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can
never eat it all.”
    “So.” He eyed her across the table.
Still so pretty, with her pale blonde hair, glowing fair skin and
fine bone structure. Her face was a perfect oval with big eyes and
full lips, her high cheekbones more prominent than they used to be.
Her eyes held more shadows, and without all the makeup she used to
wear, she looked delicate…almost fragile. He lifted his burrito.
“Tell me how you come to be doing this job.”
    “I thought I told everyone in that
meeting.” She picked up a plastic fork. “I recently graduated and
needed a job.” She looked up at him again. “Did you finish
college?”
    “Yeah.” He shrugged. His college
degree was great, but he’d been impatient to play in the NHL rather
than NCAA college hockey for three years. “I got a degree in
business.”
    “I know you weren’t happy that
year…when you went back to school.”
    He nodded. “Yep. But it was the right
thing to do.” He’d been drafted by the Condors that year and wanted
to turn pro and play in the NHL, but everyone had been telling him
he needed more time to develop and grow—his parents, his older
brothers, his college hockey coach and his unofficial agent Alvin
(as per NCAA rules, he couldn’t hire an agent, but his brothers’
agent had given him off-the-record advice about his career). He’d
been frustrated and pissed off, but had put his game face on and
gone back to college.
    “You were a great player. Everyone was
talking about you and your future.”
    “They were talking about my brothers,”
he corrected her. It had bugged the fuck out of him at the time,
how everyone expected him to be just like them, but that was now
long gone. Like a game you lose ten-nothing, or a nearly
career-ending injury, you had to put that shit behind you and move
forward. “I wasn’t ready. I had some skills, but they needed more
work, and I needed to work at getting stronger. I’m tall like my
brothers but I didn’t have the muscle they had at my age. I’m not
built quite like them. It takes work for me to keep weight
on.”
    She smiled. “I remember you telling me
that. So many people would kill to be able to say that.”
    He returned the smile. “I know. It is
what it is, though. To play in the NHL I had to be strong enough to
keep up and take the shit bigger guys are gonna dish out. I still
have to work out a lot and drink a lot of protein
shakes.”
    He caught the look she gave him, her
gaze moving over his shoulders and upper body. Then she pointed
with her fork to the giant burrito in front of him. “And eat like
that.”
    He grinned. “Yeah.” Then he frowned.
Wait. How the hell had they ended up talking about him? “So you
went to college, but not until you were…what? Twenty-three?
Twenty-four?”
    “Yeah.” She hitched a shoulder.
“Twenty-four. Finally got my shit together.” She gave him a tight
smile. “Like I said in the meeting yesterday, Dad pulled strings to
get me this job. But…” She sank those pretty white teeth into her
bottom lip. “I’m wondering if it was a mistake.”
    “Bah.” He waved a hand. “Haters are
gonna hate. I’ve learned that. The people in that meeting yesterday
were douchebags.”
    She blinked. “Ah…”
    “Ignore them.”
    “I thought I was.”
    “Yeah. You did a good job.” He
hesitated. He’d been knocked into the boards when he’d seen her
appear in that meeting, but he had to admit… “You impressed me,
when you stood up to them. And when you didn’t let them stop you.
And you impressed me with how smart you sounded.”
    “You don’t think I’m
smart?”
    He scowled. “That’s not what meant. I
mean, you sounded like you know what you’re doing.”
    “You came to that conclusion from a
one-hour meeting?”
    He tipped his head to one side. “And
from this morning’s meeting. I’m a pretty good judge of people. And
I know you’re smart. I never thought you were stupid,
Honey.”
    “Oh no? I got a different impression
when