Chapter Twenty-Four
Moskins
I’m hyperaware that Winter hasn’t made it inside after twenty minutes of me shaking hands, signing pictures, and posing for photos with fans in front of a Fireflies backdrop spanning at least six feet along the back of the tables set up for me, Clarkson, and Head to use during our meet-and-greet session.
After another five minutes, I’m searching the space as a middle-aged woman tells me all about how her husband recently left her for a younger woman.
I nod along, pretending like I’m listening when I actually couldn’t give less of a rat’s ass.
If she thinks I’m going to offer to warm her bed tonight in sympathy, she’s mistaken.
“Here you go,” I tell her, sliding a recent headshot of me in Fireflies gear toward her.
I’d gone in for team photos at the beginning of the summer when the official lineup was made public.
Right before the images of me and my bartender friend made their way onto cyberspace, followed by the onslaught of past flings that followed. “If you’ll excuse me, I—”
“We haven’t taken a picture!” she says as I round the table and walk toward the entrance. “I paid for a picture!”
I’m sure one of her hands would wind up in places that would get me sued if the roles were reversed, so I don’t care about fulfilling her little photo shoot fantasy.
“All donations to the Historical Association are greatly appreciated,” I call out, eyes scanning the crowd of people mingling and laughing and sharing drinks and stories of God only knows what.
My gut is tight, telling me something isn’t right. Winter should have come inside by now, even if she felt awkward being here. Being around me. She would have rolled her shoulders, held her head up, and walked in like she owned the place, just to prove that she could. Something must have happened.
A hand grips my upper arm, and a low voice with a thick accent asks, “Where do you think you’re going?”
I turn to Mikhail, who showed up only minutes after I arrived, to greet the people getting our autographs.
He had to play the proud father role, after all.
He’s all smiles and friendly conversation as he talks about the upcoming season, but I know he hates this shit as much as I do.
Maybe even more. Because his face may be split with a smile, but his eyes are dark, empty pits that offer no friendliness.
He doesn’t give a fuck about these people.
He couldn’t care less about Fairbanks. He wants money and power, so he simply pretends like he gives a rats ass about those who could help him get there.
I jerk my arm back out of his grasp. “None of your business.”
“It is my business, considering I paid a substantial amount of money for you all to be here,” he counters aggressively.
“So you need to go back and do exactly what you’re supposed to be doing with the fans.
We have tickets that still need to be sold for the rest of our preseason games.
I expect a majority of those seats to be taken. Do you understand me?”
Everything is about money to him. I’m half tempted to write him a check with seven digits just to get him out of my goddamn face. “I need to make sure that—”
“Your little blond-haired friend left,” he informs me with pointed eyes. “She knows this is the last place she should be, which means she’s far smarter than you.”
My shoulders go rigid as I take a step toward him until our shoes touch. “What did you say to her?”
He scoffs at me, as if the notion is preposterous. “I didn’t need to say much of anything. You always do a perfectly good job at fucking yourself and everyone around you over.”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Before I can ask, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and shows me an article already pulled up on his phone.
It’s a picture of Winter. From tonight. She looks shell-shocked as someone takes her photo. And the one printed beside it, under the large bold headline plastered on a famous tabloid site, is me standing a little too close to her, staring at her mouth.
“Shit,” I cuss, grinding my teeth as I scan the headline.
Thomas Moskin, 35, who is set to begin his new journey with the Fairbanks Fireflies in a matter of days, seems to be a busy man off the ice with a mysterious new blonde.
Sources say the woman has been seen entering his new Connecticut residence and spending time in public together with him and his wife.
What. The. Fuck.
“This isn’t what it—”
“Looks like?” Mikhail finishes for me, no expression on his face. “Isn’t that the story you always weave?”
No, it’s not. Usually, I openly admit that I’m a scumbag. That I did sleep with the women I’ve been photographed with. But not this time. This time, it’s none of his goddamn business what’s going on between Winter and me.
I stare at the image of Winter with Emaly at a café.
That must have been when my wife gave her our numbers.
“They’re friends,” I inform him, choosing to move the narrative in a different direction and gesture toward the picture.
