So Over You (Chicago Rebels #2)(39)

“Let’s see how it looks tomorrow,” Harper said. “If no footage goes up overnight on TMZ, then we’ll have a better case for getting him reinstated.”

Isobel had to concede that Harper might have a point. She’d always been savvy about tricky situations like these. “What did Remy say happened?”

“That it was just a spat over who was playing on the first line tomorrow.”

“And you believe that?”

Harper shrugged.

“For God’s sake, Harper, what’s the point of having a hockey player boyfriend if he can’t give you the inside track?”

“You know how they are, the bro code and all that. And to be honest, I’d rather Remy kept those relationships intact. The team has to know that everything team related goes in the man vault and that Remy won’t be spilling the beans during nightly pillow talk. Of course, I have my suspicions. Knowing how Shay feels about women running the team, I’m guessing he probably made some crack about you, and Vadim came to your defense.”

Isobel could feel her face flushing. Sure she wanted to know the origins of their fight, but not if it meant finding out she was the reason. “That’s ridiculous. Vadim would never risk his place on the team over a dumb insult to me. It means everything to him to be back in play.”

Harper pressed the elevator button. “Sometimes men don’t always think about what’s best for them.” A not-unsubtle reference to Remy’s uncharacteristic pounding of an opposing team’s player during a game less than two months ago. All in defense of his woman when the bighearted Cajun found out this piece-of-shit player had once hit Harper.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you and Petrov?”

Isobel crossed her arms. Uncrossed them because that looked defensive. Then recrossed them because she should have stuck with her first instinct.

“There’s nothing going on.”

“How well did you know him before?”

Blessedly, the elevator arrived and opened, but alas, no occupants appeared to postpone this awkward conversation.

“Not that well.” Which was true. “Dad wanted me to practice with the team before I headed to college, and he was there that summer for a few weeks.”

“And?” They stepped inside, and Isobel pressed the button for the next floor, where they were both staying.

“And nothing. I went to Harvard. He signed a contract with the KHL.” After he popped my cherry and dear old Dad made sure he couldn’t work in the USA. “And now he’s here. On the team. And should be playing.”

They got off at their floor and walked toward their rooms. Harper’s door came first.

“Isobel, a man defending you is very seductive. Believe me, I understand.”

“You don’t even know that’s what it is.”

Harper looked pitying. “Remy didn’t say it, but he didn’t not say it, either. And your defense of Vadim seems to be more than just the defense of a coach.”

Isobel’s heart knocked around her chest, checking in for visits with all the other organs. Harper’s holier-than-thou attitude was really too much. “It’s okay for you to get involved with a player, but the rest of us have to act like saints?”

Agh, shut it! She didn’t want to get involved with Vadim. She didn’t—hell, she had no idea what she wanted.

Wrong. Right this second, she wanted him to explain why he had put everything he—they—had worked for in jeopardy. It wasn’t the first time, either. There was that near fight with Shay in the Empty Net two weeks ago, which Harper and Dante obviously didn’t know about. Omertà, indeed.

“It’s different for you, Isobel,” Harper said with compassion, which made Isobel fidget. “Your position is more precarious because the coaches have such a big say in who gets to play. If you want to be taken seriously in this business, as a coach in this business, don’t get involved with Petrov.”

She shoved her key card into the door lock. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Let’s pray that your player’s fists aren’t all over the news.”

With that, she closed the door behind her, leaving a fuming Isobel on the other side. Only she wasn’t entirely sure whom she was mad at.



Isobel marched down the hallway of the Hyatt’s sixteenth floor until she reached the door at the end. Fist up, she pulled her punch at the last moment, letting her knuckles fall with a light rap instead of a hard knock. Discretion was required. Come to think of it, why the hell was Vadim on this floor anyway? The rest of the team and staff were on eleven and twelve.

She didn’t have time to dwell on that because a chorus of yapping barks greeted her knock before the door was opened by a dark-haired beauty dressed as a schoolgirl.

Or what a horny businessman might imagine as his schoolgirl fantasy. The pleated skirt of her Catholic school uniform showed way more skin than the nuns could possibly allow, and she may as well have abandoned her striped tie for all the actual tying it was doing.

Isobel flicked a glance at the door number again.

“I think I have the wrong—”

The woman squealed really, really loudly. She lunged for Isobel and with a surprisingly strong grip, dragged her into the room.

“You’re Isobel Chase!”

“Uh, yep. That’s me.”