Chapter Eight
LUKA
The resort bar is already buzzing by the time I’ve showered and changed at the resort lockers.
I head straight for the pool table in the far corner and write my name on the chalkboard to challenge the current players.
I chose that table for a reason. It’s tucked away from the fireplace and the couples pressed too close together, away from the windows and the tourists taking photos.
It’s the least inviting place in the room.
That won’t stop anyone, but it buys me time.
At least it will take my mind off everything going on outside the bar—Randolph, the photo shoot, the woman taking up half my bed, who has a funny way of making sure I don't get laid on this trip. Meanwhile, she's making eyes at the ski instructor.
Fucking Zack.
I break the rack. The crack echoes through the bar with three balls dropping smoothly into pockets.
Pool makes sense to me. It’s geometry and controlled force. If you calculate the angle correctly, the ball goes exactly where it should. If you miss, it’s because you misjudged something, not because the ball had a mind of its own.
Full control… if you know what you’re doing.
"You’re very good at that." An unfamiliar woman's voice says, walking up to the pool table next to me.
I don’t look up as I sink another stripe. "."
I don’t tell her that my father used to make me play with him for hours until I beat him before he’d let me rest, before I could play with other kids my age, before I could do anything.
That’s why I got good at survival, acceptance, a son trying to be good enough for his father.
I never was, though, even when I beat him over and over again.
He was training me to be the next mob boss.
To obliterate an opponent. To be someone who would need to know how to read a shot, how to strategize, to always be thinking several plays ahead of whoever I was up against. Pool was never about the game.
It was about strategy and outplaying your opponent.
It took me years to realize that it was never about a father and son playing together.
My mother, before she passed, thought it was love. "He’s trying to make you strong for the life ahead. In his way, he’s protecting you."
What she didn’t know was that she was the only thing he had ever loved… and after her death, he resented her for it. "Love only makes you weak, son." He texted me on the day she died.
I step back as Steve, my opponent, lines up his shot. A fisherman from Alaska who doesn’t talk much but knows his way around a pool table. My kind of competitor.
She steps closer anyway. An attractive blonde with expensive taste, based on her luxury clothing and a confident posture. The kind of woman who belongs in places like this and knows it.
"I’m Annabella," she says. "Are you always this serious when you play?"
"Yes."
She laughs as if I’ve flirted instead of warned her. "Mind if I watch?"
I shrug. She doesn’t need permission, and I’m not interested enough to deny her.
She leans against the edge of the table while I finish the game, asking the predictable questions. Where are you from? How long are you staying? Are you here alone? I answer in half-truths and minimal syllables.
"A hockey player?" She asks when I mention what I do for work and that I play for the Seattle Hawkeyes.
"That’s right," I say, pretending to believe that she didn’t already know who I am before she walked over here.
Then she smiles. "My room has an incredible view from the balcony. You should see it."
There's the proposition. Direct, efficient, and right to the damn point—the kind of attention I’m used to. Normally, I’d appreciate it, but tonight… I don’t.
"Can’t," I say, lining up the eight ball. "Early morning."
"How early?" she asks.
"Lift opens at eight. I like to be first in line."
She smiles with amusement. "You’re that serious about skiing?"
"I don’t do anything halfway."
It’s not an overly confident comment… it’s the truth. If I’m going to do something, I’m not going to do it half-assed.
"I’d like to see what else you don’t do halfway," she says.
I glance at her and then, quick enough, at Steve to see his eyebrows lift in response to Annabella's forward comment, though his eyes are on his next shot.
She studies me for a moment when I watch Steve instead of engaging with her.
"Tomorrow night, then," she counters.
"Unlikely."
I line up my pool stick and take a shot. The eight ball drops. Game over. Steve walks over and shakes my hand.
That should be the end of it with Annabella, except I feel the shift in the room before I see her.
Natalia steps inside.
Dark jeans, a burgundy sweater that looks good against her tanned skin but not warm enough to have walked from the chalet to the bar. Her jacket is folded over her arm like she took it off once she entered the hotel lobby.
She hasn’t seen me yet, but I clock several men in the bar who have seen her. Their attention follows her the way mine did in the media room last week when I missed a question from a journalist because I was watching her instead.
Heat flashes against my rib cage, but I ignore it.
She spots me. Then she spots Annabella.
I watch the moment land. The flicker of surprise in her eyes, the quick composure snapping back into place, her spine straightening as if she’s bracing. She looks disappointed to see Annabella standing nearby.
