Chapter 1 #3
I turned on the faucet, the water rushing out hot and steaming. I scrubbed at the red stain on my chest until my skin was raw and stinging.
Jess.
I washed the wine away, but the irritation remained. It was a splinter in my mind. A crack in the ice.
I needed to skate. I needed the cold air and the sound of steel cutting into fresh ice. I needed to reset the system.
But as I dried my hands on a plush linen towel, I caught my reflection again. And for the first time in years, the predator behind my eyes didn't look hungry.
It looked awake.
Jess
The cold night air hit me like a physical blow the moment I burst out of the side exit of the Alumni Hall.
It was snowing again—because of course it was.
It was Maine in November. The sky was a bruised purple, heavy with clouds, spitting fat, wet flakes that clung to my eyelashes and melted against my burning cheeks.
I didn't have a coat.
I had left it in the staff locker room, but there was no way in hell I was going back in there. Not while Steven was yelling at me, not while he was in there.
Nicklas Vance.
Even the name tasted expensive.
I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering violently as the wind cut through my thin black button-down. My sneakers were soaked within seconds as I stomped through the slush in the alleyway.
"Stupid," I hissed to myself, my teeth chattering. "Stupid, clumsy, idiotic..."
I kicked a trash can. It clattered loudly, startling a stray cat that bolted into the shadows.
I had needed that job. I needed it desperately.
The rent on my off-campus room was due in three days.
My tuition installment plan was already two weeks late.
I had seventy-four dollars in my bank account, and I had just been fired from the only catering company in town that paid under the table for weekend gigs.
And why? Because the Ice King didn't want a stain on his suit.
I replayed the scene in my head, torture-looping the moment of impact. The way his chest had felt against my hands—hard, like touching a marble statue wrapped in silk. The way he had smelled—sharp, clean, like winter air and dangerous amounts of money.
And his eyes.
I stopped walking, leaning against the rough brick wall of the library annex to catch my breath.
I had expected him to yell. Rich guys always yelled. My father had yelled. The landlords yelled. But Nick Vance hadn't raised his voice above a whisper.
Don't.
The memory of his hand on my wrist made my skin crawl.
No, not crawl. It tingled. It burned where his fingers had dug in.
He was so strong it was terrifying. He had immobilized me with zero effort, looking at me with those dead, grey eyes like I was a bug he was deciding whether to crush or flick away.
"He's a sociopath," I muttered, wiping a snowflake off my nose. "A rich, hockey-playing sociopath with a God complex."
My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I fished it out with frozen fingers.
Text from: LANDLORD (GARY)
Rent is due Tuesday, Jess. No extensions this time. If you don't have it, I'm putting the room up on Craigslist. You have 48 hours.
I stared at the screen until the pixels blurred.
Forty-eight hours.
I slumped against the wall, sliding down until I was crouching in the snow, head in my hands. The adrenaline of the confrontation was fading, leaving behind the cold, heavy dread that had been my constant companion for the last two years.
I was a dancer. I was supposed to be focusing on my lines, my extension, the Winter Showcase that could get me scouted by a company in New York. Instead, I was worried about where I was going to sleep on Tuesday.
"I can fix this," I whispered, the mantra hollow. "I always fix this."
But as the snow piled up on my shoulders, burying me slowly, I realized I had no idea how to fix it this time. I had just been blacklisted by the catering world. The library wasn't hiring. The coffee shop shifts were full.
I closed my eyes, and against my will, the image of Nick Vance flashed behind my lids. The white suit. The red stain. The cruel curl of his lip when he told me to leave.
He had everything. He had the money, the power, the warmth of that building. He probably had a heated car waiting for him. He treated the world like it was his personal chessboard, and people like me were just pawns to be sacrificed to keep his king safe.
I hated him. I hated him with a violence that warmed my blood.
I stood up, wiping the wet snow from my pants.
"Fine," I said to the empty alleyway. "You want a war, Vance? You got one."
I didn't know how, and I didn't know when, but I wasn't going to let a spilled glass of wine be the end of me. I was Jessica Monroe. I had survived worse than a moody hockey player with a superiority complex.
I turned and started walking toward the dorms, the wind biting at my exposed skin.
But as I walked, I couldn't shake the feeling of his hand on my wrist. The Phantom touch lingered, a brand of heat in the freezing night.
It felt like a warning.
Or maybe... maybe it felt like an invitation.