Page 21 of Ice Cold, Red Hot (Coldwater Firehawks Hockey #1)

CELESTE

Determined to seize this opportunity and make it work to my advantage, I was up early Friday morning and out the door before seven. My plan was to get to the lab, get through most of my work before Ethan arrived for the day, and spend the remainder of my day doing something to clear my mind.

I was just stepping out the front door of the building as someone approached at a jog. He caught my eye because at first, I was sure it was Shepherd. And he was running… toward me. My heart leapt, but in the split second it took to give him a better look, I realized it was not Shepherd.

The guy drew closer, slowed to a walk and gave me a grin that was so much like Shepherd’s it sent my heart racing again.

“Morning,” he said, slightly out of breath as he stopped before me.

“Hey,” I replied, feeling off balance a little.

“Lucky I caught you—I forgot to bring a key out,” he said, gesturing to the door in a way that made his very impressive biceps pop. He was blonder than Shepherd, a little shorter maybe. But the resemblance was uncanny.

“You live here?” I asked. He seemed harmless enough, if you overlooked the good looks, which probably devastated a few hearts, but I wasn’t in the practice of letting strangers into the building.

“Oh, yeah. No, not really.”

I tilted my head at him.

He chuckled. “Sorry. That sounds questionable, huh? I’m Blake. Shepherd Renshaw’s brother. He lives here and I’m just staying with him for a few days.” He stuck out a hand for me to shake, which I did as my mind spun through information he’d just offered.

“Shepherd,” my mouth said, and I hated that something in me was giddy just for the opportunity to speak his name aloud.

“You know my brother?” Blake asked now, his eyebrows lowering as he looked at me more closely.

“Uh, kind of, yeah.” Blake had not been at the lake this summer, so I’d never seen him before, but the pieces were starting to click into place.

This was the older brother, the one Shepherd described as the golden child.

NHL player, dad’s favorite. The guy who could do no wrong.

I wondered what he was doing here, since Shepherd said they barely spoke.

“Shoulda met him a year ago. He talked more then. Less of a want-to-kill-everyone vibe back then.” He sighed and wiped the back of his neck.

“Here,” I said, stepping back and swiping my card in front of the locked door. I pulled it open for him when it clicked .

“Yeah, thanks. Appreciate it,” he said, catching the door frame with his big hand. “Nice meeting you… “ a question hung in the air.

“Celeste.”

“Nice meeting you, Celeste.”

“You too.”

I turned and headed to campus, but something about the encounter wouldn’t leave my head. Shepherd’s name—even a mention of him—still hit me like a bruise.

When I got to the lab, Ethan wasn’t there, and I breathed a sign of relief. Daria was already in, head down at her terminal, scribbling something into a notebook. She nodded at me as I sat, giving me that smile that always seemed to understand more than I wanted to share.

I set up my work and was about to dive in when Daria rose and moved to lean against the counter at my side, looking down at me.

“You have a second?” she asked.

“Yeah, just getting started.”

She chewed her bottom lip for a second, looking uncertain, but then she started talking. And every word was more interesting than the last.

“Listen,” she said. “I just wanted to say that I see what’s going on. With Ethan. What he’s doing and how uncomfortable it makes you.”

I didn’t deny it, just waited for whatever was going to follow that.

“He did it to me last year,” she went on, sending a trickle of shock through me. Ethan hardly paid any attention to Daria at all. I’d been envious about it since he’d set his focus on me.

“How’d you make it stop?” I asked, hoping there was an easy solution.

“I told him to leave me alone—in no uncertain terms,” she said, crossing her arms as a flash of anger scooted across her pretty face.

“That’s it?”

“No, unfortunately.” She glanced around, as if to see if we were still alone. “He retaliated. Delicate ego and all.”

I was practically holding my breath now. “What did he do?”

“Stripped me off papers, denied credit hours I had earned, messed with my hours in the log.”

I stared at her. That wasn’t just hurt feelings, that was criminal in a graduate program.

“I reported him.”

My mouth might have dropped open. “What happened?”

Daria gestured around us. “Not a hell of a lot,” she said. “I was allowed to stay on the project, my credits were restored, and Ethan leaves me alone, which is both good and bad. But no disciplinary action was ever taken. As far as I know, it just got swept under the rug.”

