Page 21

Nat

After what happened to Cami three weeks ago, everyone is walking on eggshells. No one knows if there will be another attack—and at this point, that’s how I’m referring to the incidents plaguing my best friend.

Even with the beefed-up security measures, no one is taking any chances.

Especially with the children.

It’s causing tension, on and off the ice, and with another tough game coming up, we need the players to focus on their game, not the dangerous antics of a scandal monger reporter.

The other thing on my mind constantly is the very real possibility of something happening to one of the girls. Or Chase. And how powerless I’d be if it did.

Those thoughts are why I’m currently waiting for Eli to call me. I need to have a legal way of looking after Chase and his sisters and the fastest, easiest way to do that is to marry Chase.

He’s been distant since Cami’s attack, and I put it down to fear of something happening to one of his sisters.

He’s not the only one feeling it. I need to talk to him about it, about how scared for my friend I was when I saw her pass out and how that fear has transferred to him and the girls.

When my phone finally rings, it scares the shit out of me, and I fumble it trying to bring the damn thing to my ear. “Hello.”

“Natalie. What the hell is sitting on my desk?”

“You know what it is. Can you get everything worked out this week?”

“You want to marry your star goalie this week?”

“Yes.”

“Why? You’ve gotten what you want already. Chase is playing for the Rogues, and he and his sisters are living in your house.”

“I’ve got no say if something happens to any of them. What if one of the girls is hurt and needs medical attention, serious medical attention, and Chase isn’t here, and because I’m nothing to them but a roommate, I can’t authorize anything?” Even I can hear the fear strangling my voice. It chokes my throat just thinking about the possibilities.

“Is this about what happened to Cami?”

“Yes. No. Maybe.” I sigh and lean back in my chair. “They’ve lost so much.”

“Nat.”

I hear the sympathy in Eli’s voice, the love he’s given me my whole life. Even before my parents were killed in a boating accident, Eli was part of my life. He was Dad’s best friend. Mom’s stepbrother.

There’s no blood connection but blood means nothing to me. I shared blood with my grandfather, and he was an asshole. A vindictive, manipulative, mean asshole. Without Eli there to look out for me, my teenage years would have been far worse than they were.

“I know it doesn’t make sense. I know it’s probably not necessary. But I want to take care of the girls, and I want the connection to their brother beyond having his signature on a contract for the Rogues.”

“Are you worried he’ll take them away from you once he’s on his feet?”

“What? No. He’d never do that. To me or them.”

“Then what is it?”

It takes me a minute, but finally I whisper, “I’ve got no one. If something happens to me, everything goes to Oakley, Cami, and Blake.”

“I know.” And he does. He helped me draw up my first will at twenty-one, and every amended one since.

“I want them to have it.”

“Natalie, I’m in the backend of their family’s business, they don’t need your money.”

“It’s not about the money.”

“Then what is it about? Talk to me. I know a decade ago I convinced you a marriage of convenience was the best option, but that was to gain access to your trust funds and control of your Redding stocks but if there had been another way I’d have pushed for that.”

“You aren’t to blame for Johnathon. We chose him because Grandfather would approve of him. And we knew I could function without his interference because all he wanted was money. It gave me a small amount of freedom to do what I had to to get out from under my grandfather’s thumb.”

“And it gave the old man someone other than you he could control.”

“Yes.”

“What you want to do is about you being in control. Of four lives. Think about that. Think about what you’re planning, who you’re behaving like.”

If Eli had slapped me, it wouldn’t have stung more than his words. “I am nothing like my grandfather. I would never use my connection or money to control them. I’m giving Chase the choice. Marriage or guardianship or adoption of the girls.”

“I don’t have anything about guardianship or adopting the girls on my desk.”

“No. Because if he agrees to a union between us, what we do about the girls will change.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t care!” I suck in a breath, lower my head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I do care what you think, but this isn’t like Johnathon. You said yourself, Chase isn’t going to say yes for my money. Did you know he’s paid me ten thousand a month for expenses since he moved in? And that doesn’t include the takeout and groceries he’s paid for.”

