Page 41 of His Reward
My eyes widened. “I’m not hiding anything.” I didn’t think I was.
Boston’s expression said he thought otherwise.
I blew out a breath, letting the depression I’d been battling settle over me like a weighted blanket for a second. “I don’t feel like myself anymore,” I said, looking down. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, other than the obvious. I miss me, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to be me again.”
“Oh, baby,” Boston murmured.
He tilted my head up and was about to bend down to kiss me when there was a loud knock at the door.
“Lucien, open up, it’s me,” my father’s voice sounded from the hallway.
Unexpected fury washed through me. “Son of a—” I hissed, then broke away from Boston. I marched to the door, Boston right behind me, and yanked it open. “What?” I demanded of my surprised father. “What do you want?”
“We need to discuss what you’re going to say in your interview with Jennifer,” Father said. “You need to set her straight and tell her you’ve left skating for good.”
He tried to enter the apartment, but I stood in his way. “I’m not going to tell her anything of the sort,” I said.
My father looked at me like I was a child throwing a tantrum. He ignored what I said and went on with, “You’re going to get married to Boston here, have kids, and encourage your kids to follow in your footsteps to achieve the dream you were never able to reach. That’s the best outcome of this situation, the only outcome.”
Again, Father tried to enter the apartment. This time it was Boston who blocked his way. “You heard what Lucien said,”Boston told my father. “You’ve heard what he’s been saying all along, but now it’s time you start listening. He’s going to recover and skate again.”
My father glared at him like Boston had double-crossed him somehow. “You don’t know anything about it, anything about skating,” he said.
“I know that Lucien is strong,” Boston said. “I know he can achieve anything he puts his mind to. And I’ll support him when he does.”
Father bristled for a moment as the reality that he wasn’t going to get his way sunk in. Once it did, he turned to me and said, “Well, I’m not going to coach you.”
His declaration didn’t have the impact he must have thought it would. “I don’t want you to coach me,” I told him. “In fact, I don’t want you to come anywhere near me. Don’t come by again, don’t call me, and don’t talk to the press about me.”
My father looked indignant. “You’re cutting me off?” he demanded. “You’recuttingmeoff?”
“Yes, Father, I am,” I said, a weird feeling of giddy freedom coming over me. “I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. At least, not for now. Please go, I want to take a nap.”
Father stood where he was for a moment, quivering with outrage. He recovered from that with alarming speed, turning downright cold. “Fine,” he said. “You don’t want anything to do with me anymore? Then I’m through with you as well. I’m done with trying to protect you from these things you think you want. You’re on your own.”
That was it. He turned and walked away without saying another word, not even goodbye.
I shut the door and let out a heavy breath. Boston locked the door with a loud clack, then pulled me into his arms.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, holding me so close it felt like he was crushing me into his body. “You don’t need him to be a champion. You don’t need him to be you.”
He was absolutely right, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to weep. I’d never felt so much like I was at the bottom of a dark hole with no way out in my life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Boston
The only thing worse than having a life that kept me too busy to be with my omega all the time was trying to stay away when I knew that Lucien was in pain. It was such a screwed-up mix of trying to be responsible while falling in love, and wanting to drop everything to follow my instincts where my omega was concerned. And that was without the added bullshit of worrying I might be doing exactly what Pietro Monteverdi had maneuvered me into doing for his gain. Not a day went by when I didn’t want to punch a wall for one reason or another.
And that was before the Winter Games started.
“Are you sure you don’t want some of these mini quiches I’ve just heated up?” Bea called from Lucien’s kitchen as the three of us prepared to settle in to watch the first night of the figure skating competition. “They’re really yummy.”
“No, Mom, I’m fine,” Lucien said, putting on a brave smile for her. “I’ve got my strawberry kiwi juice, I’ll be fine.”
Lucien was anything but fine. He was a pale copy of the man I’d met at Kincade Slopes and fallen in love with over the last few months. He was in more pain on the inside now than he was physically, and it felt like there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it but watch him shrink in on himself.
I poured myself a juice and went to sit next to Lucien.
