Page 76 of Break the Ice

“I don’t remember that being part of the game.”

“Why did you send those guys after me?”

“Why did you care about the guy at the dinner table?”

I cock a brow. “You already know.”

“Actually, I don’t. But it would be nice to find out,” she says sassily.

It makes me want to shut her up with a kiss on her full lips. I resist the urge, rolling onto my back where I place my arm under my head and stare up at the ceiling.

“For all intents and purposes, so long as we play this game, no other man gets you.”

She snorts. “I don’t remember that rule.”

“Is there another man in your life I don’t know about?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It can’t be David Abernathy,” I interrupt. “Considering he’s dead. He’s been dead for years, right?”

“I thought we established we won’t bring him up.”

“More like your suggestion. I’m way too curious to not bring him up. How can I resist when he was the one who ruined your sports career?”

I’ve long had a tendency to say the wrong thing. The insensitive thing that shouldn’t be uttered out loud. Eleven times out of ten I don’t give a fuck about being insensitive or wrong. It’s not my problem if somebody’s easily hurt or offended.

Before my mother ditched the family without so much as a goodbye, she used to tell me I needed to consider others sometimes. She said there’d come a day where I’d want to consider someone else for once. I always rolled my eyes and ignored the stupid advice.

But, as my words come out and Marisse turns her head away from me, I wonder if the day’s come. The same strained expression she’s worn before returns to her face, like she’s revisiting a bad memory.

A vague pang of guilt hits me. I reach for her again. “Sugar?—”

“You have no idea what you say sometimes, do you, Rafe?” she asks, a rawness about her tone. “You just… you say fucked up things. You grin and you laugh. It’s all so fucking funny.”

The pang morphs into a heavy anchor. The grin drops off my face and regret follows. I wrap my hand around her wrist to pull her back down toward me.

“I didn’t mean it. I’m an asshole sometimes. Sometimes I say things wrong.”

“Face it, Rafe. You enjoy messing with people. You like the way it hurts them.”

All true.

But not you.

…for some reason.

“I was grinning ’cuz the guy was a dick who got what he deserves. He’s dead now and that’s where he should be. He was your coach, and he took advantage of that. He used it to try to destroy your career. But don’t you see, you got the last laugh?”

She shakes her head, her expression no less tense. “You don’t get it.”

“He probably lied to you. An old geezer like that. I bet he made you believe he’d leave his wife.”

“Yeah, he did,” she admits quietly. “But that was a few years later.”

My eyebrows jerk close. I’m tuned into her every reaction. “What do you mean years later?”

“David Abernathy was my coach from the age of fifteen.”