“Okay, so this isn’t about money. It could still blow up like?—”

“No. Chase is nothing like Johnathon. If you came down here and spent time with him and the girls, you’d see that.”

“I’ve been busy spending my time digging into Limitless.” I open my mouth to say thank you when he goes on. “And I think I do know Chase, a little. He emails me every day to check in on the business. To ask my advice on what he should do with the company long term. He isn’t as uninvolved as you planned for him to be.”

“He what? Since when?”

“Since you asked me to handle things for him.”

“Wow. I didn’t know that.” I put Eli in charge of Limitless so Chase could concentrate on the girls and hockey. Obviously, he’s far more capable than I gave him credit for because he’s still involved and his game is almost perfect and the girls are thriving.

“Natalie, I’m not trying to talk you out of doing what you and Chase think is best, but I want you to really think about the repercussions of a second marriage of convenience. Don’t you want a family? Children of your own?”

“I kind of have them.” I can’t help the smile that curls my lips. “They might not call me mom, and the plan is to make sure Candace doesn’t as she grows up, but that’s the role I have in their lives.”

“And you want to make that legal. For you as well as them.”

“Yes. I want them to have the security of me as a guardian in whatever way we make that happen.”

“Chase is onboard with this?”

“I think so. We’ve talked about it.” Eli doesn’t need to know it’s only been a few words here and there. “But we need to iron out the details. There has been so much going on with the move, start of the school year and season that we haven’t done it yet.”

“Then do it. Today. When you see him next, hash out what you both want and then get back to me. I won’t do anything with this paperwork until I hear from both of you that this is what you really want.”

“You’re being a pain.”

“No. I’m doing what I have no legal right to do. Being a parent to a child that isn’t mine.”

Eli hangs up before I can say a word past the lump in my throat.

I know he tried to get custody of me after Mom and Dad died, and I know my grandfather put a stop to it, threatened to ruin him if he pushed for it.

There was no love for me in my grandfather’s heart. Some would say Albert Redding didn’t have a heart at all, but he loved himself, so there had to be something in that cold chest of his. And it didn’t matter that he didn’t, or couldn’t love me, he would never give up anything he considered his.

And I was his.

Even if I was a disappointment because I didn’t have a dick. My life would have been so different if I did and while my childhood wasn’t the best, especially after my parents’ deaths, it would have been so much worse if I had been a boy.

“Hey, got a minute?”

Glancing up I see Chase has poked his head into my office. “Of course. Is something wrong?” I ask with a frown.

“No, no, all good. Just wanted a few minutes of your time without the girls here to distract or interrupt.”

“Oh. Well, come in, close the door.” Neither of us speaks until he’s in a seat across from me. “What’s up?”

“I want to talk about your suggestion for giving the girls security if something happens to me. The marriage of convenience one.”

It appears we’re in sync with our thoughts today. Come to think of it, we’re in sync a lot.

“What about it did you want to discuss?”

“I know it seems like this is out of the blue because we haven’t talked about it since you first mentioned it. Not seriously, anyway. But I think, no, I know , it’s the best option for the girls’ future. I also want you to adopt them if I can remain their legal guardian as well.”

“I...” I close my mouth.

Does he realize if I adopt the girls, we don’t need to get married?

The thought of adopting the girls without marrying Chase has my stomach sinking. But I can’t let him believe both are necessary to achieve what he wants.

“Either option would give you what you want. We don’t need to do both.”

“We do.”

I eye him. He seems certain—determined. The expression on his face is the one I’ve seen close-up numerous times on the Jumbotron when he’s in goal guarding it from all comers.

“You want to tell me why you want both?”

“I want all of us to have a connection.”

As explanations go, it’s simple. But the complexities behind it are not. “Why?”

“Because you don’t have anyone either. You should have someone.”

“I have Oakley, Blake, and Cami. And Eli.”

“Yes. But you should have someone who’s just yours.”

“I have Eli.”

He nods. “You do. But he isn’t in your life every day. He won’t be sharing the parenting of a couple of teenagers and a baby.”

