Page 22 of The Love Dare
King of the Ice.
Find a queen.
Melt his heart.
New leading man.
It can’t be.
Itcan’tbe.
Yes, he just signed an eight-year, ninety-million-dollar contract with the Los Angeles Royals. And yes, two months into the new season, they’ve already dubbed him the King of the Ice. So, okay, the puns aren’t exactly working in her favor. But it’s Tyler.Tyler.He hates small talk. He hates parties. He hates…people. Doing a dating show would be his worst nightmare. There’s no way. He doesn’t need the money. He doesn’t need the fame. If the stories she’s heard from her brother are true, much to her dismay, he certainly doesn’t need help with women. So there’s just no way he would ever?—
Keith Holson pops back onto the screen.
Winnie holds her breath, heart drumming so loudly she can’t even hear what the host is saying but it doesn’t matter. She’s laser focused on the gigantic man slowly approaching the stage.
Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.
It’s him.
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is.
No.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
The sound of ten million women across America shrieking all at once hits Winnie like a sonic boom. Seriously. She staggers back as the collective scream of the studio audience fills her apartment, reverberating between her eardrums as it swells, grows, balloons across the city, across the globe, all the way into space like something out of a sitcom while she’s rigid with the shock. And why wouldn’t they scream?
The man who walks onto the stage is drop-dead gorgeous. Like, literally. Winnie is slightly concerned the sight of him has sent her into cardiac arrest as the spotlights hit the golden-blond hair swooping dramatically over his brow in that messy way that only ridiculously attractive people make look sexy, while on everyone else it would just seem unkempt. His square jaw is cut. His eyes pierce. There’s a bump on his nose that should wreck the illusion, but instead gives him this dangerous air that somehow makes him all the more appealing. And his suit—good lord, that suit. The black fabric hugs his muscular hockey-honed frame almost indecently as he strides confidently toward the host. The man is a wet dream come to life.
More specifically, he’s Winnie’s wet dream come to life.
Because itisTyler.
The boy she’s known almost her entire life.
The man she’s loved since she was thirteen.
And worse than all of that, he’s smiling. Not in a sardonicgod, these people are the worst,I can’t believe my life has led me heresort of way. But in a charming way. In amelt your panties offway. In afind my future wifeway.
Keith Holson drones on with a prepared introduction, but Winnie can’t pay attention. She’s too transfixed by Tyler and that come-hither grin. It’s not as if she hasn’t seen him around other women. The man has been a star athlete since the moment shemet him. Girls have been after him his entire life. But while, yes, she knows in some squished-down, repressed, far, far corner of her heart that he’s definitely not immune to those advances, she’s never seen him interested with her own two eyes. He’s never chased women when she was around, not the same way her brother did. The two of them usually hung back and made fun of Alex together. She thought it was because of his general disdain for the rest of the world, but now she’s wondering if it was some weird respect thing. Or, oh god, pity. The thought has never occurred to her before, but it’s suddenly so obvious. He knows how much she was bullied growing up, and much as he tries to hide it, he’s a kind person. Maybe he just never wanted to leave poor, pathetic, teased Winnie all alone at the club.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Winnie clutches her midsection as her stomach rolls. Was that really it? All those times he hid out in her room while Alex was throwing a party. All those times he stayed close at the hockey house, almost guarding her. All those nights they went out in New York City when he and Alex came to visit. Was it really just pity?
Brotherly love she can handle. It’s not ideal, but at least it’s affection. At least it’s something the desperate, stubborn hope burning in her heart can fool itself into believing might change.
But pity?
That’s mortifying—absolutely mortifying. And her first kiss was a dissected bullfrog. Winnie knows mortifying.
