Page 35 of Sin Bin

He’s as hard asstone.

Now that I think about it, his heart is thesameway.

Andre catches my wrist, his gaze dipping down to search my face in overt confusion. “What didIsay?”

Unbelievable. See? This is why the man is enemy number one in the hockey world—he’s completely incapable of playing nice withanyone. I yank my hand out from his grasp. “Let me put it this way for you, Andre.” I point at him, then swivel my finger to point at myself. “This? Us? Never happening. You laid down the ground about no sex, and I’m completely fine with that. I don’t have sex with men who think thatI don’tmatter.”

Just like that, his expression shuts down. “Zoe—Zo—you know that I didn’t mean itlikethat.”

My hands go to my hips. “Then tell me how youmeantit.”

His eyes go wide, and he reaches up to rub the back of his neck with one hand. “Jesus, Zoe, I have no idea. I’m just saying that it’d probably do us some good. Get the sexual attraction out of the way so we can live ourlives.”

Fury heats my words when I counter, “Iamliving my life, Andre. I’ve been living my life since the day you screwed me in a goddamn laundry room, and then never spoke to meagain.”

Silence meets my words. It’s the first time either of us has directly mentioned our past, and the awkwardness is palpable. I almost wish I could snatch them back. Except, no—no, I will not. He can’t justwalkabout as if nothing everhappened.

In a voice I wish wasn’t so testy, I mutter, “Nothing to saytothat?”

His hand leaves his neck to scrape over the lower half of his face. “Let’s not dothishere.”

My eyes narrow. “Are we going to talk about it on thewayhome?”

I mentally scoff.Home—like we share the same house, the same life, the sameheart.

Utterly.Ridiculous.

Andre tugs on his ear. “Maybe we should justforget—”

Over the ringing in my ears, all I hear are excuses. I throw up a hand and his mouth clamps shut. “You know what? You’re right—it doesn’t matter. Not what happened then, or what happened after that. I don’t care. But don’t kiss me, Andre.” My heart pounds with adrenaline; it pounds so loud that all I can hear is the blood thundering in my head. “Don’t kiss me today, and don’t kiss metomorrow.”

I won’t survive another round with him between the sheets. Not if he decides to up and leave me again, just like he did last time—not that we were anywhere between a set of sheets ayearago.

But as he stares at me resolutely, with an expression that borders on hollow, I can’t help but wonder if I’m making the right decision. If I’ve evenreadhimcorrectly.

I remind myself as we silently head towardFame’s office that this is for the best. Andre is a client—myclient. I can’t go back down that road to temptation again. Not even if I’mtempted.

Not even if, for a few minutes today, I remembered the old him, theoldus.

I have to be strong, because if I’m not, Andre Beaumont will use me and spit me back out when he’s done. Of that I have nodoubt.

ChapterEleven

ZOE

Twenty Days Left…

Over the next twenty-four hours,I can’t shake the sense that I’m missing something when it comes toAndre.

The nagging sensation follows me when I spend three hours on the phone, talking shop with local reporters about considering Andre for a feature piece. It follows me when I email three different charities, all with the purpose of signing Andre on as a sponsor. It doesn’t shake off when I end up in a near-argument with one of Andre’s dropped sponsors over the phone,either.

I can still hear the man’s derisive snort when I mentioned re-signing Andre during the next annualquarter.

“Beaumont?”he sneered at the start of our call. “Not happening. We only took him on because he won the Cup two years ago with the Red Wings, and even that ended up being a huge debacle with the CEO. You’ll excuse me when I say I’m not feeling up to anotherbattle.”

“I can promise you that Mr. Beaumont has seen the errors of his ways,” I told the man, lying through my teeth. Call me Ms. Cynical, but I doubted Andre had seen the light on anything. “Regaining his sponsorship with your organization would also influence the opinion of others.” I took a deep breath and went for broke. “You could singlehandedly make a difference in his career, if only you’llsayyes.”

“A man can’t change his stripes when they’re tattooed on, Miss Mackenzie. Beaumont is thesameway.”

---