Chapter 1
Belinda
The air in the Blackwood College athletic complex didn’t smell like sweat; it smelled like money.
It was a specific cocktail of scents: fresh floor wax, industrial-strength air conditioning, leather equipment that cost more than my tuition, and the underlying, metallic tang of the ice rink located three halls over.
It was the scent of expectations. It was the scent of my father’s legacy, hanging over my head like a guillotine blade waiting for gravity to do its job.
I smoothed the front of my oversized grey cardigan for the tenth time in as many seconds, the wool biting into the sensitive skin of my palms. My heart wasn’t just beating; it was trying to claw its way out of my ribcage, a frantic bird trapped in a shoebox.
Breathe, Bee. It’s just data. You love data. Data doesn’t judge you. Data doesn’t care that your hair is a frizzy disaster because the Vermont humidity decided to spike to ninety percent this morning. Data just is.
I stood at the front of the Film Room, a cavernous, stadium-style lecture hall with plush velvet seats that looked more comfortable than my bed in the dorms. Behind me, the massive projector screen hummed with a low-frequency static that vibrated in my molars.
On the podium, my laptop sat innocent and open, the HDMI cable snaking out of its side like an umbilical cord connecting me to my doom.
Today was Day One. The Introduction. The moment I had to prove to thirty-five testosterone-fueled mountains of muscle that I, Belinda Marie O’Shea, was not just the General Manager’s daughter. That I was a legitimate asset. That my hire wasn’t nepotism, but necessity.
I checked my watch. 7:58 AM. They would be here in two minutes.
I minimized the spreadsheet titled Kodiaks_Shot_Suppression_v4.xlsx and checked my desktop background—a generic Blackwood University logo. Safe. Professional. Boring. Perfect.
My internal monologue was spiraling, a tornado of insecurities picking up debris from my childhood. Don’t stutter. Don’t trip. Don’t use that weird laugh you do when you’re nervous, the one that sounds like a dying seal.
I needed an anchor. Something to ground me.
Usually, that anchor was a romance novel.
I’d spent the thirty-minute bus ride to the facility this morning buried in The Earl’s Forbidden Governess, letting the predictable, comforting rhythm of the plot soothe my anxiety.
Boy meets girl. Boy growls at girl. Boy realizes he cannot live without girl. Boy ravages girl on a fainting couch.
It was safe. It was formulaic. It was the only place in my life where I knew exactly what the outcome would be. Unlike reality, where the outcome usually involved me spilling coffee on a stranger or tripping over a painted blue line.
The double doors at the back of the auditorium banged open.
The sound echoed off the acoustic tiles like a gunshot. I flinched, knocking my glasses askew.
They poured in like a flood. The Blackwood Kodiaks.
Even from the bottom of the amphitheater, the sheer size of them was overwhelming.
They didn’t walk; they prowled. They took up space with an arrogance that was almost impressive, a physical manifestation of their status as campus gods.
They wore matching black tracksuits with the snarling bear logo embroidered in gold over their hearts, their laugher booming and bouncing off the walls.
"Did you see the way he panicked?" one of them shouted—Jaxer Malone, the star winger. He had golden hair, a golden tan, and golden retriever energy. "Dude looked like he saw a ghost."
"He saw the bill, Jax," another voice shot back. "You drink like a fish with a trust fund."
They filtered down the stairs, the thud of heavy sneakers on carpeted steps creating a rhythm that synced with my escalating heart rate.
They threw themselves into the seats, draping massive limbs over armrests, kicking boots up onto the seat backs in front of them.
The smell hit me then—not the expensive facility smell, but the team smell.
Old Spice, wintergreen chewing tobacco, damp hair, and the sharp, piney scent of expensive cologne masking morning exertion.
And then, the noise stopped.
It didn’t taper off. It was severed.
The double doors opened one last time, but they didn’t bang. They were pushed open with a deliberate, silent weight.
Peter Volkov walked in.
I had seen photos, obviously. You couldn’t live in Mapleton, Vermont, or attend Blackwood without seeing Peter "The Tsar" Volkov’s face plastered on banners, local diner placemats, and the fevered dreams of half the student body.
But a photo, I realized with a jolt of pure biological panic, was two-dimensional. It was flat.
Peter Volkov was not flat.
He was a terrifying exercise in geometry.
Broad shoulders that tapered down to a waist that looked like it was made of steel cable.
He was taller than the others, maybe six-five, but he didn’t lumber.
