TWENTY-THREE
Feeling like a kid in a Christkindlmarket, Harper tiptoed through the snow blanketing the ground at Chicago’s annual tradition, the European-style Christmas market in the city’s Loop. She made it a habit to visit at least once each holiday season, knowing it was the perfect spot to get away from it all and do her last-minute holiday shopping. Productivity had always been the best therapy.
Magic was all around, which Harper acknowledged was about the sappiest thing ever. But one of her happiest memories was when her father had brought her here when she was only six, the first year it opened. It was the Christmas after her parents divorced, but Cliff had insisted that nothing would change. Of course, she didn’t know then that Isobel was three months from entering the world with a hockey stick in one hand and Cliff’s heart in the other or that this would be the last Christmas he would be truly present.
Shaking off the maudlin, Harper combed the stalls, looking for stocking stuffers and tchotchkes, trying not to get all gooey-hearted at the sight of couples walking hand in hand and families straight out of Disney Central Casting. That wasn’t for her. Apparently she was destined to want guys she couldn’t be seen in public with. Any psychologist with a crappy diploma would have a field day.
You are drawn to zee unavailable men, Ms. Chase, her inner therapist said in a heavy German accent. Zee relationships with zee expiration dates zat are doomed from zee start. Zat way, zey cannot choose to leave you—it is already written in zee stars.
Self-awareness should have helped, but instead it left her depressed. It was a pattern she gravitated toward because, in patterns, Harper’s world and her place in it made sense. Remy couldn’t hurt her because he would be gone soon. Their business arrangement kept it clean, a bloodless severance. No fuss, no muss.
One more month.
A cold wind whipped in and sliced through her shearling coat, icing over her soft heart. Perhaps a hot chocolate from the stall she’d passed on the way in would help to warm her up. She turned and walked right into the arms of a heated wall.
“Minou.” Said low and husky enough to melt that ice around her weakening love muscle. Remy’s blue eyes twinkled in mischief.
“Um—I was just thinking about you,” she blurted. Dumbass.
“Doesn’t surprise me. Once I get in, I’m hard to get out.”
Unfortunately true. He wore a faux fur hat pulled down low with hanging earflaps that should have looked silly, but just looked like Remy. His arms had circled her waist and her body settled in against him naturally, fitting into the warm nooks like a desperate limpet.
“Remy,” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”
“Holiday shopping. Like you. Like everyone else here.”
“We can’t be seen together.”
He tweaked at her over-the-ears beanie. “Harper, with this headgear, we’re unrecognizable.”
“So you usually throw your arms around strange women?”
“I mean that we’re unrecognizable to the public. My body, on the other hand, would know you in a blizzard.”
She’d been thinking something very similar, but she bit back her agreement.
“You’re all covered up and I’m wearing this dumb hat that Josette sent me and we’re just a couple walking through the Christmas market, doing our holiday shopping and sipping hot chocolate.”
A couple. The ice floe in her veins melted while something fractured in the vicinity of her chest. She was having a hard time speaking.
He continued applying the pressure. “If you deny me this, I’ll think you’re only interested in my body.”
“I am only interested in your body.”
“Jesus, couldn’t you try fake-liking my personality for a bit? I’m a professional athlete with a fragile ego that needs constant positive reinforcement.”
Feeling overwhelmed—so what was new?—she angled her hip so it brushed against that intriguing ridge in his jeans. “This kind of positive reinforcement?”
His grin lit her on fire. “My ego’s feeling better already.”
Remy had taken a chance on running into Harper at the market. He’d stopped by her assistant’s desk at lunch when he knew Harper was in the weekly scouting meeting, flirted a little, and happened to notice that Harper had Christkindlmarket on her schedule. After he’d Googled it because his German wasn’t nearly as good as his French, he headed to the city to do his Christmas shopping. This market was as good a place as any to buy knickknacks and tree ornaments and creepy-looking nutcrackers that he knew his momma would eat up with a spoon.
It was also the perfect place to spend a little quality time with Harper that didn’t involve a rush to get naked and a sprint out the door before the sun rose. Don’t get him wrong—every moment Harper spent in his bed was amazing. But he liked talking to her, as well. He liked breaking down games, picking her wily brain, listening to her run rings around him in that bombshell gush.
He’d hoped being discovered by her sisters might open her mind up to the possibilities. This woman was the whole package, and but for the fact she was his boss, he’d be making a play for taking this to the next level. If he could get her used to the idea of them as a couple, maybe they could ease into something solid when he moved on in a month.
They stopped at one of the stalls that sold soaps. Remy suspected his nieces would adore them because they were shaped like little gingerbread houses.
“Cute gifts for my girls, maybe?”
Harper chuckled, leaning into his side. “I bet you spoil them rotten.”
“Course I do. Little girls should be spoiled.” He nuzzled against her neck. “Big girls, too.”
“I’m capable of spoiling myself.”
He cupped her chin and tilted it up. “It’s okay to let someone take care of you, Harper. And I don’t just mean between the sheets, because that’s a given. You’ll always get that from me. But I think you need to be fed and fussed over just as much as you need to be fucked. And you need to be spoiled every now and then to remind you that you deserve the best.”
