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Cheryl had sorted them a small room in the private exec suite on the upper floor. Close to the GM’s office but far enough away from the hustle and bustle of the public areas and the player facilities to remain undisturbed.

She took off her coat and Aiden reached for it. ‘Here, I’ll put it in the closet.’

‘The closet?’

‘These rooms have everything you need to ensure you don’t have to leave once you’re in. Don’t want to risk missing any of the action.’

He nodded to the glass doors that led out to a private balcony and an undisturbed view of the rink.

‘The rest room is through here too.’

He disappeared off and she twirled on the spot, taking in the small but flashy space.

A wood-panelled wall brandishing the Titans logo backed a fully stocked bar complete with stools, while a giant flatscreen filled another, and the other was covered in team paraphernalia lit by the Titan colours – red, blue and white.

‘Drink?’ he asked, coming back into the room.

‘A club soda would be great, thanks.’

She dropped her bag on the coffee table that stretched down the middle of the room, flanked by two cosy sofas, and started pulling out her things – notepad, pencil, mobile…

‘You happy to do it here?’ she asked. ‘Or would you prefer the stools?’

‘Here is good.’

She sat as he did, accepting the drink he offered out to her. ‘Thank you. Do you mind if I record our conversation?’

She gestured to her phone on the table and he followed her gaze, the bob of his throat the only indication he was in any way ill at ease.

‘I promise I won’t use anything you ask me not to, I just find it saves me having to stop all the time so my notes can catch up.’

He gave a weak smile. ‘I’m surprised you bother with pen and paper these days.’

‘Force of habit. I like having something in my hand to twiddle with.’

His eyes fired. ‘There are so many things I could say to that.’

‘I’m sure there are…’ She bit her lip, karma at war with the professional. ‘But then I’d have to accuse you of stalling.’

‘Never. Though before we get started, I will say, it’s good to see you looking more prepared for the rink today; my brother was worried you’d catch your death.’

‘Blake was worried?’

Don’t get all giddy about it!

‘Sure. And he has a point. We wouldn’t want you getting ill while you’re following us about. And let’s face it, the sneakers are a much safer bet.’

She wagged her toes. ‘No more having to save me from these twinkle toes, hey?’

‘Not that I minded breaking your fall.’

‘You like coming to my rescue, Ice?’

‘You think I make a good knight in shining armour, Sinclair?’

Absolutely not. Steel shot through her spine with the honest answer she couldn’t give. Because no knight would have bailed on Sissi like he had.

He made a good flirt though. A flirt who was skilled at turning questions back on her and avoiding a straight answer. Well, two could play at that game.

‘Do you often spend your time rescuing damsels in distress?’

‘Is that a question for the article?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Depends on the woman who needs rescuing.’

Sienna! she wanted to scream, but again, she knew she couldn’t.

‘Your mother, perhaps?’

He stiffened in his seat, the smile leaving his eyes, his lips…

‘Straight in there like a true reporter.’

‘You’re not the only one who’s good at their job.’ She softened it with a smile. ‘You gave me a lead and I took it. Though we can park that conversation for later if it suits and talk about other women who might have played a role in your life.’

Like Sienna… because if he mentioned her, then Astrid could too.

‘My mother is the most important woman in my life. And like I told you yesterday, my father was a brute. A drunk. A nasty piece of work who took out his inferiority complex on everyone else.’

The Ice King reigned supreme as he let rip on his past. Eyes cold, jaw set, his voice devoid of any emotion.

‘But you know all that already so what you’re really asking is: was it so bad that we had to rescue her from it?’

‘Yes.’ Because karma pact aside, her article demanded that she understand this.

‘You want to know if he beat her? If he beat us? If we played hardball with our very first contract to ensure it wasn’t just us being gifted an escape, but our mother too? Yes. Yes. Yes. And too right we did.’

She swallowed, admiration swelling, even as she realised that the contract to which he referred was the one that saw him walking away from Ashbury Falls. Walking away from dear sweet Sissi.

‘That was quite the risk, negotiating like that?’

He shrugged. ‘By that point, we had several colleges vying to recruit us; we used the competition to secure a deal to take her with us. To start a new life, free of him and it got Blake – well, it got Blake away.’

He’d hesitated… she felt like he’d been about to say something else. Admit something else. But what?

‘You say that like Blake needed it more than you – did he?’

He stared back at her, eyes revealing nothing. ‘We all needed to get away.’

That didn’t really answer her question… She scribbled a note to pick it up later.

‘All you need to know,’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck, ‘is that my father was poison, he killed everything he touched. After he lost his job, it was unbearable. Mom became this tiny, broken woman. Quiet as a mouse most days. Unless she was at the rink, watching us play…’ He gave the smallest of smiles.

‘Then she was so full of life, fierce, amazing and everything we wanted her to be at home.’

