Sterling (Carolina Reapers 6)

I raised my eyebrows. Sterling. She was pissed. Good, because so was I. “You’re the only woman I call, London. The only woman I sleep with. The only woman I kiss.”

“And that goes both ways.” She ran her hands over her face. “Why are we fighting about this? We’re together. We’re committed. We’re just not shoving it in everyone’s face.”

“There’s a difference between flaunting a relationship and hiding one, London.” I shook my head. “I have to get in there before someone gets suspicious and starts looking for me. Heaven forbid they find us alone together.”

I yanked open the door and marched into the hallway.

“Wait, I need to tell you something!” she called after me.

I turned around at the locker room doors. “Tell me tonight. Yours or mine?” The hallway was empty, but anyone could be listening, and I knew it. I just wasn’t sure I cared anymore.

“Yours,” she whispered.

I nodded and pushed my way into the locker room, leaving her in the hallway. Fuck, I needed to get a grip. Jealousy wasn’t going to get us anywhere, and if London lost her position on the Reapers, she’d have to find another job…in another city.

Pull your shit together.

“She didn’t want to go?” Caspian asked Maxim, his voice carrying across to me as I sat on my section of the bench.

“Said she had plans.” Maxim shrugged, then turned toward me with a calculating gleam in his eyes. “Doesn’t mean she won’t change her mind. After all, we eat dinner together what? Twice a week?”

“Something like that,” Caspian answered, his back turned as he took off his gear, so he didn’t see the stare-down going on between Maxim and me.

I wasn’t about to tell him that I was well-fucking-aware of how many times they ate dinner together every week or that she ended up in my bed every night. Instead of rising to whatever Maxim wanted out of me, I just threw back a bottle of water, then shook my head.

London was mine. The fact that he didn’t know that didn’t change the fact.

“I’m surprised, though,” Maxim said, keeping his eyes narrowed on mine as he unlaced his skates. “She’s all about family, so I figured she’d want to meet my dad.”

I froze. My heart stopped. My lungs crystalized. My muscles turned to stone.

“Fuck,” Briggs muttered at my side.

“After all, she was the one who just handed me his VIP passes for next weekend’s game.” He lifted his dark brows.

I couldn’t fucking breathe. Seeing Sergei Zolotov after a game a couple seasons ago was one thing, but knowing he was coming ahead of time? Impossible. That’s what she wanted to tell you in the hallway, I told myself. There was no way London knew and had kept it from me on purpose. This wasn’t some kind of teen drama. She cared about me more than that.

But does she love you?

“Take a breath,” Briggs muttered under his breath. “Sterling. Breathe.”

I filled my lungs with air, and it took everything I had not to fly across the room and punch that smug little smirk right off Maxim’s face.

As if satisfied with my level of shock, Maxim nodded, then went back to stripping off his gear like he hadn’t just shaken up my entire fucking world.

Sergei Zolotov was going to be in my arena, watching my game, but we both knew it wasn’t for me.

It never was.

14

London

“Are you sure I’m ready for this?” I asked, squeezing Jansen’s hand as we walked along the sidewalk in downtown Charleston.

“Only you can answer that, London,” he said, slowing us to a stop outside the small brick building. An old, giant clock hung above the double glass doors, and I gripped his arm with my other hand. He turned to face me, pulling us out of the way of foot traffic. “I have complete faith in you,” he said, planting a quick kiss on my lips. “You’ve come so far from that night in the elevator.”

I nodded. Even my therapist was shocked by the results of our little experiment. She’d conducted a series of her own small tests, pushing boundaries in a safe environment much like we’d been doing, just on a smaller scale. She said I’d made huge advances, quite possibly excelling to as far as humanly possible to manage this fear—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous now.

“It’s your choice,” he said, cupping my cheeks. “I’ll never force you to do anything you don’t want to do, that you aren’t comfortable with.” A smirk shaped his lips. “But you know I’ll give you a little push whenever you need me to.”

And he had. He totally, always had. Even when we’d had arguments—like our most recent one about keeping us a secret. And then after, about his biological father coming to a game at Maxim’s request. I’d had to hand him those VIP passes and keep my mouth shut. It had stung every inch of my soul to do, but I couldn’t lay into Maxim about his father when I wasn’t even supposed to know Jansen’s side of the story in the first place.