“Montana.” I can hear the pleading in his voice when he says my name. Like for some reason seeing me causes him pain.
I look at him and study his features. Dark shadows line his normally expressive blue eyes. I’m not sure what it is, if it’s the dull look in his eyes, or his posture, but he looks sad.
A thought strikes me looking at him, and worry fills my body despite telling myself that I don’t care. “Are Wayne and Lizzie okay?”
His head jerks back like I’ve struck him, and I narrow my eyes at him, confused by his reaction.
“They’re fine.”
Relief floods my body, happy nothing happened to either of them. I might not have a relationship with them anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care. “Well, then, I’d say it was nice to see you, but that’d be a lie.” I lead Whisky to walk around Kade, not in the mood to deal with whatever this is. Not when the biggest competition of my career is on the line. “Take care of yourself.”
I do my best to block out the only man I ever loved as we walk past him, focused on getting to the arena to cool off. Which is how I miss his quick movement. One second I’m sitting in the saddle moving away from him, and the next, I’m airborne.
A scream leaves my mouth as I suddenly find myself thrown over the shoulder of the one person I hoped to never see again. “Let go of me!” I yell and push against his waist, trying in vain to get away from him.
“Dakota, please go cool Whisky down and make sure he’s ready for the jump-off. Mon and I got some shit to figure out.”
“There is no shit to figure out, you lunatic. Let. Me. Go!” Each word is emphasized with a shove and wiggle, hoping he’ll lose hold of me. I don’t care about the spectacle we make, something that’s sure to reach the media that is all too happy to report any morsel of gossip. I look around and notice pretty much every athlete and their entourage staring at us with smirks on their faces.
“Don’t just stand there for Christ’s sake. Help me,” I implore the people standing close.
“Don’t listen to her,” Kade tells them before they have a chance to say anything. “She’s just mad it took me a week to get here and I missed the qualifier. Probably didn’t help I ate the last of her chocolate.”
I gasp in outrage. Surely, none of these smart people believe his obvious lie, they’re not that easily fooled.
“Ah, lover’s spat,” a heavily French accented voice chimes in from beside us. I try to look at whoever failed to see the urgency and come to my aid, but Kade is already walking away from everyone.
“Let me go, Kade. Seriously, this isn’t funny.” I try for rational instead of screaming like a banshee and creating even more of a scene.
“You’re right. It sure as fuck isn’t funny. Nothing about this situation is funny. Not you icing out your family, or refusing to talk to me for no fucking reason”—my snort of derision is fast and loud—“making me chase you for three months.”
“Puh-lease,” I draw out each syllable, the sarcasm clear in my voice. But before I can continue to yell at him, I find myself on my feet, the sudden motion causing dizziness to make me sway.
Being distracted by finding my equilibrium, I miss Kade’s hands framing my face and his body moving close enough to mine I can feel the heat radiating off his skin.
“What the fuck happened?” His voice is deep and rough. “One day everything is perfectly fine. I’m happy as I’ve ever been, the woman of my dreams finally mine, both of us working to achieve our dreams—separately and together—strong enough in our love for one another to overcome everything. And the next day, a furious Dakota yells at me, calling me an ‘asshole’, and threatening my dick in retaliation for what I did to you.”
His proximity is intoxicating—the smell of his cologne invading my senses, my body recognizing its mate, the one who’s given me pleasure like no one before. And for one weak moment I debate to forgive and forget, to give in to him.
That’s when my brain is nice enough to remind me what I heard. Her voice crying out for him, the sounds their bodies made. As new hurt and humiliation tears through my system, I slap his hands away from me and take a step back.
“Screw you,” I whisper-yell, trying to not draw further attention. “I can’t believe you have the audacity to come here—the fucking Olympic Games, something I’ve worked toward since I was thirteen-years-old—to cause a fucking scene like we’re in some cheesy Hallmark movie, and then keep on pretending you don’t know exactly what you did to ruin this”—I wave my hand between us—“ruin us.” Tears are threatening to fill my eyes, but I steel myself against the myriad of emotions assaulting me. It’s like every emotion I experienced over the past three months chose this moment to remind me of their presence from the farthest corner of my mind where I shoved them.
“I don’t!” Kade yells in exasperation. “If I knew what I did I’d fix it. Goddamn it, Montana, I fucking love you. I’ve loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you. I loved you when you yelled at me for being a judgmental idiot. I fell even harder when I watched you work with Lucifer. I knew I couldn’t let you go when you responded to me like you were parched
