“If you feel guilty, that’s on you.”
He turned his head and scowled. But he didn’t go.
That he was listening, despite his anger and despite the fact that I didn’t have any real right to lecture him, had me softening my tone. “All right, I’m nosy. A snoop. Fine. I admit it. But tell me you wouldn’t be asking questions if the tables were turned.”
Lucian’s jaw bunched, and I knew he was grinding his teeth. Stubborn ass.
“Who the hell are you?” I blurted out.
At that, he laughed, but it was without humor. “I’m Brick, remember? The sullen ex–star athlete, washed up and hiding away in the big house.”
“Fine. Be a dick.” I turned to go, when he spoke again, sharp and broken, like shards of glass.
“You were so close to the truth, Em.” Eyes of frosted sea glass met mine. “The world knows me as Luc Osmond. Oz, the great and powerful. One of the best hockey centers to dominate the ice, or so I was told.”
A glimmer of recognition flickered to life. Of his spectacular body clad in scant boxer briefs, his face smiling down at me while I drove through LA traffic. “You have a billboard.”
He winced. “Of all the things you had to remember . . .”
“It’s an impressive billboard.”
He didn’t take the bait and smile but merely shrugged, the tiniest lifting of one shoulder. God, how had I not recognized him? He had ads. Lots of them. His face had brooded at me in magazines, ads for watches, colognes. I was fairly certain I’d seen him play once by way of reading next to Greg while he watched a game.
“You played for Washington.”
“Yeah.”
But something happened. What had those guys said? Something about a bad hit.
“Were you hurt?”
He didn’t look injured. He moved like silk and steel.
Lucian huffed out a breath. A world of emotion inhabited that brief sound. A world of regret and despair. “You could say that.” He swallowed thickly, his throat working hard, and stared off again. The strong lines of his profile were strained. “Concussion syndrome. One too many knocks to the head.”
Blood drained from my head to pool at the base of my spine. It hadn’t been his health on the line; it had been his life. The thought of this proud, intelligent, loyal man no longer being here . . . it made my insides scream in horror and my arms ache to hold him.
Which was more than foolish. We were barely acquaintances. He didn’t want me poking around in his life.
“So here I am,” he went on in a dead voice. “Out of the game and fixing up my grandmother’s estate.” That blazing gaze swung my way, angry and hurt. It sliced through my tender skin. “Is that enough for you? Or do you want a rundown of my symptoms too?”
“No.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
“You sure?” He stepped closer, eyes wild. “You don’t want to hear about the short temper? The memory lapses? Headaches? Well, hell, you know all about those, don’t you? I can’t even pick a woman up at the airport without having a spell.”
“Lucian . . .”
“Call me Oz. The old man behind the curtain, pretending to be something he’s not.”
Now he was feeling sorry for himself. He had good reason. But it didn’t help him. Not one bit.
“No. You told me to call you Lucian.”
“Because I was hiding,” he bit out. “So you wouldn’t know what a damn wreck I am.”
“You are not a wreck.”
If anything, he got more agitated, his skin darkening with displeasure and frustration. “Do not pity me.”
“Don’t you yell at me,” I snapped back. “I’ll pity you all I want.”
“What?” He gaped in outrage. “You actually admit that you feel sorry for me?”
We were nearly nose to nose, both of us shouting like children. Didn’t stop me, though. “Why not, when you’re acting pitiful, stalking off to sulk, or lashing out at anyone who dares to care?”
An irate growl escaped him, like he just might blow. With a jerky, harsh movement, he raised his hand. And that was when it happened. I flinched. Violently.
We both froze.
I took in the entire scene with an acute awareness that bordered on painful. The move horrified me because I didn’t want that to be my first instinct when a man raised his hand. But it was there all the same, hanging in the air like a neon sign. Worse in hindsight, because I could clearly see by the angle of his arm—now frozen in shock—that he had been about to run his hand through his hair in frustration.
He’d seen my reaction. There was no escaping that.
He finally broke the taut silence. “You thought I was going to hit you.”
Not a question. We both knew it.
I hated that I’d flinched, that I was ashamed of my reaction. I hated that a vital piece of me had been altered. It was another thing taken from me without my permission. But I couldn’t change it; I had flinched, and now I had to own it.
I lifted my chin, because I was also not going to apologize. “You’re a big guy who’s in my face arguing with me. And you’re right—I don’t know you from Adam. So yes, I’m going to be wary.”
When Lucian spoke, his voice was soft and carefully modulated.
“If it makes you more comfortable, I’ll stay out of your way for the rest of your visit. Regardless, I want you to feel safe, so can I explain something?”
When I nodded, he continued.
“I’ve been in a lot of fights. On the ice. And once off it. But all of them were against guys who could hold their own. This scar”—he pointed to a faint line under his left brow—“was from a left hook I didn’t see coming. I returned the favor and broke the guy’s nose. I’m telling you this because I won’t lie and say I’m a stranger to violence.”
He didn’t blink, didn’t hesitate to meet my eyes. “But you? You could slap me, punch me, kick me in the nuts, call me names, disparage Mamie, whom I love more than anyone on Earth, and I still wouldn’t ever raise a hand to you. Because I don’t hit women or anyone weaker than me. Ever.”
He stopped there, his concerned gaze darting over my face. “I apologize that my behavior made you feel unsafe. It wasn’t my intention. If you believe anything about me, believe I will always be the guy who stands with you, never against you.”
As if that settled everything, he moved to go.
“I wouldn’t do those things,” I said. When he quirked a brow in confusion, I clarified. “I wouldn’t hit you or disparage Amalie. I’m not abusive either.”
His expression turned baffled, as though he didn’t know what to make of me. “Okay.” That was it.
But then he paused, as if something else occurred to him. “Just so we’re clear, if you do hurt Mamie or try to take advantage of her, I won’t hit, but I will escort your butt off this property for good.”
Then he gave me his back once more and stalked off.
“Jerk,” I snapped.
“I heard that,” he called, still walking.
“Good,” I cried back, lifting my voice so he’d hear me loud and clear. “Because I never said I wouldn’t call you names.”