My hopes crashed. Of course. The university didn’t want a scandal.

“But I kept all the evidence,” she said, a note in her voice that told me she had a plan. “I didn’t have any backup. But you might.”

She pulled out her phone and forwarded texts and emails to me that were eerily similar to those I’d received from Ethan. “There’s a pattern here,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “He’s done this before. It’s your call if you want to do something about it. I’ll back you up.”

My heart raced. I should do it, right? Call a spade a spade and make sure Ethan didn’t get away with that kind of manipulation?

I thought for a moment. I’d just decided to put my head down and focus, take what I could from the opportunity. My family depended on me succeeding here. Not causing a stir.

I looked up at Daria. “I don’t think I can,” I said. “Maybe I’m just being too sensitive.”

Her eyebrows rose and her pretty light eyes held mine. “Let me know if you change your mind,” she said, before turning away and returning to her computer.

Ethan came in an hour later and moved straight to my side, dropping into a chair and pulling it so close that his breath hit the side of my face as he spoke.

“Morning, tiger. I like the dedication I’m seeing.”

“Just easier to get work done when it’s quiet,” I said, not looking at him.

His hand moved to the desk, one finger landing atop my forearm as I typed at the keyboard. He stroked that finger up and down my arm, my stomach churning. “Maybe we can talk more about the rewards that come with this kind of dedication after the mixer this evening.”

I froze. I had zero intention of going to Ethan’s apartment for his graduate psych mixer, but I knew if I said no now he wouldn’t let it go easily.

The words nearly choked me as I said, “yeah, maybe.”

Ethan’s attitude shifted instantly. He leaned in even closer, the single finger replaced with his hand. He squeezed my arm and whispered into my ear. “I can’t wait.”

As he rose and headed through the door to his office, I glanced at Daria, who was openly staring, an expectant look on her face. I picked up my phone and responded to her messages: I’m in.

I’d intended to avoid the lab for the rest of the day, but realized I hadn’t backed up the data logs to a thumb drive to take home for the weekend, so I found myself back there in the late afternoon.

Marcus and Erin were there, working, and there were voices behind Ethan’s closed door.

I dragged the folder into my thumb drive, and while I waited for the files to copy, I stepped close to the office to get a bottle of water from the fridge. That’s when I heard Shepherd’s name from behind the door.

Ethan was laughing and I leaned closer to catch the words. “Come on, he’s practically begging me to keep it quiet. That little loser is flailing without his precious hockey team. Lost his status, lost the girl… it’s pathetic.”

“He punched you. You could totally press charges.”

“Or I could maximize the opportunity,” Ethan said, his voice carrying a feather of malice that chilled me .

“How will you do that?”

“I’m already doing it, bro. The trust fund transfers are keeping me flush, and he’s got no choice but to jump any time I tell him to. I think he realized I could literally ruin the rest of his life and he’s just dying to get back his campus king status and the promise of a pro future.”

“Dude,” the other voice said, half-laughing. “Savage.”

I backed away from the door. Trust fund transfers?

Ethan was blackmailing Shepherd?

I thought through the last interaction I’d had with Shepherd, when he’d seemed utterly defeated—desperate, even.

And I’d known there was something there, just under the surface of the sexual tension.

Shepherd wasn’t a talker, really… but I’d known in the training room that there was something he wanted to say. I’d been too scared to hear it.

Had it been this? Had he chosen not to say anything because he knew I worked here? With him?

I realized Shepherd had been protecting me. In his own silent, slightly fucked-up way. He’d been looking out for me.

The realization hit me like a slap.

No one looked out for me, except for me. It had always been that way. And even though this situation was a completely twisted mess, the knowledge that there was someone else looking out for me gave me a little warm glow inside.

Ethan was playing us both.

I gathered my things and left the lab, my head spinning as rage began to replace the confusion and fear I’d been feeling.

He was blackmailing Shepherd. He thought I wouldn’t find out. He thought I’d keep playing the grateful first-year grad student, willing to let him do whatever he wanted to keep the opportunity.

Fuck that.

I dropped onto a bench under the draping canopy of a magnolia tree and pulled out my laptop. I was halfway into my resignation letter when another thought hit me.

I can’t just walk away… No, I can’t let him off that easy.

I texted Daria: I think I know what to do.