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“That’s a terrible line,” I say, letting my whisper touch his lips.

“It wasn’t a line.”

“No?”

“If it was, I’d be kissing you already.”

Coach Dave shouts Miles’s name from the corridor, breaking the moment before my body can make any reckless decisions without consulting me.

Miles steps backward, but the heat in his eyes remains.

“I gotta get to practice,” he says, sounding as disappointed by the interruption as I feel. "I'll see you later, Audrey."

I watch him leave before looking up at the mistletoe again.

Yesterday, I run away from the man I’m supposed to marry.

Today, I’m disappointed another man hasn’t kissed me beneath a plant his family sold to the resort.

This new life is moving alarmingly fast.

The terrifying part is that I already want it to move faster.

Chapter 4

Miles

Iglide through the neutral zone during our fourth practice, watching Nate Hargrove blow past two defenders like they're traffic cones.

He feeds the puck back to Aidan, who plants himself in front of the net like a building with tattoos.

The kid on our third line—Baxter, twenty-two, more enthusiasm than brains—buries the rebound and celebrates by blowing a kiss to the surrounding mountains.

"That's it!" I tap my stick against the boards. "Bax, same spot every time. Aidan makes the space, you fill it."

"Yes, Captain!" Baxter salutes with his glove and somehow nearly takes his own eye out.

In the last three days, we've had three practices, six sponsor appearances and one accommodation disaster that I'm fairly sure ended with one of our players being forced into a one-bed suite with some media chick everyone in the locker room is saying is 'a goddess'.

I haven't seen her yet, but according to the guys, she's got legs that go on forever. The guys are already taking bets on how long it takes before our poor bastard of a teammate does something stupid.

Somehow, we're still standing.

Better than standing. We look like a team.

I push forward on my skates and re-join the next drill.

At the side of the rink, four men in expensive coats are sipping coffee and chatting in a huddle. Scouts. Actual NHL scouts, here on day four, watching a team of leftovers run drills on an outdoor rink surrounded by Christmas market huts.

I should be studying them. Working out which franchises sent people, playing the mental math of contracts and farm debt and Hunter's daily text updates that are sounding more and more like ransom notes as each day passes.

Instead, I'm wondering which skirt Audrey Field is wearing today.

Christ.

This is what I've been reduced to for three fucking days.

A professional athlete excited about a woman's wardrobe rotation like it's a betting line. Monday was the short black one. Tuesday, some green plaid thing I'm fairly sure she bought from a market stall. That thing was so fucking sexy it ruined an entire power-play drill when I saw her ass swaying in the fabric.