Page 114 of Gloves Off

“Dress fitting,” I whisper, wiggling with excitement.

At the tailor’s shop, Alexei introduces me to the designer—who I recognize from a recentVoguespread about up-and-coming designers—before he disappears with the tailor to do his final fitting.

“I’m thinking something like...” The designer’s pencil flies over her sketchpad before she shows me what she’s drawn.

“Yes.” I blink at the simple line sketch of me in a floor-length gown with drapey sleeves. “Is that a cape? A thousand times yes.”

She laughs. “I’m thinking less superhero and more high fashion, but yes. Toronto is cold as hell. The draping will need a lightweight fabric, probably silk. Something bold. Something fun.” Her eyes move over the swatches.

My eyes go to one like a magnet. A soft gold that catches the light with a barely perceptible sparkle, so subtle it looks like a sheen.

“That one,” we say at the same time, before we look at each other and laugh.

After she has my measurements, we say a quick goodbye, and I wander into the area where Alexei’s being fitted for his suit.

He stands in front of the mirror while the tailor finishes tucking pins in a few places. They talk quietly, and I take a moment toadmire my husband in the wool three-piece suit. Navy blue, like his T-shirt this morning, with a subtle check pattern. Fits him like a glove. Sharp and handsome.

There’s something about brutal, cold, callous Alexei Volkov in a sharp suit that makes me frustratingly horny.

“Georgia.”

“Hmm?” I snap to attention. The tailor’s gone, and Alexei’s eyes are on me. He’s saying something.

His mouth twitches. “I said, what do you think?”

“Yes.” I blink. “Looks great. What’s this dinner for again?”

“A league thing,” he says. Same answer as before.

No one on the team has mentioned it. “Are the guys going?”

“Just Ward and me.”

I give him a strange look. What kind of dinner would single the two of them out?

“If you want to pick another fabric, I’ll have the same one made for Miller’s wedding.”

My pulse stops. “You’re going?”

“I’m going.” He turns away without another word, heading back into the change room.

I stare after him, confused. It’s the first word he’s said about it since we learned that the team gifted us a week in the honeymoon suite at the Silver Falls resort. I assumed I’d go myself.

He doesn’t go to weddings, so what’s changed?

It’s just for show, I tell myself. Maybe after our wedding, he doesn’t care about going to them anymore. Maybe he feels bad about missing Jamie Streicher’s wedding last year. Maybe he regretted it. Maybe he knows it would look strange if I went and he didn’t.

Nothing to do with me.

CHAPTER 55

GEORGIA

The next weekend,I hurry in the door of the hotel room Alexei and I are forced to share on another team trip. The week has been a whirlwind—work, soccer, traveling. It’s one of those weeks where everything whizzes past, time races, and I feel unsettled and harried.

I have less than an hour to get ready for this mysterious dinner. Not ideal. The team went straight from the airport to the arena to practice for tomorrow night’s game, so I haven’t even unpacked my bag. My dress, delivered this morning in Vancouver before we left, hangs on the back of the door.

Two beds, I notice, with a weird dip in my stomach. Relief, most likely, that I won’t be forced to inhale his addictive scent all night.

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