Page 66 of Heartbreaker

And it’s no longer my place.

But it’sherplace.

“My grandma used to say there was never anything quite as beautiful as a fire on a cold, snowy night.”

She shivers slightly, and I move to the couch, snag the blanket from the back of it, and bring it over to her.

“Thanks,” she whispers.

“Did you get a lot of snow in Tennessee?”

“Where the farm is? No.” Her lips curve. “But some areas, sure, depending on what your definition ofa lotis.”

My lips twitch.

I seem to do that a lot around her.

She lifts the end of the blanket and jerks her chin behind her. “It’s cold. Get in.”

It’s not cold, not really with the fire blazing and the heater going, but I can’t bring myself to do anything other than crawl in behind her, wind my arm around her middle, drawing her back against my chest.

“Tell me about her,” I order softly.

She shifts, her head tilting back, eyes coming to mine. “Who?”

“Your grandma,” I say, but immediately regret making the request because the grief that slides into her expression is intense.

Damn.

“I didn’t have any grandparents growing up,” I find myself saying for no other reason than seeing her sad…hurts me. “But we kind of have one now.”

Her eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”

“Aspen—you remember her?”

“Banks’s wife. And Banks is the one I met who plays for the Vipers, right?”

A bolt of jealousy shoots through me. “You met Banks?”

Those storm cloud gray eyes study mine, a flicker of something I can’t read crossing her face. “Yes,” she says softly. “I met him and a few others briefly to sign autographs before I sang the national anthem the other day.”

“Oh.”

I brace, waiting for it, for her to say something to make me feel even more jealous, something my ex-wife, Amber, would have done, just to get a rise out of me.

Yes, I’m fully fucking aware that I have no right to feel possessive. I’ve done almost nothing except push Jade away.

And then find it impossible to truly let her go.

That doesn’t stop the jealousy from snaking through my stomach, tangling up my insides.

She hung out with a bunch of hockey players.

Hockeyplayers. I know what they were thinking about her, what they wanted to do to her, what?—

“Banks mentioned his niece loved me and asked me to sign something.” She covers my hand, the one that’s resting on the gentle curve of her belly, with her own. “I signed, of course, along with a couple dozen other things for the employees and players who were there, but”—her lips twitch—“I think you’re the uncle who’s going to win, considering you made it so I actually got to hang out with Frankie.”

The words take a second to penetrate, and when they do, I freeze, turning them over and over in my head.

---