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CHAPTER 42

EMERY

I’m a zombie this morning. I barely slept a wink, tossing and turning all night. It didn’t help that I could still feel Alexei inside me. Even this morning, I feel so changed by what we did yesterday—and the fight after—that I wonder if I will always have this cell-level awareness of what it was like to be that close to another person.

That person.

My person.

My frustrating, emotional jerk of a person.

He’s not even a jerk, that’s the worst part. I know he thought we would have a couple of months together before I left, and I’ve yanked that out from under him.

But it’s not like New York is on the other side of the moon. It’s a short flight. Probably an eight-hour drive.

And on top of our crappy communication and my terrible timing, I now have the stress of my family on top of all this.

He’s thinking about my brothers finding out about us.

I’m not.

Whatever, they are idiots. If they try to pull any macho “don’t touch our little sister” bullshit, I know how to handle them.

But once they know, then my parents will know.

And the only thing worse than my parents expecting me to drop everything to celebrate my brothers’ job performances would be my mother expecting me to drop everything to become a WAG.

Even if it feels in my heart of hearts that I love Alexei as much as he loves me, that’s ours . That’s private .

I have spent my entire adult life coming to terms with the fact that I don’t want the life my family crafted for me, and now I’m a few gossipy text messages away from that being the only life they will ever see for me.

It would be one thing for Alexei and me to announce that we’re together in a few months, once I’m well into my training.

But right now?

I can already hear my mother suggesting that I shouldn’t go, because Alexei can just take care of me. And it’s so hard on the players when their wives are gone.

“Arghhh,” I say out loud.

Inessa looks up from where she’s taking snapshots on a stuffed hippopotamus. “Argh?”

“I will never expect you to follow in anyone’s footsteps, or be anyone else’s cheerleader,” I promise her. “You get to be your very own person, always.”

And then I burst into tears, because for the next six months, I won’t actually be here to keep that vow.

“Emmy?” She drops her stick and runs over.

I slide down the side of the kitchen island and fold my knees up, accepting her concerned tackle.

She wraps her arms around my neck and I take a deep breath.

“I’m okay, baby girl.”

She pats my cheek. “My Emmy.”

“I am. I always will be, I promise.” I stroke her curls off her cherubic face. “I’m going away for work. It’s going to be really hard. But then I’ll come back.”

“No work,” she says. “Play hockey.”

I laugh weakly. “I’m going to tell you a secret I’ve never told anyone else. There was a time when all I wanted to do was play hockey. When I was a bit bigger than you, I thought I was going to play in the NHL. And I was good. I was amazing, actually.

“But one day my mom told me that I couldn’t play in the NHL, and I don’t think she meant to hurt me. She was just telling me the truth, as she saw it. She knew there was pressure from other parents on my team, and league official, to get me off the boys’ team I was playing on.

“It wounded me that she was the one who told me, and I’ve never gotten over the way she told me, like I should just accept that I would never be in the NHL. That didn’t seem fair, and it didn’t make sense.

“I was a Granger. Of course I could play in the NHL. My dad did. By then, my oldest brother was already there, and my other brothers were being scouted and in development. And the very next tournament I was in, my parents couldn’t come to watch because my brother was in the playoffs in his first year.”

I swallow hard.

You understand, don’t you, Emery?

Except I hadn’t.

And they never again prioritized any of my non-Olympics games over my brothers’ games.

“To this day, I think the only reason they came to the Olympics was because it wasn’t at the same time as the playoffs,” I mutter.

Inessa has stopped listening. I mean, she wasn’t listening to any of it, really.

I kiss her head. “Anyway, I don’t want to play hockey anymore. I want to be able to walk away from something I’m good at, because that’s not all I am, and it causes me this weird, quiet stress. Except when I’m playing you, of course. And playing your dad was fun too, I?—”

“Noooooo.” She sighs dramatically, done with my monologue. “Nessa play hockey.”

“Ooooh. Of course. If you want to play hockey, I love that.”

She runs back to her game, and I pick myself up off the floor.

If there was ever a sign I should call my parents before they hear about this from anyone else, that confession to myself was it.

I pop downstairs and ask Sergei if he could take Inessa to the park. Maria is feeling well enough to go with them, and I promise to catch up as soon as I’ve finished the phone call I need to make.

Then I go upstairs.

Alexei isn’t back from practice yet, but the house is quiet for now.

I know it’s going to be a challenging conversation, where no matter how calm and mature and certain I sound, they’re going to second-guess me.

Rip off the Band-Aid, Emery Granger.

I stab the screen and close my eyes.

My mom answers. “Hey, sweetie.”

“I have some news,” I say. “Can you put Dad on, too?”

She finds him, and once they’re both on speaker, I launch into it.

“There’s been a change of plans. I can’t go to Montrose this summer. It’s a whole saga. But they went to a lot of trouble to find me an alternate placement in New York, and I’ve accepted. It starts next week, so I probably won’t have time to come home before moving there.”

I can hear their surprise through the glaring silence.

Then…

“Oh,” Dad says.

And then Mom sighs. Sighs . “Next week?”

Not, That’s so exciting or We’re proud of you for rolling with a new plan or even Do you need help?

Instead—

“Well… what’s Alexei going to do?” my mom asks. “If you leave that soon, will he be able to find another nanny in time?”

I blink.

Seriously?

“He’s a grown man,” I say sharply. “And I was never his nanny .”

I mean, I’m going to help him, but seriously??? Why do they put that on me?

