Page 38 of Bottles & Blades
The silence that stretches between us is taut and filled with surprise—from his side.
Not mine.
No point in fighting it.
Not after tonight.
It was set in stone from the swipe of her phone at the grocery store.
“What’s going on with Tiff?” he asks quietly.
Back to wanting to murder this dangerous man.
“How do you know she prefers to call herself Tiff?”
Another long moment of quiet. “Know her. She’s a good girl with a good head on her shoulders and a shit past.”
“I know that.”
Or enough of it to have put the pieces together.
Silence stretches and then he sighs. “Then it begs the question, Dubois, if you know what she’s been through, why don’t you know thatIknow who she is?”
I get off the freeway, turn the car in the direction of my office.
There’s no point in going home—I’m awake and irritated with Pascal and I have an evening’s worth of work to catch up on.
“Just get to the point, yeah?”
“She nannies for Brit and Stefan.”
I freeze, not processing that the signal’s turned green until the car behind me honks.
I hit the gas, start forward.
Stefan Barie, son of the Gold Hockey team’s owner, Pierre Barie. A powerful man. A fair man, but one who definitely might be a thorn in my side if his son isn’t happy with my interest in Tiff.
And Brit, as in Brittany (but don’t call her that unless you want to get cup checked) Plantain, goalie for the Gold and the first female hockey player in the league. She’s nearing retirement age and has been fighting injuries for a few seasons, but she’s still a hell of a formidable force between the pipes and not someone I’d want to be facing out there on the ice.
She and Stefan fell in love, he retired, they adopted a kid, and then…they hit a rough streak. Eventually, though, they worked things out, had a happy ending times two, and their daughter is cute as fuck.
And sassy as fuck, just like her mom.
And Tiff is her nanny?
“Christ,” I mutter.
“Think of that connection before you fuck with her, yeah?”
“She’s mine,” I grit out. “No matter the connections she has.” I turn into the parking lot, grind my teeth together so fiercely that a bolt of pain shoots through my jaw. “Now, are you going to look into this for me or not?”
“Depends,” comes the faintly accented voice.
“On fuckingwhat?”I snap.
“Oh what exactly you need me to look into regarding Tiff.”
I slide to a stop in my parking spot, mind racing back through the conversation, realizing with a growing annoyance that the bastard is right. I haven’t actually told him what the issue is.
