Page 57 of Power Play

Determined to prove to him just how wrong he is about me, I pull my phone from my purse. With a few quick taps, I’m logged onto the proper website. Perfect.

Sliding the phone toward him, I wait for the realization to hit him that . . .

“What the hell is this website?” he growls, staring at the screen like he’s looking at an abomination come to life.

He’s not wrong.

“A free website,” I tell him, fighting the blush making its way to my cheeks. “Originally, I had forced Gwen to make a connection withTheBoston Globe, so that therealarticle could make its sweep across the Internet. The article that I feel represents me, as a journalist.”

Duke holds up my cell phone, waving it about in the air. “And this thing is . . .?”

This time there’s no stopping the blush from warming my skin. I reach up and tug my hair away from neck again. Does this room not have AC? Seriously, I’m burning up right now.

Seeing no other recourse, I mutter, “I built it. It’s a free site.” I squirm in my chair under the weight of Duke’s searching gaze. “I didn’t want you to think that I was using the weird fame thing from a fake article to bolster the one you’re holding in your hands now.Thisis the article I turned in to Josh.Thisis the article I’m proud of. Please, read it.”

He sets the phone facedown on the desk, and I swear that my heart crumples at the sight.

Time to opt for Level 2 of the plan.

“Duke,” I try again, effusing warmth into my voice, “I know that your past isn’t . . . stellar, but I want you to give this another go.” I pull my hands into my lap. “Don’t lump me in with what happened with Sam.”

I don’t miss the jolt of his body. “What do you know of her?” he demands, leaping up from the chair. “Who told you anything about her?”

“Gwen mentioned it, but I—”

Large, masculine hands drag through his hair in frustration. “It wasn’t any of her business to tell you about Sam.”

Crap, crap, crap.

Wrong move.

I stand, too, mostly to even out our height as much as I can. “Gwen just wanted to help me understand.”

“Understandwhat?”Duke’s hands fly up into the air, and I fall back a step at his rare show of emotion. “To understand how wrong I was to place my trust in a woman I’d only just met?” He laughs, caustically, and it’s a devastating sound that rips me apart. “That I shouldn’t have expected anything more from her than a quick lay?”

A few steps in his direction doesn’t help any. He’s on the move, tracing a path along the floor-to-ceiling window that looks out on to the busy streets below. I can spot the John Hancock, Boston’s tallest skyscraper, as well as the Prudential Tower, where my father worked for a number of years.

The world beyond that window feels so very far away.

I place my hand on his arm, startled to feel the muscles in his forearm twitch under my touch.

I have no idea what I mean to say, but I’m saved from having to figure it out. To my shock, Duke covers my hand with his and . . . breathes. His eyes fall shut, and his nostrils flare with the intake of air. Blue eyes blink open, as deep and as fathomless as Boston’s harbor in the dead of summer.

“I almost made it to the Stanley Cup twice before actually pulling it off when I was twenty-four,” he says softly, his fingers brushing back and forth against the ridges of my knuckles. “It was the first season I’d played goalie. My coach . . . I don’t know. He was desperate during playoffs. Merger got injured, bad, and then the second string couldn’t find his ass from his head most days. We’re up against the Capitals one night, and Coach looks at me from across the ice. He points, tells me to gear up and get in the net.”

“Just like that?”

He gives a short, precise nod. “Just like that. I’d played goalie in high school for my first two years, had done reasonably well. Sometimes, during practice, Coach put me in the net just for shits and giggles, to keep me on my toes. That night, I was half-frozen in fear; worried I’d let in every puck that came flying my way. I was a wreck.”

“It was the year the Blades came on the map.”

A small smile lights his features, like he’s thinking back on that long ago day. “Yeah, it was. I busted my ass out there on the ice, breathing nothing but hockey. But then I met her.”

Ugly, green envy darts through my veins. I’ve never been one for jealousy. It serves no purpose, but right now, as I sit in this conference room with Duke Harrison . . . I feel its sourness filter through me. I don’t much like it. Life’s a whole lot easier when you can focus on the straight and narrow.

I nevertheless open my mouth and say, “You met Sam.”

Another short nod, accompanied by a squeeze of my hand. “Yeah. She wasn’t so much as a distraction as she was an outlet, an avenue to expend my nervous energy after long practices and even longer games. But then I started to like her, and while I was thinking of moving in together and long-term relationships, she was . . . ”

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