CHAPTER THREE
Three days to Anniversary
SIA
A rhythmic pounding interrupted faceless, voiceless dreams of mirrored darkness in the quiet hours before sunrise.
The same footsteps always woke me. It was the constant tap tap tap of light footfalls on wet tarmac—he never ran on the damn sidewalk—that kept me awake, just. I drifted comfortably without fully rousing, knowing I'd hear his steady rhythm again in another twenty minutes or so.
Ward always ran past my townhouse twice each morning—three times if work frustrated him more than usual.
This was his therapy, and I piggybacked along for the ride.
I wondered if he knew I woke each morning, or if he cared.
Ward probably never started with stalking in mind.
This had always been his habit before our lives diverged on their separate paths.
Like me, there were some things he refused to stop just because we didn’t share a roof or a bed each night.
The city stood quiet. Only shift workers on the road and a few other services were out in the hours before dawn. No one else circled my building or the few surrounding blocks, which made his footfalls all the easier to identify. Even still, with others present, I would have known.
For the man I was supposed to hate, who I knew hated me right back, his nocturnal habits had always been a source of comfort for me.
I tried to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but the thing I craved most eluded me.
No footsteps slapped the blacktop past my home.
The sky lightened. I studied the white ceiling of my bedroom searching for flaws, but there were none.
Every part of my townhouse was immaculately kept.
Appointments popped up in my calendar I never made but were due anyway.
Somehow, he always knew, as though he kept tabs on everything I did.
My mood broken, I threw back the weighted blanket—another Ward Bishop gift that I hated that I loved and used so often—and flung myself into my morning routine.
Workout until I sweated myself clean. An oxymoron, but I believed in getting those toxins out. The toxic that stayed inside my heart, too. I added an extra ten minutes of stair climb inside the townhouse until my legs jittered, either from lack of sleep or disturbed sleep.
Thanks, Ward. Asshole, I added mentally. No way would I sully my home with his name. Spritz plants that refused to die even when I gave them what I forgot to provide for myself. Coffee. Shower. A quick breakfast as I caught up with emails. Coffee refill.
I planted my butt and ran through the day’s meetings, marking off the needs and wants, knowing most if it wouldn’t actually go to plan. These were my best work hours, where tasks actually got done before the insane office chatter took over.
The moment my second mug of coffee sat empty I packed up and shoved my feet into my lilac trainers.
They were also a gift, albeit one I bought for myself the day I took the promotion to the head of HR for the Jericho Chimeras.
That job was everything I’d wanted. It gave me greater autonomy, a sense of self satisfaction, and the freedom to work the hours I wanted—which was pretty much every hour in the day.
Something Ward and I had in common and one of the reasons we never worked.
Because we never saw each other.
We loved the idea of each other. Both hard working—tick.
Both loved hockey, because he was a player back when we married in every sense of the word.
Not that he ever cheated but gods did the hockey girlies love the boy aquarium.
And Ward, with his steely stare and never smiling, hard ass face, unflinching and chiseled and so fucking edible, had always been a fan favoriute.
And me working at the club helped. Right up until the day he hung up his hockey stick and took the job coaching the Chimeras. Which he did damn well, and was why he still lived for the club, taking them to playoffs every year without fail and a majority of championship rounds. A handful of wins.
More than most coaches and teams could ever boast in a decade.
That job—plus our proximity in the workplace—ruined our marriage.
And we let it.
I trotted to the door, knowing I’d be early for the day by club standards, but late by my own.
The parcel slot was jammed open, a black wrapped package shoved part way through it.
I huffed at the sight, knowing exactly what happened here, and why I never heard that second lap of reassuring footsteps.
Why my perfectly peaceful morning routine was disturbed.
Because it was anniversary week, and Ward’s version of lovebombing me had started.
I grabbed the package and pulled, but the damn thing refused to pass through the hole.
Unwilling to damage my mailslot, I yanked the door open and grabbed the gift, tearing the black plastic wrapping off.
