The Alpha Who Owns The Ice

al, and Sienna Cole had exactly four minu

her hand even though the building was so cold she could see her breath. Behind the door, something crashed. A sti

y at Halden Sports Medicine. She hadn't rehearsed the part where her stomach dropped li

t, and eight weeks wasn't enough time to save what the insurance wouldn't cover, not on what she made freel

rink, weight room on the other, and in the middle of it, a man arguing with a trainer twice his

old herself, and the photo had not done anything to prepare her for six-foot-three of him s

he last three reports contradict each other," he was saying, and

ing ha

nding on you like a hand closing around your throat, not violent, just total, like he'd already catalogue

PT," he said.

was what you did, and because her hand was shaki

like it might be a t

had actually stopped, if there'd been some visible sign. Instead it was just heat, sudden and total, racing up her arm and into her chest like she'

burned him too. His voice had changed, gone rough a

g they still worked. "I have a two o'clock w

e." He di

leared his throat.

away from her. "Give

got forty min

us the

She was good at filing things away. It was mostly what had gotten her through the last five years: her mother's death, becomin

t. He'd recovered some of his composure, though his eyes still tracked her

e flattered

lose to a smile, gone before it landed

questions were sharp, better than she expected from an owner who was supposed to be more spreadsheet than sports medicine. She answered them the way she'd answer anyone, professional, a little dr

s in Millbrook," he said, out of nowhere, twen

n it. "I grew up in foster care, mostly around the cou

were yo

t matter for

e a beat too lo

fe were also just gaps where information should be. "I don't have a birth certificate. There

aid something wrong, given him a reason to end the interview. Instead he leaned forward,

im. "That's a s

mor

he truth was strange enough that she'd never told anyone. "S

arp-eyed, filled the frame with the kind of urgency tha

, narrowed, then back to him. "We need you up

uaring, jaw tightening, the openness of th

pitched low enough that the woman in the doorway couldn't hear it

eally how job

e like he'd been saying i

wing him out, and Sienna sat alone in the empty office with her pulse hammering and no idea, none at all, why

ow yet that i