Her big, expressive eyes blinked up at him, those pools he sank deeper into with each new viewing.
“You’re the one to spoil me?”
“I’m the man for the job.”
Every job, he wanted to say. He’d feed her mind, her body, and show her the meaning of worship.
“You can start by keeping me warm.”
He took her hand and interlocked his fingers with hers before popping their joined hands into his jacket pocket. “I’m thinking that the best way to do that would be to check into a hotel.”
She nodded her acceptance of that plan, no hesitation. Thank God, because he was fully prepared to throw her over his shoulder and drag her to his lair.
“Harper! Harper!” He turned to find two bright-faced, dark-haired girls in the eight-to-ten-year-old range standing before them.
“Girls!” Harper exclaimed. “It’s been so long. Look how big you’ve grown.” She snatched her hand from Remy’s pocket and let herself be tackle-hugged by the kids.
The shorter one had her right arm in a cast, and she pointed at her glasses. “I’m a total nerd now, Harper.”
“Uh, a totally cute nerd, Franky. Don’t forget what I told you: nerds will inherit the earth. How’s the arm, kiddo?”
“Itchy. But I was able to get Erik Jorgenson to sign my cast.” She pointed at an illegible red scrawl. “It says ‘Franky rocks’ in Swedish!”
“Awesome! So, where’s your dad?”
On cue, Bren St. James appeared like a looming beast out of a Scottish mist, putting his phone into his pocket. A few seconds of silence followed while he read the situation. Remy felt his blood draining to his toes. Something slipping away.
“Franky, Caitriona, this is Remy.” Bren put a hand on each of the girls’ shoulders. “He’s on the team.”
Yeah, Cap, thanks for the reminder.
“You’re the league leader for power-play goals,” the taller girl—Caitriona—announced with authority. Sliding a guilty glance at her father, she added, “But my dad has a better plus-minus than you.”
Okay, then. We’ve got ourselves a future Harper Chase here.
A nervous Harper babbled to the girls, something about the lights and did they like the market and wasn’t the Christmas tree festive, while their father’s stone-eyed gaze found Remy, not revealing one iota of how this would play out. Thing is, Remy could handle whatever would come. He’d be proud to go public with Harper. For everyone to know he was her man.
Throughout this strange little scene, Remy was struck by something else: Harper was amazing with Bren’s girls. No phony adult-to-child condescension, just Harper displaying a genuine interest in their lives. And the girls clearly adored her.
Finally, Harper straightened and backed up so that the three adults now stood like it was some Mexican standoff. Silence ruled for a few seconds.
Harper caved first. “Bren—”
“I need to get these sprites home. We’ve got a tree to decorate, don’t we, girls?”
The girls nodded, oblivious to the tensions in the group. They left, and Remy watched them slip into the crowd that apparently would never be anonymous enough for Harper.
“Shit, shit, shit.” The hand formerly warming his now rubbed her forehead anxiously. “There’s no way he didn’t see that, is there?”
“Harper, it’s okay. He won’t say anything, and even if he did . . .”
“Even if he did, what, Remy? Even if he did, it’d be okay? Is that what you’re going to say?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m going to say.”
“Are you fucking crazy?” she hissed. “Are you seriously saying that there is an upside to this?”
“I’m saying,” he said slowly as he steered her out of the path of foot traffic to a more private location beside one of the booths, “that if it were to get out, the world would not stop spinnin’ on its axis. No one would die. There’d be a few headlines for a while and then it’d pass.”
Incredulity morphed to anger. “Oh, it’ll pass for you, but for me? Not so much. No one will forget how the team’s owner couldn’t keep her legs closed around her players. No one will remember who I even opened them for, Remy.”
They would if they were still together. They would if they took this next level up. They would if they knew that he’d fallen ass-over-elbow for this woman. No one would forget his name then.
Mon dieu, he was in love with Harper Chase.
This sentiment was clearly not returned. The look she was giving him now was the opposite of “in love.” It was fear and fury and downright loathing.
“Minou—”
“Don’t call me that! Jesus, that’s what got me into trouble. I’m so starved for affection I let you in. I let you call me sweet little nicknames and tell me how much you wanted me despite how against the rules it was. But let’s face it, you’ve never had as much to lose, Remy. You’ve never had anything to lose, because I’m just another notch on your stick. A few jokes in the locker room and it’s back to business for you.”
Whether it was the implication that this was just business as usual for him, or the accusation that he had somehow pushed her into sleeping with him, Remy couldn’t exactly pinpoint which was worse. Aw, hell, both options pissed him off.
“You think you’re just some notch on my stick? What the hell does that even mean?”
She shook her head, as if she had no decent explanation, which he supposed was good. She was merely spouting off in her panic, and he would let her do that because she was afraid. He would let her do it because he was in love with her and that was part and parcel of the territory. You accepted your woman’s BS.
“I have to go,” she muttered. “I can’t do this . . . I have to go.”
And then she did.