He moved with a predatory, liquid grace, like a panther stalking through tall grass.
He was the goaltender, the last line of defense, the man responsible for keeping chaos at bay, and he wore that responsibility like a suit of armor.
He walked down the center aisle, his eyes fixed straight ahead.
He didn’t high-five anyone. He didn’t smile.
He carried a black coffee cup in one large hand and a tablet in the other.
His hair was jet black, cut short on the sides and slightly longer on top, pushed back in a style that suggested he had run his fingers through it once and then forgotten it existed.
But it was his face that made the air leave my lungs. It was a face carved from granite and cold winters. High cheekbones, a jawline sharp enough to cut glass, and eyes the color of a frozen lake—slate grey, flat, and devastatingly intelligent.
He sat in the front row, directly in front of my podium. The center seat. The throne.
He set his coffee down. He looked at me.
There was no politeness in the gaze. No "welcome to the team." It was a scan. He started at my scuffed boots, traveled up my baggy grey cardigan, lingered for a fraction of a second on the frantic pulse visible in my throat, and ended on my eyes.
He blinked once. Slow. Dismissive.
"You’re the analyst," he said. His voice was a low rumble, a baritone that vibrated through the floorboards and straight up my legs. It wasn’t a question.
"Yes," I squeaked. I cleared my throat, trying to lower my register so I didn’t sound like a cartoon mouse. "Yes. Belinda O’Shea."
"We start at eight," he said, checking an invisible watch on his wrist, though he wasn’t wearing one. "It is eight."
"Right. Yes. Okay."
I turned to my laptop, my fingers shaking so badly I had to grip the edge of the podium to steady them. Just get the slides up. Show them the Save Percentage differentials. Show them the High-Danger Scoring Chance suppression metrics. Dazzle them with math.
I hit the spacebar to wake the computer.
The screen on the wall behind me flickered to life.
But it didn’t show Kodiaks_Shot_Suppression_v4.xlsx.
Apparently, in my nervousness, I hadn’t just minimized my windows. I had accidentally triggered the "Sync Across Devices" feature on my Kindle Cloud Reader app. The app I had been using on the bus three minutes ago. The app that was currently open to page 243 of The Earl’s Forbidden Governess.
And because the universe hates me with a personal, vindictive passion, the font was set to size 24. Massive. Bold. Undeniable.
The words projected onto the twenty-foot screen were not about hockey.
“Oh, Lord Blackwood, please,” Seraphina whimpered, her hands clutching the velvet sheets. “I can feel your throbbing desire pressing against my womb. It is too large, surely it will split me in twain!”
“Hush, you little minx,” the Earl growled, his member twitching like a divining rod seeking water. “I shall stretch you until you scream my name to the heavens. Open for me. Now.”
Time stopped.
The silence that filled the room was absolute. It was a vacuum. It was the moment before a nuclear blast.
For three agonizing seconds, thirty-five men read the words “twitching like a divining rod” in high-definition 4K resolution.
Then, the explosion happened.
It started with Jax Malone. A snort. A choke. Then a full-blown, hyena-like howl that doubled him over in his seat.
"Split her in twain!" someone yelled from the back row.
"Divine my rod, baby!" another voice crowed.
"Yo, O’Shea! Is this the new training regimen?"
Laughter crashed over me like a tidal wave.
Hot, humiliating heat flooded my face, my neck, my chest. I felt like I was burning alive.
I scrambled for the laptop, my fingers fumbling over the trackpad, trying to find the ‘X’ button, trying to close the window, trying to dig a hole through the floor so I could crawl into the earth’s molten core and die.
"Oh my god," I whispered, frantically clicking. "Oh my god, oh my god."
But the cursor was frozen. The computer was thinking. The Earl’s throbbing desire remained plastered on the wall, mocking me.
I risked a glance at the front row.
Peter Volkov was not laughing.
He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin resting on his clasped hands. He was studying the screen with the same intensity he used to study puck trajectories. His face was a mask of stone.
He read the passage. I saw his grey eyes track from left to right. Then he read it again.
The laughter behind him was raucous, uncontrollable. Guys were wiping tears from their eyes. But Peter didn’t move.
Finally, he turned his head slowly. He looked at me. The room didn’t quiet down, but the space between us suddenly felt pressurized, as if we were the only two people inside a diving bell.
"O’Shea," he said.
He didn’t shout, but his voice cut through the laughter like a knife through silk.