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Reluctantly, I turn my phone back on. As predicted, an obnoxious number of texts pop up. I scan through the senders, ignoring all of them but one.
Mila: My building is closed pending a structural inspection. Staying at your place tonight.
Mila: Why aren’t you passing more pucks to Ford??
Mila: You’re missing every shot! What’s going on?
Mila: WOW. That was painful. They should have bought you guys dinner before fucking you that hard.
Mila: Is the bed in your guest room meant to deter guests? It’s like sleeping on a concrete slab.
If I wasn’t so tired from last night and so sore from being boarded a dozen times during the game, I’d laugh.
I must be the dumbest motherfucker in the history of all motherfuckers. I’m married to the Ice Queen. I’ll be on the receiving end of her mercurial moods every day now. I won’t be surprised if I come home to find my underwear shredded and my dishes in pieces all over the kitchen floor. She’s known for throwing things across the room when she’s angry.
I’m a man of my word. She held up her end of the bargain; I’ll hold up mine. But we aren’t going to get along very well if she complains about every shot I miss on the ice.
I ignore her texts, put on my headphones, and find a podcast about inner peace to listen to. Hopefully I can find my Zen, even if it’s only for a few minutes.
CHAPTER NINE
Mila
“Did we lose them?” I ask from my spot in the back of the SUV I’m riding in.
I’m curled up in the very back of the vehicle, out of sight. Once the press found out I was flying to Chicago, they descended like crazies as soon as I landed.
“I think we’re okay,” my driver, Roman, says. “But stay back there just to be safe.”
Quentin is traveling with me and he came up with a plan to have five black SUVs leave the parking garage at the Palmer House, our hotel, at the same time. All have tinted windows. Three of the vehicles are empty besides drivers, Quentin is in the backseat of another one, and I’m in the last car. Our hope is that the reporters and photographers will see someone sitting in the one Quentin’s in and follow it.
That would leave me in peace for an afternoon of shopping. I’m wearing a blond, shoulder-length wig and dark sunglasses. I’ve never seen the press hound anyone the way Colby and I are being followed around these days. Between the leaked photos of our “secret” wedding and the photo of him carrying the little boy out of my burning apartment building, it seems like the whole world is interested in us.
I had to get a police escort from Colby’s house to the airport earlier, because photographers wouldn’t leave their spots in the road at the end of his driveway. Gratifying as it would have been to run them over, I decided against it.
“Okay, we’re at the Gucci store,” Roman says. “As close as I can get you to it, anyway.”
“I’ll be around thirty minutes,” I say, crawling from my spot in the back to the second row of seats.
Roman holds my door open and I step out, checking to make sure the wig is still on straight.
Since I can’t go back into my apartment until it’s cleared by structural engineers, I can’t get to any of my clothes and shoes. I’m currently wearing one of Colby’s hoodies and a pair of leggings Quentin picked up for me. One of the women who works for the Coyotes PR department is the same shoe size as me, so I bought a pair of her tennis shoes.
I’m about to do some serious shopping on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. It’s one of my favorite places in the United States to shop. Quentin is buying me casual clothes and shoes while I take care of workwear and formalwear.
The past forty-eight hours have been an absolute whirlwind, and shopping helps me reset mentally. I fill the SUV with bags of designer clothes and shoes, and garment bags with dresses and coats. As always, when I’m in Chicago, I stop for a Chicago-style hot dog from a downtown street cart, the cart owner hugging me when I tip him $100.
My phone rings with a call from Quentin and I pick up as I wait for Roman to come back to the car after buying a bottled water.
“Hey, how’s it going?” he asks.
“Good, I think. I haven’t seen any cameras. How about you?”
“I had five on my tail earlier. When I got out of the car and they saw it wasn’t you, I told them you changed your itinerary and went to New York.”
“Excellent.”
“How’s the shopping?”
“Great. I bought black leather pants.”
“Go on then, Mistress Mila. I’m sure your husband will like those.”
