So Over You (Chicago Rebels #2)(4)

Isobel might’ve had something to do with that.

The silence sat up between them, the tension expanding. Vadim seemed to be expecting her to say something, so she happily obliged.

“How’s your knee?”

Not that. His eyebrow raised slightly. “Improving.”

Tiptoe around his ego. “There are some special drills you could do to help with your speed. Get you back to how you were preinjury.”

“I’m sure the team will do what is necessary.”

“Yes, we will.”

Gotcha! That eyebrow became one with his hairline.

She cleared her throat. “Moretti has assigned me to give you personalized attention. We’ll meet for an hour before each regular practice and work on your skating.”

Now that injury had forced her out of the game, coaching was all she had left. This morning Dante Moretti, the newly hired Rebels general manager, had appointed her as a skating consultant with one charge: get Vadim Petrov into good enough shape so they could qualify for the play-offs in two months. She’d planned to drop this knowledge on the man himself after tomorrow’s team practice, but hey, no time like the present.

Now she waited for his predictable explosion.

“There is nothing wrong with my skating,” he grated.

“There’s always room for improvement,” she said with unreasonable cheer. Kill the boy with happy. “Right now, you’re placing too much weight on your uninjured leg and it’s thrown off your motion. We’ll focus on—”

“Nothing. I can work with Roget.” The regular skating coach.

“He doesn’t have time to give you the extra attention you need. It’s typical for teams to hire consultants, especially for players who are underperforming.”

And there was that famous Russian scowl. Poor ol’ Vad was a touch sensitive about his diminished capacity since that knee injury had sidelined him for half the season. Having battled a career-killing injury herself, she understood what he was going through. The doubts, the questioning. The fear. But, unlike her, he was in a position to get back to full strength as a pro. What she wouldn’t give for a similar opportunity.

He snorted. “You are not just any consultant, though, are you, Isobel? You are a part owner of the team. You are Clifford Chase’s legacy. And even after his death, you are getting your way.”

She understood she’d have to get used to slings and arrows, accusations of using her father’s name and her position as owner to get a coaching gig. But that last dig about getting her way? Said as if she had done that before.

“I know what I’m doing, Vadim.”

“Do you?” He leaned in, using his height to intimidate. It sort of worked. “You can no longer play at the pro level, yet you insist on playing games. With me. And not for the first time. Once your selfishness screwed with my career.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Isn’t it? Three years—” He cut off, his anger a cloud that practically stung her eyes. “All because you put me in your crosshairs, Isobel. Well, forgive me if I would rather not trust my professional future to you.”

Her cheeks heated furiously. Of course he would see it that way. She had been young, immature, more sheltered than the average eighteen-year-old. All she knew was hockey. It was her life, and then Vadim had skated into it, and she’d seen something else. Her eyes had opened to beauty and passion and—hell, she’d been a teenage nightmare.

He stood close enough for her to view rings of blue fire around his irises and a smudge of pink lipstick tinting his jaw. It was hard being Vadim Petrov.

Regularly bombarded by photos of him in magazines and on billboards over the years, she wanted to think it was easier to look at him objectively now. As a perfectly formed machine of mass and muscle. As a chiseled Renaissance sculpture that was cool to the touch. She wanted to think it, but she remembered too much about the last time she had been this close to him.

Apologizing for how it all went down would make things easier.

Well, not exactly easier.

They had to work together, put aside their differences for the sake of the team. But she didn’t like his assumptions about how she’d landed this job. Or maybe she didn’t like that she half agreed with him.

Doubts that she had right completely on her side put her on the defensive. “These late nights at the club will have to stop.” She curved her gaze around his broad shoulder to the ever-increasing line of women waiting to sit on his lap. “You’re going to need your sleep for the extra practice you have to put in.”

He didn’t respond to that, but if he had, it was easy to guess what he’d say. What every athlete would say.

I know my limits. I know what my body can take.

Athletes were consummate liars.

He leaned in again, smelling of fame, privilege, and raw sex appeal. Discomfort at his proximity edged out the hormonal sparks dancing through her body.

“Does Moretti know that we have history? That you are the last person I wish to work with?”

Before she could respond, someone squealed, “Vadim!” A blond, skinny, buxom someone, who now wrapped herself around Vadim in a very possessive manner. “You said you’d be back with a dwinkie!”

A dwinkie?

Drawing back, Vadim circled the squealer’s waist and pulled her into his hard body. “Kotyonok, I did not mean to be so long.” He dropped a kiss on her lips, needing to bend considerably because she was just so darn petite! Not like big-boned Isobel, who could have eaten this chick and her five supermodel Playmates for a midmorning snack. A group of them stood off to the side, clearly waiting for the signal to start the orgy. And Vadim clearly wanted to give it, except he had to deal with the annoying six-foot fly in the sex ointment.