Page 53 of Power Play

More honest than her telling me that I’m a jealous, green-eyed witch? Oh, do tell.

Not.

Since I’m fully aware that my plan will bomb without her assistance, I plaster a smile on my face and do my best to make it look authentic. “I appreciate your honesty, Gwen.”

Gwen nods demurely like I’ve passed some sort of weird test. Then, she taps her fingers on her bent knee. “I know you want to talk with Duke. However, I don’t think he’s interested in talking to you.”

“I owe him an apology.”

“Yes,” Gwen says without preamble, “you do owe him an apology. Duke has worked incredibly hard over the years to ensure a clean resume off the ice.”

“I understand.”

“No,” Gwen counters stiffly, as she watches me closely, “I don’t think you do. If you had, then you wouldn’t have thrown something like this back in his face.”

My hands turn a little sweaty at her words. “What do you mean, something like this?”

“A woman using him to achieve her own career?” Gwen shakes her head, glancing up at the ceiling like she’s in need of heavenly assistance. “Charlie, do you not pay attention to the tabloids?”

It’s ironic, considering that my very last article forThe Tribuneultimately became tabloid fodder across the country. In my personal life, however, I don’t pay attention to the magazine rags.

I tell Gwen just that, to which she sighs. Loudly. “I’ve told Mel that you have no taste whatsoever, and you’ve just proved me right. Again. I hope you know that.”

“I do now.”

“I’m not going to tell you everything, Charlie.”

“Because you want to date him?”

Gwen blinks. “I have a boyfriend. Why would I want Duke?”

Now I’m just confused. “Just a few weeks ago you were hanging on his arm and talking about engagements.”

More blinking. I’m beginning to wonder if she has a sty in her eye. “Darling,” she coos abruptly, “I have no interest in Duke Harrison. Sometimes I get carried away with the flirting, but that’s just who I am. Not all of us can be such an Ice Queen like you.”

Ice Queen.

For years, hearing the nickname thrown back in my face had the ability to pull me down for days. Hearing it from Gwen right now, however, doesn’t affect me whatsoever. Maybe because now I know that it’s absolutely not true.

I return the blinking, waiting her out.

“All right,fine,” she snaps, smacking my article onto the coffee table. Her tea saucer shimmies under the pressure, and the liquid sloshes over the rim. “I liked Duke—liked. But he hasn’t returned those feelings in two years, if not longer. He’s not one to mix business with pleasure for a very specific reason.”

Gwen would make an awful journalist. She has no knack for storytelling. No knack at all. “You mentioned that . . . Anyway you might want to fill me in?”

With a little cat-like hiss, Gwen straightens from the settee and begins to pace. “The only reason I’m telling you this is so you can see that you stand no chance of ever winning back Duke.”

The words are harsh. I swallow them, digest the hurt that comes along with the insult, and push forward. “I can respect that.”

“It was right after he won his first Stanley Cup. He was twenty-four, living on top of the world. It was his night to keep the Cup. Do whatever he wanted with it. Most of the guys took it home to their family, drank out of it—that sort of thing. Duke planned to do the same, except that he’d recently started dating this woman. She was a few years older than him. Awful cuticles. We go to the same nail salon.”

My eyes fall shut and I count to ten in my head for patience.

I hit seven when she continues.

“So, Duke’s been seeing her. He decides that on his night with the Cup he wants to spend it with her. They do . . . Whatever it was they were doing. He goes to bed, drunk and naked, and wakes up the following morning to find that his girlfriend is gone, the Cup is missing, and there are pictures of him naked plastered all over the Internet.”

Oh, my God.

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