standing. They don’t understand why I won’t give it up.
They don’t understand me. It doesn’t help that Meems supports me and hasn’t cut me out of her will the way they cut me off when I signed my first contract. ”
“What do you mean they cut you off?”
“They froze my accounts. I expected it, so it wasn’t the shock they’d hoped it would be.”
“Did they do it thinking you’d change your mind and come work for them?”
“That was my father’s hope.”
“Wow. That couldn’t have been easy.” I imagine what it would be like, raised in a home where he never wanted for anything.
Where staff took care of basic needs and every meal was prepared, served, and cleaned up for him.
How jarring must it have been to go from a world where everyone took care of everything to suddenly having to do it all himself?
“I had a lot to prove, to them and myself. The first year was eye-opening.”
“What about Meems? Did she help?”
“She tried, but I wanted to do it on my own.”
“So they don’t agree with your chosen profession, and they don’t want you to marry me.”
“They don’t know you.”
“No, but I’m like hockey, beneath your social standing,” I point out. “Yet they’re putting all this effort into a wedding they also don’t agree with? Why? It doesn’t make sense.”
His hands tighten on the wheel. “This wedding is a way for my father to put me in my place.”
That they’re willing to spend all this money after they cut him off seems contradictory. “I still don’t get it.”
“It’s a power move. My father wants a flashy wedding that will be featured by local news outlets, because he loves the attention.
And he wants the world to know that his son, and the sole male heir to carry on the Grace name, continues to be a disappointment because I’m marrying someone outside of his world. ”
“Wow, that’s…”
“Psychopathic?”
“Calculated. What about your mother? Where does she fit into this?”
“She married up when she took the Grace name. My father pulls her strings, so she’ll do whatever he asks of her.”
“She sounds like a prisoner.”
“She chose to marry him, and she stands by that decision.” He grips the steering wheel.
“They’re putting us on display with the hope that I’ll do something to embarrass myself or ruin what’s left of my career,” he explains flatly.
“They want me to be out of options, so I have no choice but to join the family business. They think they’re doing what’s best for me. ”
I want him to be joking, but it’s clear he isn’t. “That’s awful.”
“Everything is about money and business with my father, and my mother is his pawn, unfortunately.”
“Well, screw them.” I want to say we can skip the big wedding and just elope, but this isn’t for us. It’s for Lucy.
A hint of a smile appears. “I’m glad to see I chose wisely with you.”
He pulls up to the valet of the Grace Hotel. It’s the most expensive place to stay in the city.
“Please wait. I’ll come around and get you,” Connor instructs as the attendant opens his door.
He steps out of the car, rising to his full, imposing height, and transforms from Connor Grace the hockey player and my fiancé, to the son of Duncan Grace, billionaire.
His thick biceps flex under his perfectly tailored black suit with wine piping, and I take a moment to admire this enigma of a man, villain not only to the hockey world, but his family as well.
He rounds the hood and gives the other attendant permission to open my door. I slip my fingers into his waiting palm, and warmth shoots up my arm.
He moves in close as I rise, the fingers of his free hand skimming the length of my arm.
To anyone watching, it looks intimate—and feels it too.
He dips until his lips are at my ear. “The media are waiting for us in the hotel lobby. I assume they’re here for the photo op, courtesy of my mother.
We’ll pause for a few seconds so they can get their shots, but don’t answer any questions, okay? ”
“Right. Okay.” I nervously smooth my hands over my hips and wish I had my hair tie rather than this bangle that rubs against my already irritated skin.
“Just smile and don’t look directly into the cameras.”
“Got it.” I reflexively smooth his lapel, even though he looks perfect.
“You’re engaged to a Grace. It doesn’t matter that I’m considered the worst of them. The name is armor lined with cashmere. Remember that when the media start slinging their arrows.”
“How do you deal with this all the time?”
“I grew thorns.” He straightens, his expression shifting to arrogance. “Come on. Let’s get the hard part over with.”
Connor guides me to the entrance, his fingers pressed against the dip in my spine, keeping me grounded.
The cameras flash as soon as the doors open.
I shift my gaze away, looking up at him.
He smiles down at me, probably as a reminder that I’m supposed to do the same.
The way it softens his harsh, noble features makes my heart stutter and my own lips curve up.
He stops once we’re inside the hotel lobby, hand curving around my waist, pulling me closer.
The media closes in, the frantic clicking and flashes overwhelming.
When I’m out with Flip and the Babes, we usually go to the Watering Hole, where they’re treated like normal people.
Even on club nights, we go straight from the car to the VIP entrance to avoid this nonsense. But there’s nowhere to hide.
This much attention is disorienting and uncomfortable. I fight to keep my smile in place, to not let panic take hold, to keep the heat from rising in my cheeks.
“Mr. Grace, can you confirm the rumors that your fiancée is pregnant?”
“Mr. Grace, is it true that your contract with the Terror is in jeopardy now?”
“Mr. Grace, will you be joining the Grace empire now that you’re about to be married?”
“Ms. Reformer, is it true that you’re also involved with Flip Madden?”
Connor pins the last reporter with a glare and makes a circle motion with his finger. Two security guards step in and remove the offender.
“I should not have to remind you that there are no questions for the future Mrs. Grace,” he calls out. Then his lips find my temple. “Just a few more seconds, darling.”
The cameras click furiously at the tender affection.
I tip my chin up, and our gazes meet. Connor’s eyes search mine, soft and warm, full of secrets and a gentle apology.
I wet my bottom lip and arch a brow. The media seem to like it when he’s exerting his dominance, followed by sweetness.
His smile darkens, and then he bends, pressing his lips lightly to mine.