Ward hadn’t secured it with his usual hostage grade level of tape, and I was surprised when the garbage bag bits—he hadn’t even used bubble wrap this year—floated to my foyer hallway in a swath of plastic confetti.
“Dropping those skills, husband,” I muttered, sending a covert glance out to the street, though I know he won’t have stayed around to watch the carnage of me opening his gift.
I stared at the plain white box in my hand with no little trepidation. Something about this felt different to last year, and all the years past that we both indulged his little habit. Something off.
Ha. Because there could be something off about what we did, that bordered on the edge of abuse, well past kink play that we never talked about with anyone.
Discarding the thoughts that fast diverted into filthy territory at way too early an hour of the morning, I flicked open the lid and found myself staring at…
A plastic rose bracelet.
A snort erupted from me in force. This was what I got for throwing his last present away. A dime store knock-off worthy of a kid’s party bag. Not that I would have kept his offering, even if he’d spent a fortune on me. Plastic, and a crappy morning’s rest.
My punishment.
I tossed the box and its desecrated wrappings into the spare room off the hallway, and shut the door with a bang. “I don’t have time for games, Ward,” I muttered.
No. I had a job to do, just like him. Where he was no doubt on the ice, training the team both our lives revolved around hiding the smile he rarely showed anyone.
Not his stupid gifts. Not his hide and seek games.
Not our anniversary.
And yet stupid, stupid me still couldn't wait for him to break into my home, our home, like a dark knight with all the wrong sorts of intent and give me what he promised last year.
I walked out the door with my head held high and pretended that my panties weren't soaked before I reached my car.
Fuck you, Ward Bishop.
This year, I wanted to change the game, but I knew I wouldn’t. I liked his too damn much.
***
Glass covered my office. I could see that from the hallway lined with similar doors as mine, right through the hole where mine stood.
Or, where the door used to stand as it bent in half as though someone attacked it with a battering ram.
That would be during the quiet hours while I listened for my stalker of an estranged husband jogging past my townhouse like the needy little wife he wanted me to be.
Or a strapping hockey player, of whom the club was in no short supply, all of whom would be able to effectively wield said battering ram.
Double damn it, Ward.
My thumb hovered over his greyed out name in my phone. I had never blocked him, and he never called. But I kept his number, in case I needed it. Out of desperation, like today.
Out of hope.
”Fuck it,” I muttered, and hit call.
“Jesus Christ, Sia.” A deep voice that didn’t come from my phone and wasn’t Ward’s at all echoed along the corridor. “What the hell sort of office party did you host last night?”
My thumb fumbled the red end button, but I caught it before the call went through. At least, I thought I did. I twisted about to face Valentine. “No. This is not something you get to see. Shoo.”
He smirked. “A little pre-anniversary party, then?”
My vision narrowed to the tall, dark and predatory Chimeras defender. “What did you say?” My mouth dried. Who told you?
I knew he and Cora had their own kinks, something about him chasing her while they played hide and go seek, but that was as far as I’d listened to the club to gossip mill.
Apparently, my love life was the stuff of public interest no matter the fact that it was meant to be a motherfucking s-e-c-r-e-t.
Fuck knew what Ward was saying in the locker room.
Valentine’s gaze never left my face. “Ward will want to know—”
Speak of the devil. But I didn’t want to invoke him today.
“Don’t bring him into this.” I waved my hand at the broken door and my ruined office behind. “This isn’t something he’d do.”
The tall hockey player’s concerned face said he thought otherwise, but he held his silence.
“Morning, Sia!” Cora shouted from the other end of the corridor, barreling toward us full of morning beans already, Lewis in tow. “Wow. What the fu–”
“Not. A. Word.” I glared at her. Whatever Valentine knew, she did too. And I didn’t need our new office intern wading through my dirty underwear drawer. “Shoo. All of you. I need-”
“Hey. Coffee?” Hallie appeared behind me like an avocado toast bearing wraith. Her breakfast warred with a coffee stack that Cora usually juggled about. The curvy girl’s gaze drifted to my broken door and her mouth dropped open. “What the hell happened? Did Ward—”
I threw my hands up. So much for secrecy. “I. Give. Up.”