“We don’t need to be married to do that.”

“We don’t. But it’s what I want.”

I don’t understand why a twenty-one-year-old would want to tie himself to me even with his sisters as a strong motivator. “Chase. What if?—”

“Don’t say it. It isn’t going to happen. My focus is the girls and hockey. Our co-parenting partnership.”

“Is that how you’re looking at it? A partnership?”

“Yes. We’ll be partners in parenting the girls and ensuring they get every opportunity in life our parents would have given them.”

“And you’re okay with keeping it a secret?”

“Yes. But I think we should tell the twins you’re adopting them and Candace, and why. They’re old enough to understand.”

“They are and I agree, if we do that, they should know.”

“Good.” He pushes out of his seat, towers over my desk. “So, you’ll do whatever you need to for us to get married and you to adopt the girls?”

“I can. But don’t you want to do it? Make sure I’m not?—”

A bark of laughter cuts me off. “You’re the most capable and honest woman I’ve ever known, I don’t need to make sure of anything. Just do what needs to be done and tell me what I need to do.”

“I’ll find out and let you know.” He doesn’t need to know I already have the information or that I started the paperwork to make him and the girls my beneficiaries in the event something happens to me. “Are you getting Candace now?”

“No. I’ve got an extra session with Coach Watts and Kallan Larsson.”

“How’s he doing?” Kallan is the youngest member of the team. It’s how he got the nickname Young.

“Good. He’s training well and he’s getting out and exploring his new city. More than most of us actually.”

I study his frown. “Do we need to get out more?”

“Yeah, I think so. The girls should see more than school, the house, and the arena.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“We all enjoyed the day out in New Orleans with Whit the other week. Maybe we could do something like that again? Go somewhere different of course.” He shrugs. “I don’t know, this isn’t my hometown or state.”

“It isn’t mine either, but I can ask Oakley and Cami for suggestions.”

“I know the other guys’ kids are younger than the twins and Whit, but do you think we should organize something for the whole team? Some kind of outing for the guys with their families?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what we should do.” A team family day will help bring everyone together, remind them they aren’t in this alone. “Let me get together with the girls and work something out.”

“I know we’re heading into winter but maybe a barbecue?”

“Oakley could host one…” I say, the idea already taking shape in my head, Pa would love to have the team at his house.

“Not us?”

I have to bite back a sharp no. And he knows it.

“Right. Not us.”

“No one knows we live?—”

“Actually, they do. It’s the Rogues’ worst kept secret. Nobody has questioned me about it. It’s just accepted, and I think it’s because they know you’re helping with the girls. They know we’re friends .”

“Are we?”

“What the fuck, Gem?” His spine has straightened, and his fists are clenched at his sides.

“I don’t know. I’ve never had guy friends. Until Oakley and Blake got married, it was always just us four girls. Occasionally Blake’s brothers, but those times were less and less as Rogue sportswear took off.”

“Okay, but what do you think we are if not friends?”

I can see he genuinely wants to know what I think, but I don’t have an answer for him. In a few days, a week at most, he’ll be my husband. He’s already my partner in parenting his sisters. We share a house, so roommates?

Except I’m also his boss. He’s my employee. I might not tell him what to do day to day but I’m still in charge of the team he plays for. As GM and owner.

“You think about it because if we aren’t friends, we can’t do what we’re setting out to do with the girls. We can’t be partners.”

“Of course we can.”

“No. We can’t. Look what happened last time you tied yourself to someone you weren’t friends with. If you can’t accept me as your friend, then we have to rethink this whole thing. I’m sure it will be easy enough to find a place for me and the girls.”

“You’d move out?”

Ignoring my question he says, “I gotta go. I’ll be late and that means suicides.”

He doesn’t give me a chance to protest, to question him again, keep the discussion going. He’s out the door, and it’s closing softly behind him before I can get my brain to come unstuck and tell my body to stand.

But it’s too late.

He’s gone.

And if he’s serious, my office isn’t the only thing he’ll be gone from in the near future.