Page 79 of Faith

“I’m not dressed for it.”

“Buy some clothes. I’m sure they have gear.”

“That seems frivolous.”

She laughed as she skated backward away from him. “You’re a billionaire, Jensen. Suck it up.”

She went out onto the ice and motioned to the booth. He watched as she moved to Sia’s haunting voice as she sang of being unstoppable. He had never been a fan of women’s figure skating until he watched video of Nicola. But in person, it was completely different. With each jump, he held his breath until she stuck the landing. And she made every one of them. There was strength in her skating, but he could also see the ballet training. It was why she was so graceful, so amazing even off the ice. The music soared as she sped around the ice, until the perfect spot of the music. She flew through the air, and he found himself holding his breath as she twirled around three times.

She finished the routine off with a fist in the air. For a long moment, there was no sound in the rink, only the echo of the music that had stopped. He didn’t know what to say. His mind was still trying to wrap around what he had witnessed. She skated over to him.

“Jensen? Are you okay?”

He nodded. “That was…”

“What?” When he said nothing, she started to babble. “I can’t stick those crazy things they are doing today, but I can still do a triple, which is pretty amazing at my age.”

He stood. “That was possibly one of the most beautiful things I’ve watched.”

“Really?”

He nodded. She responded with a bright smile. “Thank you. Now, go get some skates buster. Weareskating.”

At that moment, he couldn’t deny her anything, so he did her bidding. The Dom in him was pretty damned happy to do as she said, because she had given him a glimpse at perfection.

* * *

Nicola smiledas Jensen turned onto their street. “This was the most perfect day. Thank you.”

He slanted her a look. “I think you were more appreciative of the shrimp truck shrimp than my breakfast.”

“You didn’t make the breakfast.”

He grunted, but she didn’t care. The cool, sweet night air danced over her.

“May I ask you a question?”

“You can do anything you like,” she said with a laugh.

“You really are in a good mood.”

“The two glasses of wine helped.”

“Can you tell me why you walked away from it all?” he said as he turned into their drive after the gate opened. “You love to skate.”

She sighed as he parked the car.

“Never mind. I don’t want you to think about bad things today.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s okay. Let’s just go inside.”

He nodded and slipped out of the car. She followed him up the path to the front door and after walking inside, they both slipped off their shoes. She headed to the kitchen and sat on one of the bar stools. He sat beside her.

“I didn’t talk about it much at the time or since because…well, I’m not really sure why. At the time it was almost too much. I was so wrecked.”

“Did he cheat?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Not really. About a year before the Olympics, Oliver had a bad fall on the ice. He bruised his hip bone and convinced the doctor he needed some strong meds to get him through it. He didn’t want me to know. He told me everything was fine.”

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