“Why else would they be hanging out? Not everything has to be about me being a douchebag. Winter has nothing to do with any of this. You know, there are people willing to sell any story for a quick buck, whether it’s true or not. ”
“And what about this?” he inquires, his accent thicker than usual tonight. He seems confident—like he knows where he’s got me.
My eyes go down to his phone reluctantly.
There are photos.
So. Many. Photos.
The first I see are pictures of me and Winter at my front door. Then of me pulling Winter into my house and closing the door behind us. These were the ones taken from the Uber driver that Ashton told me he took care of. But how the fuck did he manage to do that if Mikhail is showing them to me?
There are others.
Images of me watching Winter with a little too much interest at Our Open Table.
Photos that look like I’m touching her back at the Food Bank when Kayleigh came over to flirt with me.
Then there are more damning ones—ones that make me ten times angrier than the pictures of us at my house.
These were taken in front of her apartment the day I’d found out about Ashton’s brother.
Images of me pulling up.
Getting out.
Storming inside the building.
Those could probably be explained. I look angry. Like a man on a mission, ready to burn down the world. It’s the pictures taken of me leaving her place with disheveled hair, a flushed face, and rumpled clothes that’s the most damning.
There are more. Some of the same ones that Ashton showed me from a “source” that gave them to TMZ. Not just the driver. But Mikhail himself.
“Why are you showing me these?” I ask, grinding my teeth. “When we both know you’re the one responsible for them being taken.”
He doesn’t deny it. “You have continued to make a mockery of my daughter,” he tells me under his breath so the people surrounding us can’t hear. “And, in turn, me. I will make sure you pay for that.”
If I could hit him, I would. But that wouldn’t get me anywhere. “Do what you have to, Yokav. But Winter stays out of it. You’re not the only one who can fuck someone over.”
His head cocks as he studies me, and something passive crosses his features. “You have the audacity to care about a random woman. Perhaps even more than my daughter.”
“I love Emaly,” I state matter-of-factly.
There hasn’t been a day I haven’t loved his daughter.
“I will always love her. But you know nothing, sir. If you don’t understand that, it’s because you’ve put the wedge between her and you.
Not me. Not my actions. And not because of Winter.
I will not let you screw over an innocent person’s life so you can gain control of mine. ”
He powers off his screen and tucks it carefully into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “You have a strange way of showing how much you love your wife, considering these photos exist. How old is she? Nineteen? Twenty?”
My nostrils flare. “She’s twenty-five,” I hiss to him. “And you probably already know that too. I’m sure you’ve done your research.”
He hums. “She has a sad background. Very unfortunate to experience so much loss. It would be a great shame if she experienced more. I’m sure her boss will not be happy of her current relations with a client. No?”
He’s threatening her job. These photos are to put me in my place, but that’s not going to happen.
I take a step forward, but he lifts his hand to stop me. “If you do anything to her—”
“I won’t,” he promises, “as long as you don’t fuck up my season. If I see you purposefully do anything to let the other teams win, I will bench you for the season and find a way to trade you faster than you can blink.”
So, practice the other day got to him. And just like before, he’s going after what I love to get what he wants. “I have to be on the ice.”
“My daughter should have a loyal husband,” he spits at me before stepping back and adjusting his suit jacket. “Looks like everybody is going to be disappointed by your actions.”
“If you wanted positive press, why leak those photos to them?” I ask. “What does that get you?”
He smiles easily. “Control.”
“Do you really think this is going to win over your daughter? Emaly considers Winter a friend. You stepping into her life is only going to make her even angrier at you than she already is.”
“How can she be angrier at me than you? I am not the one who has chosen another woman.”
I snort. “You’ve chosen everything over Emaly. Sasha. Your businesses. Now hockey. There has never been a moment when you put Emaly first.”
His eyes sharpen. “And you are to tell me you have?”
There’s no hesitation. “Yes. I’ve done everything in my power to love and protect your daughter in ways you have continuously failed to do.”
Mikhail doesn’t like that answer. “She will still choose family.”
“I am her family.”
His teeth grind. “You lie.”