Wild Zone (Rough Riders Hockey 4)

Tate.

Even the thought of him made a little burn rise in the pit of her stomach. She’d never been loved the way Tate loved her last night. She should really call it fucking, but somehow, that description didn’t quite fit. Last night Tate had made Olivia feel like nothing outside those four walls had mattered. Nothing but becoming so tangled up in Olivia he could never get out. Something he’d given her every impression he would have considered a happy accident, something he would have been completely and utterly satisfied with.

From the way he held her gaze while he drove her to multiple orgasms, to the way he curled around her after, slipping into sleep with his face buried in her hair, Tate had given her the intense experience of being deeply cherished beyond anything she’d ever felt with any other lover.

“Olivia.“ Quinn shook her leg.

“Stop it.” Olivia smacked Quinn’s hand away, annoyed at being jerked out of her warm memories of Tate. “Mom, make her leave me alone.”

Teresa wandered toward the bed with a familiar smile on her face, the one that told Olivia just how happy she was to have her home. The one that was so happy, it tipped the scales toward teary. Sometimes, Olivia thought coming home caused her family more pain than joy. And that cut at Olivia’s heart.

Their mother sat on the corner of the bed. “Just let her tell you the good news, and she’ll leave you alone.”

“Hardly.” Olivia rubbed both hands over her face and moaned. She knew her family. If they didn’t have to work today, they’d want to do something with her—go shopping, have lunch, take in a movie, wander the museums, walk the river. And as much as she wanted to do those things too, right now she really just wanted to lie here and think about Tate. Remember every minute of their night together. Maybe find something about him she could use to pry him off the pedestal she’d mounted him on after last night.

Since that obviously wasn’t going to happen, Olivia rolled to her side, propped herself up on her elbow and rested her head in her hand. And prepared for a long drawn out tale about Charlotte’s baby. “Fine. Talk, Quinny Quinn.”

She got that I-can’t-stand-it giddy grin, cast a look at their mom, then said, “We picked up six new jobs last night, Liv. Six.” Quinn was almost coming out of her skin. “And one of them is Beckett Croft’s daughter’s birthday party. Did you meet her last night? She was one of the kids there. A gregarious little blonde angel zipping all over the party.”

Olivia laughed at Quinn’s description, so full of affection for a little girl she barely knew. But Quinn had always had an affinity for kids. “Um, nope. There weren’t any kids running around my kitchen.”

Quinn deflated a little. “I hate that you didn’t get a chance to come out and meet everyone.” She glanced at her mother. “What a great group, weren’t they mom? Really neat people for being so famous and wealthy.”

Their mom agreed. “They’ll go down as one of my favorite jobs to date.”

“Who came?” Olivia asked, only mildly interested.

They both look back at her, but Quinn was the one to ask, “What do you mean?”

“The famous and wealthy. Who was that?”

Quinn’s face broke into another smile. “All of them. You’re the hockey fan. You should know how much that franchise is worth.”

Olivia pushed herself upright and combed her hands through her hair pulling it off her face, then dragged her tee shirt—one the many she’d stolen from her fathers’ dresser after he’d died and still slept in—over her knees. “I just used to go to the games with Dad. I don’t know anything about the franchise. Or even about the sport for that matter. Not anymore.”

Though she could attest to the intensity of one particular player in the bedroom.

“They make anywhere between half a million and eight million per year.”

Olivia frowned, resting her head in her hand. “I guess. I mean they’re professional athletes.”

She thought back to Tate’s townhome. It was in a nice part of DC. It was on the new side. It seemed roomy, though she hadn’t seen much beyond the dining room and Tate’s bedroom. With the prices in DC now, it had to have cost somewhere around a million and a half. But as her mind woke, the implications of Quinn’s information in relation to her family sank in. “And you’ve got six new jobs with these people?”

Quinn’s eyes rounded and she nodded, sending Olivia an ‘exactly’ message.

“That’s fantastic,” Olivia said. “Great crowd to be networking with. What kind of jobs?

” After ten years in the industry, Olivia’s mind started calculating and arranging at lightning speed and within a nanosecond, she found a few huge potential problems. “Do you guys have the cash to float you in case something falls through? Because when you’ve got events back to back like that, they can drain you really quick. And if your books aren’t so tight they squeak, one late payment can send the company’s financials into a tailspin. And, crap, I hope none of them come up before Charlotte’s ready to start working again.”

When she didn’t get an instant response, Olivia’s stomach tensed. “Okay, well, I hope you at least have a backup caterer.”

Quinn glanced at their mother. Teresa reached out and patted Olivia’s knee. “You’re just like your sister, worrying about money. Just leave that to me, sweetheart. As far as a caterer goes, everyone we spoke to at the party last night wanted you.”

The tension in Olivia’s stomach coiled up her spine.

“We explained that you’re not here long, and we are looking into other options, but Quinn and I were hoping you could stay, just a little while longer than you planned, and help us out. It would be fun and it might be the last time we get to see you until you’re done with school, or we have the time and money to take a break and come visit you.”

That was the first mention either of them had ever made about visiting her, regardless of what country she’d been living in at the time. So teasing her with a visit in an effort to get her to work while she was here created a sliver of resentment. One she didn’t feel fully entitled to since she’d been the one to move away.