Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) (9 page)

“Why did you need to keep it locked up if you had nothing to hide? What I can’t figure out is if this is some kind of passive-aggressive way to break up with me.”

“It wasn’t a passive-aggressive anything.” God, she was lying
again
.

“How many times has it happened?”

“I…I’m not sure,” she mumbled. Never mind the oral sex. She held back an insane laugh.

“Did you spend the night at his place?”

No point in denial. “Yes.”

“And?” His brows knit together. “Did you sleep with him?”

“We did not have sex.” Stephanie crossed her arms. She ought to be pleading, contrite. Instead, she wanted to throat-punch him for invading her privacy. The dam had burst, and the flood would not be contained. Words, her father had taught her, were the most effective weapons of all. “But he went down on me, and I
didn’t even have to ask
.”

Joe’s face turned an apoplectic shade of purple. “Shut your mouth, Stephanie.”

“I have
had
it with you telling me what to do. I’m not going to be your fucking housewife and brood mare to satisfy your sense of irony.”

He held out his hand. “Give me the fucking ring.”

“With pleasure.” Stephanie twisted it off her finger and jammed it into his palm. The symbol of her bondage to him, broken at last.

“I can’t believe you fell for his bullshit. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Joe howled a contemptuous laugh. “I’d almost feel better if it had been with different guys instead of the same one. This isn’t a mistake. It’s an affair.” He rolled the phone over in his hands. “I wonder what the media would pay
me
for the story that one of their own was sleeping with Aleksandr Volynsky.”

Stephanie embraced the storm brewing inside her. “Give me the goddamned phone, Joe.”

He rose from the couch and slapped it into her hand. “I gave you another chance, and this is how you repay me. I even blamed
him
. Stupid me.” He marched down the hallway and into the bedroom, emerging a few minutes later with his suitcase. “Once I find a place, I’ll be back for the rest of my stuff. But I have to leave now, because I can’t stand the sight of you.”

She’d gone numb. In shock, though she couldn’t quite figure out why, as her five-year relationship disintegrated, she didn’t feel more. She was to blame, after all. Not Joe. Yet her only shame was the fact she felt so little of it.

“Glad to see you’re broken up over this.” He shoved past her, dragging his suitcase behind. “I hope he’s worth it. But don’t come crying to me when he’s fucked another woman behind your back.” Joe wheeled his luggage into the hall, his eyes red with unshed tears. Now the expected twinge of guilt, of regret, so she felt like a human being after all. “Did you ever love me, Stephanie?”

Why did people keep asking her that? “I don’t know,” she said, because she owed him the truth if nothing else.

Joe cast his gaze toward the floor. “I’ll try to move out while you’re at work. I’d rather we didn’t see each other again.”

Just like that, her safety net was gone, leaving her perched on the tightrope. Within minutes, the apartment had grown too big. Too quiet. She’d never been alone. From home to college roommates to a place with Joe.

She ought to cry, but the tears would not come.

Stephanie sat on the couch, the cushion still warm, opened her contacts, and stared at Alex’s number. They were playing tonight, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn on the TV. Relieved he wouldn’t answer, she dialed.

“You’ve reached Aleksandr Volynsky. Please leave a message.
Spasiba.
”

“Alex, it’s Stephanie. I know you’re busy, but it’s important. So if you get a chance before you come back, give me a call. Thanks.”

***

Stephanie took the next day off from work. Calling the venue and vendors, especially when she’d have to eat the hefty cancellation fees—she was the guilty party, after all—gave her a migraine before she picked up the phone.

The wedding planner berated her for a good five minutes. Stephanie listened in silence about how irresponsible she was to cancel with four months to go, how much time and money had been lost. She cracked the pencil she’d been twiddling between her fingers.

“It was
my
wedding, you crazy bitch,” she snapped and hung up.

She printed a note for each of the guests they had invited:

We regret to inform you of the cancellation of the engagement of Stephanie Hartwell and Joseph Warner. All wedding plans have been discontinued. We sincerely apologize to any of our guests who have been inconvenienced.

Because she’d been sticking her tongue down Aleksandr Volynsky’s throat.
Let’s not forget where
his
tongue has been.
If Joe knew she’d once been briefly pregnant with Alex’s baby, his little head would have popped right off.

She folded each note and tucked it into an envelope, addressed all one hundred seventy-five envelopes by hand in contrast to the computer-generated notes, so it appeared she cared, that she regretted this loss. She couldn’t tell them she doubted she’d ever loved Joe.

Stephanie spent the afternoon repacking the engagement gifts they’d received, addressing them to the appropriate recipients, and piling them on the table. More money to spend on stamps and postage. It would’ve cost less to marry him and then get a divorce later.

She pretended she was wrapping Christmas presents. Her thoughts wandered to the cause of this disaster, who hadn’t called her back yet. That left her with no one. Perhaps better for everyone.