Hallie shut her mouth and stared at me with big eyes. “Imorry,” she mumbled through the corners of pressed lips, making some semblance of sense. “Oooaneeelp?”
I huffed a laugh. “Fuck, you’re cute. I know why Solace adores you.”
Hallie’s face lit up. “That, and I can recite all his stats at once.” She bounced on her toes and stuffed a full piece of avocado toast in her face in one go.
I watched with fascination, then turned my attention back to the small crowd studying my decimated office, and sighed.
“Okay, let’s clear the air. My husband—not ex—did not destroy my property or club property.
Just because we’re strange,” —ha, in joke between the estranged husband and me.
I ignored the confused faces around me— “does not mean that he is either dangerous or unhinged.”
No. Just my personal stalker.
I kept that little morsel of information to myself. Whatever everyone at the club had guessed, hopefully that’s exactly what the rumor mill stayed as—guesses. Okay, so maybe that last one was stretching the truth. A lot.
Ward Bishop was most definitely unhinged when it came to the things he considered his.
“Good to know.” Cora hit the business button, tugging her jacket around herself even as Valentine slid a possessive hand across her lower back. She tossed a quick glance over her shoulder that said she appreciated the gesture. “We need security here.”
Hallie’s cheeks pinked, and she turned away. “I’ll head down to the rink,” she mumbled. “I think the team’s still training.”
Lewis loitered in the hall behind them, his head on a swivel. Damnit, one more problem for today.
“Security, absolutely.” My head wasn’t screwed on straight. That should have been my first thought. Not Ward. Damnit. “Thanks, Cora.”
“No problem.” She ducked through the door, but Valentine pulled her back, muttering in her ear.
Lewis looked on with fascination as the big Chimera slid one hand between her breasts and closed it around her throat.
Cora’s whole body softened as she leaned against him.
Suddenly, Hallie’s face wasn't the only red one in the corridor, and sure as hell wasn’t mine.
Our poor intern’s entire head turned a special shade of tomato, and all I could see was a future letter from our CEO’s dean friend and a sexual misconduct lawsuit in the making.
“Okay, we don’t all need to be here. Hallie, can you take Louie– Loovie,” —damnit, someone would get fired and it was likely to be me— “Lewis for a training induction day with Coach, please?” I turned snake eyes on her.
She gulped and nodded.
“Not a word,” I mouthed.
Hallie froze in place. “Yes. He’ll love that. We will love that. The whole team.” She nodded enthusiastically. “Ward is welcoming. Lewis, we’re going. Now. Move,” she insisted with a little shove when the intern didn’t budge. His focus switched between my door, me and Valentine.
I gave him an easy nod. “We can spend some time going over office and HR work tomorrow, okay? Once you understand the lay of the land. And that gives me time to clean up this mess. Have fun with Coach,” I called, knowing I was doubling down on duties but right now Lewis needed to be somewhere else.
“Nice work,” Cora breathed when Lewis and Hallie finally rounded a corner and were out of sight.
I turned my attention to her and Valentine.
“You two.” I straightened, uncaring that I was not the fittest person in the space, or that Valentine towered over me.
“Putting on a display like that in public?” I held up a hand.
“I do not care what you do in private, provided it’s consensual, preapproved between you, and not in a workplace environment.
Otherwise, go bounce like bunnies, but not in front of the dean’s pet. Is that clear?”
Cora closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I made a growly noise. “You know better.” Lack of sleep left my other side on display. “I’m sorry I got cranky. Valentine, I need to hear it from you, too. Keep it out of the office. Please.”
“Ma’am.” He nodded respectfully and dragged Cora away from me down the hall.
Okay, that wasn’t exactly an apology but at least it sounded like he agreed. A moment later, I figured it out.
Ward strode up the corridor, followed by a swath of Chimera uniformed security.
Apparently that call did go through after all.
Fuck.