Page 2 of Gloves Off

Her words hit me in the gut like an arrow. I can control my diet to a tee, can do everything to heal and play my best, but I can’t stop time. My impending retirement is the shadow I can’t shake.

Where the hell is this elevator? I watch the number above the doors. “Do what you do best, Doctor, and make shopping your full-time job so we can hire a real doctor.”

She doesn’t say a word, but I can feel her irritation. Bull’s-eye.

“Asshole,” she mutters.

She’s not wrong. A beat of silence stretches between us before the elevator doors open and we step inside.

“It must be Friday,” I say to the doors as the elevator ascends.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s Friday. How do I know that?”

“Oh my god,” she whispers in mock awe. “Youcanread. This whole time, we weren’t sure.”

My competitive instincts wake up. “Making fun of my immigrant heritage? That’s a low blow, Doctor, even for you.”

She gives me a flat look. “That’s not what I meant.”

My parents fled Russia when I was a kid, and worked around the clock to pay for hockey. “Not all of us could afford private school.”

Our upbringings couldn’t be any different.Wecouldn’t be any different.

Her face turns a shade of pink that makes my watch go off again. I silence it, victory coursing through me. She’s about to say something when I cut her off.

“Violets. Every Friday, you wear the perfume that smells like violets.” It took me months to identify that note. I only figured it out because I was picking something up at my mom’s flower shop and the scent stopped me in my tracks.

She blinks up at me in shock. I bet she hates that I know this about her. I bet she hates that I’m on to her.

“That’s the one you wear when you go out, trying to catch a rich husband, isn’t it?”

She straightens up an inch but she’s still almost a foot shorter than me. Deep in my lizard brain, I like how much taller I am. In her heels, she’s tall, but I’m taller. I’m twice her weight. It would be no problem to throw her over my shoulder.

“Don’t be such a stalker, Volkov.” She turns back to her phone.

My gaze dips to her shoes. Tall and spiky, designed to castrate her victims with one sharp kick to the balls. Way too high, with dumb little straps that look like they’ll break at any minute. So fucking impractical. Real doctors don’t wear shoes like those. The soles are red, I remember, from her wearing them to an event lastyear. The same color her eyes probably turn when she doesn’t get what she wants.

In my nightmares, her shoes are as tall as buildings, taunting me with their clicking sounds as she walks up and down the hall. So unprofessional. Doctors are supposed to wear ugly Crocs, not sexy little fuck-me heels.

I hate them, and I hate how much I think about them.

“Are you going to get that?” She sends a pointed glance at my wrist.

Goddamnit. My watch is going off again. I silence it, taking a slow, deep breath. The program helps me keep my heart rate low when I’m supposed to be resting, to aid recovery and performance, but it’s going haywire today.

“They’re Christian Louboutin,” she adds with a smirk, “in case you want to buy a pair to jerk off onto at night.”

My lip curls. “I don’t jerk off to your shoes,” I grit out. “This may be hard for you to understand, Doctor, but some people aren’t attracted to you.”

I let my gaze rake down her body, lingering on the long line of her neck, the smooth skin above the collar of her silk shirt, the dip at her waist, and the swell of her hips.

I don’t hate her because she’s so similar to my ex, Emma—charismatic, friendly, confident, gorgeous—and I don’t hate her because she knows exactly how hot she is. I don’t even hate the doctor because she comes from wealth and privilege.

I hate her because she doesn’t believe in me.

Two years ago, I had one meeting with her where she ran her hands all over my body, over all the injuries I’d accumulated, before I got a concussion during a game and landed myself in the hospital.

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