Page 75 of Hearts on Ice
Chapter Twenty Nine
He didn’t know why he ended up at Evan’s house. The sky was growing dark, a light was on in the kitchen. He sat in his truck in front of the house and texted that he was here, thinking that would startle them less than knocking on the door.
He’d gone back to the rink not long after he’d left, ready to listen to Colby, but when he’d walked in, she’d been out on the ice, the cameras following her, and she’d been skating like she didn’t have a care in the world.
So all her words had meant nothing.
All the emotions, all the ugliness from when she left before came flooding back to him. The anger and the resentment and the frustration. He had been in love with her, but she had been in love with fame. Sure, she’d loved him, he really did believe that, but she’d been more focused on being America’s sweetheart than she had about being his sweetheart.
God, his family had been right. He’d opened himself up to her all over again. He’d hoped she’d changed, hoped more than saw.
The last place he should be was here, coming back to his family. He reached to put the truck into drive when a knock sounded at his window, making him jump, his heart racing, and he tapped the horn a little, wincing at the sudden noise in the quiet neighborhood.
He turned his head to see his brother standing on the sidewalk, hands lifted in a what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here way.
He wished he hadn’t come, didn’t want to hear the I-told-you-sos, and his brother and Meghan were busy getting dinner ready and spending family time together before the kids went to bed. But he couldn’t just drive off, so he rolled down his window.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have come by. I know you have other things to do.”
Evan looked across the truck’s cab. “Where’s Colby?”
“You know…” His throat was closing up. He shook his head.
“Shit. Come on, man. Come on in.”
“I shouldn’t have come. I don’t really want to talk about it around the kids.” Emotion was swamping him now, and he was having trouble getting the words out.
“Come on in. Have some dinner. Maybe a glass of wine.”
Declan nodded, realized he couldn’t roll up the window with the engine off, but really, he didn’t care. He climbed out of the truck and followed his brother into the house.
Meghan was in the kitchen, dropping frozen bags onto the counter in preparation of dinner. “Where’s Colby?”
“At the rink.” He hoped. “Where are the kids?”
“Upstairs doing homework. Clearly they don’t know you’re here yet.”
Declan loved his niece and nephew, but that was probably just as well.
“What happened?” Evan sat at the breakfast bar and folded his hands in front of him.
“Her manager showed up with a camera crew, ready to take over those little videos we were making.”
“I thought her manager dropped her?” Meghan asked, tossing the packages she’d just removed back into the freezer and passing a take-out menu to her husband.
Declan raised his eyebrows at her words. He hadn’t told her, so maybe Colby had. “He had, but apparently knew about the videos, so he came out to try to ‘make them better.’” He used air quotes. “More marketable. For what, I want to know. And Colby didn’t send him away. In fact, after I left, she went out onto the ice to skate for him.”
Evan blew out a breath and leaned on the counter, ignoring the bottle of wine and bottle opener Meghan placed in front of him. “So what does that mean?”
“To me, it seems like she wants to turn these videos into something more. I don’t know what that could be. A TV show or something.”
“I mean…did you talk about what your purpose was in doing the videos?”
“Yeah, the idea was to get more clients for her, but here’s the thing. She has a list of possible clients that Julia collected for her, and she hasn’t even made one appointment to meet with any of them.” Declan took the bottle of wine and opener and popped the cork himself before passing it back to Meghan, who grinned and placed three glasses on the counter.
“So what do you think that means?” Evan asked.
“I think it means she never planned to stay.” He hadn’t said the words aloud until now, and they hit him harder than he anticipated. “So all of this is bringing back all the feelings I had back then, all the pain, and I’m just asking myself how I could be so stupid twice.”
