AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Milo swept the scene. Never even saw the motorcycle or its driver.
Maybe retirement is hitting you too hard, Milo.
Milo opened the side door for Alina. She climbed slowly from the vehicle. Her hair had already been secured into a twist. She wore her training uniform. Her bag and her skates were slung over her shoulder. She didn’t even glance around the area as she walked straight for the entrance.
Was she thinner? It looked as if she was. Alina couldn’t afford to lose any weight.
He hid the motorcycle. Slipped into the rink. Watched her spin and soar. She didn’t fall. She hadn’t practiced her quadruple axel in days. Dmitri barked at her, but he seemed pleased. Half-hearted barks. Dmitri gestured wildly as he instructed her.
Five hours later, Alina finished with sweat soaking her body.
When she left, he followed.
She went to the gym. Worked out another hour.
He waited. Watched from across the street.
She left the gym. The limo driver took her to get lunch. She ate alone.
He waited. Watched.
She had a photo shoot. She was pampered and prepped, and she smiled, but her eyes seemed so sad.
He waited. Watched from the shadows. Stayed hidden.
Not too close. He couldn’t afford to get too close. But he’d learned it was easy to watch from a distance. To watch. To yearn. To want what he could not have.
Dinner. She had dinner with her father. A swanky restaurant.
She prefers barbecue. A casual place where she could get sauce on her fingers then dance to soft guitar music.
The limo took her back home. She returned to the guesthouse. He waited and watched, and her lights eventually turned off.
All of the lights, except the one in the upstairs bedroom. Her room. Alina was still afraid to be alone in the dark.
He wished he could be in there with her.
Not a possibility, though. Since Alina hated his guts.
A long sigh escaped Midas. He lowered his binoculars.
He was such a fucking stalker.
***
Her skates cut across the ice. Music played, a classical masterpiece of emotion. Love found and lost. Her muscles bunched. She shot into the air. Spun. Over and over and over. Her skate touched down. One. The other. Her hands came out with a flourish as she skated backwards across the ice.
“Wow! That’s fantastic!” Applause burst into the air.
Alina slowed to a stop near the side of the rink. Her right skate pointed downward as she balanced. The praise had not come from Dmitri. He’d been watching silently. The silent watching was praise from him. If he wasn’t commanding her to do the routine again and again, if he wasn’t pointing out mistakes, then he was giving her high praise. That was his way.
The thunderous applause slowly died, but Ophelia Raine kept grinning at her. “How do you get so high into the air?” Ophelia bounced in her sneakers as she stood just beyond the half-wall that circled the ice. “Are leg days like insane for you or what?” She grabbed a towel and tossed it to Alina.
Alina caught it and swiped away the sweat she could feel on her collar bone. “Or what,” she said in response. She even forced a smile for Ophelia. She genuinely liked the other woman.
Ophelia had been Alina’s shadow for the last two weeks. The last two wrenching, heart-breaking weeks.
When her father had learned about Henry Monroe’s confession, he’d immediately fired Midas. Not that the firing had been necessary. Midas had already backed away from her. More like vanished on her. He’d called in his friends—Memphis, Lane, and Ophelia. They’d taken over her security detail in North Dakota. They’d even been with her on the flight home. Midas hadn’t been there.