Her mother called. She let it go to voice mail. When Joe’s parents called, she deleted the message without listening to it. He had surely told them everything. She didn’t need to listen to them harangue her for ruining their precious little boy’s wedding. His life.
Also, you’re a slut. You should be ashamed of yourself.
As if she weren’t. As if she’d left a trail of broken, weeping lovers in her wake.

But someone had.

It would be poetic justice, dating Alex in order to punish herself with the inevitable. He would cheat on her as she had Joe. She had to concede that point to her jilted ex-fiancé. Yet she couldn’t envision Alex pursuing all those other women the way he did her, nor could she explain away his sorrow.

The longing to be together again.

Chapter Eight

Aleksandr

While the rest of the team had settled into their rooms, in a fit of temper Sasha had chatted up a woman at the hotel bar who didn’t know the first goddamned thing about hockey and fucked her in the hot tub upstairs. Afterward he lay in bed, stripped to his underwear and channel surfing. Jacob had long since fallen asleep. Sasha too needed some sleep before the morning skate, but he was bored. Restless. Thoughts buzzing like wasps in his head. Stephanie. Their almost-child.

He muted the TV. He stepped onto the balcony and pulled the sliding-glass door shut behind him, then lit a cigarette. It was hard not to think about her there. Or anywhere, but especially in LA. He leaned his elbows on the railing and looked out at the city.

“Someday,” he’d said on their final afternoon, in his embarrassing and faulty English, “we are together, always. Like we are meant to be.”

“I have something for you.” She’d dug into her pocket and placed something in his palm. A sterling silver ring with
‘I love you’
engraved on the inside. “It’s a promise ring.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m yours and you’re mine.”

He slid the silver circle onto his right ring finger. Then he kissed her one more time, tasting cherry ChapStick and salty tears. “I am always yours.”

Sasha laid his thumb over the Call button. Most people thought he wasn’t capable of love, let alone having a soul mate. But no one knew about Stephanie, the one safe harbor to which he could retreat from the world, if only until recently in memory alone.

She wouldn’t want to talk to him after how he’d spoken to her. He wanted nothing to do with himself, either. And the ring, his beloved treasure all these years, gone in one of his stupid paroxysms of anger.

A warm breeze whisked his hair. He’d been setting himself up for pain since the night she’d approached him in the locker room. Breaking his heart seemed all she cared to commit to. He tried to hate her for it, focused on how much he hurt so he’d remember that she made him feel horrible, thus preventing him from wanting to be around her anymore. Negative reinforcement, stupid child that he was.

The taste of her persisted on his tongue, her tang on his fingers. His body mourned the loss of her.

He started a text,
then deleted it. He crushed out the cigarette. There had to be a reason why, despite her protestations, she didn’t stay away. Why fate had brought him back to her.

To his only love.

***

Stephanie

“Steph,” Rhonda said over the office line, “there’s a delivery up front for you. Flowers.”

Oh no.
“I’ll be right up.”

A vase of white daffodils with a card tucked between the stems sat atop Rhonda’s desk. Stephanie picked them up and attempted a quick escape. No one had commented on her absent ring, if they’d noticed at all, or thought it inappropriate to do so.

“They’re out of season, you know. He’s trying to tell you something.”

“You know about flowers?”

“A little. Interesting choice, if they’re from your fiancé.”

“Who else would they be from?” Stephanie winced, her voice shrill with feigned naïveté.

“I don’t know.” Rhonda waggled her manicured eyebrows. “Aleksandr Volynsky, maybe?”

Sweat dampened Stephanie’s palms. She hissed, “Shh!” and scanned the room for potential listeners. A recent college grad waiting for an interview flipped through
King County Today
’s latest issue, where she would find Stephanie’s masterpiece on the Paramount Theatre’s current run of
Wicked
and the musical’s dumbing down of the book’s sociopolitical overtones. “Why would you say that? You really think he sends flowers?”

He used to pick wild flowers for me on the way to school. I pressed them in my textbooks and kept them in the box. Wild hyacinth, poppies, lupines. Every morning for the entire spring, I went to school with a bouquet.

She swallowed the memory like a mouthful of spikes.

“Do I look blind? I saw him singing that song for you at the bar. And I did in fact notice you’re not wearing the ring anymore.”

“I can’t talk about it here. Some people in our office would love to throw this in my face.”

“Shawn.”

“He’s dying for an opportunity to destroy my career. He already thinks I’ve been sleeping with Alex since day one. I’ll call you tonight.” She pulled open the office’s glass door.

“Steph,” Rhonda called. “Daffodils mean new beginnings. Or unrequited love.”

Genus
Narcissus
. A beautiful boy who had spurned the love of a nymph, breaking her heart so completely that she faded away until only her voice remained. How telling that he thought of himself not as Narcissus—everyone else did—but as the lovelorn nymph.

She had watched his postgame interview last night, his mounting frustration with the media’s insipid questions and the insinuation the team’s failures rested with him. “I’m one person,” he’d snapped. “Last time I checked, this was a team sport. You guys will write whatever you want anyway, so let me tell you what’s really on my mind. Go fuck yourselves.” And stalked away.

