Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2)(6)

“Nice for you.”

“Yeah. I know. They’re great.”

Ilya didn’t have anything to add to that, so he stayed silent.

“I should probably go. They’re waiting for me,” Hollander said. He moved away from the wall and turned to face Ilya. Ilya’s eyes went right to those damn freckles. Hollander stuck out his hand again.

“Good luck in the tournament,” he said.

Ilya accepted the handshake and grinned. “You will not be so friendly when we beat you.”

“That’s not happening.”

Ilya knew that Hollander truly believed that. That he would get the gold medal and be the NHL’s number one draft pick because he was the fucking prince of hockey.

Maybe Hollander expected Ilya to wish him luck as well, but Ilya just dropped his hand and turned to go back inside the rink.

In the car, Shane told his parents that he had been talking to Ilya Rozanov.

“What’s he like?” his mother asked.

“Kind of a dick,” Shane said.

When the final game of the tournament was over, the Canadian team had to suffer one more humiliation. The Russians stopped celebrating long enough to line up so the teams could shake each other’s hands—a show of sportsmanship that, at that moment, Shane did not feel in his heart.

For one thing, the Russian team had been dirty. He had hated playing against them.

For another thing, Ilya Rozanov was really fucking good. Infuriatingly good. And over the course of the tournament, the media had put a lot of effort into building up their rivalry. Shane tried to ignore the press, but it was possible that they were stoking the flames of his hatred.

When he reached Rozanov in the handshake lineup, he could see camera flashes all around them. He made sure he looked Rozanov right in the eye when he tersely said, “Congratulations.”

Rozanov smirked and said, “See you at the draft.”

They hung a silver medal around Shane’s neck that may as well have been a dead rat, for all he wanted it. He respectfully endured the playing of the Russian national anthem, blinking back frustrated tears that he refused to let fall, and then he was finally allowed to leave the ice.

It wasn’t supposed to have gone like this. He was supposed to have led his country to gold in his country. It was what the nation had expected. Canada’s hopes had been heaped onto his seventeen-year-old shoulders and he had let them all down.

Every face-off he had taken against Rozanov, the Russian had looked him dead in the eye and smirked. Shane was not easily shaken by anyone, but that goddamn smirk threw him off balance every time.

Maybe it was just that, after a life of playing at a level above everyone else, Shane had finally met his match.

He was sure that was all it was.



Chapter Two


June 2009—Los Angeles

“Shane, could you move a little closer to Ilya, please?”

Shane felt Ilya Rozanov’s arm brush against his as he stepped closer to him for the photographer.

“That’s perfect. All right, smile, boys.”

Shane’s eyes were bombarded with camera flashes. He stood pressed against Rozanov, who seemed to have grown another couple of inches since January. To Rozanov’s right was a giant American defenseman named Sullivan, who had been drafted third overall by Phoenix.

Rozanov had been drafted first.

Shane had spent the past six months since the World Juniors being a little bit...obsessed...with Ilya Rozanov. They had quite a bit in common, career-wise. They were both the captains of their respective teams, and had both led their teams to the championship this season. Both men had been named league and playoff MVPs, and both had been the scoring leaders of their respective leagues. The only difference between them was that Shane had a silver medal at home, and Rozanov had gold.

And now Shane had come in second place again. After a life of always coming first in hockey.

This fucking guy.

It wasn’t all bad. Shane had been drafted by the Montreal Voyageurs, who, besides being the most legendary franchise in the league, were also only an hour’s drive from his hometown of Ottawa. It was a good fit for Shane, who was fluent in both French and English, and who had always had a lot of respect for the Voyageurs, despite having grown up an Ottawa fan. But still. Being picked second stung.

Adding to the drama of the day was the fact that Rozanov had been drafted by Montreal’s archrivals, the Boston Bears. Shane knew his career was now going to be inescapably linked to Rozanov’s. If one of them had been drafted by a team in the Western Conference, maybe the rivalry would never have gotten off the ground. But this was going to be intense.

Which didn’t mean that Shane couldn’t be polite to Rozanov now.

“Congratulations,” he said, turning to shake Rozanov’s hand when the photographers were done.

There was a definite smugness in Rozanov’s smile when he said, “Thank you.”

Rozanov didn’t congratulate Shane. Instead, he patted Shane’s fucking shoulder, like he was consoling a child who had struck out at Little League. Shane jerked away from his touch, and was about to say something that was decidedly less polite than “congratulations,” but they were both immediately pulled away in opposite directions for interviews.

Shane didn’t see Rozanov again until he was back at the hotel. The lobby was packed with athletic young men in suits, but even in that crowd Rozanov stood out. He was one of the taller men there, and cleaned up—with his dark navy suit hugging his body—he looked like a GQ model.