The second reason I’m not in the spirit stands across the room from me, the koi pond and floating Christmas tree separating us. Gray looks amazing in a cream-colored fuzzy sweater—not sure what it’s made of, but it looks so soft I want to bury my face in it.

Preferably at chest level.

She paired the sweater with a black skirt that comes to her knees and tights in a black and cranberry-colored plaid pattern. With short ankle boots with a high heel she looks funky and elegant all at the same time.

I want to eat her up but I can’t, because not one person in this room can know about us.

We’ve only been together one more time since we fucked in her office. That was amazing, clandestine, and completely titillating, but we both know that we can’t do that again. The risk is too great.

Unfortunately, it became glaringly apparent after that rendezvous that our lives didn’t mesh well. Not only did we have to keep our affair secret, but when we did have time to meet, it was extremely limited due to my role as a father. It’s not like I could invite Gray over to the house to meet the girls, because I wasn’t even sure what we had. It wasn’t a fling, but it wasn’t a real relationship, and I’m not about to introduce someone to Ruby and Violet who really has no foothold in my life other than some amazing sex at this point.

And because I’m a single father, I can’t just go out and meet Gray. She invited me to her house one night, but of course I couldn’t leave the girls. And I couldn’t ask Kate and Zack to keep them for the night, because they’d want to know where I was going for an entire night.

It’s a completely fucked-up situation, and the only time we got to be with each other again was this past Monday when we had an away game in Atlanta. I had just put the girls on a plane to Boston the day before and I was itching hard to get back inside of Gray. Back inside her body, her brain, her heart—

No, wait. Do I want in her heart?

I take a sip of my bourbon and club soda and make a subtle sweep of my gaze around the huge room. It’s packed with nearly two hundred people who represent the players, the management, the executives, and even all of our subsidiary partners, along with their families. My teammates stand in small groups, talking and laughing…munching on probably a thousand dollars’ worth of catered hors d’oeuvre and drinking top-shelf liquor. Because a hockey club is generally young, most of the kids are under the age of ten and they’re all playing with toys that Brian and Gray had bought and wrapped for them. They were placed in a massive pile under a second Christmas tree that stood in the corner of the room near a monstrous hearth, and it made me pissy that Violet and Ruby couldn’t be here to get their gifts and have fun with the rest of the kids.

Instead, I imagine they’re at the house that I gave Hensley in the divorce settlement, and, with distaste, I imagine Sutter is there too on this Christmas Eve. But I accept that. Hensley has been in a relationship with him for almost a year now—albeit several months were behind my back—and she insists they are in love and are in it together for the long haul.

I don’t see it, though. Everyone thought Demi and Ashton would make it, but let’s face it: A twelve-year age difference is a lot, particularly when the man is just nineteen years old. How in the fuck can he know what he wants for the rest of his life at that age? While I don’t doubt he has strong feelings for Hensley, and hell, maybe it is love, people change too much over the course of growing the fuck up, and I’m waiting for the day when Hensley realizes the gap is just too big to overcome.

I actually even feel a little sorry for her already, because she’ll be alone. No husband, no boy toy, and no daughters except on planned visitation.

My eyes sweep back over the crowd and I try a casual attempt to slide them a little slowly over Gray to see if she’s even looking at me.

And she’s not.

There’s no way she’s even going to take a chance that someone may see the passion between us.

A passion that actually scares me.

In Atlanta on Monday, she came to my room after the game and we were almost frantic in our zeal to get at each other. I’d liken us to starved animals trying to fill empty but swollen bellies, except I never did get satiated. We fucked and fondled and talked for hours, and when she had to leave, I wasn’t ready for it to happen.

I was bitter and pissed it had to happen.

Gray was just sad and she apologized to me for the way things had to be.

“Dude,” I hear from behind me, and Zack grabs me by the shoulder and squeezes hard. I turn to glance at him and I see him swallow back a huge gulp of what I think is bourbon, same as me but not diluted with club soda. He grimaces as he swallows it down and then sets the glass on a nearby buffet table. “I think I’m ready.”

The mere fact that he just had to take a shot of liquor to steady his nerves indicates to me that he’s really not ready, but I’m not about to point that out to him. After the failed attempts to get engaged to Kate, I can see why he’s a little overwhelmed.

“This is going to be epic,” I assure him. “And you’re going to make her very happy.”

Zack nods with a goofy and maybe tipsy grin, and we bump fists.

“Go get her, tiger,” I say, and I watch as he walks over to the kids and takes Ben by the hand. Ben, of course, knows about the proposal and I’ve been amazed the little man has kept this a secret from Kate. He’s not known to hold secrets very well, and there is a long-standing pattern of him telling his father about pranks that Kate tries to pull on him. But so far, he’s kept his lips sealed.