Page 8 of Face Off
But the memory of her raised eyebrow during my biscuit routine won’t leave me. The way her lips almost curved. The way her eyes pinned me sharp as glass when I shot back at her on the ice.
It’s stupid. Dangerous. Wrong.
And I can’t stop.
Later, when the room’s empty, I linger. Chloe’s still at her corner desk, flipping through notes. Too calm. Too composed.
I shove my hands in my pockets and saunter over like it’s no big deal. “Careful, Miller. Murph’s on a mission now. Probably already drafting your eviction notice.”
Her pen pauses. Slowly, she looks up. “And where do you stand, Taylor?”
Good question. One I don’t dare answer. My cards need to stay very close to my chest until I figure out what this stupid feeling is.
I plaster on a grin. “I stand wherever the biscuits are.”
Her eyes narrow, assessing me, like she knows exactly how much of a coward I’m being. “Then I suppose we’ll see who runs out first.”
And just like that, she’s gone, heels clicking down the corridor. I watch her leave, chest tight, grin slipping the second she’s out of sight. Because the truth is, I don’t stand anywhere.
I’m split right down the middle.
Between loyalty to my brother-in-arms.
And attraction to the one woman guaranteed to blow this team apart.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHLOE
Home is too quiet.
I should like it this way, orderly, controlled, the hum of the fridge the only sound, but it presses in on me like a held breath. After a whole day at the Raptors’ stadium and training facility, where noise bounces off every surface, where Ollie won’t stop cracking jokes, even when Murphy looks like he’s about to bite someone’s head off, silence feels like standing in an empty theatre after the curtain’s fallen.
I drop my bag by the door and lock it, two turns, checking twice, like I always do. Then I kick off my heels, black, pointed, the kind that blister but make me look like I belong. Barefoot on the polished floor, I head straight for the window and pull the curtains shut.
The flat is pristine with white walls, clean lines, expensive furniture in a style I wouldn’t have chosen but that photographs well in glossy spreads. A cream sofa with sharp corners. A coffee table that could double as a museum exhibit; glass, steel, not a scratch. Even the rugs are chosen for their texture, not their comfort. My father bought the place when I graduated. “Anaddress befitting someone in media,” he said, which I translated intoa stage set you can live in.
The books on the shelves are more decorative than read. Glossy hardbacks, spines aligned, titles about power, legacy, the biographies of politicians who built empires. I stacked one of my paperbacks, creased, bent, a crime novel I actually liked, between them once. He noticed immediately during a visit, plucked it out with two fingers like it offended him, and set it aside. I never did it again.
You see, the problem is there’s only my father and I. My mother left years ago, she couldn’t bear being second best to my father’s career. There’s limited contact between my mother and I. I think she feels guilty for walking out on me but she figured Dad would be able to provide me with a better future. Financially speaking, she wasn’t wrong. But there’s some things a girl needs her mother for, and I didn’t have that luxury. Maybe that’s why I spent my adolescence chasing affection from anyone that showed me a scrap of attention.
I toss my blazer over the sofa arm and sink onto the cushions, finally letting my posture crumple. The laptop waits on the coffee table, open to a half-written draft of my first piece on The Raptors. The blinking cursor mocks me. I should be writing, the whole point of this “opportunity” is to prove to my father that I can carry the weight of it, that I’m more than the girl who once engineered her own tabloid headline and almost ruined a man’s relationship.
Murphy still looks at me like I did. Like I might do worse.
And he’s not wrong.
My fingers hover over the keyboard, but I don’t type. The day plays in my head instead, sharper in the quiet. Murphy’s glare, Dylan’s scowl, Ollie’s grin I pretend doesn’t sting when I remember it. The way Jacko barely looked at me, protective of his little circle, his new family. Every one of them a wall I’msupposed to climb, and every wall taller because of who I am. Because of what I did.
And because of who my father is.
My phone vibrates on the table. His name on the screen:Dad.
I let it ring twice before I answer. “Hi.”
“Chloe.” His voice is clipped, efficient. He doesn’t waste syllables the way normal people do. “Report.”
“I just got home.”