Like it’s a confirmation that I’m exactly what the headlines say. An NHL playboy, commitment-phobe… And maybe I am.
Did she come here for me? I shouldn’t care that she looks defeated the moment she sees Annabella. That I noticed her reaction at all is a bad sign. Getting involved with Natalia would be a mistake. So if Natalia did come here for me, I have to make sure she doesn’t stick around.
We’re sharing a bed for Christ’s sake. It would be too easy to cross boundaries we both set. I have rules about the women I sleep with. I leave after it’s over. No pillow talk and absolutely no snuggling.
I turn back to Annabella and soften my posture deliberately.
"What are you drinking?" I ask.
Her face lit up.
We walk up to the bar and she orders a whiskey sour. I decline anything for myself. I wasn’t lying about the early morning.
Annabella leans closer, her hand landing on my thigh as she laughs at something I didn’t mean to be funny.
From the corner of my eye, I see Natalia at the bar, a dozen stools down from us. Back straight. Phone in her hand.
She doesn’t look at me. Not even once.
Annabella is saying something about Milan, about how the snow here is better than St. Moritz, but I’m only half-listening. I nod at the right moments. Ask a question when I’m supposed to. Let her think she has my attention.
Natalia chuckles at something the bartender says as he sets a glass of white wine in front of her. And then a few minutes later my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Natalia: I came to talk, but I won’t ruin this for you… again. I won’t wait up. Goodnight.
My jaw tightens at ‘ruin this’. As if this thing with Annabella is something worth protecting.
Before I can decide whether to respond, a guy slides onto the empty stool on the other side of her. He’s in his mid-thirties. Ski jacket still on, a beer in his hand, and the look of cocky confidence I’ve seen plenty of times in my lifetime.
He leans in and my fists tighten.
Even from here, I can read the body language.
Are you here alone?
I shift slightly on my stool, pretending to adjust, trying to see around the six other people sitting on the stools between us without being obvious.
Annabella is still talking. Something about fashion week, or the invitation-only dog park she takes her… pet iguana? Hell, if I remember what animal she said she has. I have no idea what kind of pet she has because I lost interest a long time ago.
I give her a hum of acknowledgment and tilt my head just enough to get a better angle. I can’t see Natalia’s face now. Just the back of her head and one shoulder.
The guy says something I can't quite make out. His mouth curves into a grin, and then he leans closer.
My fingers tighten around the edge of the bar. Annabella follows my gaze for half a second, but she doesn’t catch on to the fact that the two people sitting six stools away from us have my full attention, and not her. Instead, she gently redirects me with a hand on my forearm.
"Are you even listening to me?" she teases.
"Of course," I say automatically.
I’m not. Not even a little.
Down the bar, the guy laughs at whatever he just said. He shifts closer, invading her space.
Her posture doesn’t soften. She doesn’t angle toward him the way women do when they’re interested. She turns just enough to face him.
The guy says something else, gesturing loosely with his bottle.
Then he freezes.
It’s subtle. A hitch in his expression and the grin falters. He straightens slightly, as if he miscalculated. Soon Natalia stands, gathering her coat. And this time I do hear her, just barely as the music dips.
"Sorry, I'm here with someone."
I watch as the guy nods awkwardly and backs away, rejection flashing across his face. Natalia doesn’t look at me. Not even once. She walks toward the exit like she didn’t just lob a grenade into the room and keep moving.
We’re not here together the way she made it sound. But she still chose me as the reason. Made me the invisible force standing on the other side with her, daring anyone else to cross.
And something dark and satisfied rises in my chest at being the one.
I keep my posture loose, as if none of that matters. But I track the guy in my peripheral vision until he turns back to his beer.
Only then do I realize my hands are clenched.
Annabella is still talking as Natalia disappears into the snow. I don’t hear a single word she says after "private hot tub." I only see the door close behind Natalia.
"Luka?" Annabella's fingers squeeze my arm. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I say. "Fine."
"Are you sure I can’t convince you upstairs for a quick nightcap?"
"No," I say, firmer this time, reaching for my wallet. "You’ll have to excuse me. I have somewhere I have to be."
My pulse is already moving before I’ve decided anything.
Annabella blinks. "You’re leaving?"
"Yes," I say, dropping more than enough money to cover my tab and Annabella’s drink, plus a tip. I don’t wait for change. "Enjoy your stay."
I leave my barstool before she can ask why.