Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
Alexei
Training camp started in a week and I hadn’t skated in over a month. While some things were innate, I needed to get into a groove before the team gave me some stupid nickname like FNG—Fucking New Guy.
Speaking of nicknames … I turned at the sound of noise near the bench. The Three Wise Men, as Jason’s Francesca called them, were skating onto the ice.
Vadim tapped his stick against mine. “It is about time we skated together.”
He had retired before my rookie season, so it was a pleasure to get this chance. His former Rebels teammates, Remy DuPre and Bren St. James, joined us. Not just teammates, but also brothers-in-law as they had each married a Chase sister, co-owners of the team.
For the next thirty minutes, I existed on instinct.
I was a man with no problems except for how to dispossess Vadim, how to find Remy with my pass, how to thread the gap between Bren’s legs and plug the basket.
We worked hard, ran the puck down, sent ice shavings flying, and for a while, I reveled in the glorious state of forgetting.
Which seemed weird when that was the one thing I had fought against for the last year since I found out about my father’s diagnosis.
But as soon as we called time, the memories came back and with them, my impotence at being unable to resolve them. Parts of my father were leaking away. He could no longer appreciate what we did together, the memories we had created, the life well lived.
I would have to remember for both of us.
And then there was my other problem.
Checking my phone screen in the locker room, I saw I had a voice mail. While I listened, a small seed of hope sprouted in my chest. Could it be possible?
Just as I finished listening, Vadim held up his own phone screen to me. “You see this?”
I scanned the headline quickly, absorbing my second surprise of the morning. “No, but thank you for sharing.”
My friend rubbed his goatee. It made him look slightly villainous, which I had no doubt was the desired effect. “Are you coming to breakfast with us?”
“I think you know I have somewhere else to be.”
There was no answer when I knocked. Taking a chance, I walked through the gate to the backyard and found her sitting on the newly varnished deck, drinking her morning coffee.
She smiled at me. The rightness of it caught hard in my chest.
“I hoped to catch you,” I said.
“Well, you have.”
If only that were true. I placed my foot on the bottom step. “I saw the news.”
She let out a sigh of relief, but perhaps of a breath long held. Yesterday, Thad Covington had been apprehended in a beach town in Mexico. He would soon be extradited to the US to face charges.
“Hoping to get your money back?” she asked.
“It would be nice, but if not, it was worth every penny.” I gestured to the seat beside her. “May I?”
She nodded. I stepped up to the deck I had helped build and placed my shopping bag between us.
She gave it a cursory squint while I admired her lovely thighs, revealed in all their glory by her sleep shorts.
Bunny slippers, too. A memory of that first night we talked in her kitchen washed over me.
She had knocked on the door while I screwed another girl, and I had fallen in love.
“How’s Sasha?”
“He is having a good morning. Right now, he is playing chess with Dimitry, his new nurse.”
“Oh, that sounds so good for him.”
“It is.” I was learning to play myself, hoping to create something new, just as Maya had suggested.
My father’s recognition of me weaved in and out, but in the moments when he didn’t see his son, he seemed to acknowledge that I was a positive in his life.
“Dimitry is a little scary, but he is as gentle as a lamb with my father when he gets agitated. And there would be space for him at the home I’m looking at for Sasha’s full-time care. ”
Her expression was warm and sympathetic and went straight to my bones. “You’re a good son, Alexei.”
“I am trying.” Not only to be a good son, but to be a better man.
She gestured to the shopping bag. “The Wine Goddess?”
“I hear you have signed some new clients. I thought you might like to celebrate.”
“New clients? Or my scummy ex-boyfriend is in custody, and you brought …” She hooked her finger in the bag’s opening. “Champagne? At eight in the morning?”
“Shush now, I haven’t a petty bone in my body. It is to toast your reinvigorated client list.”
“Getting to be a habit. Hold that thought.” She headed back into the house.
Jason had told me that with the signing of Arkady, some of Lauren’s former clients had come back to the fold.
(Not the ones who had lost money, though Gunnar, Jason, and I had returned their investments.
Ingrates, all.) She had even signed Felix Shay.
I did not envy her having to deal with the kid’s father, but if anyone could handle that asshole, it was Lauren.
She returned with the glasses, and I opened the champagne and filled the flutes.
She raised a glass. “To new beginnings.”
“A little generic, no?”
Her head snapped back. “Okay, what specificities should we be toasting to?”
“How about, this deck is finished? The gutters are fixed. The walls are painted. The roof still looks a little warped but one thing at a time. A criminal is off the streets. There are new clients. And old ones. You have a grill that looks like a spaceship and the most beautiful thighs of any woman I know. Best of all, there is an Ann Sather cinnamon roll in that bag with your name on it.”
“What?” She picked up the wine shop bag and extracted the plastic box with the gooey pastry.
“Jason told me you like Sweet Mandy B’s iced molasses cookies and cupcakes, but I did not have time to drive there. This will have to do.”
Her eyes turned soft, languorous. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“And I have missed you. Not just for the last month, but for years.” I waited for her to hold up a hand, to tell me to stop right there. But she didn’t. Her silence gave me leave to continue.
This liar had his work cut out for him.
“You told me once that memories might vanish, but the feelings don’t. You were talking about my father, how he might no longer remember me, but he would remember how he felt around me.”
She nodded, those silver eyes wide, drinking me in.
“When it comes to you, neither my memories nor my feelings have vanished. I tried. I was ashamed of how I had treated you all those years ago. If I had gone through the past fifteen years and forgotten you, would that be easier? Maybe. But I haven’t.
