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I couldn’t tell her everything I’d found out. I couldn’t put all of it on her shoulders when she had to focus on her dream. She was already dealing with too much—so much it’d nearly cost her the last competition.
It wasn’t as if she could help me fend off the Deadly Rose’s plans when I had no idea what those plans even were.
“Just got an unexpected phone call,” I said casually. “One of my old acquaintances from the Austin crew.”
Lou’s stance tensed just slightly—so slightly I wasn’t sure anyone other than me would have caught it. “What did he have to say?”
I shrugged. “Nothing we couldn’t already have guessed. Your mom’s on a rampage, pretty pissed off that you disappeared. So it’s a good thing we’ve been laying as low as we have. And obviously the Harvester hasn’t addressed your supposed invasion with her directly yet.”
Lou hummed to herself. “So expected news and good news. You should be smiling about it—or have you kept that grim expression so long you forgot how?”
She aimed a teasing smile of her own at me to show she wasn’t serious and dug back into her lunch. I propped myself in the doorway, watching her as my conflicting desires and responsibilities churned in my chest.
She would want me to tell her the rest of Gus’s story. But there was barely anything else to it. If I jumped the gun on this situation, assumed it meant more than it did… I could cause just as big a catastrophe as I almost had years before.
No. I wasn’t rushing in all hotheaded again. I’d get the full picture, and then we’d figure out what needed to be done.
Lou glanced up at me again, with a fond gleam in her dark eyes that nearly undid me. “You really don’t have to worry. I know how to keep a low profile. I’ve begged off any interviews—and no one cares that much about this level of competition outside of the skating crowd anyway.”
She was trying to reassureme.
“You’ve been doing good,” I said, hearing my voice go a bit gruff. “I just—you know what your mother is like. She’s only going to widen her search.”
Lou’s gaze twitched. I caught a flicker of worry crossing her face before she squared her shoulders and got up out of her chair.
“She can search away. She’s not going to find me. Especially when I’ve got you by my side, right?”
She sauntered over to me, her brightly painted lips curving up like a scarlet crescent moon. Her hands walked up the length of my arms to wind together behind the base of my neck. I breathed in a lungful of her sweet scent.
When she stood up on her tiptoes to kiss me, I met her halfway.
I was the luckiest goddamn man alive to experience this heaven with a woman so precious. I closed my eyes, sealing the moment behind glass, this tiny scrap of peace inside our whirlwind of a life together.
I wouldn’t let myself mess up this opportunity for her. She deserved more than what she’d gotten in life up until now, and I’d go through hell and back to see her finally have everything she was owed.
TWENTY-ONE
Luciana
I could always tellwhen Niko had something up his sleeve. The sparkle in his eyes gave it away every time. But today he was being unusually closed-lipped.
“Can’t you at least tell us what you’re thinking?” I begged for the thousandth time that day. We’d stayed all the way through the group practice period at the end of the arena’s schedule, and the last of the other skaters were just disappearing through the doors. Any second, one of the staff was going to come and tell us that we needed to get going too. “It’s not like anyone’s left to hear.”
Niko smiled mysteriously. “I wanted to be sure there wasnochance of anyone seeing what we’re doing. The arena manager agreed to leave the building open for an extra two hours tonight, and I can lock up. There won’t even be a janitor around.” He patted his hip to a jingle of keys.
Jasper raised his eyebrows. “What’s the big secret?”
Niko glanced around the stands, and Rafael emerged from the shadows as if on cue. Had our coach even tipped off my bodyguard before telling us?
Rafael dipped his head to us with his usual stern expression. “I’ll make sure no one comes back into the rink area from the locker rooms and then stand guard in the lobby once they’ve completely cleared out.”
Curiosity itched at me as Rafael stepped out into the hall. “What, Niko?”
Niko rubbed his hands together, the gleam in his eyes only sparking brighter. “I was watching winning international routines from previous years, thinking I might get some inspiration. And I did. I want to change the second lift in your free skate to something even more challenging. We’re going to add a throw at the end.”
My heart skipped a beat. “A throw? It’s already the trickiest lift in the routine.” And it was the one I’d messed up in our qualifying competition.
But Niko was nodding avidly, bringing up a video on his phone. “That’s exactly why it’ll stand out—and impress the judges more than your competitors. This combination isn’t seen very often because it’s difficult, but I think you two are made for it. It works best when the woman is a lot smaller and lighter than the man, and most pairs are a little more evenly matched than you two.”