That morning, the league had fined him twenty thousand dollars and ordered him to publicly apologize or face suspension.

“I’m sorry for my response to the media last night.” His eyes flamed with barely inhibited fury as he read a prepared statement. “I have a duty to my team and to the league, and I let them down. My actions were unprofessional, and though I’ve always had a contentious relationship with the media, it is ultimately my responsibility to conduct myself in a manner befitting someone representing the NHL. I regret my words, and it will not happen again.”

The media alone wasn’t responsible for his outburst. That was why, every time she’d attended a Gladiators game in LA or Anaheim, she hadn’t made contact or gotten his attention despite paying a premium for center-ice tickets. She was water to his sulfuric acid, unstable and explosive. Though she could not hold herself accountable for the consequences, she’d done everything to provoke them.

The office emptied out for lunch, and for once, she was free for the hour. When Shawn left, she opened the card.

I’m sorry.

Aleksandr

“So am I,” she whispered.

Stephanie arrived home that evening to find Joe’s belongings gone. He’d disowned everything they had bought together, naturally wanting no reminders of her.

The Earthquakes had played in San Jose last night; today was practice and a flight to Winnipeg. Eight months a year traveling the country and Canada. Hardly seeing their families even while home. The drinking, the cheating, the divorces. The puck bunnies. Three guesses what Alex would be doing as soon as they landed. He hadn’t even bothered to call despite the flowers.

She checked her email, her texts, and her call log. Nothing. She raked her hands through her hair.

I wonder what the media would pay me…

A swell of panic incited her to try Alex again. But when his voice mail answered, she did not leave another message.

***

Aleksandr

Sasha wandered away from the rest of the team to the windows overlooking the runway. Coach had scratched him for the Winnipeg game despite the public apology, and Stephanie had called again. The urgency of her message compelled him to return it. He’d put it off all week, the road trip having done what he’d hoped. It had frightened him. She’d been the only one to pierce his protective carapace, psychologically fortified over the years no matter how many times it cracked. Stormed his mental fortress. There
was
no protection, not from her, and his shell would never grow back the same way again.

“Alex, I’ve been trying to reach you.”

He failed in his attempt to suppress a smile at the sound of her voice. “I got your message. Sorry I couldn’t call sooner.”

“It’s fine. Is now a good time?”

“I’m in the airport. About half an hour until boarding.”

“Okay. Joe was snooping through my phone last week, and he found the texts and call logs. He also went through my desk and found the journal you gave me. So you can imagine how that turned out. He left.”

His smile faded. “Stephanie, I—”

“It doesn’t matter now. Listen, I don’t know if he said this because he was pissed or if he’d actually do it, but he threatened to expose us to the media.”

“So?”

“
So
?”

Wrong answer.

“Alex, I’ll never work in sports journalism again if people think that’s how I get my stories. Being a woman is hard enough. And if the rest of it gets out…”

“What do you want to do?”

“I deleted the logs and texts, so it’s his word against ours if it comes to that. Please do the same. I want to make sure we’re on the same page.” All business. No trace of emotion in her voice.

“I’ll say whatever you need me to.”

“Good. Our relationship has been strictly professional, and you don’t question my ethics at all.”

“Stephanie, I never meant to—”

“What’s done is done. I just needed to let you know what was going on.”

“I’ll give you the story,” he blurted. She was about to remove herself from his life again, and this time he could not offer an unselfish argument against it.

A beat of silence. “What do you want out of it?” Her voice was strained now. Tired.

“Nothing.”

“Everyone wants something, Alex.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been making this difficult. I just…want to be your friend.” They’d never been just friends. It had created a less than stable foundation for a relationship built solely on their enchantment with each other.

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”

“I—”

“Call me when you’re back in Seattle. We’ll set something up, and then we can move on.”

His throat felt stuck with thorns. “Okay. I’ll talk to you soon.”

The call disconnected. He stared at the screen for a moment before moving to tuck it back into his pocket. It buzzed again halfway down. Danny. His timing, as always, was impeccable. With a sigh, Sasha pressed Accept.

“Sasha, why are you dicking around with this interview? What did I tell you?”

He groaned. “I just talked to her. We’re setting it up when I get home.”

“Good. Your team isn’t exactly lighting up the Western Conference, you know. We need to do damage control.”

“I never said I could turn this team around by myself. It’s not fair to—”

“Life isn’t fair, Sasha. What are you, six? Do the fucking interview.”

He hung up. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, he returned to the black vinyl chairs, many split or dusted with crumbs, his teammates had claimed. They ignored him, some because their eyes were closed and earbuds stuffed in their ears, most because he hadn’t yet performed miracles despite being a league leader in points. He couldn’t play the goddamned game by himself. Days like this, he wondered why he didn’t retire from the NHL and bolt for the KHL as Kovalchuk had.

Not the worst idea ever. Free from everything. From her.

Even Jacob, engrossed in texting his wife, left him alone. Sasha found a vacant seat away from them.

And then we can move on.

He did not want to go back to Seattle.