You’ve been inside me all this time, a vine wrapped around my heart.
I don’t think you forgot me, either. The moment we reconnected in Las Vegas, it was clear those old feelings were still there. Tell me it’s not true.”
“I can’t,” she said on a sniff. “I tried to forget, and I actually did a pretty good job, but as soon as we met again in Vegas, that surge of feeling almost drowned me. I might have forgotten the details, but I never forgot how I felt around you. It was overwhelming, all-consuming. I couldn’t trust that high, not when it might eventually come with the lowest of lows. ”
I hated that I’d put her through that, but I had to hear her out.
“I think what hurt the most about finding out you lied to me about the wedding wasn’t the lie so much as the waste. We went fifteen years without each other. This whole lifetime we could have been building together. A home, a family …”
I opened my mouth to apologize but stopped to let her continue. This was her moment.
“And now you’d done it again. We were married, but you wasted another year when we could have been together. And I wasted my time on Thad. I understand that your father is important to you, but it still hurt.”
“You are both important. I truly believed that keeping our marriage a secret, even from you, was the only way I could hold onto you. I’d found you again, and now these circumstances were about to rip you away from me.
I couldn’t risk it. I didn’t trust you would stay, but most of all I didn’t trust myself, that this version of me was good enough.
I was used to keeping secrets. What was one more? ”
She nodded. “I get that’s how you saw it.
I still don’t agree with how you handled it, but I understand.
I wish you could have trusted me, but you’re right: I probably would have bailed.
I don’t think I realized how much you had hurt me back in college until I woke up beside you in Las Vegas.
My foolish heart had sparked to life in a way I didn’t realize was possible, and I tried my best not to get my hopes up.
Only when you texted to say you had to leave did I realize I had done exactly that. And you were gone.”
I reached for her and took her hand. “Not gone. Just unavoidably detained by my complicated life. I’ve been fighting to get back to you ever since.
I told my agent to make the trade to Chicago happen, no matter the cost. I started working on care options for my father, all while knowing that we would eventually be here.
In your town, in your world, where I could pursue you properly.
And yes, it gave me a thrill to know I was your secret husband all this time. ”
“Some secrets need to be shared, Alexei.”
“I know this now.” I inclined my head toward her. “I need you, Lauren. Not just because my life is a shit show and my heart breaks every time I look at my father. I need you because you are the only person who can put the pieces of my shattered heart back together.”
She sniffed. “Always with the drama, Nazarov.”
“You will not get out of it so easily with your deflection. I have plenty of drama to deliver.” Those moonlit eyes held me captive, beseeching me to open my heart and tell my truth.
“I have loved you forever, Silver Eyes. Since that first night I interrupted your sleep, and you told me to make another girl come and shut the fuck up.”
Chuckling, she swiped at a stray tear. “I had quite the mouth on me.”
“You did. You still do. But you did not date hockey players and you did not seem interested in me.”
“Oh, I was. But I hid it well. I had to. You were too much for me to handle, Alexei.” She swallowed, her eyes glistening with emotion. “And then, after it all fell apart, it was safest to ignore any effort you made to get back in touch. I couldn’t go through it again.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Lauren. I still have a lot to learn about relinquishing control and letting people in. I hope you can teach me.” She was my person, and I wanted to spend every moment learning to love with her. “Do you forgive me?”
“Yes, I do.”
The significance of the words was not lost on me. Another vow, like a bride to her groom.
“I have something else to ask you.”
“Okay.”
“Are we still married?”
Her mouth curved. “What makes you say that?”
“I sent you the divorce papers you insisted I sign, but the next step was to file them with the court. My lawyer left me a message this morning to say that has not happened.”
“I’ve been so busy and—”
“Lauren! Are you still my wife?”
“On paper.” She tilted her head. “Is that not good enough?”
I stood and grasped her hands to bring her upright and into my arms. “No, it is not! I want to hear you say it.”
She peered up at me with the sauciest of grins. “Alexei Nazarov, will you … stay married to me?”
The relief was so potent I almost doubled over. “Nothing would give me more pleasure.”
Then I kissed her, relishing the taste of champagne on her lips and the bubbles lighting up my blood before I fell in worship to my knees.
“Wait!” She looked down at me, her eyes shining with love. “We’re already married. You don’t need to ask me again.”
“True. But I do need to do this.” I took something out of the pocket of my jeans.
She gasped. “I wondered if it existed—did you have it all this time?”
The ring was a gaudy thing, perfectly suited to a mass Vegas wedding.
“It was too big for you and kept slipping off.”
Her lips twitched. “Let me guess. You found it in the same pocket as that marriage certificate.”
I smiled up at her. “I know it might not be your style, but I got it resized all the same. I will get you another one later—”
“No, you will not. This is my wedding ring.”
I slipped it on her finger and watched as she admired its sparkle in the morning sun.
“I love you, Lauren.”
Those beautiful eyes, the ones that had struck me down all those years ago, lit up as brightly as the diamond on her hand. “And I love you, Nazarov. For better or worse.”
After all I had put her through, I planned to ensure there was more of the former than the latter. Starting now. Still on my knees, my hands moved to her soft, golden thighs and coasted up.
She placed the bejeweled hand over my seeking one. “Really, Nazarov? For all the neighbors to see?”
“I think perhaps it is time to christen this new deck, zhena.”
That morning, my wife was late for work, but I made sure it was worth every moment of her precious time.