‘That must have been heartbreaking to witness. And the pressure you must have felt at such a young age to make her life better, to make your own life better…’

Astrid ached for the boy-cum-man he’d been. But to leave without explaining it to Sienna… Not to have answered her calls. Given her some closure. After all the promises he’d given her.

‘Do you see your father now?’

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘So, you do see him?’

‘He’ll rock up every now and then, when he wants something.’

‘Like?’

‘Tickets to a game, an introduction to someone, money…’

‘Do you give it to him?’

‘That depends.’

‘On?’

‘How much trouble he’s likely to cause if I don’t. Sometimes it’s easier, and quieter to give him what he needs and move him on. Though I draw the line at introductions. I don’t want anyone in my life tainted by breathing the same air as him.’

His eyes flashed, the first sign of a simmering anger just below the surface and then it was gone. Like it had never been there at all.

‘Where does he live now?’

‘Around.’

Deliberately evasive.

‘Do you know where?’

‘Why? You planning on talking to him too?’

‘I like to speak to as many sources as possible, especially if they’re mentioned.’

He raised a brow. ‘A reporter who likes to fact check…’

‘That’s a good thing, is it not?’

He nodded slowly. ‘I suppose.’

And speaking of people cropping up in the article…

‘Do you think your mother might talk to me?’

‘I don’t want her brought into this. She’s been through enough and I don’t want her having to revisit the past. She’s a different woman now.’

‘She’s the woman you glimpsed at your games as a kid…?’

His smile made a return. ‘She is.’

If only he’d had the same protective instinct over Sissi, the woman he’d promised to love and protect too…

‘Do you have any regrets about that time? About leaving Ashbury Falls?’

A cloud came over him, a flicker of something and then, ‘No.’

‘No?’

It hadn’t looked like a ‘no’. There was something he wasn’t saying. Something he didn’t want to tell her or something he didn’t want to admit… even to himself.

Which was it? And what was it?

Could it be…

‘What about friends? Maybe a childhood sweetheart you?—’

‘It was the right thing to do,’ he cut in, stone cold, the pulse in his jaw working overtime. ‘For Mom. For Blake.’

‘For you?’ she had to press, and he gave a delayed nod, his jaw tight.

She wasn’t convinced. Not the journalist in her, or the woman that knew of the supposed love he’d once shared with Sissi. The man she was getting to know – the loyal brother, loving son, conscientious team player – he wouldn’t lie about those feelings back then and he wouldn’t forget them now.

If he had no regrets, if he was over Sissi, he wouldn’t have shot her down at the mere suggestion of a childhood sweetheart. And that was worth exploring every chance she got.

‘Do you always do that?’

‘What?’

‘Put yourself last?’

He huffed. ‘I’m the eldest.’

‘You’re twins.’

He gave a one-sided grin, flashing that dimple…

‘I was born minutes before him and I don’t let him forget it.’

‘I bet you don’t.’

‘And one of us needed to become the man of the family,’ he said, seriously. ‘Take control of the situation and get us out of it.’

‘And that had to be you?’

‘When you grow up with a man like our father, it shapes you in some way. For me, I craved stability and control. A future no longer threatened by the unknown, my brother and mother safe from his reach and on a better path. Family is a motivation like no other.’

‘Of course it is,’ she agreed, but she couldn’t forget that he’d promised Sissi she was his family too. Promised her the exact same future and then taken it away.

‘Leaving Ashbury Falls was a clean break for us all, it was what we needed, and we haven’t looked back.’

But she was going to make him look back, and she was going make him see Sienna if it killed her…

* * *

‘You’re doing it again.’

Blake didn’t slow, his punches landing hard and fast against the bag. He didn’t have the patience for Larsson’s comments today.

‘What is it this time?’

He shifted his stance, went at it again and Larsson chuckled, his big frame locked in a hands-free squat.

‘You got it bad.’

Blake grabbed the punch bag as it swung back at him. ‘Got what bad?’

‘Foxy has you all…’ Larsson shook his huge hands either side of his head. ‘ Tokig . Crazy.’

Foxy. Dammit. He’d said it out loud once, maybe twice, and now they were all calling her it.

‘Her name’s Astrid.’

Larsson’s blue eyes danced. ‘ Real bad.’

‘Do you want to take this up in the ring?’

Because Blake couldn’t care that the guy at a towering six foot seven, had four inches on him and umpteen pounds, he was ready to go. At something, anything…

‘I’m not that stupid.’ Larsson dropped the barbell and brushed off his hands. ‘We have a game tomorrow.’

They did. And hell, Blake’s head was elsewhere. Currently in a room upstairs with his brother and a certain pair of overly inquisitive, mind-bending, honeyed eyes.

He wasn’t sure what disturbed him more – the line of questioning or his brother being alone with her – but one thing was painfully clear, he wanted her.

He wanted to be better than his brother to get her, too.

And he’d never been better than his brother. Not ever.