I spent half an hour putting myself together. Just long enough to look like a competent human. Any more, and he might have gotten the impression that I was dressing up for him.

Which I most certainly am not, I lied to myself as I wriggled into a scoop-necked royal purple shirt which set off my eyes and breasts in equal measure. My stomach growled. I was not going to see Dante in this condition, I decided.

“Pastry, fruit, or…ooh! An avocado omelet. With…tomato and onions. That’ll take up some time.”

I allowed myself a rather witchy cackle as I dawdled over the stove. Making Dante wait gave me a sick sort of pleasure, but damn it, he shouldn’t have left me like that yesterday. It was just disrespectful. Completely understandable, perhaps, considering the shallow nature of our pseudo-relationship, but rude nonetheless.

My one mistake was adding caramel creamer to my coffee. As the cream swirled into the black liquid, it took on his exact coloring. I gazed into the cup, watching scenes and flashes from our few intense dates play out before my eyes. His hands, his chest, his gorgeous face, his incredible body.

I swallowed hard, suddenly quivering deep in my center.

“Damn you, Drake,” I said with less venom than I wanted.

I added more cream, but it didn’t help. It just made me wonder what our kids would look like. My mind drifted down this parallel reality, into a universe where Dante wasn’t irritating me—a universe where we had fallen in love and gotten married and had a bunch of beautiful kids.

The smell of over-cooked eggs dragged me back into this reality, and I snapped out of it with another furious curse.

“Well fine then, Dante. You get one last chance. Show me what you’re made of.”

I directed my comments at the wall, where a small girl in a blue dress gazed benignly back at me from a painting. I wondered what an apartment would look like if it combined his tastes with mine….

“Stop it,” I ordered firmly. “All right, it’s time to go. If I don’t get this over with, I’ll be scribbling Livia Drake on everything like a darn school girl.”

I left my breakfast half-finished and grabbed my jacket. The realization that Luis wouldn’t be waiting in the hallway gave me a bit of relief, and I felt unstoppable as I walked to the elevator.

Whatever Dante had to say to me, I could take it, ball it up, and shoot it right back at him twice as hard. With that thought as my armor, I drove through the morning traffic to the rink.

* * *

The security guards were expecting me, and let me in without any trouble. The one guarding the inner door smirked at me as I passed, as if he knew something I didn’t, which didn’t help my mood any.

I had spent the entire drive conflicted with myself. I alternated between being angry enough to forget that Dante Drake ever existed, and dreaming of falling into his arms over and over again. The mystery of why I was even there only exacerbated my conflict.

The rink was busy. The coach stood at one side, blowing a whistle and shouting instructions. The guys raced across the ice, a great synchronized wall of white and blue. They turned at the goal and started back the other way, weaving in and out of each other in a perfect rhythm, leaving trails like intricate braids on the ice behind them.

During the drills, I couldn’t pick out Dante or Joel (assuming Joel was even there); the team was seamless, like a single organism waving its phalanges around.

“Did you bring me here just to show off, or what?” I muttered in the general direction of the players.

Curiosity piqued, I sat on the wall in front of the penalty box and watched them work. Back and forth, in and out, around and around they went. The coach blew the whistle again, and the team instantly split into two groups. Coach dropped a puck, and they were off, playing as fiercely as they had when they were surrounded by screaming fans.

Now, Dante made himself known, taking the lead of his half. The team leader of the other side played hard, but Dante’s skill was undeniable. I wished they had been wearing their names on their jerseys, but the flashes of face that I could see through his helmet made me think that the other leader must be Joel.

Intrigued, I watched Dante signal to the other team leader half a second before charging through his defensive line and whacking the puck directly into the net. Dante skated back around, talking and gesturing to the opposing team leader. Joel (I was pretty much convinced that it was Joel, now) shifted his shoulders angrily, but nodded as Dante talked.

Could they actually be working together now?

Practice lasted another hour, and by the end of it, I could see significant improvement on Joel’s part. He won a quick round, earning a whoop from Dante which made me grin.