“But Inessa—” my dad starts.

“Inessa has a healthy grandfather, a roster of WAGs willing to help, and a father who is more than capable of hiring professionals,” I snap. “She’s not going to be abandoned.”

There’s a long pause.

“But you have to understand it’s quite sudden, at this time of year.”

Because it always comes down to hockey.

“You know, that’s funny,” I hear myself say distantly. “Because Alexei didn’t bring up the playoffs when I told him. But glad to know that’s where your priorities lie.”

And then I end the call before I say anything I might regret.

I sit there on the edge of the bed, fists clenched, jaw tight.

I don’t know why I’m surprised. I could have told myself this is how it would go.

But I was hoping for a different response.

I was hoping for offers of help. For once, I wanted them to worry about me .

Fingers shaking, I text Alexei.

Told my parents. They reminded me that I can’t leave you high and dry without a nanny, so I’m going to make some calls today.

Immediately, dots start to appear on the screen.

Then they disappear.

I wait a minute, but when he doesn’t actually send whatever he typed, I get up and try to busy myself by doing a load of laundry. I only get as far as taking the basket of clean clothes to Alexei’s bed—and then I promptly crawl onto his side and bury my face in his pillow.

“You’re ridiculous,” I tell myself.

I blow a big raspberry, then check my phone again.

Still no message.

I push myself off his bed and get back to the laundry. I’m not sure where any of his stuff goes, but the door to his closet is open, so I carry a folded stack of clothes in there—and whistle.

“Okay, well, your closet is bigger than my bedroom,” I mutter under my breath.

He only uses part of it, too. There’s a whole empty side to the room, so I put his stack of clean clothes on one of those shelves. There’s no way he’ll miss them.

Then I step back and take a look at myself in the floor to ceiling mirror on the wall.

“Nice lighting, too,” I murmur.

I step closer to the mirror to check on just how splotchy my face is—not bad—then check my phone again .

Still no message.

Whatever Alexei was going to say, he put it on delete instead of send.

I twist a few strands of hair back into place with my fingers, then put my hand on my hip and cock a leg out.

“It’s good to stand up for yourself,” I tell myself in the mirror.

And then I take a picture for posterity.

Maybe it’s the self-talk, maybe it’s the click of the shutter, maybe it’s the emotional overload, but for whatever reason, I don’t hear Alexei until he appears in the doorway to his closet and leans against the jam.

“There you are,” he says.

I shriek and jump two feet in the air, spinning around.

“Oh my God,” I mutter, pulse racing. “You scared me.”

His eyebrows lift. “You didn’t see me come in on the front door cam?”

I wave my phone in the air. “I have notifications turned off because Inessa has a habit of taking off with my phone and she clicks on all the banners on the screen. Wouldn’t want her to accidentally start talking to a delivery driver.”

He muffles a laugh as he nods. Then he gestures to the mirror. “Don’t let me interrupt the selfie.”

I flush. “It’s not a vanity thing.”

“You can be vain. You’re fucking gorgeous.”

I scrunch my nose.

He frowns, making my pulse race.

“No, I mean I know I’m cute.” I exhale. “But I was?—”

“Cute?” He scowls and prowls right up behind me. “Take your selfie, Emery.”

“I’m—”

“Take a video of us.” His voice is taut with tension. “Something for you to watch over and over again while you’re in New York.”

My breath catches in my throat.

His gaze holds mine in the mirror. A challenge. A command.

I lift the phone and turn the camera around so instead of a mirror selfie, it’s a video of the two of us.

We don’t look like we match. I’m Midwest adorable, he’s European sophistication. I’m blonde-haired and pink-cheeked, and there’s a little pimple on my chin that I didn’t notice before. His dark hair slashes forward over his forehead in a way that money simply cannot buy, and his jaw line is impeccable.

I shift my face this way and that, looking for the right angle to make the zit disappear, and he tugs on his lower lip as he watches me.

“Say cheese,” I whisper.

His gaze darkens as I tap the record button, and as the video starts to roll, he wraps his hand around my throat from behind, nudging my jaw up and my head back as his head comes around and his mouth slides over mine in a hot, searing kiss.

I gasp against his lips and he takes the opening, giving me his tongue.

My phone tumbles from my hand as he turns me around and backs me up against the mirror at the same time.

He plants one hand on the mirror above me and slides the other one down my body, possessively, before he settles it tightly at my hip. “Fucking. Gorgeous.”

I stare up at him.

His face is tight with so much tension as we glare at each other. “And you’re fucking brave, too.”

“What do you…?”

“I didn’t understand why your parents would say that about our childcare.” His gaze drops to my mouth, hot and needy. “So I checked the kitchen camera.”

“The…” Oh shit . “Alexei…”

“I’m sorry. I know that was private. But I wish you had told me how hard it was for you.” He skates his hand up my body again to cup my face, his thumb tracing my lower lip. “But I’m not sorry that I saw how much you love my daughter, moya polovinka.”

“ Moya polovinka. What does that mean?”

He shakes his head. “Later.”

“Not later. Tell me.” I lick my lips, the tip of my tongue grazing his thumb.

His gaze darkens.

“Alexei, what does that mean?”

“My soul.” His voice cracks. “It means you are my soul, and I will hold you in my heart forever, even if we can never be together again. It means I will not forget you, but I hope that if you can find better, you do, because I want you to be happy. I want my soulmate to have everything she’s ever dreamed of.”