The cold had just begun to make me stiff when the coach called them all into a sort of loose huddle. I couldn’t hear what was said, but his tone sounded positive and encouraging—a huge difference from how he had sounded while berating Dante and Joel, I imagined.

Once the huddle broke, Dante skated over to me, beaming.

“So? What did you think?” he asked.

My defenses had relaxed watching him play, but they snapped back into place when he came over.

“I think you’re ready for a game. Why am I here?”

“To see the fruits of your labor,” he said, gesturing at the team. “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t interfered.”

“Ah,” I said.

Disappointment? What on earth was I disappointed about? I knew the answer, but I refused to acknowledge it. I stood, twisting to break the stiffness in my back, then nodded.

“Happy I could help,” I said coolly. “If that’s all…?”

“It’s not,” he said, his grin fading. “We need to talk about yesterday.”

My lips pursed even as I nodded, and I waited in silence for him to continue.

“So…” He skated in a little circle in front of me, searching for words. “Here’s the thing, Livia. I’m not the most mature man in the world. Obviously. It took three people yelling at me before I quit with the locker room crap.”

He skated in the opposite direction, drawing a circle around what he wanted to say. Curiosity could only hold me for so long, and I was getting restless.

“Do you have anything new to tell me, or are you just going to keep explaining what I already know?” I asked.

He stopped and looked at me with a somber expression which made my breath catch.

“My point is that if I had thought about it for a second, I wouldn’t have believed it. But I got stuck thinking about you…how good you would be at that, you know…profession.”

“You really aren’t helping your case,” I said wryly.

“No, no, I mean…look at you, Livia. You’re gorgeous. Not just gorgeous, you’re damn sexy. And you’re a powerhouse under all that soft feminine exterior. If you wanted to go that route, you would be running a chain of brothels from here to Arizona.”

One of my eyebrows had been steadily creeping upward as he babbled. I wasn’t prepared to accept that as an apology, but it made for a decent explanation. It was almost flattering. He looked up at me tentatively, and I kept my expression firm.

“I’m sorry,” he said clearly and quietly. “I shouldn’t have left you there, regardless of what I thought or heard. It was wrong for me to leave you like that.”

“Yes it was,” I said, beginning to soften. “So why did you?”

“Because I had spent all day imagining that you were mine,” he said awkwardly. “And the idea that you weren’t cut my heart. I thought we had potential for something good.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Was this argument really the hill I wanted to die on? No, no it wasn’t.

“I accept your apology,” I said finally.

“Thank you,” he said, blowing out a relieved breath. “Making me sweat on the ice. That’s talent.”

That earned him the ghost of a smile. He took it as an invitation, and skated up to the wall. He stood nearly eye-level with me in spite of the sunken rink, and I was reminded all over again just what a mountain this man was.

“You look cold, so I’ll make this quick,” he said. “I want to tell you what you’ve done for me, for the team. I want to thank you for it. Will you let me take you out to dinner tonight? On a real date. No tape recorders, no bets, no games—just you and me. What do you say?”

His nervous eyes touched my heart, and the way he bit his lip apprehensively the second the words were out of his mouth. He was really afraid I was going to say no, I realized with a shock. The possibility was strong, given the circumstances, but I never would have expected the legendary Dante Drake to fear anything. Not even rejection. It soothed my wounded ego that he would feel so strongly about my acceptance.

“Okay,” I said. “You can take me out. Pick me up at my place.”

“Fantastic,” he said with a brilliant grin. “I’ll see you at five?”

“Five’s a bit early,” I said hesitantly.

“It’s just early enough for where I’m taking you,” he said with a wink. “Trust me; you’ll love it. Wear dancing shoes.”

He blew me a kiss and skated away before I could respond, leaving me chuckling to myself. Joel skated past, giving me a goofy open-mouthed grin and double thumbs-up. I laughed at him outright and waved my thanks as he disappeared into the hallway to the locker room.

Shaking my head at myself, I left the rink. I had a date to get ready for.